Travels with Tam

The Marine Megafauna Foundation in Tofo

July 21, 2013 By Tam Warner Leave a Comment

I attended a talk on Manta Rays last night by Dr Andrea Marshall. Casa Barry Lodge hosts the Marine Megafauna Foundation, so the researchers are based there. Casa Barry is up a hill, then down a hill, from the volunteer house, but hey, everything in Tofo is up or down a hill. Andrea Marshall is so charismatic…her passion for the conservation of Manta Rays is infectious. I saw a Discovery Channel special on the work she does with mantas and that is what sparked my interest in coming to Tofo. I want to help support this effort to the best of my ability. (I am scheduled to go to Komodo with a research team on Mantas January 2014!)

Andrea arrived here 10 years ago to do her graduate work, the first study of Mantas, and 10 years later there are 87% FEWER MANTA RAYS. I’ve been here a week and I’ve seen only one manta, and no whale sharks. The reason for this is obvious: today, on the way to Outback reef for a dive, we saw a fishing boat pulling up sharks and rays in a NET. It is not illegal, these animals are being fished for their fins so quickly they cannot sustain the population. After our dive (where I saw a mobula ray!) we saw them dragging sharks to the market from the beach, so we followed, and everyone is standing around watching guys cut them up. The rays were just babies. These people are so poor, the life expectancy is so low here, that the locals just cannot understand that they can make more money over the long haul by keeping these animals safe. For them, it is about RIGHT NOW. Eating right now, making enough money to last for a month for fins, they do not comprehend that the reason the tourists are here are the animals they are killing. It is so sad, so demoralizing. We all walked away in disgust, anger, and deep sorrow. Here are photos.

I have started doing fish surveys and research dive logs, and today I am learning to search the whale shark database and mark the shark ids. They use the NASA system for charting stars to chart the spot pattern on the sharks. I’ve also contributed turtle id shots. The dives the last two days have been much better…Mozambique is not easy diving. It isn’t easy, period. The walking is very difficult, up and down hills to get anywhere, but I am managing. Today there were a few older divers…it was nice not to be the oldest one in sight! I have to admit that it is a mixed blessing…I do feel stronger every day, but I also feel worn out and in pain a bit. I am pacing myself, and I will absolutely be able to complete this program.

I am comfortable here, this is not luxury, but it is fine. Compared to the people of Mozambique I am living like a Queen in this volunteer house. I feel like I have known this group forever….the bonding takes place so quickly when living in the same house.

My admiration for these people grows daily. My 22 year old roommate, Leslie, is from Switzerland, and has done volunteer work all over the world, including Antarctica! After 2 months here, she is off to Simon’s Town (right outside of Cape Town, South Africa) to work on the Great White Shark project. A small Great White was seen here day before yesterday…it was speared by local fisherman, of course, so it is probably being eaten by now, its fins on their way to China. These animals are going to be gone in 10 years if something is not done soon.

I confess I am feeling sad today to miss my daughter’s 25th birthday, but I think it was more important that I was there the day I gave birth! Happy, happy birthday, sweet and darling girl, I love you so much! I wish you could be here and meet these amazing people! What a way to travel the world! They really are an inspiration.

I’m exhausted already….an ocean safari, dive and manta ray talk yesterday; today an early morning dive, computer work, and two talks. Oh, and laundry. It is never dull here.

Dive Issues continue in Tofo

July 20, 2013 By Tam Warner Leave a Comment

May 13

Still having issues with the diving here. I feel like a complete idiot. It is not very buoyant here….and I am over-weighted, so I slammed into a few things….not a good thing to do on a reef. Shit! I have felt bad about it today…I have not adjusted to the diving in Tofo…it is true that the conditions are not easy, though the sea was very friendly today. Sometimes I feel like I have bitten off more than I can chew (so to speak), but I am managing. I cannot heave myself into the zodiac from the water, and I hate that. I have had two back surgeries, and in 2000 my lower spine was basically rebuilt, and I am able to do activities now that I could not do for years, but I can feel the weakness of my left leg pretty keenly at times. Tofo is a young town,one and although back surgery is not an age thing, I do not want to be so far below their abilities that I stand out any more than I have to. The 20s and 30s crowd is big here, mostly English or Australian, and they are dressed like the surfers in SoCal.

