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

Week 32, Saturday 24^th to Friday 30th January 2015.

This week I have mainly been listening to….. Morrissey, XX, Arcade Fire, Kate Bush.

And have been watching…. The Wire (Season 1, eps 8 to 13), Skellig, Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club, TOP GEAR (Season 22, eps 1) , The Apprentice (Season 10, eps 10), Not Going Outakes (Not Going Out Special), Dude, Where My Car,

Still reading on Kindle…… “A Game of Thrones, A Song of Ice and Fire” book 1 by George R.R. Martin.

 The seed and fruit I eat….

Saturday 24^th, today I met the new DMT, well at least I think he’s here to do the Dive master programme. He is about my age (prehistoric) and rides a motorbike his name is Kevin. I say I think he’s doing the course as he said he already has various dive qualifications with other organisations. Went on a lovely dive with Mike and Zak to “Giants Castle”, a highlight was a swarm, a heard, a cluster (whatever) of schooling Bannerfish (Heniochus diphreutes), must have been 30 or more doing nothing all huddled together. Mani one of our guys today started to pick these berries that grow behind the centre. Think of a green bulb of garlic which has small red/orange berry’s inside. He made a paste with water and sugar and lots of elbow grease. I ended up eating pretty much all of it. A few hours later I started to feel queezy, which did result in me driving the porcelain bus (I was sick). For the rest of the day I didn’t feel great. Huge highlight of the day saw Alice Cooper (the cat) today, friends are staying in his owners house; he wasn’t in great shape there appeared to be a fresh cut on his head. He made it clear he didn’t want company so I didn’t bother him; it was still good to see the little chap. The guys in the house have said they will keep an eye on him.

 Mani preparing the yogurt/paste.

Sunday 25^th, had a terrible night, didn’t sleep well and was sick again. I ended up sleeping better once the sun had come up this meant when my alarm went off at 6am I must have turned it off as the next thing I know it was just turning 9am. This house is the only place in which I have trodden on 2 geckos (they do manage to run away) in a week. When I spend a lot of time on my own as I have today I get very depressed and upset. Its days like today that I feel very lonely wish there was someone to chat to. Coz I’m home alone I end up listening or watching movies that are not really cheerful. I watched couple of classic John Hughes 80s teenage angst films that I love; yes I know I’m not a teenager. I still associate with the misfits in “The Breakfast Club” even now at 46. I do feel like an outsider so much of the time. Spending a day like today on my own is deffo not good for my happiness. On a brighter note I skyped into Anaia b’day party saw her blow out the candles on her cake.

 This dog reminds me of a celebrity boxer like Alan Minter or Frank Bruno.

Monday 26^th, today is Michael “my Tofo son” last day; he has been here 3 months and flies out of Mozambique tomorrow. This meant that he got to choose todays dive site. Originally the plan was to go north and do a double tank so he could get 100 Tofo dives. In the end we went far south and did one dive to the lovely “Hogwarts” (no idea why it’s called that). Nothing big seen and the viz could have been better but I know Mike enjoyed the dive. Mike bought 8kgs of Wahoo (fish) which the guys that work for Liquid braaied (is that a word), the whole Liquid family except Nadia who is in the UK sat down for Mikes “Last Supper”. The fish was amazing, the salad lovely and the beer chilled. After I spent some time in the pool with Mike and couple of the kids playing with surf boards (this is the nearest I get to being on one). I popped in to Mikes place after work he is staying at the home of Chicken and Boobies (dogs) and Alice Cooper (cat). Alice seemed a lot happier today and more relaxed, sadly I hear that he was recently attacked by another dog. Chicken has been biting people (she has always been nippy) tonight she bit, she draw a little blood however I am more concerned about my tattoo that she has damaged the skin off.

 Thanks Chicken.

Tuesday 27^th, What a dive to Giants Castle this morning, a huge Marble ray (Aprrox 2.5m across) chilling on the reef floor, a small but cheeky Devil Ray (Aprox 1 to 1.5m across) circling us on our safety stop. Also Chris and I both saw a Manta/Ray in the distance just on the edge of the 20 or so metre viz so we don’t know what it was but we saw something. Mikes flight had been brought forward; he hadn’t heard this from the airline but from a fellow passenger in the market. So I was asked to drive him there with a few friends to say good bye. It’s not really goodbye as he is due to return in a few weeks. Driving back I got pulled over by the police, it’s not a speeding things they just want to see official papers. I didn’t have any official papers on me the drive wasn’t planned. They took the car registration documents and told me to get my papers. This meant driving back 15 or so km to Tofo dropped everyone off and driving back with Satu (one of the owners of the car) to look for the Rozzers. We ended up back at the airport not seeing a single officer of the law. But we did see a plane landing at the airport just skimming the road and the houses; this is the plane that Mike will be leaving Mozziebeak on. Driving back to Tofo we saw a large shape in the distance, it’s the policeman. He looked at my passport and UK driving licence and seemed happy. I took my sunglasses off and didn’t smile. He had given the registration docs to another officer (WHY??) who we found further up the road. Back at the dive shop I made scanned copies of my documents, as I was driving again straight away taking customers to the Estuary to snorkel. The water was 31c, we saw 4 seahorse and plenty of other life seen. I snorkelled in my clothes with swimming coz underneath because it was so hot, got home very sandy and salty. Skyped with Hel in the evening chatted with mum and saw new Top Gear, today was just great.

