This week we welcomed 4 new lovely volunteers to Mozambique as well as welcoming back Matt, Liz, and Andrea. Jason, Ailsa, Natalie, and Bethany have spent this week working hard towards becoming Open Water Divers and as of today, they are finally certified! They are now able to explore the other 70% of the world!

Our last week started off with some wonderful diving in Pao Rock, where we logged over 280 fish in one dive (!!), who said all Mondays are bad? Conditions were amazing and we even had a cuttlefish during our fun dive after the reef assessment.

On Tuesday a road trip to the Immigration Office was due and of course, we couldn’t say no to some KFC afterwards. Some of us decided to stay behind and do some signs for the resort and the dive centre which turned out really nice, amongst all painting and road tripping there was one thing that was still in our to-do list: Celebrate Saskia’s birthday! The staff at the resort went above and beyond for this occasion, they set up our table beautifully with some lovely cocktails and sang Happy Birthday in Portuguese. We all had a lovely night and could not have been more grateful for such a kind gesture.

After Tuesday’s celebration, it was time to get back to work. Wednesday was spent by the beach doing fisheries as well as whale watching. They seem to be very active in the morning and calmer in the afternoons, but fear not you can easily spot these gentle giants every day. We’ve had wonderful sightings of breaching and are expecting whales to come in bigger numbers as the season goes on.

After a couple of days of light rain, we carried out another coral reef survey on Thursday, this time we saw a very wide spread of coral which can only mean more biodiversity! There has not been any concerning coral bleaching which just motivates us more to acquire the data needed to make our bay a Marine Protected Area. As time goes on the underwater environment we’ve experienced here never ceases to amaze us.

For our last day we did whale surveys as well as fisheries, however, our area is quite lively at the moment with families due to school holidays so less fishing in this area was expected. Jay’s dive center and LTO Staff embarked on an exploratory dive to assess a possible new dive spot, they had the joy of coming across a manta and numerous whales which keeps showing how valuable marine life is in the bay. On our second whale watching trip we had a quiet session, however, we had the joy of welcoming back to the boat Jason, Ailsa, Natalie and Bethany from their last open water dive and thus certified! After a hard working week, some celebrations are in order for all of the volunteers as well as staff.

Our time in Mozambique has been a beautiful experience that we will never forget. To live so deep within a loving and kind culture has affected us differently in many ways, we have expanded our comfort zone and made bonds that have made us feel at home. We will miss Mozambique and will dearly remember all the memories. Nevertheless, while there will be some heartfelt goodbyes we still have Saturday and Sunday for some diving and final glance at the place that has been our home for 5 weeks.

Mozambique you have left us speechless and the turned us into storytellers.

Thank you for keeping up with our adventure,

Ellie, Saskia, and Nikki