It has been an exhausting past day and a half. Yesterday morning we woke up around 4 am and packed up all of our belongings from bush camp and got on the back of the pick-ups to head out to Hoedspruit at 5. It was still dark when we left but through our 1.5 hour commute we were able to watch the sunrise. It was quite beautiful. Once we arrived at Hoedspruit, we purchased some food at the gas station and said our final good-byes to Daniela, Loandri (one of the field guides), and Orla, who was headed to speak at a symposium about OpWall's work. All 10 of us piled into the van (we left Sandy behind because of a stipulation with his school where he had to stay in Struwig all 4 weeks to get funding), and started on our way to Sodwana Bay. We stopped 3 times during our trip, one of which was at a restaurant called Spurs, which is like the Applebees of South Africa, with a Native American twist. It was odd seeing how the poorer towns outside of the touristy areas are set up. It really makes you appreciate the opportunities and resources available to more developed countries, instead of living in 1 or 2 room buildings with metal sheets placed over as roofs, with little running water and no electricity. We arrived at the Exodus Camp around 5:30 pm, and had a brief into with the staff.
(The tents we stayed in while at Sodwana)
The people here are much more relaxed than at Balule, I can tell we're going to have a great week. To be fair though, there aren't any predators we have to worry about near the beach! The food here is better too, which definitely helps!
Today was our first day at the Sodwana Bay Lodge learning diving skills. Our instructor, Angie , is only 20 years and is the nicest person you will ever meet! First we had to show that we have the physical ability to go diving, so we had to tread water for 10 minutes, which is a lot longer than it sounds if you're only used to hanging out in your own pool that's only 4-5 feet deep! This pool was over meters (9 feet) deep! We also had to swim 200meters around the pool which was quite exhausting. After we did that we watched 3 PADI instructional videos and took a mini-quiz to show our knowledge. We still have more videos to watch and quizzes and exams to take. We then learned about our dive gear, and after a while, put that and our wetsuits on and got into the shallow end of the pool. We practiced some imperative techniques needed for diving, like releasing water from your mask if it gets filled, and using your diving buddy's air source if yours runs out. Breathing underwater was interesting as well. You only use the mouthpiece to breathe, and don't use your nose whatsoever, I got used to it pretty quickly, it feel natural after a while. All of that took us the whole day, from 8 am to 3:30pm. All of my muscles were exhausted by the time I got back to camp, swimming really is tiring.
Rugby is a very popular sport in South Africa, and the staff here are huge fans, so when they heard that a game against Argentina was occurring today, they immediately asked us if we wanted to head down to the local pub to watch it. Obviously, we all agreed, and off we went. The was more of a 100 sq foot room that had a bar counter, some couches and stools, and a tv for watching games. Nothing like the huge bars (in comparison) in the US. It was a nice relaxing place to spend the rest of our afternoon before dinner. After the game ended, the staff happily brought us back to camp because South Africa had won, and we had dinner and an intro lecture to coral reefs. We also picke dout presentation topics involving marine life. These presentations can be funny, but definitely need to be informative, unlike the Struwig skit. Tomorrow we are going to be practicing more skills in the water, and hopefully the day after that we can go into the ocean!
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