Boa tarde!
Since the last post I got to check out a new place in the Inhambane province. PAINDANE!
It was fantastic. We dived on the site Paindane Express. It´s known for its strong current and for a good drift dive, but that day it was like a pool. A very different dive from both Zavora and Tofo, and a good chance to see dragon moray eels. We saw 9 at least, and thousands of shrimps, which is not common in Tofo nor Zav.
I had the next 10 days off, which were spent in Tofo. It was nice to go back to ´civilization´, but I really enjoy Zavora, so I was happy to go back.
My last week here started with learning a new survey technique to measure the abundance of nudis. This is done by placing a quadrat on the reef and counting all the nudis, and maybe other unique stuff inside the quadrat. You do this for a set time and continue to another spot on the reef. Now, it has to be completely random, so you can´t for example swim around until you see a nudi and place the quadrat there. Haha. Best thing is to just close your eyes, swim an x number of kick cycles, throw the quadrat and let the current do the rest. This ´random´ thing turned out to be quite frustrating, as I had two mating Chromodoris 5 cm outside of my quadrat!!! Luckily, the last one had two mating Halgerdas INSIDE. Now, imagine two people who are so occupied sticking their heads in the reef looking for nudis, they don´t even notice to reef mantas creeping up on them. Long story short, I forgot that the camera was set to macro, so the few pics I managed to take of the mantas were recycle bin material.
We´ve also continued doing Manta ID dives, with proper equipment of course. Failing a little bit at the start, as we dropped much further south than we wanted. We literally drop on top of a manta, but neither of us had no idea where we are, or in which direction the reef was. The place where we dropped was flat and very boring, however, the mantas were everywhere. Big and small, but just passing by and feeding. Yara´s favorite nudi was also abundant in this area, so we actually went back a few days later and collected a couple of them. We found the reef at the end, but there was no action at the regular cleaning station. It would be interesting to see if the mantas we saw were actually going to those cleaning stations, or if there is an unknown one somewhere nearby.
The next dive was at Labyrint, the new site, to do a quadrat again. And guess what! While we were kitting up, the skipper sees a baby whale shark sneaking up to the back of the boat. Now I´ve been in Mozambique for four months, and I haven´t seen a single whale shark while I´ve been here. And even sadder, in my life! I jump up and walk to the back with my scuba gear half done, ready to get in the water, without my mask and fins of course. It was so close! But it just wouldn´t hang around, so it dived down. I was so happy and excited my hands were shaking uncontrollably.
Anyway, we tried doing the quadrat at Labyrint, but the site has so many swimthroughs and boulders it creates a lot of strange surges, so you can keep neither yourself nor your quadrat stationary enough to do a search. We ended up exploring the new site, and losing each other after I buddied up with a hawksbill turtle. :p
After the diving days I´ve been entering at least 10 mantas in Manta Matcher per day. It seems quite little, but because the program is so new, and not always working properly, it can take up to an hour to enter one manta. And if you combine that with african internet, you get where I´m heading. Did not think I would get sick of seeing manta pictures, but hey, there is a first for everything. I changed out the mantas with the two new Nembrotha nudis I collected. They got a bit stressed out from the move, so they started mating and laying eggs. I waited for them to finish laying the eggs before I started the process of conserving them. I measured them, took photos, studied them under the microscope and they´re now preserved in a little bottle ready for the next step in the description work that Yara has been doing. Now they need to be dissected and studied molecularly in Europe.
My internship in Zav has come to an end, and we finished it off by doing another seahorse survey in the Barra Lagoon. 7 seahorses were measured and photographed and of course loads of other marine life was found. We did a night dive as well, and a whole new world came to life. with lots of crustaceans, octopus, burrowing cuttlefish etc. I truly love the lagoon and hope to study it some more one day.
Since the last post I got to check out a new place in the Inhambane province. PAINDANE!
It was fantastic. We dived on the site Paindane Express. It´s known for its strong current and for a good drift dive, but that day it was like a pool. A very different dive from both Zavora and Tofo, and a good chance to see dragon moray eels. We saw 9 at least, and thousands of shrimps, which is not common in Tofo nor Zav.
