Monday was a day in town for me to buy wood (explained later), but Monday has to be remembered for the job offer as I already mentioned ! So happy that I now have something set for when I get back. Although I was looking forward to being unemployed and travelling or staying on here as staff but to get the exact job you wanted straight from university can't be bad! I'll still get to travel to some amazing places with work and see them in ways I wouldn't as a tourist.
One of my tasks this week was to improve the area around the Zebu Trough where we do our washing and wash all of dive kit down, with no drainage it gets a bit muddy! So Fred and I were given the task of improvements, so off I went to town with about 5 words of French in my head to try and buy half a ton of wood !
- hired my own Zebu
After some haggling with the locals and a zebu hire I got the wood I needed so then it was back to camp to start building.
- finished product
After a days hard work we now have a hardwood decking around our trough making the area much better !
Mid week we had a bit of a treat with Sophie and Emma organising a night dive for us, however without Victor it had to be a shore dive which made for an interesting swim out! Even better after about 10 minutes into the dive my torch decided it didn't want to be waterproof anymore and completely flooded meaning I had to share with Minty making it an interesting dive but actually got to see more using other people's beams. But best of all was the swim back lying on our backs looking up at the stars, Milkyway and shooting stars all in all a great dive lead by Tom.
Yet again another AMAZING weekend, Fred, Sophie, Elliot and I decided to hire quad bikes and do a bit of a tour of the island with the aim of seeing the cascades, crater lakes and get to the top of Mt Passot. Well finding some quads was a fun hunt in the morning but eventually found 3 lovely looking bikes so snapped them up.
- my toy for the weekend
Our first stop was to back to the cascades where we did the 13 meter jump which was terrifying !
- Elliot mid flight
After that we sped up the west coast to the most northern point of the island stopping at a few secluded beaches along the way.
- biker boys (and girl) of Madagascar
At lunch we found a lovely little bar just off the road to give us a break from the dust. After that it was off to the crater lakes which were a sight I did not expect, apparently home to crocs they just appear out to no where with emerald green water they add another aspect to the amazing landscapes.
Then it was a mad dash up the mountain road to the summit where you can see the whole of North Nosy Be.
The way back down was a different story, after looking at a map and talking to locals there was apparently a dirt track that we could get back to Hellville on. This dirt track turned out the be vertical drops, rock faces, streams and great fun! even though it was extremely scary. But thankfully we all got back safe and sound (only just) with Fred only crashing twice.
Now sat on the boat back to camp with a bag full of food to cook Chinese for the whole camp tonight so have a busy evening ahead of me so for now goodbye