Misfits Mid Life Crisis Adventures in ………….. Mozambique.

Week 14, Saturday 20 to Friday 26 September 2014.

This week I have mainly been listening to….. Maddona, Queen, Velvet Underground, on VH1 (Des’ree “you gotta be”, Gabrielle “out of reach”, Sinead O’Conner “nothing compares 2 U”, Culture Club “Karma Chamaeleon” Natalie Imbruglia “Torn”), Portishead, Arcade Fire,

And have been watching…. Austin Powers, International Man of Mystery, Breaking Bad (season 5), Doctor Who “Time Heist” (eps5, season 8/34), Top Gear (UK, USA, OZ), The great and Powerful OZ, Star Trek “Into Darkness”

Saturday was as predicted a bad weather day, the sun didn’t come out the sky was full of dark clouds; however there wasn’t the rain that they thought might fall. The sea looked rough with mist on the horizon, choppy water but beautiful to look at. We didn’t launch so spent the morning at home. I did go in later and covered the shop for a couple of hours but didn’t deal with anyone. The rest of the day was spent in front of the computer and TV (some would say my natural habitat). I got on to Skype for new WHO but after 6 minutes the picture froze and couldn’t re-establish a good link. We’ll try again tomorrow.

Sunday was shop day for me, I spent the day working on my sci-fi storage list, this is the list of all the sci-fi shit I have collected. I admit there is some real shit there but there are also a number of gems that are worth good money. I just need to get someone interested, so I need to sort these lists out. We may have lost Alice cooper the cat today; his owners have returned and came over to the dive shop to claim him. He has been living at the shop for almost 2 weeks now, and has been a constant source of love and entertainment, though I suspect the geckos wouldn’t agree. I have in fact managed to save a number of gecko’s (big and small) from him during his stay, but he certainly got his fair share of the local population I would say. Will Alice be making an appearance in future, I hope so.  This evening I got a stable Skype link and watch a great new Who episode, it could have been Oceans Fourteen (It concerned a bank job) the script could have been written by the late great Douglas Adams (author of great Classic who, Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, Dirk Gently). Am loving the older darker Who, and yes I remember previous older Who’s. In the evening I made a meal that wasn’t really edible, but I had to eat it. The rice was not properly cooked; I won’t be entering Masterchef this year. Some people have recently seen snakes in Tofo, I had a grasshopper in the house does that count as Mozambique wildlife….

Monday, I must have gotten out of the boat the wrong side. It’s not been a good day. We went on 2 dives, the first to the lovely “Giants Castle”, a huge Moray and a Small eye where seen, I was sweeping at the back all good. However during the surface interval I was a little sea sick bringing up the half cooked rice from last night, didn’t taste any better the second time around. The second dive was to Salon which I lead. The viz was not great, I got a little confused navigation wise and I was having trouble with my mask leaking (I’m going to have to use my new one from tomorrow, the old one will become my back up) having to unflood the mask every few minutes didn’t make the dive any more comfortable. I’m not a natural leader, I’m not a sheep but I prefer to follow I suppose. But being a DM is to lead, I have finished all the skills to be a DM but it’s obvious that I’m not ready I need to get lots of leading practise I’m not in a hurry I suppose so it doesn’t matter. I have 170 or 180 dives under my weight belt now, but I still think I’m a shit diver. I see people that have 30 or 40 dives who appear to be so much better than me, but then I feel like that about most things in life I suppose. Maybe I’ll never be a great diver, but I’d like to be good. When I look back at things I’m not really good at anything in particular, I can do a few things ok but nothing really well. It depresses me a little when I think about it, I hope tomorrow is a better day. I have to remember that I’m in a beautiful location with lovely people and just enjoy the experience. I went for a run to get the bad energy out of my mind. PIGWATCH I can confirm that the pig was seen having a late afternoon nap….. I could have done with a nap at that point, this end of PIGWATCH. The run was ok (again I’m not a natural runner even though I have been running for years, I’m old and fat and can just about run) what made the run fun was a small group of kids ran with me a for a while, these kids were smiling and laughing and clearly enjoying themselves, I have to remember happy children who don’t really have anything and how lucky I am when I’m feeling a little down.

