I woke up, had breakfast and took my Malaria tablet.
We met up at the gates of the complex, met up with the volunteers and headed to the pier where the boat picked us up. It was a very bright day and the open water smelled of salt, by 8.30 we where cruising along at great speed.
The team onboard was made up of a Spanish phd student – Sergie (he had spent time all over the world monitoring killer whales, dolphins and more), a few Europeans and an American. The captain was a local guy who new the waters and although it seemed like he was never paying attention he had an uncanny knack of spotting things way before any of the rest of us. Everyone was spread about the boat at specific look-out points and two guys recorded info. One of which had a GPS and was looking at the location of fishing boats, wildlife and tourist boats and the other was recording the behaviour of the wildlife. Every 20 minutes everyone rotated to the right to ensure they kept alert.

I was sat at the back of the boat and more along for the ride to see what happened rather than to be involved. No chance! Within minutes I was on my feet scouring the water – desperate to be the first to find a pod of dolphins.
First we saw a turtle, then a huge manta ray breached about 50 meters in front of us, it jumped clean out of the water! After about an hour we found a pod of dolphins (Captain spotted them) and for the next 6 hours we spent time with different groups ranging in size from 2 or 3 to about 10 animals. It was awesome. Numerous times they came in to within a few feet from our boat. They jumped, played, hunted, travelled and chilled. It was fantastic and I was really impressed with how close we got.

A week before a dead humpback had washed up on the reef and the team that was out on the boat approached to take samples. As one of the guys leant over the bow two tiger sharks started to take chunks out of the whale. A close shave and a great adrenaline rush for those guys! We saw a couple of sharks cruise by and the dolphins immediately disappeared, we found them 15 minutes late a good distance away.

The area that we where in was a marine park, fishing was banned within the perimeters and the tourist boats had a code of conduct that they were supposed to stick to. The volunteer boat was out to monitor this and to see the impact of the tourists on the dolphins behaviour. The program has been going for 6 years and they already have some great info – the plan is to complete a 10 year study and then present the findings to the Kenyan authorities who have requested the research. The idea being the sustainability of the industry (if the boats scare the dolphins off long term them obvious there is an issue!) and the protection of habitat.

Sergie and the rest of the guys where a pleasure to be around, their enthusiasm clearly shone through. We had a great lunch of coconut rice, boiled eggs and potato stew and caught the sun.

As we headed in after a chance to snorkel the reef I could have sworn I saw a whale! It was getting late though and we had little fuel left so we made for land rather than go back to investigate. I wished I could go out the next day.

We landed on the island beach and headed up to visit the village. We were told that this community was conservative Muslim, so that meant long trousers, covered shoulders and heads. The school was lots of fun and a group of giggling children kept asking for shampoo, they thought it was the funniest thing ever – we all walked away laughing. In the village it was clear to see that these people had even less than the people on the main land. I didn’t think that that was possible. One of the main issues that they face is that water runs out every year and then they have to bring it over by boat. This costs a fortune and there are plans for a new project to help collect more rainwater.

Back at the volunteer base we had a good look around, they had limited power and no running water, however they had lots more space and I loved it. Great views, a sea breeze – it was truly tropical, add to that the fact that the project is making a great difference to the lives of great people and you can see why people stay here.

That night we headed back out in to the bay to watch the sun go down then headed to bed. We were living in two different worlds, enjoying the beauty of the place and seeing how people can be global citizens and help each other.

(Source: smallerearth.co.uk)