Monthly Archives: October 2008

The Case of the Disappearing Sea Cucumbers

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by John MacMahon

One of the projects that Blue Ventures has got involved with in order to empower the local people, and give a sustainable alternative to traditional fishing is that of sea cucumber farming. Approximately 2 weeks prior to this trip Georgie had brought about 1400 juvenile sea cucumbers from Toliara up to Andavadoaka and then on to Ambolimoke in the north of Velondriake, where 4 purpose built pens have been built to house the cucumbers and allow them to grow. The beauty of the project is that although farmed, the cucumbers require little attention except to ensure there are no natural  predators in the pens and moreover that no one steals them!

So the trip in question was that a status update was required as to how the project was progressing, and the ideal time to do this is at low tide.  With spring tide occurring 2 weeks following their arrival the timing was perfect so Romney, Axelle and a dozen enthusiastic volunteers boarded our pirogues after a days diving for the two day mini expedition. So the thing that probably needs that mentioning at this stage, in case the reader did not realise it – as the writer did not – is that the cucumbers only come out at night; residing in the sand during daylight hours. With low tide at circa 12am (midnight!) this in turn meant surveying at 10pm! i.e. 2 hours after our some of our usual bed times.

To sum up what the monitoring involved, basically 4 of us got into a 12x12m square pen, at about 50cm (max!) depth with a dive torch and floated about trying to spot cucumbers in sea grass with about 30cm visibility! Not as easy as it sounds!!! We hoped to find approximately 300 cucumber in each pen, a total of 1200. Unfortunately though after over 2 hours searching in each pen over the two nights a total of only 500 cucumbers were found. The reasons why this is have yet to be determined, however there were certainly more than a few predators – along with a few unidentified species of sea slug (aliens according to our resident marine scientist Romney), a few cow fish, crocodile fish, eels and many others that gave a few of us more than a mild scare when reaching down into the unknown…

On both nights we stayed on the beach and the day was spent reading, playing cards, or for the more adventurous amongst us an attempted trip to the mangroves that was somewhat thwarted by first, an overloaded sinking pirogue, then by the spring tide, then by zero visibility and finally by a swarm of blood thirsty mosquitoes. In the evenings we had food courtesy of the village president’s wife, which was very much appreciated by one and all, with many of us having octopus for the first time in the form of a gorgeous stew on the second night. A few rums may also have been had around the expertly constructed Russian camp fire post snorkeling and the sun woke one and all early the next morning for our return trip back to base – a very tired but adventure laden bunch.

The Turtle Fomba

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by Charlotte Coombes

Lyubomir, Alan, Sonia, John, Vicky, Kate and I went on a trip to the village of Lamboara. The villagers there have decided to close off a beach so that turtles can nest in peace. Blue Ventures initiated the conservation of turtle nests, as villagers would normally eat the eggs, but it was Lamboara who decided to close off the whole beach. People are certainly changing their way of thinking here. There’s going to be a fomba (ceremony) to celebrate the closing off of the beach.

6.30am: We’re up and packing our bags for a possible overnight stay. We’re going to need plenty of water and snacks, and of course our cameras.

7am: We’re waiting for zebu carts to arrive, but of course we’re on Malagasy Time here, so no one is in a hurry. We’re happy to wait, especially as Axelle has gone into the village to buy bok bok (doughnuts) for us all.

7.30am: The carts arrive and we all pile in. There are no seats, but there are foam mattresses on the floor so it’s pretty comfortable. I reckon it’s a far more pleasant way to travel than by car.

10am: We arrive at a bay, where our tracks seem to go straight into the sea. Lamboara is on the other side, so we wait for the tide to go out. We sit in the sun and eat our snacks. Lyubomir brings out cheese and biscuits for us all, which is a nice surprise.

11.30: The zebu carts take us to a sand bar in the middle of the bay. From here pirogues (small boats that you row in this case) take us to the village, so we arrive in style.

12pm: We arrive at the village. All the villagers see us come, and we’re shown to the President’s house for lunch.

1pm: A lunch of rice and eggs. There would have been fish but the past couple of days have been windy, and this morning the fishermen were waiting for us to arrive. There’s plenty to go around though, and Lyubomir had the forethought to bring chocolate bars for us all to share afterwards. That’s one prepared volunteer!

2pm: Meeting of the village, which we are invited to attend. They are discussing the closure of the beach, and although it’s all in Malagasy it’s quite lively. A lot of children sneak in during the meeting, but to watch the villagers or us I can’t tell.

3pm: Walk to the beach, where they put up a sign and a flag to be sure people will know it’s closed off. It’s accompanied by singing and dancing from the women followed by drinks to the ancestors (the children sip Fanta while the adults drink rum).

5.30pm: We all walk back to the village. The coastline here is really beautiful – all rocky headlands and crashing waves until we round a corner, where it’s suddenly sandy beaches and the sea is totally flat. The sunset is really vivid, it seems a perfect end to a great day.

7pm: Dinner of turkey and rice. It’s really tasty, and of course we have another dessert from Lyubomir, this time dates.