Tuesday was a much better day. What made today so great was the return of Alice Cooper; it was so nice to have him laying around looking so relaxed. I didn’t see this myself, but Alice was seen chasing a monkey down the road. There are very few monkeys in the area but it’s rare to see them, I haven’t so far. I was out on Ocean safari had a great snorkel with a manta and then a whale shark; the whale shark was so close to the shore it was in very shallow water. We had to swim back out to the boat as it couldn’t get that close to the shore, this doesn’t happen very often. After the safari I I was looking forward to food, but I discovered I was set up for a dive. The dive to Giants castle was nice but nothing big spotted, at depth the whale’s song was so loud that my chest vibrated from the sound waves. As we were climbing back in to the boat 2 Humpbacks surfaced about 10 metres from us, everyone stayed in the water looking down in to it hoping to catch a glimpse of them, but the viz was just not good enough, the humpbacks were just out of visible range. Once back on dry land after de-rigging and cleaning everything up I went home starving as I still hadn’t eaten all day.

Wednesday. Another Ocean Safari, snorkelled with another Whale shark. However the highlight was a baby humpback whale that appeared to be lost. We had stopped in the bay to hand out finn, masks and snorkels when suddenly this baby surfaced right next to the boat. It appeared out of the water like a submarine so close to the boat. The baby swam round the boat a few times, it swam under the boat back and forth. I think the baby was lost and it thought that the boat was mum. The girls (the punters) on the boat were loving it, a couple may have been a little scared at first but they soon realised that the baby didn’t want to hurt us (such as topple us out of the boat, was one comment from a young woman to me). After a few minutes Mum surfaced and she was huge, this is what the baby needed it turned and swam straight to her. Our Captain said to me that he had never experienced anything like this before. What a wonderful moment in my life, and yes I didn’t have a camera. One of the girls on the safari did have a camera and I’m hoping that she got some shots. Other than that on safari I bashed my knee getting in to the boat during the launch and cut my leg after collecting some rubbish (a large bucket) from floating in the sea. I spent the rest of the day on shop duty. This evening I nearly got an electric shock, I trod on the power cable that runs from the fan to the plug, I just happened to stop on a section covered with electrical tape (never noticed it before). There was a bang and a puff of smoke, a horrible smell, I definitely jumped and made a yelp. I’ve also started looking in to changing my flight’s….

Thursday was supposed to have been a double tank this morning, but as we approached the dive site the boat developed an engine problem, this meant we limped home on one engine. Eventually it became clear that there was no dive so put equipment away. I hung about the dive centre, Alice Cooper turned up there were a couple of new dogs there so I was trying to keep Alice away from them. It’s a public holiday, Revolution Day. The beach and market were packed with music coming from sound systems all over the place. I have found flights leaving on 15^th December from South Africa to London however I have to ring the UK, I have just spent all my credit trying to get through “Press 1 for this, 2 for that, 3 for anything else, 4 if you have forgotten something, 5 go on, you know you want to”. I have asked if I can do it on line the answer came back “NO”. The result of this is I have now booked a completely new flight from Johannesburg to London on 15 December on Etihad Airways about £60 cheaper than what last minute were quoting me. I still need to do the Inhambane (Mozambique) to Joberg section, there is a flight I can get but I have to go to Inhambane airport to arrange this, so need to sort this out soon. Because I’m staying longer, I will need to find a new place to live from start of November as Martina and family return. And in early December I will have to do a visa run again. Had a good run this afternoon, however on PIGWATCH the pig was not seen, there were a couple of Bullocks in the field…… Bullocks, I’m sure there’s a joke there somewhere. All is good in Mozambique…

Friday, I did another ocean Safari and my 3^rd Whale Shark this week. These giants of the ocean are amazing so beautiful and gentle, I love swimming with them. The water was clear and so refreshing, after sitting on the boat for a couple of hours. For Oceans Safaris I’m now wearing my shortee wetsuit (which I used for triathlons) because it’s just too hot to be sitting on a boat in a full length gimp suit (there are some people, who I hear pay good money for that). I mention the shortee wetsuit because i have tan lines on my knees; it’s only really noticeable if you look carefully. Every couple of weeks I re dye my hair, do my roots (there’s still a little vanity in me still). I’m almost out and will have to buy some more soon, tonight’s session hasn’t gone as well as normal, the sun has really made my hair very light in colour almost blond in places and the dye stands out a little too much now…. Oops. I think everyone has a bad dye story that’s mine.

Tomorrow I’m taking part in a 10k run in Inhambane….

End of week 14, 3 great Whale Sharks, Alice Cooper the cat came to visit and a lost baby humpback found its mum, what a week. I am having the best time ever, there is nothing to hate about Tofo or Mozambique.