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...