By far the toughest day so far! This morning we got up at 6.30, dragged our complete field lab equipment to the dive centre, loaded all of it on a boat and we were dropped off on Mbudya, a nearby island located in a marine protected area, one of the few in this country. We wandered for two hours on the rocky tidal reef flat around low water, and collected a hell of a lot of seaweeds under the burning sun (although this time we did it in a fully closed wetsuit – one learns quickly). We sorted it all out for preservation under an idyllic beach shelter for 1,5h, noting all our observations. The dive centre boat came to pick us back up at noon. By then we’d lost a few litres by sweating, we had no time for lunch, but when you’re on a speedboat gliding over smooth azure water, halt somewhere in the blue, put on your diving equipment, plunge into the water and make a free fall to 30m, you couldn’t think of a cooler job anywhere in the world. We “landed” on a huge reef, table corals as far as you could look, and it appeared unreal. We swam past the reef, and entered a beautiful “garden” of seaweeds of all kinds, in every shape and colour. It hadn’t been the first time for the dive instructor to take biologists out in the reserve on request, and he knew exactly what we were looking for…
Afterwards, we sorted everything out in open air under shelter at the dive centre. We’d finished by 5pm, but we felt tired to death. Mostly the pain from our sunburns from yesterday was unbearable, especially when we had to take or diving gear on or off and had to carry it all – it seemed like being tortured jointly by the CIA and KGB. I have honestly never in my life been so badly burned on my back, arms and legs… and all that because of twenty minutes exposure to a cloud-shrouded sun on our first diving day. I had little or no sleep last night, being waked up by the pain every time I’d fallen asleep and tried to turn over, with no relief from the litres and litres of aftersun lotion I’d applied. Being a marine biologist on field trip is by far the coolest job on earth, but also the single most painful (it reminded me of the time I’d got bitten by a Moray eel in Oman, only now I had the same pain all over my body instead of my hand).
Tomorrow we pack everything here and leave for Mtwara, first to Ruvula “Sea Safari Lodge”. I don’t know if there will be mobile coverage, so don’t panic if I’m not able to post on the blog!
Take care!
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