Fruit n Nut - 05:17 pm

09 Mar 2010

I am a vegetarian so I have always had quite an appreciation for nuts. You will not find me making a nut-loaf for christmas or anything that extreme but I have been known to sit and eat pistachio nuts till my lips get all wrinkled from the salt. Unlike cabbage, nuts are amazingly good for you AND they taste fantastic. So you can imagine the joy in finding myself here in Mozambique, the cashew nut country where you can buy cashew nuts on the side of the road by the packet full. Heaven.

Anyways, as much as I might like eating these nuts I only realised yesterday that I had never actually seen what a cashew nut looked like, at least not before it was roasted or salted or covered in pirri pirri.

So here it is folks, a cashew nut fruit and nut. The bizarre fruit on the bottom is actually delicious, the only thing I can think to compare it with is a sweeter, milky mango. It is an extremely juicy fruit that they actually use to make a type of beer out of as it ferments in just three short days. And finally that protected little nugget sitting on top of its giant orange cushion is the wonderful cashew nut, almost regal looking isnt it.

What I love about traveling is that as long as you open yourself up, you are going to see and hear and touch and taste something new every single day.

Leah B

[ Click here to leave a comment ] [ No comments yet ]

---

Big plans - 06:34 pm

08 Mar 2010

Chatting over breakfast this morning, we concocted an ambitious activity plan to accomplish for the day. Perhaps bolstered by our all-bran flakes, we decided were going to pack the terrestrial camera, an underwater camera, a behind the scenes camera, a tripod, sound gear, a canoe, a small metal boat and six individuals into the cruiser and head out to a small fresh water river. The drive would only be an hour long and from there we would only have to walk all the gear and boats about 500 meters to get to the water, so what could possibly go wrong?

After a far too intimate drive we finally arrived at our destination and unpacked all the gear. The F900 was left behind because we decided that if that camera got water damage we would have to sell our children to pay it off. So off we trekked with 200 kgs through the muddy, marshy water to finally get to the river. The 500 meter walk was as delightful as you can imagine, but I did manage to loose complete circulation in my finger tips early on, which was lucky.

Although once we reached the tea-coloured river and got onto our boats, all the pain in the world was forgotten. This narrow river is actually the origin of the Pomene Estuary. It is a fresh water system, the banks of which are lined with massive reeds that the locals actually use to build their homes with. Massive lavender water lillies were in bloom and bright red dragon flies adorned these stunning flowers. Grant jumped in the water to get some footage while the rest of us drifted further down the river.

This was one of the prettiest, most serene rivers I have ever seen and it was all going pretty smoothly until Boris and Sakhile were left alone for a moment in the row boat. They ended up drifting helplessly down the channel with one paddle each, going in circles, and arguing like an old married couple…

It is 18:24 and I am exhausted. It was a brilliant day though, one of those days where it feels like you couldnt have packed in a single thing more.
Leah B

[ Click here to leave a comment ] [ No comments yet ]

---

Before and after - 09:07 am

07 Mar 2010

Neville and Wendy have kindly put us in a chalet at the very end of the sand spit here in Pomene. Just outside our humble little home we have the most beautiful view of this ever changing landscape.

As I mentioned in a previous entry, throughout the course of the day huge volumes of water push in and out of these areas as the tides change. Boris and Grant have both been doing surreal time lapses of this change but I think it is still hard to visually represent the magnitude of it all. We literally move from a desert like scene to an ocean with stunning white capped waves, all in a matter of hours. If you decide to have a sneaky little afternoon nap on the vast beach it is quite likely that you will wake up on a tiny strip of sand, sunburned, wet, completely disoriented with waves lapping at your feet. Oh well, its the price you pay for paradise.

I have pinched a few photographs from Boris to try and show you the shift between tides. Bear in mind that these pictures only represent a 3 hr time difference, whereas the full tidal shift roughly takes place over 6 hours.

Stay tuned.
Leah B

[ Click here to leave a comment ] [ No comments yet ]

---

Its getting weird - 07:41 am

05 Mar 2010

We have mainly been diving in this estuary at dusk. One of the reasons is that evening high tide allows for a good dive but more importantly, as night steadily approaches the weirdest stuff comes out to play. Armed with torch in hand we venture into the murky darkness to explore.

