emilyispegeln

So – a fourth of the work is now over and done!
Our first site was Prison Island, or Changuu Island as the locals know it by. It’s an island right outside of Stone Town, where peacocks call their lonely cries and mating tortoises can be heard like modern day dinosaurs. Most of our traps were empty, which was expected, but still slightly disappointing. While Elisa occupied herself exploring transect lines, I spent the time snorkeling and taking pictures of all sorts of interesting animals.

Among all the weird things I saw, this was one of the most fascinating. These are apparently a couple of porcelain crabs living inside an anemone, sharing their home with a tiny clownfish. The clownfish here are nothing like Nemo, trust me. They’re quite fierce, despite their size. Contrary to what you might think, that they hide inside their protective anemone, they swim up to you and sort of grind their teeth at you. You can actually hear their mouths slam shut, with a loud CLOP! One of them decided to attack the camera, so I left them alone after a while. But yeah, Nemo’s scared dad – not so much.

At one point, I got a little bit too excited over seeing a bright yellow butterfly fish, and accidently swam into – yes, swam – one of these sea urchins. Since some of their spines are about the size of my arm, I was quite thankful for the wetsuit. Still hurt, but didn’t leave any mark. Won’t do that again.

This was one of my absolute favourites at Prison Island, a tiny boxfish that managed to get caught in one of our traps. It’s so incredibly cute and really box-shaped (hence the name). 

When we only had a couple of days left, I decided that it was time to live up to my reputation and get my dose of tropical infections. Wohoo! Now I have an ear infection, which is pretty easy to get here when you’re always in the water and it’s hot and humid on land (rainy season). So, now I’m ordered to stay out of the water for the next week. Fortunately, we only had the last few days on Prison Island left and now we have to wait for the next neap tide until we can go to the next site anyway. Spent my time on the boat learning all the fish (samaki) in Kiswahili instead, much to the amusement of our boat guy.

It really does make me happy that we’ve finally started to work on the project for real, and left most of the permit stuff behind us. I know those parts are important too, but preparations and paperwork has never really been my thing.

The other day we spent shopping for necessary things, such as buckets, ropes and weights and got caught in another torrent of rain. The narrow streets literally turned into rivers and what would’ve been a not too long walk, turned into a three hour trip! Every now and then, the rain would just come cascading down from the sky and we would all run in to the nearest shop and pretend to admire their beautiful clothes. Everyone else was doing the exact same thing though. Excellent opportunity to learn some Swahili. “Leo mvua” which means “Today it’s raining”. (The typical Swede, always talking about weather). I enjoyed wading through the knee-deep water, even though I didn’t really wanted to think about what was in the water and instead tried to be thankful that I didn’t have any open wounds on my legs this time (which I had in PNG).
Unfortunately and understandably, I didn’t bring my camera to the markets, so there are no pictures of school children running through the water and men slowly making their way to the mosque through the rivers that just kept coming.

Oh, and check another trap maker out. While we were building the madema, Elisa (my supervisor) noticed that the trees above out heads were covered in spider webs and spiders the size of… well I don’t really know what to compare them to. Smaller than my hand, but bigger than I would like them to be! Just as I was wondering what would happen if one of them fell down, we spotted one hanging on to our traps. I managed to take a picture of it before our human trap maker threw it out on the street.
“They can be dangerous, these spiders. This one? Oh… I don’t know.”
It’s gonna be fun living on Spider Lane for another seven weeks. 

 

Yes, I’m still alive. I’ve been really busy this summer (more than I would have liked to be) and I have prioritized being with people rather than writing on my blog (or anything really). Some of you might know, others not, that I’m not in Sweden at the moment, but that I’ve fled to Zanzibar. I’m not here on vacation or on missions, but to study the fish in tropical seagrass beds and collect material for my master thesis. I’m not gonna go into detail (if you’re interested you can just ask me), but I’m looking at reducing bycatch in dema fisheries (a certain type of wooden trap) and comparing marine protected areas with heavily fished areas. So, I’m gonna spend the following two months on the island of Zanzibar, snorkeling and trap-building.

Zanzibar has a reputation for being a paradise island, and I understand why. Even if I’ve never had a desire to go here until now, the island has a tropical magic on its own. The fact that your taxi driver stops by a local fruit stand to get you a mango just because he feels like it, or that a tropical thunderstorm forces everyone under the nearest roof, even if it belongs to someone you don't know, adds to the feeling of being far away from Sweden.
At 5.30 a.m. the minarets wake devoted Muslims and call for the morning prayer, to the background noise of revving trucks unloading their fish at the market next doors. During the night we’re frequently woken up by sudden rain showers, drum-rolling off the tin roofs. I don’t mind the sounds at all, but either way, they add to my lack of sleep. So does the heat and humidity. Like Fanny commented when we stepped off the plane “It’s like walking into a fish tank”.

Most fish tanks are no way near as beautiful as what I’ve seen snorkeling here though. Triggerfish as colourful as a 5-year olds painting, lionfish on guard with its venomous wings spread out around itself and mooray eels writhing like snakes through the seagrass beds. It really is a bit of paradise, but from what I’ve heard, the entrance fee to paradise is already paid, while here your wallet will notice the cost.

This week I'll be spending buiding traps and preparing permits for my field work. It's gonna be pretty awesome and I'll try to write here whenever possible. Have an additional hundred something fish species to learn by heart as well...