New(bie) intern in town!

Hi there!

I’m Mona, the new intern at Zavora Marine Lab and Mozdivers. I’ll be giving an update on the work we do every week, so stay tuned. I’ve come all the way from Norway to explore the Mozambican waters and enjoy life in the tropics and the ocean. I’ve already been in Tofo for three months, diving every day, and absolutely loved it! I’m staying one month in Zavora to learn more about the coastal ecology of Mozambique, and particularly nudibranchs, manta rays and seahorses. I’ve been here a week, and already I’ve learned so much and done something different every day. 

                                          I love walking up a mountain as much as diving down
                                          to a reef. :)

The first day Yara took me to their beloved rock pool, which we can only visit when it’s spring and low tide. I did not expect to see so much life in such a small area just a little walk from the beach. We spotted loads of different nudibranchs species, and seven of these we found in a hole no bigger than 4 square meters. Two of which were the first time observed in Mozambique. 

                                         New species to mozambique

Wednesday was Earth Day, so Yara, Jon, Wrunga (Yara’s OW student), Mauro and me went back to the rock pool and removed pieces of fishing nets the fishermen leave behind. Equipped with scissors and scuba gear, we were ready to save some corals from suffocating plastic nets. I gotta say, it was pretty challenging trying to focus on the task when you’re surrounded by the beauty of the rock pool. The far end has some amazing topography, with big boulders suspending over the white sands. There’s life everywhere; porcelain crabs, boxer shrimps, nudis, bubbleshells, needle fish, and lots of nice hard and soft corals. Everything is connected, and corals play the biggest role in the presence and diversity of these crustaceans and molluscs. We saved around 15 live corals, but even more were already dead… This shows how important it is to do things like this regularly when there is active fishing going on.

Thursday was my first real dive here. The mission was to find as many nudis as possible and write down the species etc. Well…. I found a lot of nudis, but all that theory that was supposed to sit inside my head, was left at the surface. I also forgot how to use the camera once it sat in the underwater housing, so it’s role got degraded to a very buoyant accessory on my BCD. The second dive was a little better. We found a new dive site with the sonar, which ended up with the name Labyrint. It was like a maze, and the surge was hectic, but a lot of nice marine life. A giant orange frogfish the size of a handball scared the crap out of me when it suddenly appeared in a coral while my face was 15 cm from the reef looking for something way smaller. Very nice day of diving!

 

On Friday we drove to Barra Lagoon near Tofo to do a seahorse survey. Even after 3 months in Tofo, I hadn’t been to the estuary. Really regret not going there before, because it was AMAZING. We were so lucky. What started as a seahorse survey, turned out to be a full on macro life party. We saw almost everything there is to see in the estuary. Sea moths, robust ghost pipefish, frogfish in all sizes, razorfish, decorator crabs, spider crabs, dwarf lionfish, seagrass pipefish and of course seahorses. Not too bad to work and at the same time do some world class muck diving. And the best part; you can stay there for hours. Or at least until you air runs out. The depth ranges from 1-3 meters, most of the life being at 1 meter. 

                                          Baby frogfish

                                          Sea moth

                                          Robust ghost pipefish

                                          A white fuscus seahorse

                                          Colour varies within the species, as it's the same 

                                          species as the white one. :)                 

Saturday was an extended Earth Day, so we went to the beach with some kids from the local school to clean it up a little. The amount of plastic on the beach was overwhelming. For the last few months living on the beach, I haven’t noticed it at all. It just becomes a part of the landscape here. But when you actively try to look for it, it’s EVERYWHERE. Mostly small pieces, which are very time-consuming to pick up, and some crumble at the touch. But you know that these small pieces will get even smaller, until they’re so microscopically small they end up in corals and plankton. We weighed all the bags and the results was 116 kg of plastic rubbish in one hour with 15 people. Imagine what could be done if a whole village joined.

Yesterday and today we did Manta ID dives, with great results, but more about that next week.

Ciao!