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Be sure to follow the new European Rolex Scholar Facebook page for more regular updates on my adventures and those of future EU scholars. 😀
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For the last four weeks, I’ve been lucky enough to call the tropical island of Landaa Giraavaru my home. Situated in Baa, one of the central atolls of the Maldivian archipelago, this Four Seasons resort is home to the Manta Trust’s Maldivian Manta Ray Project (MMRP) – a research project that’s been studying the world’s largest known population of reef manta ray for over ten years. Their findings are playing a pivotal role in shaping how we manage and conserve manta rays, both in the Maldives and beyond. However I am a little biased – I volunteered for the project as a research assistant back in 2012, and it was during my time at Landaa that my role in the larger umbrella charity of the Manta Trust first took shape.
So why did I return to the Maldives, and to the MMRP? In a nutshell, I returned not to directly help with the research, but to film it. Underwater media has been a consistent theme throughout my scholarship year, yet despite gaining a variety of qualifications and experience relevant to this field, I haven’t felt like I’ve really spent much time developing my actual filming and storytelling ability. I figured that the best way to address this was to throw myself in at the deep end – to set myself the challenge of producing several short films that revolve around the work of the MMRP, with only an amateur level of experience at making dive videos for Youtube at my disposal. How hard could it be?
Pretty hard, as it turns out! Thinking up, planning, filming and creating a short film is no simple feat, especially when the films revolve around large, mobile marine animals, and a team that has a job to be getting on with. Now I know what some of you are thinking. “Oh Danny, you’re ‘slumming’ it out in the Maldives, staying at a Four Seasons resort, swimming with mantas everyday. My heart bleeds for you.” Whilst it’s true that my surroundings were spectacular, I wasn’t there on some kind of holiday. I had a job to do, and expectations to meet. And that was horrifyingly scary to deal with. There were many soul-crushing moments where I thought I had filmed a really nice sequence of the researchers doing their thing, or of mantas performing underwater, only to get back to the laptop later that day to realise that I’d messed up the exposure, forgotten to turn on the microphone at a crucial point, or slightly screwed up the focus. Some days I was plagued with self-doubt, and couldn’t help but ask myself if I really had what it takes to see my ideas through to the end, and deliver on the promises I had made.
Fortunately, there were also times when I did get everything right. Some days I captured epic sequences of mantas being awesome, just like I had envisioned it in my head. Sometimes I did get the exposure spot on, and everything in focus. Thankfully those moments were frequent enough to help me soldier through the spells of immense self-doubt.
It’s safe to say that the last four weeks have been a rollercoaster of emotions – filled with extreme highs and at times, some pretty intense lows. And honestly, having come out the other end…I loved it! I loved the challenges I set for myself, the trials and tribulations, and the reward of it all paying off in the end.
I collected 95% of the footage I was hoping to capture, and I’m currently putting the finishing touches to the main film I was hoping to create for the project (keep an eye out online!). I’d like to thank my friends at the Manta Trust, at the MMRP, and everyone at the Four Seasons Landaa Giraavaru, for helping to make this experience possible. Come April next year, I will look back on my time in the Maldives as one of the most educational, rewarding and eye-opening parts of my scholarship year to date.
