Confessions of a Gough Islander: Team Straining- 2 weeks of team training

So, after an awesome drive via Bloem and a roundabout drive to see Clarens, we made it to Cape Town on Sunday the 17th of August before starting our team training on the 18th. Staying in the Cory family household with my cousin Natalie. Cape Town is so beautiful, but man we did not realize how bad the traffic was, a trip that can take 15 mounts of of traffic took up to 1.5 hours if you left near 7 in the morning, what a rude awakening. On the 18th we walked into the Department of Environmental Affairs (DEA) office with baited breath as we were about to meet the seven people that we would be spending the next year with. We were first introduced to Dave (An ex islander who had been to Marion island twice before and who would be the Communications Engineer) and Werner (fellow birder who would be walking alongside Chris and myself). Later we met Max (diesel mechanic) and lastly Morgan, Tembi and Gerald (the three meteorologists who will be recording meteorological data and who are referred to as 'metcassies').

So it turns out the person who was meant to be our team leader and our medic took a job up in the Congo. These two weeks of training have been slightly stressful to say the least without having a leader and wondering when the final member of our team would show up. On the first day at the DEA we were introduced to several members of staff and lectured on various aspects of our trip. We were given the outline of our training schedule which included the following activities- dental check up, first aid course, team development, packing of the containers, fire fighting course and a cooking course. In summary, the first aid course was a complete joke, we didn't even have to write a test, the team development was okay, packing of the containers could not be completed because some of our gear was not issued, we didn't even put out one fire in the fire course, but, the cooking course was actually really fun and quite enlightening.

In these two weeks that our team has worked together, things seem to be going okay. The team leader who is meant to be hired months in advance has the responsibility of designing a team logo and finding sponsors to get shirts and buffs made for the team. Chris whipped up an awesome design and we were fortunate enough to work with companies who could process our order before the ship sails on the 4th of September. We have already received our awesome Evris (buffs) made by Evriwear, and our shirts and badges are arriving early next week.

So with team training done, Chris and I are using the last few days in Cape Town to just be tourists. For those of you who are interested in our journey abroad the SA Agulhas II to Gough, the whereabouts of the ship can be followed on http://www.sailwx.info/shiptrack/shipposition.phtml?call=ZSNO and http://www.marinetraffic.com/ais/details/ships/601986000. We are going via Tristan da Cunha and will probably arrive on Gough on the 13th of September.

Here are some pics from our two weeks of training.....