Exciting fun!

Big first in Southern Africa!

This week we received the first Flyboard in Mozambique.

After some delays due to bureaucratic hassles, Tor finally arrived in Bilene yesterday. We were both so impatient to try the board that we skipped breakfast. A cup of coffee and one of Earl Grey later, we were both on the beach, battling with pipes and fittings. Everything was delivered in kit form, and we had to figure out how to connect the assembly to the jet ski.
Although this is typical rocket propulsion material, the assembly itself is not actual rocket science  ;-) so we finally got in the water, and I was the first guinea pig. Getting the boots on was a struggle. They are supposed to adjust to all feet sizes but being new it was a tight fit.
Lying with feet strapped on the board, and hands clenghed on the controls, with no possibility of swimming, I was a bit anxious at first. When Tor put a bit of power on the engine, I struggled to figure out how to contort myself to get the jet in the right direction so I would head out to deeper waters, pulling the jet ski behind me.
The short time it took to get there gave me an opportunity to get familiar with the board, the feeling of the jet under my feet and the action of my arms.
Those that have visited Bilene know how far the shallow beach extends, at last we got to the channel in the center of the lagoon, and Tor started applying power. The first couple of attempt ended hilariously with me slipping sideways, falling ungracefully in the water, but then I found my balance, and was soon in the air.
The feeling is indescribable.
There was still much more laughter in store, as there are many ways to fall, some quite spectacular. I was winded a few times, falling from quite a height, but it's only water.
The other thrill in store was the dive, and flying under water felt actually easier than in the air. First of all, there is none of the fear of falling, and the drag on the body means it's possible to control the trajectory by just bending one way or the other. And emerging out of the water to leap forward, catch a breath and dive down again, like a dolphin, is the main reason why I want to get proficient with the Flyboard.
After one day, I'm far from being as graceful as these beautiful animals, but I have high hopes that all it requires is just a little more practice...

Speak to you soon, don't hold your breath!

--- Added a few days later ---

Well, it seems getting on the board is not that hard really. Most people that have tried manage to get flying within a fairly short time. Of course, we were put to shame by youngsters that grew up with roller-boards, wake boards and I'm sure surfers would easily top our meager performance, but that  does in no way diminish the thrill I feel when I'm flying a few meters above the water...

More photos here...

--- Added even later ---

I finally managed to upload the video during a visit to South Africa (thumbs down to TDM, providers of expensive crappy connections to the Internet in Mozambique) and the whole world can now watch it:

Fame at last!

Well, not really Fame as in reporters and paparazzi crowding every street in Bilene to get interviews with us, but a South African magazine recently featured Dive Bilene in one of their article. It's a fairly recent magazine, and of course I bought the current issue that has the article about Bilene in it: http://doitnow.co.za/content/diving-bilene-lesser-known-mozambican-diving-destination
I really like that mag, first of all because it features a lot of the sports and activities I do or have done in the past, and second because there seems to be a wide variety of writers and great photographs.

So do yourself a favor and get it if you don't already have it.

For those, like me, who are not in South Africa, there's a digital edition you can download.

Lagoon dives

Diving has been very good lately. When we go outside the bay, we almost always see whales, and hear their song from the moment our ears are underwater and we've calmed enough to actually listen.
I don't know if there are more species, but I have positively identified Southern Right and Humpback whales last week, and quite a few are accompanied by calves.

For divers that have not been in the water for a long while and need to get back underwater gradually, and for divers that are enthusiastic about our artificial reef program, we organize lagoon dives.

I really like lagoon dives. First of all, there is the feeling of "being home". You might live in a nice area, be able to hike in a beautiful forest, but taking a short walk in your backyard does not take away from that beauty. Simply, what's in your backyard is different, and intimately known to you. You probably planted what's there to begin with, and looking at the birds visiting your bird-feeder from the comfort of your armchair is a different activity than going for a hike in the forest.

There are three spots in the lagoon where we go regularly, Legoland, The Graveyard and the Mouth.

We mostly go to the last one, the Mouth, for snorkeling sessions.
On the way, we often spot a flock of Flamingos.

The area covers the base of the rocky cliff, actually not "real" rocks, but ancient coral deposits, a length of about hundred by twenty meters, with barely more than three meters depth.
As you can see, it's well within the reach of beginner snorkelers.

The area is teeming with life. I have spotted Lion Fishes as small as a centimeter in length, among more mature ones of close to twenty centimeters.

There are also numerous eels, juvenile and mature.

Of course, it's not all about fish, there are also many crustaceans (Cleaner Shrimps, Hermit crabs), gastropods (Cowrie Shells, Nudibranch, Sea-Cucumber, Shaggy Sea-Hare) and of course all the flora.

