Vicky's Experience as a VEPA Volunteer

Loved it. It was an amazing experience I will never forget. Where to start? ... VEPA, it is an honour to have been part (even a tiny little part) of this organization, its strong, honest, devoted dedication to the community, giving back to the community asking nothing in return other than cooperation... every time I’ve had to mention I was a VEPA volunteer, I said it with pride. It is really good that almost every person I’ve mentioned VEPA to, knew what it was. It’s great to see that the organization is growing, and more and more people want to get involved (whether its a little bit or a lot).

And this wouldn’t be possible without the amazing work of Karen Stone and Elana Balderstone. Of course the rest of the board members, volunteers, and friends of VEPA are all part of the success of VEPA, but I will speak of Karen and Elana because I worked with them the closest. Two amazingly hardworking women that breathe and sweat VEPA.

I keep saying to everyone I’m the luckiest person in the world for having been assigned the Matamaka Coral Nursery Project. It involved everything I enjoy... field work, kids, culture, beautiful scenery... I’m not very good with paperwork and computers, and even though I mentioned I would have like to help more around the office, I am very glad I was out doing hands-on work most of the time, and in a stunning place like Matamaka, who would complain?! I love swimming, I love the ocean... having it as my ‘office’, I enjoyed the early wake-ups. The most rewarding part was probably being involved with kids. They are so much fun, always excited to go swimming and for me to show them the reef. My first week there, I was teaching them how to use the snorkels and fins. They picked it up pretty fast. Sometimes there were a few problems with water getting in the mask. After that it was always “Vicky, are you going Swimming? Can I come with you?” and that way, every week I’d take a few kids out. 

I think they didn’t even know they had that reef there or what a reef looked like until they saw it through the masks. The moment we started approaching the first corals (and seeing the first fish), they would not stop pointing at anything and everything!  I would tell them the family names of the fishes but it was all too confusing in the water with so many fish around us. We did a little activity in class where they had to colour some black and white fish and match them to some photos of the common fish I had seen in Matamaka. They loved that and they were all very artistic. Having spent almost as much time in Matamaka as in Neiafu, I truly got to experience the Tongan culture. At first, the adults in the village were a bit confused about who I was and what I was doing there but little by little I got to know a few of them, and they got to know me, and then it became a normal thing having me walking around the village. I travelled on the little fishing boats every time to and from Matamaka, ate Tongan food (and Tongan portions), ‘showered’ with a bucket of water, went to church a few times, served kava, went camping, danced, sang, and laughed a lot.

Building the coral nurseries was fun, I’d walk around the village looking for the materials, take them to my little office (the tree by the jetty), putting the ropes and the frames together, placing them in the water...   starting to get the feeling that everything was finally coming together. Then, finding the right coral fragments and attaching them to the frame, that’s when it started getting a bit more complicated and cold (spending maybe 2 hours in the water until I could no longer feel my fingers). Collecting the corals was not as easy as I thought at first. 

Yes, there were a lot of fragments on the seabed, but as the beach in Matamaka does not get any wave action, fragments found there have been broken off by past cyclones. Who knows how long these fragments have been lying there, most of them have some algae growing on them. I’d dive to collect a fragment, which looked good from the surface and then turned out that the bottom was covered in algae. I ended having to replace many fragments week after week.

Another little complication was finding the perfect location to place the coral frame. Corals need clean water, with low nutrients and no suspended sediments. The first location chosen was not good, so much sediment everywhere...after a week when I went to check on them, all the fragments were bleached and covered by the sediments. I then decided to move it to the other side of the jetty where there is plenty of coral and a lot more fish. This turned out to be a much better location as most of the fragments kept their colour when I checked up on them week after week. Since we had a spare frame thanks to IMAX donating the materials, the second one was placed on the right side of the jetty but away from the rocks and all the sediments. It is a bit deeper but it’s on a sandy area and was placed next to a bommie with at least 5 different species of corals growing on it. We’ll have to see if the depth at which the frames were placed has any effect. Hopefully the coral will grow well on both frames! I’d love to come back next year (or in a few years) and see the small fragments turned into big colonies!

Hopefully the kids will stay motivated and continue the monitoring to the point where they see some growth and understand the benefits of the reef. Nevertheless, I do believe the kids learnt something, even just a little bit about how important the reef is and that it is crucial to look after it.

My experience as a volunteer for VEPA was truly amazing. I am really looking forward to coming back to Vava’u and of course being involved with VEPA again! Thanks so much to everyone in VEPA for giving me this wonderful experience.

Ofa 'atu, Vicky von Bernard, International Volunteer