Week 1: Rosie and Lucy
Some new friends meeting along the way, our group finally all came together, met by a smiling Lena from LTO at Inhambane airport. Tired faces and lost luggage didn’t hide our excitement to finally get here. The bumpy ride on the back of a pick up with knees squashed between our luggage showed us stunning views of the area under sunset and happy locals waving to us as we passed, we didn’t even mind ducking under hanging palms. Upon arrival we were grateful to be fed before having a safety briefing and an early night.
Started our induction week with lectures on the work carried out by LTO, with only minor interruptions by humpback whale sightings in the background! We learnt about the research carried out by LTO and how this ties into their mission, plus a little about the local culture. The afternoon entailed a beach clean under a blue sky collecting trash to be sorted and bottle caps to be upcycled followed by a short trip to get sim cards and a yummy local dinner.
Rosie and I started the next morning with a 6am sunrise swim, although cloudy the water felt incredible and after our swim we sat on the beach to watch the sun peeking above the clouds and more whales frolicking in the horizon. Lectures today consisted of elasmobranchs and local fisheries followed by some practice fish ID using local fish ID guide books. A fab day was topped off by the return of the missing luggage, some would say it felt like Christmas.
Wednesday everyone was up early for a 5:45am sunrise walk to the next bay south, Paindane Bay to the fisheries there, supplemented by our closet yet whale encounter just off the rocks as we passed. We were lucky to catch some fisherman who had just brought in a catch before we arrived and we were able to measure and record, though due to super windy conditions (it felt like it was raining sand) the only other fisherman to return while we were there returned empty handed, we did get in a lovely swim however! The walk back was much slower partly due to the heat, but also partly due to the many distracting crustaceans and other critters exposed by the low tide. Data collected was logged in the afternoon and more workshops on local megafauna.
Thursday morning lectures on coral reefs, LTOs survey techniques and the swimming programme run by LTO which we get to be involved with over the next few weeks. A quick lunch before our cultural tour, where Pascal showed us around Guinjata and Paindane schools, after this we picked up Pascal’s wife Christina and visited their farm where she showed us how to collect matapa leaves and which ones are good, Pascal went through some plant identification to show us what is grown locally and then we dug up some cassava for dinner. Once back at their house we helped to cook dinner, grinding matapa leaves and peanuts as well as grating coconut – we were definitely a little slower than the locals on this! We were also fed incredible fresh-from-the-tree coconuts and a kind of local doughnut: fiosse. We ate well today with double matapa (we had another back at LTO) but was amazing to see and experience a local community member’s (and LTO staff) home with dinner sat outside on grass mats, children playing around us and chickens roaming freely.
Friday, dive day!! We set out in two groups for our check out and first transect dives with Dana and Lena after a thorough brief on how to launch the boat and dive procedures. Gear assembled and loaded onto the boat, we helped to push the boat out into the slightly choppy ocean, a first experience for many of us. We were stoked to be under the water for our first dive, slightly murky and more than slightly surgey but experiencing humpback whale song underwater was incredible and emotional, this was only topped by an incredible close encounter by two super lucky divers with a humpback swimming past us as headed towards the end of the dive, not entirely sure why the others chose to look the opposite way at this point!
Our first week has been action packed, enjoyable and left us looking forward to next week but definitely ready for a beer or two tonight!
