First Volunteer Programme session !
From the 13th to the 26th of May, we welcomed our three first volunteers coming from France and Italy to take part on the first session of our volunteer programme.
Viola, Arthur and Louana help us in our different projects for thoses 2 weeks. They lent us their arms for the two days that we spent on Ithaca helping Healthy seas for their “Journey to Ithaca” cleaning progamme. They lent us their patience and dexterity to take part on our Posidonia oceanica project, running transect, learning and surveying fish while scubadiving.
It has been a nice team, now we are looking forward to our second session in september : MORE INFORMATION HERE.
In 2012, a fishfarm was abandoned on the coast of Ithaca, one of the island next to Kefalonia. All the equipment of the dying aquaculture was sensitive to the weather. So, when in September 2020 a medicane called Lanos hit the coasts of different Ionian island, hoses, plastic pipes, fishing nets, big metal pieces and styrofoam that is found in the boys of the fishfarm were carried away.
To face this environmental catastrophy, the organisation from Netherlands Healthyseas organised a 2 weeks event called “Journey to Ithaca” to clean everything. With a team of 20 technicals divers and 40 volunteers they’ve been working hard under the sea and on 3 different beaches on Ithaca.
To have more information, you can go and check : Journey to Ithaca.
Turtle rescue
An unexpeted costumer went to visit the dive center while the volunteers were here. This loggerhead turtle was found by sailors between Lefkadas and Kefalonia. They brought it back to Fiskardo harbor were the Kosamare volunteers and the locals took it in charge, waiting for the support of WildLifeSens, an organisation based on the seaturtle and wildlife conservation.
Underwater Surveys
During the 2021 season, we aim to monitore the fish population and the health of Posidonia oceanica within 4 sites. To caracterise the health state of the Posidonia, we are working on different data collection, the pourcentage of coverage of different substat thanks to transect and the densisty of Posidonia using quadrats. During this two weeks with the volunteers we were able to achieve 30 transects distributed in two different studied bays. After underwater training session we also did several fish surveys to start establish a fish biodiversity level within those bays.
Testimony of Viola Novelli:
According to me, volunteering for Kosamare is an amazing learning experience. Even if I was a beginner diver, I was able to take part in a variety of projects that enriched my knowledge of the marine environment and taught me useful concepts applicable to my future field. This experience wouldn’t have been so great without the whole Kosamare team who welcomed me with open arms and made me feel at home. Alma and Alex, founder of the NGO organisation, have been two wonderful teachers that not only taught me how to dive but stimulated my passion for diving. I have really enjoyed the two weeks spent with the Kosamare organisation. Therefore, I strongly suggest to those with a passion for diving and for the marine environment to take part in the upcoming volunteer session, because you wouldn’t regret it!!