August Expedition: Arwen, Ella, Lucy and Kiah
To start off the week we all helped out with the swimming lessons on Monday morning which for the next two weeks are happening every day as it is the kids winter holiday. The swimming lessons are always great fun and are so important for enabling the community to stay safe and protect the ocean. Afterwards we went on cultural tour which was delayed to this week as Pascoal (who runs cultural tour) was at a conference in Cape Town last week! At the start of the cultural tour we visited the local schools in the area and learnt about how LTO has worked with them over the years. We also learnt about some of the different plants they have growing within the school. We continued to learn about the different plants once we arrived at Pascoal’s house. It was very interesting to see the plants of lots of the foods that we’d already been eating. We all had a try at grinding the matapa (a core local dish) and peanuts and getting the water out of the well. It was really nice to see how close the community is, all of the children between neighbouring houses were playing together and loved getting in and out of the LTO van. Our favourite part of cultural tour was learning Mozambican dances!
On Tuesday we had an early start as we were heading to fisheries for data collection. The walk down was super nice as it was still dark so we saw lots of stars as well as watching the sunrise. This time we were split into pairs so that we could collect data from both of the major fisheries in the area. Most of the day we spent relaxing on the beach waiting for fishermen to come in, as well as rewriting the song Reach (a great way to pass the time). At Paindane fisheries we had quite a few catches coming in with some critically endangered species such as a guitarfish. This highlighted how important the data we are collecting is in order to protect the coastline. The data is vital to help secure Jangamo as a marine protected area.
Wednesday, we had a slightly later start after our evening of logging the fisheries data and we started the morning with a beach clean. We then did a whale survey from land and saw SO many whales. There was so much activity that logging it into the data sheet was slightly chaotic to begin with but we quickly got the hang of it. It was super cool to observe lots of different behaviours from breaching to fin slapping to heat pods (when males are chasing after a female competing for mating). It was very nice to be logging positive data that reflected a stable whale population and data that can help support one of LTO’s projects to establish alternative livelihoods for the local community through ecotourism!
On Thursday the whole house, including the other guests that have been doing some filming whilst out here, headed to coral gardens – a sheltered area in Paindane bay. Us volunteers completed a coral transect whilst snorkelling, giving us a chance to practise our free diving skills. The reef there was relatively healthy and we saw many different coral species, an abundance of sea urchins and even an eel. We had a chance to freely explore the area and some of the volunteers even got some great underwater pictures taken on some of the fancy cameras that the other guests have. Following on from our coral transect we completed a dive transect later that day. The waves had picked up quite a bit so it was a slightly more challenging boat launch compared to last week. Despite the swell on the surface underwater was fairly calm. It was a lot easier to carry out our survey this time, which also meant we had more of a chance to do a proper nudibranch hunt. After collecting all of our data we cracked on with data logging. As we are still getting to grips with all of the different species it was a slightly slower process but we got there in the end! Even just through the process of logging another two transects we became quicker and more efficient which made it all more enjoyable, especially with a bit of music in the background to keep each other motivated.
Once all of our logging was complete we finished off the week with a swim in the pool, which included a few competitive races and handstand challenges. In the evening we did a quiz that included ocean, local and general knowledge. I definitely learnt a lot from the quiz and was reminded of my poor general knowledge. Despite this it was a great night and another great way to bond more as a group! Another week completed which has given us lots of experience to take forward into future weeks!
