Tuesday 26 July 2016

My Road to Namibia

By Jeff Hemphill - NDP Intern 2016 Jun.
  
From countless days being spent on the water fishing to the sun soaked days drinking cold beer on the white sand beaches of Florida, I have grown a strong passion for marine wildlife and the environment in which it inhabits. When I arrived at university I seemingly ignored this passion and began my path to engineering, because of course that’s where all the money is. Soon after I realized I had gone the wrong direction and switched over to something a little more comfortable in Environmental Science. This door opened up a world of opportunities and I began looking into internships to further my path and see where it could take me. Towards the end of 2015 I happened to come across a few opportunities on a conservation website and figured I’d go ahead and see if I could land one. The Namibian Dolphin Project happened to email me back with a return email saying that they’d love to have me join their cetacean research team. This kind of threw me off though. My ignorance of Africa immediately kicked in and I became utterly confused as to where in the world I had just applied to go. After a few months of preparation, excitement, and 48 hours of flying I found myself landing in the middle of an African desert to be filed into a hut of an airport. The thoughts started popping into my head of what in the heck did I just get myself into?

Soon after getting settled into the cottage I realized my ideology of Africa was completely wrong. The views from the back porch were of a beautiful lagoon teeming with wildlife. The only thing that really puzzled me was the weather. Was I in Walvis Bay, Namibia? Or Seattle, Washington? Thank goodness I brought my winter clothes (basically every jacket I own). The first week we unfortunately couldn’t get on the water due to the high winds and misty mornings, but soon after being trained and getting some formal background we were finally able to get some good research in. Boat days consisted of early, cold mornings waiting or the mist to clear, but once it did we got to see some amazing things.

My first boat day I was absolutely amazed with the high jumping Heaviside’s Dolphins. We just happened to catch them at a time when they were full of energy and doing some awesome tricks (not so easy to photo ID). A few boat days had gone by and they kept promising that bottlenose would be around soon, but I seemed to be having no luck. Until my first encounter came about. This happened to be another extremely impressive day where the bottlenose were very energetic and fortunately not only did I get some good photo ID, but also got some really cool jumping pictures. These guys were not like the smaller cousins in the Florida panhandle. They were huge! I was blown away by the size of them, especially when they would jump right next to the boat.

From this internship I gained a lot of very useful knowledge and research experience. The team members here taught me the basic techniques of photo identification, some in depth acoustics data interpretation, as well as some boat and life skills. A huge thanks to everyone for being patient and very helpful with us interns and giving us some ground to get our careers under our feet!   

Jeff taking some photos of dolphins in Namibia


2 comments:

Dhansingh Gurung said...

The Manaslu trekking is one of the best trekking destinations in the western part of Nepal Kathmandu. The Manaslu Tsum valley trek and Manaslu area is restricted for the foreigner if you want to travel in your once life you should buy special permit for the Manaslu trek. It is pretty expensive but after entering this area then you will feel wow this is the one of the real-life adventure and real local culture you could get a mix tradition. Here if you want to travel normally you should more than two people with a guide as if you hire porter that is your choice. The Manaslu trek starts from Soti-Khola which is reached after 7/8 hours drive from Kathmandu first day following Trisuli river then the end Budigandaki river viewing agriculture platform and tradition local houses and a lot of green hilly region jungle. This trek normally takes 14 days if include Tsum valley will be more days. The Manaslu area is locally base culture and old traditional ethnic group people living area in Nepal. All the trekking trail follows Budi –Gundaki river till the top of the Manalsu Larke which is (5106m) above the sea level most challenging all of you those travel while you are doing there.

After the top is going downhill which is a long way down inter the Annapurna Region. the manalsu circuit trek is finish Dharapani where is last checkpoint for the special permit someone walks till Tall then from there can drive to Besi Shar and to Kathmandu any kind of drive luxury or any kind of bus. This is trekking route you will see specifically view of the top of the high mount Manalsu lot of the other spectacular mountain view so the people uphold the trekking route to doing but the most of people feel on them anxious due to high elevation. When you doing this Manalsu Larke pass trek you should keep positively, of course, everyone can success trip Everest Trekking Routes help 100% trip success so kindly join us teamwork with ETR

Everest Trekking Routes Pvt. Ltd.
Khusibu, Nayabazaar, Kathmandu, Nepal
Tel: + 977-1-4387202
Mobile : +977-9843451231, 9843467921
Email :info@manaslutsumvalleytrekking.com
Email: info@everesttrekkingroutes.com
ULL:- www.manaslutsumvalleytrekking.com
URL:- www.everesttrekkingroutes.com

Ady Grewal said...

This is worth reading article. Thank you for sharing your knowledge with us. And Islamic Travel provides the Hajj Umrah Packages from the London to Madinah, Saudi Arabia. You essentially pick the Affordable Hajj Umrah packages with Flights and Visa. Visit our site Islamic Travel to buy Umrah Deals.