Night Dives and Many Goodbyes

A lot has happened here since my last post. It's become a struggle to decide where to stop each post because when I come to writing it I, (a) realise that I am way behind with what's happened (this one is covering things I did almost 2 weeks ago) and (b) do something else which is worth mentioning in a post but would make a single post too long. Ahh the stresses of living in Madagascar! How do I manage?
I will begin this one two weeks ago when we, after a long week of science and rescue training, managed to get out for a night dive. At about 6pm we headed out on the boat as the sun set and the moon rose. We were doing the dive at Rose Garden, a nice shallow reef system with a lot of interesting creatures to be found. We kitted up and backward rolled off the boat into the dark water below. For anyone who has been on a night dive will understand how different it is too diving in the day. For a start, because you can't see the light of the sun ripple and glint in the water, it feels as if you are just floating in nothing, the only clues being the surface above and the current passing by. Secondly the reef literally comes alive at night as all the polyps come out of the coral to feed. A lot of the fish sleep at night wedged in crevices or, like the parrot fish, protected in a bubble of a mucus like substance to avoid predators picking up their scent.

We spent a good 50 minutes under, looking for odd creatures and animals which were hidden away in the day but out and about under the cover of night, such as an octopus striding across the sand like squiddly diddly right before us. For any divers who haven't been on a night dive I highly recommend it, it was certainly an experience I wont forget anytime soon but then that goes for the majority of what I've done with Reef Doctor including what we did the next day...
So after a good nights sleep it was off out again at 8am to go whale watching. Humpback whales migrate through the channel made by Africa and Madagascar as they head north with their new born calfs. However this only happens at a certain time of year, luckily for me, between July and September. So out we went beyond the exterior and began our search for any water spouts, greatly relying on the vision 2.0 of our boat officer Manju. We searched for about an hour and a half only sighting a couple of flying fish and a lonesome jellyfish, and so rather disappointed we turned the boat around and started to head back toward the opening into the bay. That was until, right in front of us, a humpback shot straight up out of the water and crashed back down below the surface. It was an incredible sight to witness especially after losing all hope of seeing any that day. Manju immediately shot off in pursuit and we followed the mother and her calf as they calmly swam along beside us gently rising to breath and falling again under the waves.

After returning back to the site and excitedly informing those that weren't there about what they missed and then grinning at there attempts to pretend they didn't really care or believe us, we began to prepare for lunch. Because it was the final weekend of some of the staff and a volunteer, we had decided to put together a small barbecue of zebu kebabs, squid, carrots, beans, fresh bread and a side order of rum coco in their honour.

After filling ourselves to the brim (and then some), we headed to Mangily, a small tourist-ish village a mere 10 minutes along the road. Here we raised a glass to the soon to be leavers, of which included Val the science intern and source of many a good guffaw, Claire the Ozzie Science Officer, who had survived putting up with teaching Slow Joe his expert survey list, and Bart, the Dutch volunteer who had spent 4 weeks at Reef Doctor and 3 of those without a shirt on yet somehow managed to produce more washing than anyone else... The rest of the evening was spent introducing Manju to ring of fire, much to the amusement of himself and everyone else playing as he continued to nominate Shane (the project director) to drink, only to realise moments after that Shane had already picked him as his drinking buddy and so he too would have to drink. Needless to say there were numerous exclamations of "Taibe!" (Malagasy equivalent of bull shit).
And so farewells were given and those leaving us departed over the next few days to go back and gorge themselves on the meals they had been dreaming about since arriving. For the rest of us life became a little quieter and a little more hectic. There were added stresses over my bags refusal to join me here in Ifaty (a big thank you to all those who have been helping to try and get it to me!) and then there was a sudden realisation that this months surveys needed to be done. Unfortunately the original week that the surveys were planned had to be cancelled due to very strong winds and poor visibility so they had been pushed back to the week after Claire had left which just meant that there was only me, Emma and Joe (another, particularly laid back, volunteer) who could get them done. As well as this myself and Dean spent a day taking two German tourists out who wanted to see the reef, and then to top it all off Joe and I had yet to finish our Rescue Diver course (which at the time of writing this has been successfully completed!).
Spare time has been spent on the Weigh Station where the local Vezo bring their catches and we note down the species, weight and length. It is a long and arduous process but is great help when it comes to learning your fish for the expert surveys.

There can be big gaps between people bringing fish so it's then that I'm able to spend some time getting some good shots of this incredibly photogenic place...

