We started our weekend with some fun dives at Manta Reef and the first Advanced Open Water Course dive for some of our volunteers! There were a few nerves but that quickly turned into laughter when our skipper let us drive the boat out to the dive site and were completely forgotten once we got into the water at Manta. Saturday ended with a dance party at the restaurant led by Neide and Coleta, two of the volunteers from Mozambique, who tried their best to teach us some popular dances, despite the groups overarching lack of rhythm…full performance pending. Sunday led to more fun with a bumpy ride to our group Seahorse Safari! It was a successful day as the group did in fact manage to secure a sighting of a pregnant seahorse along with some other fab creatures including 2 juvenile lion fish, a box fish, an octopus and a new favourite animal for Amber, the sea cucumber. We closed off the weekend finding out our new teams for the week ahead, and Team Sparletta was born!

Our first week as a group began at Guinjata fisheries where we practiced our Portuguese phrases with the local fishermen and then did some whale watching from land. The day peaked when we saw a logging humpback whale just off of our coast who did a little spy hopping for us too. Not to be outdone by Monday’s whale sightings, Tuesday saw us witness 2 adult humpbacks breach 100m from our boat in an extravagant display. We weren’t sure the day could’ve gotten any better after our first transect dive as a team but apparently the whales had different ideas. It was an early start to Wednesday with the team taking a sunrise walk to Paindane fisheries for data collection in the neighbouring bay. Fortunately, we were awake and enthusiastic once we arrived, even getting in some more exercise by joining groups of fisherman in pulling their boats onto the shore. With our first week coming to an end, we conducted our second set of whale watching from the boat on Thursday, and while there weren’t quite so many stunning displays as last time, Ari & Eloise were both over the moon to be able to hear their songs underwater through the hydrophone. Another successful transect dive followed this with some brightly coloured nudibranchs being spotted on our Nudi Hunt and the trip finishing off with the traditional and much loved chocolate lollies being given to us once we arrived back on the boat, courtesy of our excellent Skipper. Thursday night concluded with some games at the restaurant for some of our volunteers as the final calm before the storm with winds picking up that night and into Friday morning. But that didn’t stop these volunteers as Team Sparletta arrived back at Guinjata fisheries for their final data collection of the week! Some shade was enjoyed whilst watching for the incoming fisherman with the afternoon bringing us to a beach clean where some of our findings will go towards making beautiful recycled jewellery that we can’t wait to get our hands on using the plastic machine.