I bring up this theory because over the past couple of weeks "Tom Luck" has been more regular than usual, so much so in fact that Emma Gibbons, the Science Officer on site, came up with a similar theory only she named it "Unfortunate Tom Syndrome". The events that lead to this unintentional plagiarism are described below...
The first occurrence was when we were planning on doing a dive at Coral Gardens with the new volunteers, Claire, Kate and Cameron, they were to be doing their buoyancy practice while myself and Joe were to be photographing various unusual benthic (any substrate from corals and anemones to rock and sand). The sea was mirror flat, and had been for the past few days, giving time for any silt or debris in suspension to settle. This meant that there was a good chance that the visibility would be great, and it didn't disappoint. The visibility was maybe 20 metres or more and Coral Garden hadn't looked better. Coral Garden is a reef out near the exterior, it is a lot deeper than the likes of Rose Garden going down to around 15m in some places and has a lot of interesting marine creatures that you may not find on the reefs closer to the coast. So you can imagine my disappointment when "Tom Luck" decided to strike... We had gotten in, done our buddy checks and began to descend when I realised that I couldn't equalise. If you can't equalise then you can't descend, so the next 15 minutes and a third of my air was then spent attempting to equalise at 3m as I looked down below at the vibrant reef being explored by Dean and the new volunteers. I eventually managed to clear my ears and descended a bit further, but that was the only time on the dive so it wasn't long before I was back stuck at 5m longingly looking down at the colour and movement below..
The next dose of "Tom Luck" came a few days later when Emma, Joe and myself were attempting to do the surveys for Ankarandava. This site is renowned for it's strong currents and the day of the surveys was no different. We managed to get the first survey done before running out of air and having to return to the surface. We changed tanks but this is when things began to go wrong and continued to go wrong for the next couple of days.. Firstly the current had gotten even stronger than it was when we first went it making us all doubtful as to whether we would actually be able to finish the surveys before we ran out of air, secondly we could not locate the reel in the water which we had tactfully left to mark where the surveys should be taken. We searched everywhere for the reel before returning to the surface and calling for Manju and his super human underwater vision to help find it. Within around 15 minutes of returning to the boat Manju's hand bobs up above the waves clutching on to the elusive measuring device which he insisted he had found at our point of decent only moments ago... We chose to leave Ankarandava until the next day but that was not much better with worse visibility and then the losing of a survey slate which again Manju was able to locate with incredible ease. At this point we all had had quite enough of this cursed site and chose to spend the next two days surveying Rose Garden with a lot more success.
"Tom Luck" phenomenon was absent for the next week or so apart from the odd stubbed toe or mild stomach bug. That was until a few days ago when we were diving at Rose Garden. We were there to start marking out the areas for the implementation of Anti Fishing Devices (AFDs). These were essentially large blocks of concrete with lots of metal rods sticking out with the purpose of stopping fishermen from dragging nets across the marine reserve. So after we had marked out the points with makeshift buoys, we had to dive on them to make sure they were in position and not being dragged by the current so we donned our kit and got in. I was just finishing up the buddy checks and swimming out to the descent point when suddenly I felt a sharp pain burn across my face, I opened my mouth to yell to Emma and Cameron when the nematocysts fired again adding to the burning sensation currently across my mouth. Emma swam over and picked the jellyfish tentacle off my face and threw it back into the water where it, as a final farewell, stung across my right hand. I swam back to the boat and got my dive kit off and climbed back on board where I proceeded to bathe my face in vinegar for the next half hour (Emma happily later pointed out that the tentacle belonged to a Portuguese Man of War, so at least I was stung by a celebrity in the world of cnidarians...). About 45 minutes later, as the stings began to subside, Emma and Cameron returned to the surface at the other side of Rose Garden having checked all the marker buoys. They waved to Manju to come and pick them up so we could head back to land, however "Tom Luck" had other plans and decided that at this point the engine would fail to start. This lead to a very tedious hour in which Emma and Cameron had to surface swim the length of the reserve and then we all looked on in hope as Manju attempted to mend the engine. Luckily he did succeed which meant we weren't stranded out in the bay attempting to row back to land in the baking midday sun.
So I hope you can see that "Tom Luck" seems to be slightly more prevalent out here in Madagascar. Initial theories that it can only occur in the miserable gloom of the British Isles have been disproven and it seems that the sun shine and enjoyment I am having out here with Reef Doctor merely amplifies it's effects. Even now it still occurs. On the way to Tulear to write this blog, the Taxi Brousse we had waited for since 05:30 arrived an hour later than first thought and then proceeded to break down with monotonous regularity throughout the hour and a half journey. Anyway at least now I can finally post this blog! Hooray! Oh.... The powers gone off...
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