2 Week Expedition March 2026
This week was our 2nd and final week with Love The Oceans in Jangamo. After a lovely weekend in which we went scuba diving (some of us saw a manta!), got to enjoy a local football game and enjoyed a seahorse safari in the Inhambane estuary (thank you Tony!), we were all keen to get to work. Come Monday, we split into 3 groups for the final week’s schedule. One group headed off to the beach to record fisheries catches, one went diving to complete biodiversity surveys, and the other headed to the schools to teach ocean literacy and repaint the murals on the walls that were damaged by February’s cyclone – each day the groups switched activties.
The schools were a particular favourite for some as we gained a greater insight into local culture. How cheerful the people of Jangamo are, will stick with us forever. The school work also allowed the chance for a few secret artists among us to show off their skills by creating educational murals on the school walls at the teacher’s requests.
Diving was a fantastic opportunity to build on essential underwater scientific skills for our careerd and professional lives. Working as a team is essential for the whole process, from launching the boat through the surf to understanding everyone’s role and ensuring efficiency, safety and accuracy underwater. Teamwork is a must, and developing survey skills in an underwater environment has been an amazing opportunity that I will always be grateful for. The fisheries research was one of the best learning experiences for us all. Meeting local fishermen and recording catches to later ID every fish, provided a great insight into the industry and gave us the chance to meet the people who rely directly on the oceans for food. It also provided a nice opportunity to take in the gravity of where we are – there aren’t many better places for a bit of thought and reflection than a beach in Mozambique.
Although the weather was not ideal, with a few days blow out changing our plans, this jam-packed week provided some great experiences and fantastic memories (along with some pretty crazy tan lines). With the week drawing to a close, we were all saddened with the prospect of leaving and were all chuffed when we got the chance to take part in some BRUVS and drone work despite the weather. Engaging with these techniques was fantastic as all the Research Assistants were super keen to see how technology can be used more and more to aid in conservation and research – not to mention the drones are pretty damn fun!
As we packed up our things and prepared for our long journey home, we all reminisced on our time here and discussed our favourite moments and what we’ll miss the most. Some of the highlights included: diving the local reefs including the famous “manta reef”, getting to see a local football match (which I cannot recommend highly enough to anyone with the opportunity!), trying out the drones and of course the food cooked by our local chef Eugenio (who might have been my favourite person in Mozambique!), whose locally sourced traditional Mozambican meals are both healthy and delicious.
It’s been 2 of the most unique, engaging and enjoyable weeks of our lives and we are all very sad to be leaving. I hope one day I’ll return to Love The Oceans and have the pleasure of taking part again in these world-class conservation efforts with the awesome team of people that make up LTO. Goodbye for now.