The native population here is altogether different. Mozambique suffered through years of civil war and the atrocities were numerous. Most live on the coast, or near the coast, as the interior of Mozambique is still landmined. In a country where subsistence can be difficult, one doesn’t run into educated individuals, or those who care at all about the environment or sustainability. There are no doctors in town, no one to help if you fall ill. People here have a low life expectancy, in the 40s for men, 50s for women, so you don’t see old people very much.

On a happy note, I swam with a Giant Manta Ray today! So, so beautiful! I also saw my first frogfish. They are absolutely marvelous! Now that I have seen one, maybe I’ll be able to spot one in Cozumel. Saw a loggerhead turtle today, a crocodile fish (freaky!), tons of seastars of all different colors and sizes, 4 gigantic lionfish swimming around…..a very cool dive if I could figure out how not to over inflate my BCD (dive jacket) and could maintain some buoyancy. I am very pissed at myself as I am sure you can tell. I did take my Dramamine today and had no seasickness. After the dive I had a bite to eat at Albatroz, a restaurant just up the hill from the house. They have coke with ice. Ahhhh. You have no idea how good a coke with ice can taste here! I took a nice long walk along the beach, did a bit of yoga, and now I am at the house, very tired. Tomorrow I learn to identify whale sharks on the database, do an ocean safari, and then dive. This coming weekend I am going on a trip to the Bazaruto Archipeligo with some of my house mates.

My first dive in Mozambique

July 18, 2013 By Tam Warner Leave a Comment

May 11

Today was my first dive. It was a completely different experience than I’ve ever had before. I fought terrible seasickness, for one thing. Apparently, the med I am taking for malaria preventative causes seasickness. Must take dramamine. Here is how it goes here with Peri Peri divers: from the dive shop you go down the “stairs of death” to the beach where the boat is being backed into the water by a Tracker. Everyone gets on the sides of the boat and pushes it out (it is a zodiac, but large). The women jump into the boat first, then the men, then you battle the waves to get off of the beach. The water is really pretty calm right now, but it is a bitch to get out of the wave line. Once out of the wave line it is open sea, and it is “yeehaw, ride ‘em cowboy”. I appreciate the zodiac, if it was a hard boat my spine would be in shards. We looked for whale sharks on the way out, no luck, and got to Manta Reef in 30 minutes or so.

I now know the “protocol” for diving here in Tofo. Weight belt first (I was overweighted for the first few dives), fins, tank (they put the tank on me, but holding it up was totally uncomfortable), mask, and negative entry. What is a negative entry? All air out of the BCD, roll back and just keep going. So, I had a few technical difficulties. First, the camera I had set up perfectly was suddenly set completely differently. I think someone opened the housing to look at the camera and in the process shut the flash trigger. So, there I am, at 20 metres, with no flash or strobe. The visibility was poor by Cozumel standards, probably 10 meters or so, 30 feet. The water is full of plankton and huge jellyfish, yes, the jellies from Finding Nemo. BUT. OMG, there is so much on the reef! The fish look like they’ve been on steroids! The trumpetfish are big and fat, I took photos of a scorpionfish twice the size of the scorpionfish on Cozumel. I saw a purple spotted eel, a four legged starfish, and then things started going wrong. I’m diving, checked my air and I had 150 bar. my jacket is overinflated, and I have 50 bar. Obviously, technical problems. So, I basically became completely nervous that I was running very low on air, and I didn’t want everyone to have to come up with me. I popped up without a safety stop, and that is never a good thing. When the dive master asked me why no stop, I said I was shaky from low sugar…not wanting to admit I ran out of air. I paid a price for that later on in the trip.

