A Day in The Life...

Wake up at 7 am to the sun streaming in,  face and arms cold from the AC whilst every other part of the body roasting. Turn on the TV to our daily dose of over the top American news and somewhat graphically dated weather forecast. Grab a hotel mug and fill it to the brim with corn flakes and warm long life milk. This is breakfast! If feeling especially tired reuse left over milk and add to re filtered coffee to get us going. 

At 8 o'clock the base is put up, 5 gallons of water is collected for the day whilst the days equipment is loaded into the truck which looks like how we are feeling.  Passenger riding shotgun become DJ for the day as we head out to the dump on some questionable roads, this is our rent for using the truck.  We reach the dump after avoiding the feral cows which inhabit the island and throw yesterday's rubbish away...is this what surveying involves. After the quick pit stop with minimal extra flies added to the truck we head out to our first station.

We scour the beach, avoiding the spiky balls which have become the bane of the expedition, looking for the chosen peg which is marked with a red ribbon. The peg has been positioned using GPS earlier in the expedition. The team "quickly and efficiently " set up the tripod and level the total station. Start typing the station name in before realising its on numbers rather than letters has become a daily encounter. DIST ...SET, we have RO'd and the survey is under way. As the total station take its Panoramic photo of the surrounding area we huddle under it trying to avoid photo bombing the beautiful view. Each member has found their own detailing speciality. Chris endures the worst the anegada under growth has to through at him as well as the deadly sea anemones. Josh transforms the beach into a perfect grid as he takes spot heights taking more than 100 points in 20 mins, whilst Larissa repeatedly ventures back to the sea And tries to interpret Chris's hand signals in order to gain some profile information.  We complete the survey by taking the required grid scan , a handy feature on the total station. This allows for some tanning whilst scanning. On average we manage 2 stations in the morning. 

At 12 o'clock we head back to the hotel to make lunch which consists of 1 grape jelly sandwich and 1 piece of fruit. After avoiding the hottest part of the day in the pool or in our cool and refreshing rooms we head back out at 3 o'clock to get a further station done. On completion of the final station the equipment is packed into an oven like truck and we head to Pams bakery at Neptune's Treasure. Here we have become regulars and no longer need to ask for our regular 16" pizza and pitcher of water to share amongst us for $13. By the time we eventually venture back to the hotel it's 6pm and getting dark. Batteries used in the equipment are put on charge as post processing the days observations commences under the blanket stars which cover the sky as wifi is only available outside the office. Everyone is tucked up in bed at 10pm.

Despite the minimal food, flies and heat we are all grateful to be here and look forward to each day, as we get ever more confident using the equipment. Thanks again to all sponsors who have helped us.