17/1/2011

Officially finished the course of medication to eradicate the malaria in my system and was almost back to full fitness. Our new friends took us up to Pandaine Beach up the coast which took a while to get to but it was worth it.

It was definitely a Saffer's resort for surfing and that in their holidays but again it was a long, beautiful stretch of sand. I ate some food looking out to sea for next to nothing and went for a dip, playing in the waves. The sand on the beach was scorching, you had to wear flip-flops or sprint and bare the pain.

Gregor and Eve had found a chopped guitarfish head along the beach (cross between a shark and ray) and lots of jellyfish, so me and Jack inspected.

After a nice little day out we headed to the Tofo market to check it out and then stomped back for a shower as we were heading to Casa Barry, a posh accommodation where the world's expert on Manta rays was giving a talk.

We bumped into the Aussies again at the talk, which was very informative. It's amazing what they have learnt about the creature but its equally amazing at how much they don't know. There is so much to find out. She is on the verge of uncovering a third species of the Manta after she was the one that discovered there wasn't just one.

Chatting to the Aussies, it turned out that they had seen a Whale shark on the dive today. I was seething with jealousy, and this wasn't even on the ocean safari where they go out and look for them, it was on a break between their two dives!

The weather turned sour and we experienced another heavy thunderstorm which was cool on the horizon like in Malawi at the lake, watching the lightning bolts on the horizon.