Invaluable Experience - Internship@HKDCS

This is my first entry on the HKDCS Intern's Blog. In just the first two weeks of the whole internship program, i have gained a lot of great experience which I never expected when deciding to apply this program.

In the first day of work, I came to the office early in the morning. After all the full time stuff came back, the doorbell rang again. I knew the person must be the other intern student. A boy or a girl? Can I get along well with him or her? A lot of question came to my mind. He is a boy. A boy who seems I met before. He sat down and introduced himself. His name is Nekky. Then I asked a embarrassing question, “What is your full Chinese name?”. He smiled and spoke out my full name. It’s just amazing! My intern partner is my primary school friend who I lost his contact for over 10 years! The fate leads me to join this internship program and leads me to meet my old friend! A great beginning of my internship!

In the next day, we started our land-based survey training on using Theodolite to track dolphins and boats. I started to experience the harsh working environment my colleagues always facing. I felt I was inside a microwave oven, heat and heat and burn. I really got sunburn! And this was just the second day of my 3-month internship program! I knew I may face even harsher working environment in coming weeks, but I am ready to overcome them!

The most important component of the research work done by HKDCS is the line-transect boat survey. This is a challenge to me because I get seasick easily. With the help of anti-seasick pills and auto-adaptation, I feel much better now when travelling on the boat now. I hope I can throw the pills away few weeks later. After 5 boat-survey trainings involved both off-effort and on-effort, I found that it is very difficult to discover the appearance of dolphins using telescope especially at high beaufort levels. It requires 100% concentration. I knew I missed sighting of CWDs when I was the primary observer in a true on-effort survey. I must put more effort on using the telescope.

Moreover, I also took part in educational talks and press conference. That's my first time to take part in a press conference. That really widens my horizon. Thought the press conference, I understood more about the drastic decrease of the number of CWDs and their worsening living environment likely caused by the increasing trend of high-speed ferry traffic, reduction of fishery resources and underwater noise. Also, it gave me an insight about the topic-in-the-limelight, the proposed 3^rd runway. But it left me a question, “How can we have win-win situation for economic development and conservation of environment?”.

Thanks to this internship program which provides me a great variety of experience. I am now very excited about the coming 3^rd week of internship life with my lovely colleagues and Nekky. I hope I can make continuous improvement of my performance and I am looking forward to experience more!

Last but not least, I really realize how bad my hand writing is! I must try my best to improve it!