 Cooking fish with Michael.

Wednesday 28^th, why did I put £30 that’s about 1500mts in my purse today? I lead a kayak trip today, the actual kayaking takes about 2 hours (with a 20 min break on a sand bank for snacks). It was after the break full of crisps and fizzy pop that the kayak with me and a woman from Holland really seemed to go in the direction it was supposed to. I wore the slightly damp and very sandy clothes from yesterday, you get wet even if you don’t capsize. The island was so quiet compared to my last visit on New Year’s Eve. After taking the guest around the Island, we sat down to what can only be called a feast, lots of seafood and rice and salad. We met Eric the chief of the Island, who we saw at one point being fanned by a small girl don’t know if she’s a granddaughter I have no idea, but it looked very chief like. While sitting relaxing watching the world go by I noticed a booklet from the organisation JoLT (Journey of a Lifetime) who came on this trip a few months ago, the group consisted of disabled and disadvantaged kids. It was interesting reading the bio’s for the kids and leaders. The Dhow trip back was relaxed and slow taking a couple of hours (it’s a wind thing). Got back to the beach and discovered that the car had been broken in to; a back window had been shattered. This is when I discovered that my purse had been refiled through the cards were all there (phew) but the £30 was gone, bugger (I only had it with me because of the Police incident yesterday). I would have had to change it to Mets at some point, the person who stole it will have to find someone to change the cash and they won’t get a decent rate. Am annoyed but more upset for Jari and Satu whose car it is.

Thursday 29^th, Started with a dive to “Sherwood Forest” I was with a customer who was totally ok for the first few minutes then indicated to me that she was panicking, her eyes were huge and she was breathing fast. She heads to the surface, with me making sure that the air in her jacket is dumped. Once on the surface I inflate our jacket’s the customer grabs me and gives me a bear hug. On the boat they suffer from sea sickness while we wait for the rest of the group to finish the dive. After chatting for a while the customer said that they wanted to do a shallow dive. I spoke to the instructor and the owners and it was decided that a shallow dive would be a good answer. The dive site was “Salon”, I took the customer round a few times seeing lots of reef life, they were very comfortable and nothing went wrong, it was a chilled dive in beautiful clear warm water.

 Not the two I have trodden on in a week.

Friday 30^th, the dive this morning was to “Giants Castle” just three of us (one customer). Once at 27 metres we were floating about for a couple of mins when I get poked in the side the customer was not happy and starting to panic. We got to the surface and the customer said to me straight away that they want to drop again, because it was at the beginning of the dive and Kevin was on the buoy line at depth we descended, it was a snap decision I had to make do we go or not. We made our way down the line slowly, all the time I made sure that they were comfortable. I ended up holding their hands for the rest of the dive, and for the remaining duration everything was great. One point we drifted through a huge shoal of big eye trevally. The dive went really well after a dodgy start. This afternoon we have had bloke here who is making a short film (an advertisement video) of the dive shop. I went on the dive just to be another set of eyes and hands if needed, keeping out of shot unless really required. During the launch I lost my pink sunglasses to the huge waves, it happens to everyone I have been lucky that it hadn’t happened before. I have brought a few different spare pairs from M&S just in case. Everyone was in new Liquid branded wetsuits including me (I wore the fat suit but could have probably got in to a large) these are so buoyant that we all had extra weight. However I had to give some of my added weight away meaning that I was not as neutrally buoyant as normal this meant I had to really work hard at times. On the drop I tied off the buoy line and waited for the others to descend, a couple of small fish called domino (black with a small white spot) went past me a few times and made a buzzing noise, it was amazing really. After the filming had finished I lead the dive round “Clownfish” a beautiful shallow site.

 The dog I call wiggly woo, no idea what its real name is.  I like the idea that these birds were out on a date.

I only have 5 weeks left of this Mid-Life Crisis Adventure; I am starting to look at what will happen when I get home, how I am going to live. I need to get a couple of part time job then work my ass off for a few months before I return here in July/Aug. That’s the plan, fingers crossed.

Another week, lots of diving and generally getting wet, loving life even when I feel a little low. Tofo is a magical place, I love it here.