A short distance away, we can observe Sea-horses, 

Pipefish and Razor Fish

Closer to the Water Sport Center, we have Legoland. So called because it consists of elements built with concrete blocs, used like one would use Lego blocks to build a playground.

The lagoon bottom is mostly flat sand, so any asperity will offer a refuge to fish and other creature from the fishermen, whose nets don't discriminate between edible and non-edible species, small or big individuals.

In my mind, the presence of so much fish life in the immediate proximity shows the artificial reef is beneficial to the fish population.

It's not uncommon to have a school of Kingfish circle around us on the way down.

At the bottom, we see quite a few resident Orangespotted Rockcod

Butterflyfish, Snappers, Parrotfish and many others I still haven't been able to identify.

The Graveyard is a different experience. Although the initial motivation in the construction of the reef was to provide a solid surface to which sea creatures would attach, the opportunity for having fun was too strong to resist. The shape of the concrete slabs evolved to resemble tombstones, and that's how the name of the reef was found. For a modest fee (about R100), you can inscribe your own tombstone (mother-in-law's names are popular, and so are the names of competing companies) and sink it yourself.

The rockcods like to hang at the foot of the tombstone.

The reef currently covers an area of over forty meters diameter, with dozens and dozens of tombstones. We also added a few "fish-houses" built with concrete blocks of the same model as Legoland. I have observed clouds of larvae in these fish-houses develop to juvenile fish.

This reef is a favorite destination for night dives, adding to the spookiness of the experience...

So when the tide table doesn't allow us to go out of the mouth, diving inside the lagoon can be an enriching experience.

Stay tuned for more diving news, don't hold your breath,

Daniel     ;-)

Looking for Marine Scientists...

After many discussions with local people and visitors, I've come to the conclusion that the best course of action to improve the survival chances of the seahorses in the area is to get the specie we have here (Hippocampus Camelopardalis) on the CITES list of endangered species.
The way to do that is to have a study published by scientists that shows the decrease in population.
So I'm appealing all that read this blog and their friends, who would like to come to Bilene to study the seahorse population?

This is a job that would be most appealing to someone doing honors, a masters or a phD thesis. Speak around you, let's make things happen...

Swimming and diving with Whales!

It's been a long time since I posted an update. There are two reasons for my scarce writing. The first is that TDM (Telecomunicações de Moçambique) cannot deliver a decent Internet service. At least to me. Maybe they don't like French people. Or maybe they're picking on me for no reason. They claim to be the leaders in telecommunications, and to satisfy clients. It must be me.
The second reason is that I've been hectically busy organizing everything for the groups visiting us, exploring new venues, trying new adventures...
Life is tough in Afrika!

One of the new adventures is Whales Expeditions. We depart from the beach, launch through the mouth as usual, but instead of going to a specific spot, we cruise in the 20-30m depth range while looking for whales. When we spot them, we go in their general direction until we're about 500m away from them. Then we drop a line in the deep blue, dive to 10-15m and wait.

At first, there isn't much to see, just the blue emptiness around. After a while though, you start paying attention to a lot of small stuff drifting past. Nature dislikes the void. The sea is actually full of plancton, larvae and other creatures, some over twenty centimeters long.

Sure enough, after a while, big stuff comes to check out what's going on. Only once have we seen nothing much. Every other time, we've had big sharks (Bronze Whalers, Bronzies) or whales (Southern Right and Humpback) come to check us out.

This is not for the beginner diver. Hanging at the end of the line, sometimes not seeing the surface or the bottom, and nothing on either side, makes for eerie feelings. The wait can be a little unnerving. From time to time, there are jellyfish-like creatures floating past, their iridescent colours flickering along their body. However, the thrill when big fish or whales come out of the gloom to check us is just indescribable.

Then, as we were climbing back on the boat, our non-divers colleagues told us there were up to six whales on the surface at one time. We didn't actually make it back on the boat: a whale with a calf swam past and enticed us back to swim on the surface with them.

What an experience!

Stay tuned for more diving news, don't hold your breath,

Daniel     ;-)

What to do about the disappearing Seahorses?

One of the elements that drew me to Bilene (Mozambique) is the sight of Seahorses.

More of my photos of Seahorses here

Just over three weeks ago, we had a wonderful time looking at dozens and dozens of Seahorses. The next day, I really struggled to find one. I was hoping that the late time of day made it difficult to see them on that afternoon,  but a long swim on Sunday morning confirmed my fears: most of the Seahorses have been fished out. This was further confirmed by some people from our group talking to local fishermen, who were holding handfuls of the dead creatures. This sad occurrence has been on my mind since then, and I'm reaching out to start a discussion and request ideas for a solution.

Wikipedia asserts that over 20 million Seahorses are used every year for medicinal purposes.

