More pics from my Black Manta trip

Yellow-headed moray

Morays constantly open and close their mouths, a behavior often perceived as a threat, but in reality the action simply moves water through their gills for respiration. By nature morays are not aggressive, although they can inflict a nasty bite if molested. During the day, most species are reclusive and tend to hide in dark holes. Normally they are sighted with only their heads extending from holes. (Source: Reef Fish Identification--Tropical Pacific)

Hawksbill turtle

People always like the turtles, so I didn't want to disapoint anybody ;-) This is a hawksbill turtle, munching on some coral and sponges. It stayed put for a long time, just munching away while I was staring at it and getting closer and closer to it. It never swam off: i eventually had to turn around and find my dive group, that had moved on.

Some kind of decorated flabellina, a kind of nudibranch (also known as sea slugs). I love taking pics of nudis: they don't move around too much while I'm trying to photograph them, they are always colorful, there's a huge variety and these guys are small, so they are hard to find, so it's quite rewarding when you can spot one. OK, I know, you're thinking it's just a slug... To each their own!!!

Black Manta trip, October

Divers hanging on to the line during their safety stop.

Hermit crab. The shells used by this species are nearly always coverd with small anemones. This relationship provides comouflage and protection for the crab, and gives the anemones the opportunity to feed in many different locations as the crab moves. When disturbed, the anemones expel long stinging threads called acontia. The crab benefits from these acontia and uses the anemone as protection against predators. (source: Crustacea-Guide Of The World, by Debelius)

Common marble shrimp (photo taken during a night dive)

I spent 5 days on a live-aboard (diving boat with bedrooms and all), scuba diving on some of the most famous wrecks around Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia. Most of these wrecks were very deep dives, therefore didn't last very long---the deeper you go, the shorter your dive (this has to do with the amount of nitrogen in your body and how your body reacts to it). I now realize that I prefer longer, shallower dives. These dives give me more time and light for photography. It's also safer. On the deep wreck, you also have less life and coral. Still managed to get a few decent pictures, all of them on shallow, relaxing dives.

This was finally the first trip where I would have the opportunity to test my new dive computer (looks like a watch). On my second day of diving, while decending on a deep wreck, the computer fell off my wriste and fell to the bottom, 46 meters below. The whole dive, i had tears in my eyes: it would be impossible to go search for the computer: the bottom was at 46 meters and the maximum allowable depth for recreational divers is of 40 meters. It was gone forever! When I came back on the boat, everybody offered their sympathies for my loss.... And then, Vicent, the owner of the boat, offered to go back down on TriMix to search for it. TriMix is a mix of 3 gases. You must be a technical diver to use these and it allows for deeper dives. This is what commercial divers use. Well guess what? The guy found my 800$+ computer! It took him 15 minutes to find it, but because it was so deep, he had to decompress for well over an hour before being able to surface. I am so grateful! Thank you, Vincent!

Primate talk!

At school, the 7th grade students have a primate unit, covered in science class. The 3 science teachers invited me to talk to our 300 7th graders about Madagascar's primates. I was soooo nervous! I prepared my first powerpoint presentation ever (and if you know me, you know I'm not so IT inclined...). It was huge!

Anyways, did my little thing in the Drama Theatre and it went pretty well! I think the students and teachers enjoyed it. We'll see if I get to do it again next year.

Skipping to the end!

OK, I've procrastinated forever and now, I don't really feel like blogging about Madagascar anymore. I feel like I need to get to more recent events, but before I do that, I absolutely cannot skip the Sainte-Marie part of my summer trip!

I spent about 10 days in Sainte-Marie, a small island on the East coast of the country. I started and ended with some scuba-diving. The weather was wet and not so warm, but people flock to Sainte-Marie at this time of the year to see the humpback whales that come to give birth and reproduce before going back to the cold waters of Antartica. It is illegal to scuba dive with these 30 ton mammals, but while diving we could definitely hear the males trying to seduce the females with their songs. Even on our way out to the dive site, we could often see them swimming around.
l
Then I spent 5 days at the Princesse Bora lodge, going to see these gentle giants up close and personal with a foundation called Megaptera. I learned so much during my time with these people that spend the season collecting data to help the humpbacks. It was a very wet experience and plenty of sea sickness to go around, but I would do it all again in a heartbeat!

You can check out http://www.princessebora.com/en/observation.php?m=7&s=1 for more information about Princesse Bora's eco-tourism project.

To find out more about humpback whales, look at http://marinebio.org/species.asp?id=39

There were plenty of other fascinating things I did and saw in Madagascar. I guess if you want to know more about it, you'll have to sit down with me! ;-)