So now, after my first draft was eaten by the dog and I left the second draft on a Taxi Brousse, I have finally sat down, ordered a sandwich and beer, plugged my headphones in and have began the task of updating you on the past month. And what a month it has been.
We shall begin in the late November which saw the arrival of a group from the UNDP (United Nations Development Programme) marine training course. This annual programme is aimed at capacity building for Malagasy environmental agency employees. Over a period of ten days we provided intensive dive and science training to evaluate coral reef systems with the hope that these techniques would be implemented into marine management program's throughout Madagascar. It was a long but enjoyable ten days which finally gave me a chance to practice my very limited French.
The end of the ten days also coincided with the arrival of Roderick, the founder and director of ReefDoctor which gave us an excellent excuse to have a party including a whole roasted goat, Malagasy music and, of course, booty shaking by those who were that way inclined.
Things quietened down after the UNDP left and so it was decided that this would be the ideal time for me to start my Dive Master. I began to help out the dive officers on a lot of the dives and with the dive training. It also meant that I was diving more regularly. Due to the tides at this time we had been having to get up at 04:30 each morning to ensure we got back before the tides were too low. I can't deny that by the end of the week I was struggling to get out of bed, so when Saturday came I was looking forward to a bit of a lie in. This however was not the case. It was decided that we would be taking one of the volunteers out on a fun dive to the exterior at a site called Dippy and I would be leading. When my alarm when off at 04:15 I was really not motivated to get the kit organised and onto the boat and sat bleary eyed at breakfast lacking the energy to even make conversation with my fellow early risers.
So as the light of the sun began to glow over the spiny forest we headed out and set course for the exterior. It wasn't long before we had made it throuh the pass and as I sat there, still half asleep just thinking about getting back to my lovely thin mattressed, sand covered, sweat saturated bed as soon as possible I spotted something quite large, grey and dolphin shaped rise above the waves in the distance and then sink below. I excitedly shouted to Laura, the volunteer who was with us, and pointed into the distance to which she just looked at me and smirked unamused by this obvious "boy who cried wolf-esque" joke. Frustrated, and now fully awake I continued to point in their direction and repeat the word dolphin over and over hoping it would bring credibility to my statement. Eventually Manjo also spotted them and began to enthusiastically point and shout and then finally Laura also could not resist glancing and began to join our shouts of exuberance. We continued to drive to the dive site as the dolphins meandered around in the distance, donned our kit and headed down to explore Dippy.
When returning to the surface we could still see the pod who unfortunately had chosen not to come and join us on our dive. We stowed our kit away and pointed the boat back in the direction of ReefDoctor and headed home and incredibly the pod followed and were soon riding the waves the boat made. We couldn't resist stopping the boat and getting into the water. Luckily the dolphins remained, circling around giving us curious glances as they went. Eventually they became bored of this human exhibit and swam off into the blue. Needless to say the return journey was full of a lot of excited chatter and I was happy to tick of the second of the Big Five marine animals I hoped to see while at ReefDoctor. Only Turtles, Manta Rays and Sharks to go now so here's hoping by the end of my time here I only have to lie about seeing one of them...
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