Isalo

So apologies for the delay in blog writing but it's been a very busy couple of weeks. While continuing my science training, so I am ready to partake in the next set of surveys, I have also been completing my rescue diver course so I can officially be classed as a hero..
Other than all that, last weekend myself and two other volunteers, Jack and Bart, decided to take a trip up to Isalo to visit the national park where we spent three days trekking through the incredible landscape.
Our journey there began on the Wednesday. We took a rather worn down 4x4 up to Tulear (which was luxury compared to the taxi brousse) where we spent the night. Early the next morning, armed with a zebu steak sandwich each, we took a pousse pousse up to the taxi brousse station to rendezvous with a driver called Francois with whom we had booked seats on his brousse. However when we arrived at the station we were immediately swamped by people trying to get us onto their taxi brousse. Attempts to locate Francois were futile, even if we tried to call out that we were looking for Francois immediately everyone would begin to claim that they were Francois in a sort of backward take on the camaraderie shown in Spartacus. Eventually we just resorted to accepting that the one who looked the most trustworthy to be Francois and went with him to his brousse (it later turned out that this was not Francois who had called the Reef Doctor site concerned by our absence from the brousse, how he didn't notice 3 confused vazahs surrounded by a mob of taxi brousse drivers all yelling his name is beyond me).

Once onto the brousse we travelled the surprisingly comfortable 5 hours up to Isalo and onto to Momo Trek where we were to spend the night before heading out into the park the next day. This was probably the most uncomfortable nights sleep out of our time at Isalo as the beds were lacking mosquito nets and the windows were lacking.. well.. proper windows.. So the night was spent slapping various limbs in attempt to crush the swarms that made their way into the room.

At 8 the next morning we took the car down to the entrance of the park and began our trek. Our first part took us through a large canyon cut into the rock face and to a pool which became regular and very welcome features of our trip. As I jumped into the water I thought back the amount of times, at each of the clinics I visited for vaccinations and medical check ups for this trip, that I was warned about swimming in fresh water pools and not to due to Schistosomiasis. However I challenge any one of those doctors to trek through Isalo and resist the temptations of any those pools.


After visiting the canyon we began the arduous trek up the face of Isalo's great sandstone walls. For someone who has done little exercise for 3 years straight I can't deny that I did find this a bit of a challenge and the baking sun, loose crumbling path and lack of shade all combined to make me think by the end of the first day as to why I ever agreed to and paid 250,000Ar for this 3 day trek.

Fortunately the answer came about an hour into the next days walk when we were taken to a small oasis hidden away in the depths of Isalo. This consisted of a large, deep shaded pool adorned with small over hanging palm trees and with waterfall that provided warm water from the sun baked river above. We spent a good few hours swimming in the pools and relaxing in the sun gorging on fresh pineapple while ring tail lemurs played in the branches above us. Unfortunately this bliss couldn't last forever and, with inner body temperature lowered and spirits lifted, we continued our trek up to the very top of the cliffs which had fantastic views over the the small town of Ranohira and the great expanse of paddy fields that surrounds it. We then made our way down to our final campsite in Isalo which came with a welcome addition of Red Fronted Brown Lemurs, much to Jacks excitement, and a small, very concerned, looking chameleon much to my excitement.


Our final day in Isalo was spent visiting yet more pools, the last two of which were known as the blue and black pool. The black pool which was very deep and cold made the blue pool, which was shallow and in direct sunlit, feel like a jacuzzi. Afterward we made our way out of the park and back to Ranohira where we had a quick meal, which was rather disappointing after the delights that our porters had rustled up for us along the way including zebu stew and and an excellent spaghetti bolognaise, and then spent a second uncomfortable night swatting the mosquito hoards.

Unfortunately the end of our trip finished on a rather low note. To begin with the taxi brousse we were due to travel back with decided to break down so we had to spend about half an hour in a small car in which they had somehow managed to fit 11 people in. This consisted of 6 people on the back seats, 2 on the front seat, 2 in the drivers seat and 1 in the boot. Once we reached the new brousse we were yet again crammed in well over capacity and began the 5 hour journey back to Tulear. It was about an hour in that I began to get rather strong stomach cramps, another hour in a fever began to take shape and then another half hour before I realised that at any moment I was going to disappoint a very full taxi brousse by emptying the contents of my stomach. Luckily by some pure miracle I managed to keep it together until Tulear and was able to rapidly disperse the 12 pousse pousse drivers wanting my business by throwing up in the middle of them.

Fortunately it was just a 24 hour bug and by the next day I was alive and well and ready to get back to work of which I promise I shall chat more about in the following blog post. Well that is if the whale watching, night diving and barbecue don't take up too much space...
Just a quick note that I will put up all my pictures onto my Flickr account which can be found if you search for the user name TomG_2013 and look under the set called Madagascar.

Location:9,Ifaty,Madagascar