Waiting for the boat I really felt ill. To get back on the boat the skipper has to pull you up out of the water (or he has to pull me out of the water, most of them are strong enough to get themselves back on the zodiac, dammit, so humiliating). By the end of this trip my shoulders are going to be completely pulled out of joint.

Everyone got back from the dive, and off we went to look for whale sharks again. We found dolphins, and a Giant Manta ray. The manta was absolutely beautiful, just under the top of the water. Of course my camera was put away, but I have plenty of time to photograph mantas (I hope). One of the divers, a woman from Singapore, was very seasick and spent the ride back getting sick and being completely miserable. Tomorrow I dive again, and I must remember to take my Dramamine!

I just finished a game of Uno with the group, they are now playing spoons, of all things! I grew up playing spoons on Christmas Eves on Freeport with my family….they are having a great time with it. I took a video of them playing, I’ll post it in a day or two. They are an enthusiastic crew! Pieter, our young man from the Netherlands, is absent, as usual…he has a girl he is interested in who is at Fatimas, a bar and hotel on the beach. Most of us are here in the house tonight, four of us are diving tomorrow. 630 a.m. comes early.

I enjoyed a nice lunch at Albatross today, it is just a short walk up the hill (everything is up a hill or down a hill here….mostly up). The Mozambiquens are so very nice and polite, they always have a smile on their face. Tonight, Patty from San Francisco fixed a lovely corn and potato chowder, followed by flambe pineapples with rum. Wonderful meal.

I am off to bed, hopefully my dive tomorrow will be wonderful.

Ocean Safari in Mozambique

July 12, 2013 By Tam Warner 1 Comment

Ocean Safari may10

Marcel, Ben, Pieter and I went on our first ocean safari today…sadly, no whale sharks. But I did see my first ever Hammerhead shark and Black Fin Reef shark. We also encountered two pods of dolphins, both bottlenose and humpback dolphins. I was not in good position to take photos of anything. The water is full of plankton, so in order to get a good photo you’d need to be within 6 feet, I think. It was my first time in a zodiac (a sort of rubber boat), well not the very first time, the first one was when we went to look at elephant seals in Great White Shark infested waters, so obviously the goal was to stay IN the boat. Getting in and out of a zodiac has its challenges. Also there are no piers here, so the boat has to be driven to the beach, pushed into the water by the passengers of the boat, you then jump into the boat and ride over the waves to get out of the bay. An adventure, for sure! There were twelve people on the boat, so you can imagine the rush to get into the water. I went in twice but quickly decided it was too many people to get close to the animals anyway.

I sat out a couple of times, waiting for the whale sharks who never appeared. The energy it takes to roll off the boat, swim in the swells, then get back in the boat is enormous. Fortunately for my sugar levels I took a peanut butter sandwich with me. And yes, you are allowed to dive with diabetes, as long as you have it under control. I have it under control.

The area where the whale sharks feed is a four kilometer stretch just outside the bay, quite different from the 22 miles plus you have to go from Cancun or Holbox. The dive sites aren’t far off either. I am diving in the morning, at Manta Reef (MANTA RAYS!) and the “Office”. The fish are so differently marked and colored here, I cannot wait to start taking photos. There are a couple of dragon eels on the Office, I hear, and I’d love to photograph them!

Our coordinators, Ross and Katie, are back now, apparently Mozambique’s border guards are a bit power hungry and love to refuse visas to people. They had to go to South Africa in order to get a Mozambique visa! Crazy, right? They are both very likeable. I’ve spent part of the day learning how to put data into the fish databases, and I took my fish test this morning (I passed). So…ready for surveys.

There is another young man I’d like Ally to meet: Darren, a whale shark researcher from the Seychelles. Lovely young man. His passion in life is whale sharks, and he even has whale shark tattoos. Crazy!

