What a day! I went diving this morning and went to a site called Office….very beautiful. I saw my first White Tip Reef Shark! It didn’t come close enough for a great photo, but any photo is good, right? I am totally comfortable in the water here now…just had a bit of a learning curve. Now my weights are correct, I have the hang of the negative entry, but I still cannot jump into the boat by myself from the water. I doubt I will be able to. The dive was really, really nice, and when we came back in I had an ocean safari straight away. No whale sharks, but a huge, glorious, beautiful Giant Manta Ray! I took video and photos….I swam above it for quite a long time, it was feeding and flying ... read more

Still having issues with the diving here. I feel like a complete idiot. It is not very buoyant here….and I am overweighted, so I slammed into a few things….nota good thing to do on a reef. Shit! I have felt bad about it today…I have not adjusted to the diving in Tofo…it is true that the conditions are not easy, though the sea was very friendly today. Sometimes I feel like I have bitten off more than I can chew (so to speak), but I am managing. I cannot heave myself into the zodiac from the water, and I hate that. I can feel the weakness of my left leg pretty keenly at times, it just won’t do what I tell it to do. Tofo is a young town. The 20s and 30s crowd ... read more

Marcel, Ben, Pieter and I went on our first ocean safari today…sadly, no whale sharks. But I did see my first ever Hammerhead shark and Black Fin Reef shark. We also encountered two pods of dolphins, both bottlenose and humpback dolphins. I was not in good position to take photos of anything. The water is full of plankton, so in order to get a good photo you’d need to be within 6 feet, I think. It was my first time in a zodiac (a sort of rubber boat), well not the very first time, the first one was when we went to look at elephant seals in Great White Shark infested waters, so obviously the goal was to stay IN the boat. Getting in and out of a zodiac has its challenges. Also there are no ... read more

The volunteer organizers have been out of town since I’ve been here, so the other divers and I have had quite a bit of free time. Most of the group are just learning to dive, and spent the day in a classroom doing dive tables. I have been learning my fish….the fish surveys involve butterflyfish, rock cods (groupers), parrots and surgeonfish. So I learn 60 fishes for doing the surveys. I think I’ve just about got them, though. After I looked at the fish, I decided to go over to Casa Barry, the lodge where the Foundation for the Protection of Marine Megafauna is located. I was so interested to come to Tofo because of Dr Andrea Marshall and Dr Simon Pierce, manta and whale shark researchers I saw on National Geographic. Andrea Marshall came to ... read more

I am exhausted! Traveling for two days is tiring, even when you've travelled in the utmost comfort. I arrived at the Da Vinci Hotel in Nelson Mandela Square at 7 a.m. and thankfully they had a room ready for me, even at that hour. I was asleep by 8a, and didn't wake until 330p. I have no clue what that means as far as my body's clock is concerned, the only thing I know is that my body is tired! Not only from the travel, but from losing items on every plane and every security stop along the way. I swear, being ADHD can be very inconvienent. I have a "stick" with me, it looks like a walking stick but it is actually a mount for my new camera. I lost it no fewer than 3 ... read more