Livin in paradise...... Chumbe Island

So it's been awhile since I have posted. Right now I am at the end of my Independent study project which has been going on for the past 28 days. I spent three weeks on Chumbe Island, and let me tell you, it was amazing. Chumbe is a tiny tiny island approximately 8 miles off the coast from Stone town. When I say tiny I mean that its only 1.1km long and 300 m wide (One day I even swam around the entire island!). There is a light house on the island and when you climb to the top you can easily see the entire island, as well as the coast of Dar Es Salaam in the distance and of course Zanzibar. The only thing that’s on the island is an eco-lodge that takes 15 guests at a time. The entire lodge is totally sustainable so everything is solar powered, they have gray water filtration, composting toilets, and they collect rainwater because there is no freshwater on the island Chumbe also has a really cool education program where they bring local students to the island for the day to learn about coral reefs and conservation. So during the day there would maybe be about 50 people on the island, but some of the days I was there, there were only 15 other people. It was great though! My house was right on the beach and I would leave the back doors open at night so I would fall asleep and wake up to the sound of the waves. One of the coolest things that you can do while on Chumbe is watch the sun rise over the ocean on the east side and then watch the sunset over the ocean on the west side in the evening. I was there with one other girl doing research on the reef, and let me tell you, our days there were extremely busy and we had to stick to a tight schedule. After waking up and having breakfast sitting on the jetty, we would have to decide whether we wanted to go snorkeling or whether we wanted to just sit on the beach and study. We had to make very difficult decisions, like where is the best place to take a nap? On the beach? On the lounge chairs on the beach? on the swinging bed by the beach (there was this bed that was under a little hut on the beach that was suspended by ropes so it could swing!)? Also should we take a nap before, or after lunch, or both? J After lunch we would usually go snorkeling again and then hang out on the beach until 5:30 where we would then go to our “sunset hut” to watch the sunset. After dinner we would play board games and card games with the rangers that live on the island, it was fun to teach them new games and a great way to practice our Swahili! The other student that I was with was doing a project on diurnal and nocturnal fish families. So after dinner we would go night snorkeling! At first I was a little scared to go snorkeling at night even though we had an underwater flashlight, but after a few times I got used to it and got to see some really awesome things! Although we didn’t see many fish at night, there were other animals that came out at night that I had never seen during the day. I saw huge colorful lobsters (probably 3 feet long), really big hermit crabs, eels, a crocodile fish and more. Also during the night you can see all of the bioluminescence in the water that the plankton make. When the moon wasn’t out, every time you moved there would be this huge burst of little neon-green specks all around you!
Oh and I did work on a project while on chumbe as well, well at least for part of the time J I took a survey of the sponges that are on the reef, collected some sponges , and am now in the process of compiling a booklet about sponges for chumbe as well as doing some taxonomic lab work. I also have a 30 page paper due on Friday which is what I am working on right now at the university of marine science here (and is what I should be working on now instead of updating my blog, haha).
One more thing: yesterday I was standing in the street on my way to the University talking to a friend that had passed by me and all of the sudden I heard this huge crash ahead of me. I looked past my friend to see the biggest cloud of dust ever and a three story building completely collapse! The building was nestled in between 2 other buildings and it brought part of another building down as well! It was crazy! All of the cars driving by where covered in a thick layer of dust and the building was crumbling into the road! I was standing there flabbergasted because a building just collapsed! But all of the locals where just standing there laughing! (Apparently the building was abandoned though so no one got hurt which was good). There’s certainly a new adventure here everyday!
Well I must get back to paper writing. After my ISP is due I have a Swahili final exam and then about a week to hang out in stone town and other parts of Zanzibar with the other students, which means I will be on the beach working on my tan during that time, haha. My plane leaves on the 12th and I will arrive in Washington DC on the 13th during the day. I will try to update once more before I leave Z-bar.
Hope everyone is doing well!
Emily
(I will post a few pictures from Chumbe later)