Whale sharks and Beach living

We just finished our two week stay here in Tofo Beach, Mozambique and despite the fact that many elements of the volunteer program were disappointing, we have loved the diving and snorkeling and so we are happy we came. We liked that all of our dives and snorkel trips have been through the same dive shop (Diversity), so we've had the opportunity to get to know many of the dive masters, hang out with them and get more of the local experience. About half of the dive masters are Mozambican and they were trained through Bitonga Divers. Bitonga is a Mozambique organization whose primary goal is training locals to be dive masters, helping put some of the money brought into Mozambique for tourism back into Mozambican pockets. Bitonga offers many locals an alternative profession, one that gives them a stake in environmental conservation. Fishing is a way of life along the whole coast of Mozambique, and many fish have unfortunately been overfished. Many fishermen are having to also catch sharks and rays, even though it is illegal, in order to make money to feed their families. (The demand from the Chinese market for shark fin soup doesn't help). Not surprising, the numbers or sharks and rays off Mozambique have also started to decrease. A few of the dive masters we have gotten to know are former spear fishermen and are very happy to have new professions, and one that helps keep the ocean life in the water. A local hotel has marine life lectures throughout the week (Manta Monday's, Whale shark Wednesday's, etc..) and each Friday is a local talk, at locals talk about their life in Tofo, and hearing from one of the spear fishermen turned diver was cool.


We have had a lot of experiences here but unfortunately so many of them have involved sand or ocean, and therefore are not camera friendly activities. But we've downloaded a bunch of pictures from the waterproof camera we used in the research and of others in our group and so finally have some proof of whale sharks, humpbacks and more. We've seen whale sharks over 25', but this guy is about 20'.


Even if you accept that he has no interest in eating you, when this mouth is open and swimming at you, you really try to get out the way.


We saw some turtles swimming at the surface and also along the bottom, this guy is ~2' across.


There were lots of eels and rays, and we can't recall how many different species of each we saw. Sorry there are no photos of mantas, but we didn't get a good view of them until our last day of diving, which was without a camera. And the photos of the other rays aren't that good. But here is a Honeycomb eel:


Trumpet Fish


Potato Bass (maybe; Hugh didn't pass the Fish ID Test and Betsy can't remember for sure):


Lion Fish:


We were very happy to be here during humpback whale season, which we had thought we were going to miss. We were excited by how close we were, watching them breach or slap the water with their pectoral fins.

Location:Tofo, Mozambique