It is not dangerous by any stretch of the imagination, the deepest we dive to is only about seven meters and the most that could happen is a nasty, self inflicted sting from an urchin but it is incredibly eerie none the less. I think that because your vision is compromised every other sense becomes enhanced in order to compensate. The sound of your breathing loudly breaks into the utter silence around you and every piece of seaweed that lightly touches your arm feels like a giant squid about to devour you in one go. Although because this dive is so shallow, it allows us to be down there for up to an hour and a half and so about 10 minutes into the dive you have completely forgotten about being eaten which is when you start to see the most amazing little creatures around you.

These sea grass beds are like a humming little cities at night, there is just so much activity and life all around you. It is amazing to spend a little time with each animal and notice how perfectly adapted it is for its niche environment. The coordination and timing of this micro ecosystems is just mind blowing, to think that if we were to come out here during the day and snorkel around we would not see any of this, that every animal has a little hole, burrow or shell to pack itself into during the day.

These night dives make me feel like a kid again, exploring and finding so many things I have never even seen before, almost cant wait for the sun to go down. 
Leah B

[ Click here to leave a comment ] [ No comments yet ]

---

Meet the crew - 11:03 am

04 Mar 2010

I suppose if I had wanted to make sense I would have started the Pomene blog by first introducing the crew, but better late than I suppose.

The terrestrial cameraman is Boris von Schoenebeck. He hails from Durban North in South Africa and has crazier hair than most. He is an extremely hard worker and disregards thirst, hunger and general skin safety to get a quality time lapse.

Our underwater cameraman is Grant Brokensha. Grant enjoys spending time with the weirdest, creepiest animals in and out of the water. Thus he is likely to be found scrounging around the bottom of the estuary in the middle of the night. 

Sakhile Radebe is our trusty sound man and he is from Ladysmith in South Africa. He spends most of his time at the top of Sani-Pass but every so often Earth-Touch deploys him to a different location to get some sun.

And finally me, Leah Buckwalter. I am usually stationed at our Earth-Touch offices in Durban working on the logistics for new locations but thanks to my wonderful boss, I sometimes get the opportunity to be out in the field as well.

So thats us. We all seem to be working quite well together and cant wait to get our footage back to the office and see everything come together. But bye for now, we are off to spend the afternoon looking for crabs.
Leah B

[ Click here to leave a comment ] [ No comments yet ]

---

Picture perfect - 06:43 am

03 Mar 2010

The terrestrial crew needs to film with the best light possible and these ideal times happen to be at sunrise and at dusk. This is why Boris and Sakhile can be heard giggling and pottering around the kitchen at 4 am. Being woken up at this time has its obvious disadvantages but once you are up it is actually the most beautiful time of the day to be awake.

Grant and I walked just outside our little house here and were greeted by the most epic sunrise I have ever seen. We stayed here for ages taking pictures and taking about the tides here in Pomene, which seem to govern the lay of the land. It is the last set of spring tides before equinox, which means that there are extreme tidal differences between high and low tide.

To give you an idea of the amount of water I am talking about, it is over 4 vertical meters of difference in the water levels, this is all moving into an estuary of about 10 square kilometers through two mouths which roughly equates to 400 000 cubic meters of water passing in and out of this estuary every six hours. And I thought I had a productive morning.

With all of this moving water, sandbanks are also constantly on the move. Inlets get carved out of the land by the intense push and pull of tidal energy. Casuarina trees literally get uprooted by the waves and are left upturned, like shipwrecks on the shore.

The most wonderful lesson you learn out in the field is that nature will always be in charge. Being exposed to these elements makes you realise that we need to be malleable enough to coexist with this beautiful planet and get the heck out of the way when she tells us too.

Leah B

[ Click here to leave a comment ] [ No comments yet ]

---

Long and rainy drive to the moon - 07:01 am

01 Mar 2010

Well, we have finally landed! It has taken two full days of tenuous navigation and hair raising overtaking along the wet and wild Mozambican back roads, but thanks to everyones exceptional off-road driving (excluding me) here we are in beautiful Pomene.

We got in late Sunday evening looking slightly haggard or possibly insane but we made quick work of locating the bar and nurtured ourselves with a fine local brew.

Woken up at 6 am by the lapping estuary today revealed a slightly overcast and broody looking sky so we decided to hop into the trusty cruiser and just drive around, getting a feel for this exceptional stretch of land.

