Manta from Heaven!

So what has been happening over the last few days?? Sunday was truly a day of rest! One of the volunteers, Nat, headed off home so we went to see her off at the airport. Other than that, I didn’t do very much except read my book and catch up on some sleep!

Yesterday (Monday) morning, Emily and I had a lecture from Adriana on the 60 fish we have to learn to identify. They are types of butterfly fish, parrotfish, surgeonfish and groupers. I have learned about ¾ of them so far and it’s really cool recognizing them now on the reefs!! We then went out for an Ocean Safari, as they call the Whale Shark spotting trips. These last for 2 hours and soon after we left Tofo, we saw humpback dolphins. These are usually very shy creatures but they stuck by near the boat for a while so we snorkeled with them (though I failed to see them in the water as I was phaffing about with my mask and snorkel for too long!!). We then came across a whale shark and got into the water quickly to see it! Us volunteers were looking for any specific marks or scars on the shark. We also take pictures and in particular, the area behind the pectoral fin where the pattern of dots is used to identify individual whale sharks. Sam was using my camera to take the pictures today. We spotted another whale shark soon after and Adriana was also showing me how we log the data onto the data sheets.

I was due to go out for a research dive this afternoon but felt a bit migrainey so I went to bed for a couple of hours and felt much better after that! We went for another lecture on Monday evening about Manta Rays and Adriana cooked us dinner.

This morning, I went on a research dive with Adriana and Sam and we were taking photos of the reef with the quadrant (1m x 1m square). We were diving a site called Manta Reef and, sure enough, we saw a Manta, my first one ever – and what a magnificent creature it was!!! We stopped taking pictures of the reef and watched and took pictures of the Manta instead! As well as the Manta, we also saw a huge loggerhead turtle hiding in a hole under the reef – he was at least 1.5m long! I had no problems with my dive today so I was very, very happy :-)

After the dive, we went on another Ocean Safari and saw 2 whale sharks again! However, Jess and I got really badly stung by jellyfish – the tentacles wrapped around my arms and around Jess’s arms and legs and it was really painful! I am now covered in many lumps and bumps from both jellyfish stings and mosquito bites :-(

It’s my turn to cook dinner tonight so chicken curry is on the menu!