From Oliver Houston

Last week the entire group of staff and volunteers from Blue Ventures were invited to attend a fomba in the nearby village of Ambalarao. A fomba is where people who contain the spirits of ancestors release those spirits, and it must be carried out every year to keep the ancestors at rest (or [...]

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My third week in Andavadoaka (as seen by Kelsey Johnston)
This week started pretty typically: 6am boat marshalling on Monday followed by two awesome dives (yay!), English teaching on Tuesday evening, a film on Wednesday night and a good dose of lectures and presentations throughout.
On Thursday, I was boat marshalling again but this time I had [...]

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From BV volunteer Roger Vaughan, a retired teacher from California.
Over the past few days I have had the opportunity to travel afield with BV staff members Lalao and Thomas, and volunteers Ben (U. Sheffield grad student), Ali (U. Montreal recent grad) and Ollie (just past A level in England). We left on a motorized pirogue early [...]

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I’m coming to the end of my first week here in Andavadoaka, and I’m already regretting the fact that I’ve signed up for just six weeks instead of three months. There’s so much to see and do here – not to mention a phenomenal amount to learn. That said, I couldn’t be happier with the [...]

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From Justin, Expedition Manager

Dive number: 39
Location: Valleys
Time: 0500
First night dive! Yay!
Depth: 16 metres
Time: 48 minutes
Temperature: 21 degrees – cold!
I was very excited to be doing my first ever night dive. All the other (9) Advanced Open Water qualified volunteers and Louis, Al and myself were the divers. Al gave a dive briefing, short and sweet, [...]

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