We headed over to the old hotel which is a stunningly eerie old place that must have been quite impressive in its day. We explored around there for a while but were anxious to get down to the blow holes, carved into the ancient rock formations on the beach. Unfortunately, you can only see water shooting out of these holes during middle tide and we were there at low tide, but the uniqueness of this landscape was no less impressive.

We continued to traverse the edge of this bizarre cliff, marveling at the changing geomorphology as we went. I have obviously never been to the moon but this is how I picture it to look. Minus the ocean, trees and thousands of crabs.

Finally we circled back to our car just as the rain began to come in. All in all, day one well spent. Mozambique never fails to impress.
Leah B

[ Click here to leave a comment ] [ No comments yet ]

---

Neptunes revisited - 12:12 pm

19 Nov 2009

Our stay here on Vamizi Island is sadly coming to an end. What makes it even harder is that we have been treated to some of the most exceptional diving in this third week. We returned to Neptunes this week, there was 30-meter visibility and no current, it was bliss.

We descended down to about 25 meters along the wall and then began to make our way into the crevice, escorted by two rather large grey reef sharks. Once in there you are not even sure where to start looking, there is life above you, below you, to your left, to your right, it is almost overwhelming. I admire Grant for being able to translate the beauty of this place on film, because if I had the camera in my hands it would be like watching a hyperactive kid in a candy shop.

The star of the show today had to have been two gigantic potato bass. Grant for some reason caught the fancy of these 150-pound fish, and they stuck with him for the majority of the dive. They seem like quite intelligent, curious fish. They swim up very close and turn their bodies so that their large eyes meet yours when you are diving with them.

We explored this area for about an hour and then unfortunately had to begin our ascent. Time goes so quickly when you are exploring such a diverse and unique landscape. Three days left here, lets see what surprises are still in store.
Leah

[ Click here to leave a comment ] [ 1 comment ]

---

Natures rubik’s cube - 07:57 am

16 Nov 2009

How to keep yourself entertained for hours on a coral Island.
Step one, find what looks like a very unripe, green fruit but is actually a mangrove seed.

Step two, peel it very carefully, like and orange.

Step three, let all the sections come apart and try your best to get them back together. (Success is not a guaranteed)

Will write more later on, but some things in nature are just too cool!
Leahb

[ Click here to leave a comment ] [ 1 comment ]

---

The village - 07:57 am

16 Nov 2009

Grant and I got an amazing opportunity this weekend, to travel to a fishing village here on Vamizi Island. The journey there took about an hour as we bumped along on a road strategically carved around coral outcrops. 

We drove as close as we could then got out of the car and walked for about 10 mins, passing small baobab and amarula trees as we went. Our guides had gone ahead of us and asked if it was okay if Grant and I took some pictures while we visited and this seemed to be okay with the villagers. When we arrived there was a small group of men and woman working around a massive fishing net, salted fish was drying on various tables around the village and tons of smiling, happy children were running about. Everyone seemed a little reserved at first but the atmosphere changed very quickly.

I approached a lady holding her young daughter and asked (mostly in hand signals) if I could take a picture of her. She agreed, so I took a few quick shots. I figured she might like to see how nice the photograph had come out and I went over and showed her on the small camera screen. She could not believe it! She laughed and laughed as she looked from this picture to me, then back to the picture again. This may have been the first time in her life that she had seen herself and her child captured in a simple photograph. I think in the age of digital photography we have almost forgotten how special and unique a photograph can be and I am grateful to her for reminding me of that.

Her laughter soon got the attention of the children nearby and pretty soon I could not take photographs fast enough. You have got to love children because no matter where you are in the world they have the same uninhibited sense of curiosity and fearlessness. Grant wanted to get some footage of the village as well, but when the video camera came out he was surrounded in a matter of seconds, and it soon descended into utter chaos. These kids could not decide if they wanted to be in front of or behind the camera, but as long as they were close enough to Grant they knew they were going to see something cool. We may not have been able to get much footage from this visit, but seeing the smiles on their faces made it worth every second.

Our guides were keen to keep moving, because there was still plenty to see. We saw the school, the mosque, the cultural center, the sacred lake, a 400 year old building made out of coral, etc, etc. I could write an entire entry on each of these sites, but for now I must get back to work.

Leahb

[ Click here to leave a comment ] [ No comments yet ]

---

Page 1 of 13 pages  1 2 3 >  Last »