Dala-dalas, diving, and strolling on Africa

Sunday was exciting. After boarding a dala-dala in the town center, picking up some poles and bags of stuff on the outskirts of town, I was off to Jambiani with about 25 other people, all locals. We passed Jazani (see previous post), and eventually arrived to see the Indian Ocean; I'd only seen the Zanzibar channel until then.

The Indian Ocean!! The ocean I have only seen in maps, in front of me. I could touch it.  Amazing.

The sand was so white, the sky was so clear, and the water was so cold (I'm worried, San Diego is going to be even colder). I walked for a bit, fended off the offers of sunglasses and African Massages, and found a cheap bar on the sand. Halfway through my first beer, I challenged the bartender to pool. It was a small table, but after adjusting, we split 2-2. Another short walk led to lunch and some reading. The 2pm dala-dala eventually took me home, with more goods and cramped spaces on the journey.

Tuesday, I had the first two tanks of my Advanced Open Water dive training. In 15 meter visibility, myself and another girl navigated around some coral, and then genuinely explored. For lunch, we were served fresh fruit and a dish of fried goods, mostly delicious. There was a potato thing that was kind of bland. After explaining some diving-from-boats safety techniques I read from the manual the night before, I was able to take my camera to 10 meters. Not as good visibility, but still incredible. Most of these pics are taken during that dive.

After a restful night, we were at it the next morning with our first transect across the channel. These transects are used to validate the ROMS model created through this project, with the first portion focusing on ADCP current velocity collection. After making landfall near a river mouth in Africa, we explored the beach a ways north. The river created a beautiful right-hand sand bar, though only ankle slappers at the time. It would be an amazing wave with a good south swell. We turned around at an enormous tree, and spotted some threatening looking snails on our way back to the boat (we assumed the worst).

Africa

The trip back saw CTD casts to further validate the model, and water sampling for the biology project. These open channel samples will provide background values to compare our sewage outflow to. Today we filtered all day, as well as prepared to go back out tomorrow. We will recover the instrument we put out during our last Chumbe Visit, with hopes that we recieve some useful data about the motion of tides over the variable topography there.

Somethings Interesting
-At the last stop on our way out of town, an (appx) 6 year old boy boarded the dala-dala and threw his live chicken under my seat. An hour later, he got off, taking the entire journey alone.

-I have decided I am going to complete my Dive Master training. Coupled with Scripps' Scientific Diver, I legitimately think it would benefit my career, but really, I'm just super amped on diving right now.

-The river mouth we landed at was part of Saadoni National Park, one of the locations to see the large land mammals of Africa. While we saw nothing of note, it was interesting to find out the park is half the size of Zanzibar.

-I wish that instead of a thick neck beard, I was able to grow some volume in my cheeks.