I have settled in. Ages in the house range from 21 to 52, most in their 20s but a few in their 30s and one woman in her forties. I love Tofo….it is so beautiful. From the boat today I saw areas outside our bay, cliffs and huge sand dunes, beautiful homes high on the hills. One area is powered by a wind turbine. If you want to buy in Mozambique, do it now, I predict you’ll triple your money in 5-10 years. The town is filled with Aussies and South Africans, the research base at Casa Barry is a major hot spot. Scientists and interns and volunteers are everywhere. I’ve seen several tourists, none American so far.

I highly recommend Tofo to the mid-life crisis crowd, I am so glad I came. I am on my own, away from everything familiar, and I feel energized by the freedom I am experiencing. I love my family with every cell in my body, but you know we all play roles during our lives…I have always been someone’s daughter, sister, mother, spouse; taking responsibility and putting everyone’s needs ahead of my own. It is refreshing to just answer to myself, to do what I want to do when I want to do it, without taking care of anyone or being fearful of hurting someone’s feelings. The people here just accept me and make no demands. Maybe we all need an experience like this at some point in our lives. It is giving me space that I have never felt before. I am resolved to enjoy every opportunity. Tonight is a talk on sea turtles at Casa Barry, I plan to go over an hour early and have a nice dinner. The volunteer house is not a culinary delight! I’m already sick of pasta.

More of Tofo

July 11, 2013 By Tam Warner Leave a Comment

Ben, Daniela, Patty — Marcel, Darren, Daniela, Patty and Leslie

Another day with no diving or ocean safaris…..most of the group are learning to dive today, which leaves four of us with nothing to do, Marcel, Pieter, Ben and I. Our coordinators from All Out Africa had to leave to renew visas and so nothing has been scheduled for us, but we have been notified that tomorrow we will be on an ocean safari (which is out on the boat looking for whale sharks). Yay! Hopefully I’ll be able to post whale shark photos tomorrow!

So I was up at 715a.m. (can’t sleep late here), had peanut butter and toast for breakfast, then decided to go and check out the beach. Marcel came along. I’d like to fix my daughter up with Marcel, he is a sweetheart. How many 23 year olds want to hang out with someone old enough to be their mother? So we hung out on the beach a little bit, swam, then walked down the beach to Fatimas, a bar/restaurant on the beach similar to the Money Bar in Cozumel. We sat and watched the waves coming in while the tide went out. The tide drops amazingly here in a very short period of time. Also, the sand here makes weird noises when you walk on it! Almost a squeaky sound…the sand is abundant and very deep. I checked this strange phenomenon out on the internet…it is called singing or whispering sands. They don’t know exactly why it happens, but it has something to do with the level of quartz in the sand. It must have a lot of it!

I love learning about the people in the house. Marcel has been in Australia where he was certified, and he went to an English language school (he is Swiss German). What the Europeans here apparently do is save up their money, then either quit their job or take an extended leave so they can travel. These are Marcel’s last four weeks, then he goes back to Zurich, tapped out, to start saving again. The same is pretty much true of Leslie (Swiss) and Daniela (German). A great idea, don’t you think?! They have had so many adventures all over the world! They are all so interesting!

The market is an interesting place…they sell bags, wooden art, paintings, fabrics, jewelry, produce, and purses with pictures of Obama on them….all kinds of things. They are very persistent, which does not surprise me. After our trip to Zimbabwe where the guys practically crawled into the bus, this is tame. No worries. Tofo is a place with few cars…everyone walks here. I’m putting in miles a day (no clue how many, but enough, believe me!) up and down steps and steep hills….it is a work out to get anywhere, even to the beach. I should be in great shape by the time I get back. The “kids” are out and about much more often than I am, obviously, their young legs and intact spines give them an edge. I am very happy at how well I am doing, though.

