February 17, 2012
I apologize for my lack of uploading this blog. Life here has been quite intense lately, and I have come to the realization that I am leaving in a little more than two weeks. I cannot believe the end is near.
Where to start?
Diving has been quite good. The sea was rough for a couple of weeks but it finally came down and it is now dead flat, which allows us to go to further away sites. Hard-work finally paid off as me and another divemaster got to go to a site called Shark Bank, which we have all been dreaming of since we started working at the shop. The visibility was incredible - 30meters vis! It is such a great feeling to sink down into the blue and being able to see the bottom and the divers that are already 20m below. We saw a couple of sharks, rays, a school of hundreds of barracudas, thousands and thousands of grunts - i had never seen such a high concentration of fish in my life before - a couple of lobsters, moray eels and a humphead parrotfish (see below)
I celebrated my 23rd birthday with all my GVI and local friends, and it was quite a fun night. Some members of the GVI staff were there as well, and it was refreshing to see their faces. On my birthday, my mom also arrives to Seychelles, so I spent the next 10 days juggling between being with her and working. I had the possibility to take 5 days off work, so we traveled around the other islands such as Praslin, La Digue, Curieuse and Bird Island. We also all finally received our residency card, and I can now say I am a Seychelles resident until December 2012. Which means I paid basically nothing for all the ferry rides and the hotel stays in all the different islands. Weehee!
I had already been to Praslin, Curieuse and La Digue with friends, but it was good to be back. Both islands are much more relaxed than Mahe. I absolutely love Curieuse Island, where I also had the chance to meet with some friends who work at the GVI base over there.
Bird Island was incredible. The island is a 30 minute plane ride north of Mahe. The airstrip is basically grass. We took the smallest plane ever, which only had 5 seats, including one next to the pilot. The weather there was beautiful, and I even had the chance to witness 321 hawkbill turtle hatchlings being born. Robby, the nature guide on the island, monitors carefully every nest and make sure the turtles are safe to make it to the sea. Both nests I saw were located on the other side of the island, where the water was too shallow and the hatchlings would not have survived the predators. Thus, Robby moved the tiny guys to the deepest part of the island and made sure they made it safely to the sea. It was incredible to witness!
Bird Island is very peaceful - there is no phone reception, no TV, no Internet. During the bird mating season, which is mostly in March and April, there are over 6 millions of birds on the island. And like you see in the photos, the island is not that big! I would have loved to stay another night, but I had to go back to work! I was glad I had the opportunity to go there though!
I made a lot of local friends over the last couple of weeks, and I hang out with them basically every day after work. My Creole has improved a lot and it's just good to be talking about something else than diving. For Valentine's Day we all sat on the beach, watched the sunset with a couple of beers and eventually set a bonfire. As sad as it may sound, I have to admit it was probably the best Valentine's Day I've had so far. We laughed a lot and the atmosphere was good.
I have also been playing a lot of dominoes with these guys, which is the national sport here. I have won a couple of games ah but I still need to play faster. Playing with the locals can be quite stressful, but they are all nice enough to take some time to tell me what's good and what not.
Not much more, like I already said, only 2 weeks left. I fly out of Seychelles on the 5th of March, stay home for a couple of days and fly again to Kenya for another two months traveling around Africa - it will be Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Tanzania, Mozambique, Malawi and I will stop in Zimbabwe. So it looks like I'll still be on the road for another couple of months! But now is just the time to make the most out of the next two weeks !
I apologize for my lack of uploading this blog. Life here has been quite intense lately, and I have come to the realization that I am leaving in a little more than two weeks. I cannot believe the end is near.
Where to start?
Diving has been quite good. The sea was rough for a couple of weeks but it finally came down and it is now dead flat, which allows us to go to further away sites. Hard-work finally paid off as me and another divemaster got to go to a site called Shark Bank, which we have all been dreaming of since we started working at the shop. The visibility was incredible - 30meters vis! It is such a great feeling to sink down into the blue and being able to see the bottom and the divers that are already 20m below. We saw a couple of sharks, rays, a school of hundreds of barracudas, thousands and thousands of grunts - i had never seen such a high concentration of fish in my life before - a couple of lobsters, moray eels and a humphead parrotfish (see below)
I celebrated my 23rd birthday with all my GVI and local friends, and it was quite a fun night. Some members of the GVI staff were there as well, and it was refreshing to see their faces. On my birthday, my mom also arrives to Seychelles, so I spent the next 10 days juggling between being with her and working. I had the possibility to take 5 days off work, so we traveled around the other islands such as Praslin, La Digue, Curieuse and Bird Island. We also all finally received our residency card, and I can now say I am a Seychelles resident until December 2012. Which means I paid basically nothing for all the ferry rides and the hotel stays in all the different islands. Weehee!
I had already been to Praslin, Curieuse and La Digue with friends, but it was good to be back. Both islands are much more relaxed than Mahe. I absolutely love Curieuse Island, where I also had the chance to meet with some friends who work at the GVI base over there.
Bird Island was incredible. The island is a 30 minute plane ride north of Mahe. The airstrip is basically grass. We took the smallest plane ever, which only had 5 seats, including one next to the pilot. The weather there was beautiful, and I even had the chance to witness 321 hawkbill turtle hatchlings being born. Robby, the nature guide on the island, monitors carefully every nest and make sure the turtles are safe to make it to the sea. Both nests I saw were located on the other side of the island, where the water was too shallow and the hatchlings would not have survived the predators. Thus, Robby moved the tiny guys to the deepest part of the island and made sure they made it safely to the sea. It was incredible to witness!
Bird Island is very peaceful - there is no phone reception, no TV, no Internet. During the bird mating season, which is mostly in March and April, there are over 6 millions of birds on the island. And like you see in the photos, the island is not that big! I would have loved to stay another night, but I had to go back to work! I was glad I had the opportunity to go there though!
I made a lot of local friends over the last couple of weeks, and I hang out with them basically every day after work. My Creole has improved a lot and it's just good to be talking about something else than diving. For Valentine's Day we all sat on the beach, watched the sunset with a couple of beers and eventually set a bonfire. As sad as it may sound, I have to admit it was probably the best Valentine's Day I've had so far. We laughed a lot and the atmosphere was good.
I have also been playing a lot of dominoes with these guys, which is the national sport here. I have won a couple of games ah but I still need to play faster. Playing with the locals can be quite stressful, but they are all nice enough to take some time to tell me what's good and what not.
Not much more, like I already said, only 2 weeks left. I fly out of Seychelles on the 5th of March, stay home for a couple of days and fly again to Kenya for another two months traveling around Africa - it will be Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Tanzania, Mozambique, Malawi and I will stop in Zimbabwe. So it looks like I'll still be on the road for another couple of months! But now is just the time to make the most out of the next two weeks !
Africa! You are the most international, cosmopolitan, worldly person I know! And I miss you! There's still plenty of stuff in the U.S. for you to see, come back to me!
ReplyDelete~Ellen
Ditto Ellen's sentiment. I'm afraid I just got "onblog" with you, finally. Sorry I missed so much. But looking forward to tales of Africa. Have a good SAFE trip!
ReplyDeleteEllen's mom
BABY TURTLES!!!! AAAAH I'M FREAKING OUT!
ReplyDelete