Hey there!
I am really sorry I haven’t been writing here
at all lately although (or because) it has been anything but quite around here!
While I have been trying to upload the manta database to mantamatcher and noticed again how much work it is, I have also been reading about Hydatina
physis and started to look “into the insides” of the two specimens I collected
in the rock pool here in Zavora. Furthermore, we had two very nice young girls
here that were doing their first diving certification (Junior Open Water
Diving) and for which I prepared a little presentation about marine life and
marine biology. They enjoyed their time here a lot and for me it was truly
great to see them smile during their first dives and later discuss what marine
organisms they had seen. I think it was awesome that they saw a white tip reef
shark and a sea turtle (among other also great marine organisms) on their
“introduction dives”… That doesn’t happen to everybody…It was really a nice time for
everybody.
[Sea turtle we saw on one of the four Open Water Dives the girls had to do.] |
Another thing I did the past weeks is an
Advanced Nitrox course with Jon! Remember I told you not to tell my mum about
me wanting to go “all technical” in diving? Well, I told her about it, and
after a while she pushed away the rather unnecessary worries and she recognized
the advantages it has for my future to get more diving experience and try to
get beyond the limits of recreational diving in order to be able to do better
scientific work under water. Nitrox mixes (which is basically a mix like air
but with more or less oxygen and nitrogen) offer possibilities that you
wouldn’t have if you were diving on compressed air. To say the least, you can
reduce your probability of decompression sickness if you dive conservatively.
Moreover, you can stay deeper and/or longer when you are diving on Nitrox
allowing for more time on the bottom (on a reef) for example for sampling and
getting data for scientific purposes. So basically I am improving my diving
skills in order to be good enough for when I truly need it in my scientific future.
[Julian, with whom I did my course together with.] |
That’s why I “jumped” on the chance to join a
course Jon had planned to instruct to a very nice guy named Julian. He used the
free time during Easter holiday to come from Maputo to Zavora just to do the
course. Some friends of him came along and I think they had quite a good time on
the beach and the Rock Pool with Yara as well. An advanced nitrox course is not
done in just a few hours or days so I spent more time with Julian though and I
was happy to have a buddy to do the course with (my previous experiences with diving
courses have been rather “the-instructor-and-me” kinda experiences, which is
nice, but you don’t have anybody to share the same experience with). Plus,
taking a course together with someone else is more fun anyway! While trying to
get my buoyancy right in the pool and during the dives I didn’t feel as bad as
I think I would have if I had been alone. We both were having some problems! And
we could discuss the exercises and the dives. We could discuss what it felt
like to be at 45m and try to deploy an SMB (surface marker buoy)… ;)
[The plates that we used for our twin-tanks with wing jackets. You basically assemble the twin-tanks, a wing jacket and a plate together like a sandwich and off you go.] |
Honestly,
my biggest problem in the beginning was getting used to the new equipment set
up. Let me say this…when you have been diving with a “normal” BCD (a jacket)
with a single tank for many years and now have to dive on a twin set and with a
wing jacket…just trust me…you really have to get used to it. Moreover, with two
tanks on my back I suddenly dropped like a stone because of all the weight and
had to get used to inflate my jacket more. Furthermore, when doing deco dives
you take a stage bottle with which has the deco gas you use for the deco stops.
Basically, you are loaded with tanks (and it is just the beginning) and you
have to get used to working with them attached to your side.
[Twin set tanks and some stage bottles we used on one of our dives.] |
Good for me, the equipment is basically the only
thing that I will really have to get used to and see whether I manage to feel
as good wearing a twin set than I do already diving with my beloved and
well-known jacket with a single tank. But giving all the advantage it has
diving on a twin set with a wing jacket…I want to adjust as soon as I can. It
was nice to see that Julian also found that the new equipment takes some time getting
used to.
[Stage bottles we used in one of our dives. See the little one? That one is a 3L tank. It was enough for me for the deco stop of one dive! Isn’t it cute?] |
In my opinion though, the coolest part about
the course was the physical, mathematical and physiological theory on decompression
diving and dive planning; when it’s all about gas mixes, pressures, not getting
oxygen toxicity and not getting bent. When you try to figure out what is the
best breathing gas mix for a dive you plan to do. When you know that
theoretically your dive will be safe and good if you stick to the plan and
don’t surpass the limits. When you visualize your dive in your head and
calculate the minutes you have to do a deco-stop to allow for the minutes you
want to stay in the bottom. When you go deeper than you have been before and
the adrenaline starts pumping through your veins because of the unknown. New
flora and fauna but also new mental experiences you have to account for.
It is a good feeling to know that I am getting
new diving experiences and that with that I am actually learning how to dive
safer and take better care of myself under water and learn to be disciplined
enough to plan a dive ahead as good as you can (I think I don’t need to be
disciplined in that since for me it is very much fun!). Nonetheless, if you
want to dedicate your life to something, you should keep in mind to be as safe
as you can while you are in the environment you are gonna be working in. I am
one step closer to be a safe scientific diver!
I think the nowadays fashionable recreational
diving restricts a scientific diver in their performance by not really allowing
safe (!!) solo dives. Having said this, I am aware that scientific dives have
to be performed solo if there is no other way (no scientific buddy or dive
buddy in close proximity and individual data has to be sampled!)… So in my
opinion technical diving offers the diver a (safer) freedom that recreational
diving never could. Needless to say that it does so while surpassing the depth
AND time limits of recreational diving.
All in all, I really enjoyed the course, I
learned a lot of new things and I had really good dives. Jon truly is a very
good instructor! Thanks Jon! :) I will surely try to come back to be further
instructed in the art of technical diving!
On one of our dives Julian and I saw a Blotched
fantail ray. Awesome moment! It was on Yogis (remember? the reef I kinda felt
in love with?) and we were leaving the known 33m to go deeper on 40m diving
over an edge…and the ray actually followed us to the edge…maybe making sure we
were gonna be ok down there? ;) Sadly, I didn’t have my camera with me (the
underwater housing is only rated to 40m) so I didn’t take any pictures at all…
Nonetheless, while on a dive to get used to the
equipment we were on a shallower reef to which I took my camera with. J And luckily, I saw something
interesting I had not seen before. It can be called “nudibranch-porn”. The two
specimens of Halgerda wasiniensis on
the picture are mating! See the “tunel” between them? It is actually their
penises!
[“Nudibranch-porn”: two nudibranchs mating.] |
Now, you might be asking about the
turtles….”what happened with them?” “Did they hatch?” Well…long story
short…this year there was no luck with the sea turtles except for seeing them
under the water. On the surface…no hatchings, poached nests and little amount
of tracks of turtles nesting. Nonetheless, we never gave up hope and with the
help of Jess (a girl in Tofo doing a PhD on sea turtles of Mozambique) we (Alex
from Dunas, Yara and me) dig up a hole in the dune where we expected the eggs
to be. We dig and dig and dig…and nothing. I don’t know if you can see how big
the hole was…we had already covered it a little bit up when I took the pic, so
it was bigger than it seems… Let’s hope next season is better!
[Hole we dig to search for the eggs.] |
Next post I will tell you about my social
experience in Quissico, a little town south of Zavora…just one anticipation:
Comex, school children and a white girl with long brown hair in a little town
of Africa…
Until then, have a nice day…baba :D
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