I had the next 10 days off, which were spent in Tofo. It was nice to go back to ´civilization´, but I really enjoy Zavora, so I was happy to go back.
 |
| Amongst the shrimps there is a hiding dragon |
My last week here started with learning a new survey technique to measure the abundance of nudis. This is done by placing a quadrat on the reef and counting all the nudis, and maybe other unique stuff inside the quadrat. You do this for a set time and continue to another spot on the reef. Now, it has to be completely random, so you can´t for example swim around until you see a nudi and place the quadrat there. Haha. Best thing is to just close your eyes, swim an x number of kick cycles, throw the quadrat and let the current do the rest. This ´random´ thing turned out to be quite frustrating, as I had two mating Chromodoris 5 cm outside of my quadrat!!! Luckily, the last one had two mating Halgerdas INSIDE. Now, imagine two people who are so occupied sticking their heads in the reef looking for nudis, they don´t even notice to reef mantas creeping up on them. Long story short, I forgot that the camera was set to macro, so the few pics I managed to take of the mantas were recycle bin material.
 |
| Yes! Mating inside the quadrat. |
We´ve also continued doing Manta ID dives, with proper equipment of course. Failing a little bit at the start, as we dropped much further south than we wanted. We literally drop on top of a manta, but neither of us had no idea where we are, or in which direction the reef was. The place where we dropped was flat and very boring, however, the mantas were everywhere. Big and small, but just passing by and feeding. Yara´s favorite nudi was also abundant in this area, so we actually went back a few days later and collected a couple of them. We found the reef at the end, but there was no action at the regular cleaning station. It would be interesting to see if the mantas we saw were actually going to those cleaning stations, or if there is an unknown one somewhere nearby.
 |
| White tip reef shark are also a common site! |
The next dive was at Labyrint, the new site, to do a quadrat again. And guess what! While we were kitting up, the skipper sees a baby whale shark sneaking up to the back of the boat. Now I´ve been in Mozambique for four months, and I haven´t seen a single whale shark while I´ve been here. And even sadder, in my life! I jump up and walk to the back with my scuba gear half done, ready to get in the water, without my mask and fins of course. It was so close! But it just wouldn´t hang around, so it dived down. I was so happy and excited my hands were shaking uncontrollably.
Anyway, we tried doing the quadrat at Labyrint, but the site has so many swimthroughs and boulders it creates a lot of strange surges, so you can keep neither yourself nor your quadrat stationary enough to do a search. We ended up exploring the new site, and losing each other after I buddied up with a hawksbill turtle. :p
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| My new buddy |
After the diving days I´ve been entering at least 10 mantas in Manta Matcher per day. It seems quite little, but because the program is so new, and not always working properly, it can take up to an hour to enter one manta. And if you combine that with african internet, you get where I´m heading. Did not think I would get sick of seeing manta pictures, but hey, there is a first for everything. I changed out the mantas with the two new Nembrotha nudis I collected. They got a bit stressed out from the move, so they started mating and laying eggs. I waited for them to finish laying the eggs before I started the process of conserving them. I measured them, took photos, studied them under the microscope and they´re now preserved in a little bottle ready for the next step in the description work that Yara has been doing. Now they need to be dissected and studied molecularly in Europe.
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| Matchmaking |
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| And the result of mating |
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| Close-up of the gills under a microscope |
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| The beautiful face of the Nembrotha sp. |
My internship in Zav has come to an end, and we finished it off by doing another seahorse survey in the Barra Lagoon. 7 seahorses were measured and photographed and of course loads of other marine life was found. We did a night dive as well, and a whole new world came to life. with lots of crustaceans, octopus, burrowing cuttlefish etc. I truly love the lagoon and hope to study it some more one day.
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| Never get sick of these |
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| Grumpy |
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| Burrowed cuttlefish |
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| Add caption |
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| Cowfish |
So that's it. I hope you enjoyed reading my posts, pictures and the work that we've done the last month.
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| So long! |