While it would be easy to demonize the Chinese people for eating animals we find cute, and dismiss the local fishermen as stupid for trying to earn a living, I believe the roots of the problem lie deeper.

I came across a similar problem in South Africa almost thirty years ago. Perlemoen , the local name of Abalone, was being poached in increasing numbers, mostly because of an increasing demand on the Far East markets, ease of international communication and transport, and increasing standards of living.
Nowadays, despite drastic legislation and big efforts at policing the situation, the poaching still continues and the number of shells found in the wild have plummeted.

I believe the seahorses we have in the Bilene lagoon are Giraffe seahorse . There is some confusion in the endangered status of this species, as the IUCN Red List shows there is no public data available to make a judgement about it. Meantime, Fish Base says " International trade is monitored through a licensing system (CITES II, since 5.15.04) and a minimum size of 10 cm applies."
Very few of the specimen we came across were as big as that, and since this is Africa, there is very little enforcement of the catch size.


The high population resilience characteristic is supported by "minimum population doubling time less than 15 months", but that is little comfort if more than half the population is fished out every year, and more importantly, before the specimen reach sexual maturity.


Therefore, the question I am asking is how best can we address this problem for the long term ?
Should we just shrug, be happy with the memories and photos and accept the unavoidable disappearance of these cute fish?
Should we keep the information about where the seahorses are a secret, and hope the local fishermen don't come across their habitat by chance?
Should we request that the authorities invest more resources into control and repression?


What are your thoughts on the matter? Please use the comments to discuss this issue, suggest possible solutions, or describe schemes that have worked elsewhere.

Stay tuned for more diving news, don't hold your breath,

Daniel     ;-)

Mantaaaaaa!

Big excitement! Shortly after we started descending, a Manta Ray came to see what all this agitation was about, and circled us for almost ten minutes.

The viz was rather good, so our group was spread over quite an area, and the Manta came over every single diver, more than once. We had all leisure to examine it, and the six Remoras that accompanied it.

This was really a good start of a dive that will remain in everyone's memory.

I didn't have my camera with me, so I'm relying on Gavin's generosity for the pictures in this post. One advantage to that is that for once there's a pic of me (hello Mom!) :

Gavin's mastery of the underwater colours is outstanding. Here is one of his pics, taken around 12m depth, using only natural light (no external lighting):

Stay tuned for more diving news, don't hold your breath,

Daniel     ;-)

We are sailing!

Excitement in Bilene: a sail has made an apparition in the lagoon:

David had told me he'd ordered a sailboat from Europe. In the general everyday turmoil, I had stored that information at the back of my mind (right at the back in fact), and when Anthony came back with it from his shopping trip to SA, my interest was renewed.

On Friday afternoon, the tide was low, we could not go out to sea, I set about assembling the little cat. It's a portable cat, one you can store in the trunk of your car (see the commercial blurb here)

All the while, Rod Stewart was singing...

The assembly was a little puzzling at first, but between the three of us, we quickly figured out what goes where.

Then the moment of truth, will she sail?

Sailing she did! Wow! What a performance!

I must admit to being a little skeptical at first. Come on, an inflatable cat? 

The wind was very light when we put her in the water, Anthony and I climbed aboard, and after fiddling with the jib sheets and the rudder for a little while, we got on our way. The boat itself is very light, and even with our combined weights (Anthony pointed out that he's heavy with knowledge, I'm still looking for an excuse), the sudden acceleration with every puff of wind was impressive.

We decided to do a crossing as a maiden voyage, so set course to sail past our buoy at Legoland, to the other side of the lagoon.

We appreciated the fact that the boat is fast, we didn't even have time to get bored, and once we reached the shallows on the other side, tacked to come back. 

This is my first experience with a small cat, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. The return, in even lighter breeze, was quite fast, I was thrilled with the capabilities of this vessel. We will definitely be getting a few more of these boats, and some of the larger version, this is a two person cat, we also want to get the four passenger ones.
The next day, Ernesto, our local skipper, came for a short sail with me and loved the fact that the boat was going "too much fast", without a need for petrol or oars. Quite a few of us have been pondering on how the locals here use oars to move their boats, and none of them use sails, where it would seem an obvious choice for such a protected, enclosed area.

Stay tuned for more diving news, don't hold your breath,

Daniel     ;-)

Fantastic conditions

This was a busy week-end with notable visits by a group from Maputo, and Trish and Graham stopping on their way through Africa.

The conditions were the best I've had in Bilene in the last month. The wind had shifted around quite a bit over the past few days, flattening the sea. The calm swell made the launch through the mouth very easy, the smoothest rides we've had so far.


As we dropped, a school of Kingfish circled around us. I'm not sure whether they are resident on the reef, or whether there's a different school every time we dive at Shark Alley.