Dinner is pasta tonight. Last night we had Mapata….some kind of leaf, green veggie with coconut milk and peanuts. Actually, quite good. The other big local food is peri-peri sauce, which looks like salsa but is the southern Africa way of making chile peppers. It is quite hot, and most everyone loves it. I haven’t tried it yet. One thing I am doing is drinking a lot of water, yes, me, the water hater. I like it now! I am craving it.

Tofo will be very different in five years I think. The Foundation for the Protection of Marine Megafauna is encouraging the government to support tourism instead of fishing the magnificent whale sharks and manta rays, and if they really do that Tofo will boom as a tourist destination. The whale sharks and mantas are here year round, so tourism is a reasonable solution to fishing and killing these animals. Mozambique’s economy would get more from keeping the sharks alive than from killing them for their fins. Representatives from the foundation are coming to the house this afternoon to tell us more about what they do. We have to learn 60 fish in order to do our fish surveys, and we cannot take the test until the organizers get back. I’m ready for the test. I’ve scheduled a dive for Saturday….we are supposed to get 4 dives a week and 2 ocean safaris, and we’ll have 1 this week, so I’m diving over the weekend. Can’t wait to get out on the ocean and in the water!

Exploring Tofo

July 9, 2013 By Tam Warner Leave a Comment

May 9

The volunteer organizers have been out of town since I’ve been here, stuck at the border into Mozambique. The other divers and I have had quite a bit of free time. Most of the group are just learning to dive, and spent the day in a classroom doing dive tables. I have been learning my fish….the fish surveys involve butterflyfish, rock cods (groupers), parrots and surgeonfish. So I learn 60 fishes for doing the surveys. I think I’ve just about got them, though.

After I looked at the fish, I decided to go over to Casa Barry, the lodge where the Foundation for the Protection of Marine Megafauna is located. I was so interested to come to Tofo because of Dr Andrea Marshall and Dr Simon Pierce, manta and whale shark researchers I saw on National Geographic (or Discovery, cannot remember). Andrea Marshall came to Tofo to do her dissertation, and has now been here for 10 years. I met her this evening at a whale shark talk given at Casa Barry. I certainly hope to attend talks that she gives on the manta rays while I am here.

So, I decided to walk to Casa Barry ( you walk everywhere here ) and my new young friends lunch at Casa Barry >Leslie, Marcel and Ben asked to come along. It was very sweet of them to come with me, so we had a nice lunch (the food was delicious) and then took a nice long walk on the beach. The tide was out and there were all kinds of things to look out. Sponges, tidal pools, groups of mussels that looked like rocks they were so thick, and huge dunes. Local people are out collecting mussels and whatever else they can find, they are also fishing off the beach. The people are so very poor here. The currency is the metical, and 1.00 buys 25 meticals. Children are selling bracelets and jewelry in the market for 20 meticals. The bank in Inhambane gave me huge bills, like 1,000.00 meticals, and no one has change for them. Tomorrow I plan to visit the market.

I’m very happy that in spite of my age the “kids” seem to accept me. I was very surprised when 3 of them came along with me to Casa Barry. I have so much admiration for them…I have found out that some of them are older than I thought, but here they are, taking time from their lives to do volunteer work, to travel the world, meet new people. Some of the older people (in 30s) have either quit their jobs for 3 months or so to do this, or taken leave, they have saved up in order to do this. It is a great group of people, always interesting, so many different experiences all over the globe. Many speak several languages, all are open minded and excited to try new things. Me likee.

We attended a whale shark talk this evening and now everyone is hanging out. Suzanne, from London, is the only volunteer here that is not on the whale shark project, she is here to work with children. She spent the day at an orphanage in Inhambane (she is supposed to teach in a school) and it sounded rather harrowing. She said the babies are very hard to take…I can only imagine. If my friend Lyn was here she’d be over there adopting some. The children in the markets are heart wrenching enough.

Tomorrow I will explore further.

Travel Adventures!

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