8pm: Bed is straight after dinner. The walking and traveling makes us all very happy to climb into sleeping bags.
6am: We all wake up with the sun, to a see a beautiful sunrise over the fishing pirogues and the bay. We have a breakfast of bok bok and leave by sailing pirogue shortly after. This is a truly fun way to travel home, the boats are really simple and the sailors are climbing all over the place doing I don’t know what. We can get pirogue sailing lessons here, it would be so much fun to try it.

So there is a day in the life of a Blue Ventures volunteer, and I have a feeling there’ll be plenty more new things to try in the weeks to come.

Axelle and the Zenga Foti

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By Axelle, Expedition Manager in Andava

I arrived on the 1st of August to take the role of Expedition Manager. I must say that the last two months were full on, and I struggled to know what to tell my friends and family, let alone in a blog ! –  as I just didn’t know where to start…

But this week I decided that I had to let everyone know about my amazing day with the zenga foti… (pronounced zenga fouti) It all started when Georgi said that 1400 juvenile white sea cucumbers (zenga foti in vezo, which has also become her nickname!) were coming our way, and needed to be transferred to their new homes, the pens we had built south of Andavadoaka and in Ambolimoke (20km north of Andava). The objective is to create an alternative source of income for the families of those villages, as sea cucumbers are in high demand in China.

Anyway, those little squiggy things are quite precious, and we had little time to transfer them from the fishing boat, where they had spent the previous 12 hours, into the pens. Club Alo Alo and our boat Volanirina were set up for the commando mission. Angelo, Lyuba, Goff and myself took 300 sea cucumbers and rushed off to release them into the warm waters of the nearby bay. We released them one by one, taking care of them like newborn babies! Four of them are now named after us, hum, maybe that was too much?!

Back on half moon bay, the other delivery had got stuck because of the low tide. But sea cucumbers need to be oxygenated! All the volunteers took it in turns to replace the seawater by taking a bucket in and a bucket out, for a good couple of hours… Finally, as the tide was coming back in, Madablu, our super fast new boat, roared away to urgently deliver the sea cucumbers to Ambolimoke. Mission accomplished!

And that wasn’t all… The hatchery in Tulear needed adults that would be able to reproduce to ensure the next delivery of juveniles. Zenga foti are normally buried in the sand during daytime, so we had to wait until 10pm before we started to make our way to the pens. It was a beautiful walk, under the shooting stars, hi ho, hi ho, collecting sea cucumbers we go! The tide was very low, and the phosphorescence was shining under our steps… In the pens, we found the sea cucumbers, but we also saw juvenile puffer fishes, trumpet fishes, crabs and a beautiful white moray eel…

At 1am, I was in bed, leaving a dream for another…

A honeymoon with a difference

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by Will and Kate Turner

Life is made of experiences, and this has been one of the best. We decided that an expedition with Blue Ventures would be a unique honeymoon, and give us the opportunity to make a difference too. To everyone who supported our dream, we are having the most fantastic and memorable start to married life!

Waking up to the sound of the ocean everyday, clear blue skies and warm Vezo smiles, is something that will stay with us during the cold grey winter months in London! We have learnt so much and every little moment is an amazing experience.

The daily cycle of science dives, lectures, English teaching, activities and lots of rice now feels totally natural. Towards the end of the last expedition we went to further and more colourful reefs, monitoring all of the fish and coral we learnt about. Aside from some spectacular dives, here are some of our honeymoon highlights!

We travelled to a village in the south to sell the BVCO solar stoves, which was a mini expedition in itself. A four hour pirogue journey with little wind on the way there was offset by a white knuckle ride home which included a rescue mission. A local pirogue ran into trouble in the high waves and we towed it home to Andavadoaka. Whilst in the village we demonstrated the stoves and built one of the larger stoves with the president, whilst curious villagers crowded round to watch.

Our intrepid medical students set up a village pirogue paddling race in the name of Captain Kapoty and family planning. We found ourselves paddling for our lives and the honour of our Vezo fisherman trying to outdo the effort of the other volunteers. Much to Will’s dismay, Kate (or rather the very strong fisherman paddling her pirogue!) hit the finish line before him, bruised, drenched and exhausted but very happy!

During the break between expeditions we were fortunate to accompany Bic to a small desert island called Andragnombala. This is essentially a sand dune with palm trees in the middle of the sea, with a small community of Vezo living there. We arrived at sunset and set up camp on the beach, by laying our pirogue sail on the sand. Dinner was fish and rice cooked to perfection on a driftwood fire under the stars. Waking up to the sunrise on this beautiful island was a privilege. After our breakfast (fish and rice!) the local fishermen arrived with some surprising catch. A large guitar shark and a pelagic thresher shark were lying on the sand. This was a vivid example of the importance of Blue Ventures’ work and the creation of the Velondriake marine protected area (MPA).

The senses are overwhelmed by the richness of the sights, sounds and smells that everyday life here presents to us, it is impossible to fit it all into one blog and to begin to do it justice. However, just wandering through Andavadoaka being waved at by the children, dodging piles of drying fish on the beach, buying local delicacies of bok bok and kapiky bon-bon, and dancing in the epibars to the impossibly fast music are just some of the many threads that are weaving together to create the most wonderful memories.

Expedition 40 has drawn to a close, and we said goodbye to our many new friends. We feel very fortunate to be here for a further 3 weeks, to make new friends and continue our Madagascan adventure.