Underwater adventures

We've been at the camp a few weeks now and most days so far have involved training for surveys of the marine conservation areas which are monitored by ReefDoctor. This has included both dive training and science training. Leila has just completed her PADI Advanced Open Water course in which she specialised in underwater photography and fish identification and many of the photos are credited to her. Ali has completed the PADI Rescue Diver course which, after practicing in-water rescue techniques as well as first aid and CPR, culminated in several surprise rescue scenarios acted out by staff and volunteers including being woken up to rescue a lost diver at 4.30am!  Leila is soon starting the Rescue course and Ali has begun the Dive Master training and is assisting with training new volunteers.The science training has been learning to identify around the many species of fish, invertebrates and corals as well as underwater surveying techniques. It's going to take some practice before we can reliably survey but we are keen to start helping collect useful data.

We have also assisted the fisheries team on the beach with counting, weighing and identifying the catches brought in by the fishermen of the local villages. They monitor what's being caught and by which method of fishing. The fishermen let the team weigh their catch in exchange for coffee and cigarettes. Some boats come back with nothing, others for example have caught ten octopus with handmade harpoons, whilst others have large catches of big emperor and rabbit fish. Sadly beach and boat saining is becoming increasingly common. This involves using huge nets with small holes (like giant mosquito nets as big as 50m wide sometimes) that are dragged along the sea bed collecting everything that is there. This results in hundreds and hundreds of small and baby fish being caught each time and also destroys the seabed. This method of fishing is illegal in Madagascar but due to more and more people relying on depleting fish stocks, an increasing number of fishermen are now doing it in order to feed their families.