The final day has come, and we are writing our last blog at the airport, waiting to leave Inhambane ☹ This past week we completed our final transect dive, our best to date. We perfected it just as we head home! Bex even managed to lay the transect tape at 10 metres in a strong current, and we all had plenty of time to complete a nudibranch survey. We were very proud of ourselves!
The rest of the week was spent at Guinjata Primary School, painting the new teachers’ accommodation block. We painted almost the entire building white, inside, and out! We then designed and painted a colourful educational water sports mural on the end. A map of the local coastline, including the location of the school along with tourism and water sports to educate the children. We had many little helpers who were keen to get involved with the painting and cleaning afterwards. We hope our final masterpiece is appreciated as we really enjoyed our time spent at the school with the children.
Integral to our experience were those that passed through during our time here, Tom, Mya, Rob, Mads, Mads’ Blu Wild Expedition group, Kaush, Mahesh, Sasha, Marta and the previous volunteer group. We were so lucky to be here when our paths crossed with so many wonderful people.
We wrapped up our experience with our final dives with the whole crew Saturday morning; with a great instructor, Chris, and we were lucky enough to see a manta, whales close to the boat, dolphins bow riding and a loggerhead turtle who checked us out on the dive. We were able to check out two new dive sites and savoured our last moments under the sea in Mozambique.
Our final night was spent at the beach bar with the whole group, a great way to end our time with some fantastic people. We would really like to thank all the LTO and Jay’s Pro Dive Centre staff for organising everything and looking after us. Ines and Jo always made sure we were in the right place at the right time and ensured we were always entertained at the weekends. Jay, Ronel and Lande were great hosts having made us feel welcome from the get-go, and Zayden for keeping us entertained 24/7! Diving instructors, Chris, Mieke and skipper Chico have been keeping us safe and making us into confident divers. Chess, you’re a superstar! What you have built with Andrea and everyone else behind the scenes is incredible. LTO is not just an organisation, it’s a family, and we’ll all remember this experience forever.
Whilst every single person we’ve met here has been next level amazing, it’s this utter powerhouse of women that have led, guided, taught, and inspired us since the day we arrived. The future of conservation and the scuba diving industry is being spearheaded by women and it’s awesome to witness 💪
Bennath, Bex, Emily, Shane