More photos from the dive here

On this dive, I noticed what I think is an anemone, maybe a tube anemone, but if anyone could confirm, I would appreciate it. When approached, it retracts into the leathery foot very quickly.
If you look at the other pictures, there's another photo of a similarly behaving "anemone", of a different colour.

More photos from the dive here

Some sad news: we went out to look at the seahorses, really struggled to find some, and while we were swimming around some of our group on the beach saw local fishermen with handfuls of seahorses they had just caught. My suspicion is thus confirmed: the seahorses in that spot have been fished out...

More about that in a different post...

Stay tuned for more diving news, don't hold your breath,

Daniel     ;-)

A couple of dives...

There are very few of us on the boat today, so we load it with spare cylinders and head out for a double-tank dive.
The wind of the previous night has created a cross swell that is a little unpleasant for the ride, but it's still better than some of the conditions we had a couple of weeks ago.
Our first destination, since we enjoyed the dive there so much two days prior, is Shark Alley. On our previous visit, we explored the Northern side, so this time we drop on the South end of the reef.
The viz is not as good as two days ago, but we don't need that much to see the profusion of fish greeting us under the surface.
The reef on this side is very interesting, with huge boulders creating overhangs and caves where the fish seek refuge.
We even see a honeycomb moray eel completely out of its hole, inside a shallow cave.

There is also a profusion of Twobar Clownfish, small and big (Cobus and Ian remark they've seen a pair of the biggest they've ever seen on this dive)

We surface after 46 minutes, having gone all the way to Pride Rock, with still some air to spare, but wanting to keep a decent amount of bottom dive for our next dive.
After changing cylinders, comparing our impressions about the dive, having a bite to eat (for some of us), and stretching our Surface Interval Time, we slowly travel to Babylon.
As is usual on this reef, a huge amount of fish, big and small, awaits us.  One notable encounter is with a curious Trumpetfish:

and of course the encounter with the Scorpionfish just before the end of the dive:

( More photos of this dive here )

Stay tuned for more diving news, don't hold your breath,

Daniel     ;-)

Clearing water, and disappearing seahorses...

Went for a double tank dive today, at Shark Alley (which is becoming my favorite site) and Pride rock. The visibility has been steadily (although too slowly for my taste) improving, each dive reveals bigger and bigger pictures of the reefs structure.
As in previous dive, there was an amazing quantity of fish, big and small, which made the dive very enjoyable.

(More photos from this dive here )

In the late afternoon, we went to our usual spot in the lagoon to spot the seahorses, and I found it extremely difficult to find one, where we spotted dozens yesterday...

(More Seahorse photos here )

Was it too late in the day, was the tide wrong, did they all go to a party where we weren't invited?

Let's see tomorrow if we see them at a different time.

Stay tuned for more diving news, don't hold your breath,

Daniel     ;-)

Where we are and how to contact us

How to contact us:
Daniel : +258 840 274 637
Japie :  +258 847 288 236

Johannesburg office :   +27 11 791 1095

email: divebilene@gmail.com
Johannesburg office: dac@divetek.co.za

Physical address:
Avenida Marginal
Praia Do Bilene
Gaza
Mozambique

Our GPS coordinates:  25°16'59.87"S  33°15'33.07"E

Want to see us on Google Maps? Follow this link.

Do you use Google Earth? Then follow this link. and download the .kml document to open in Google Earth.

Directions:

From SA, make your was toward Maputo, via your preferred border (Komatipoort is the usual). If you have a slight sense of adventure and it hasn't rained heavily for at least a week, you could take the Moamba Road, which bypasses Maputo, and gets you to Xinavane, about an hour away from us. The Moamba road is usually graded and fairly well maintained. I have successfully driven it in a City Golf, so the shiny Sandton 4x4s shouldn't have a problem on that road   ;-)
If you opt to go through Maputo, follow the signs for Xai-xai, which lead you to the N1 heading North.
From Maputo, you cross several villages (please respect scrupulously the speed limits), one of which is Palmeira (nothing to do with us), then to Macia.
In the village of Macia, you'll find a BP petrol station on the left, opposite a Shoprite shop. This is the last place for quick shopping (the Shoprite doesn't have a very reliable stock of everything), and the road to the right is the one that leads you to Bilene, also indicated as Praia do Bilene.
Thirty three kilometers down the mostly straight road, you'll get to the first traffic circle in the Bilene village. At that first circle, take the first road on your left. You'll drive down to the market, situated on your left, and reach the Avenida Marginal (the beachfront avenue). Turn left, and go to the traffic circle that marks the end of the tarred road. The entrance of Complexo Palmeiras is on your right, get ready for a quick splash in the warm water of the lagoon...