A quiet week

Well, this week hasn't given me all that much to write about. I wasn't well enough to dive on the last few diving days of the expedition (one can't dive if one is congested due to the inability to equalise the ears on descent) and since the volunteers left in the early hours of the morning on the 28th March, it's been lovely, relaxed and quiet. They were a great group and I got on well with many of them, but nonetheless it's still nice to have some peace for a while before it starts all over again on Tuesday.
My boss from London is out here and has been here since Friday. So far it's not been too bad and it's nice to have someone around to talk through some of the challenges and thornier issues. I suppose it's also nice not to be the only 'boss' around ! He's here for three weeks.
My main vao vao (Malagasy for news) this week is that we seem to have moved into Autumn in the last week. The air is much, much cooler and I'm wearing long trousers and long-sleeves at night now, and in the morning. The sun is still warm, but not as punishing as it has been, and the wind has picked up a lot too. Thus far, the weather is much more like it was when we arrived six months ago (six months!). Still sunny, of course though. I am a bit
worried that I have not brought enough warm clothes with me for the next two seasons.
The season change has been quite a marked one. Just like the movement from spring into rainy summer was. One day it didn't rain. The next day it did. And how. And now, one day it was hot and boiling. The next, the temperature was lower and it was pleasantly cool in the shade. I have not dived for over a week now, so I'll be interested to see if the sea
temperature or conditions has changed at all.

Monday 31st March.
Well, I have to report that the sea temperature has dropped by at least 2 or 3 degrees since I was last in the water! We dived this morning and it was 25 degrees and I was COLD in my 5mm full wet suit. Not sure what I'll do when it finally becomes winter. The daytime temperatures in the sun are pretty gorgeous though - like an English summer's day.
More exciting than my reports of the weather is the news that I saw a Napoleon wrasse on the dive today. These are very huge, majestic fish that are often quite curious too. This one was about 1.2metres long (and pretty fat). I always think that they're very mellow, very zen fish. They're sort of the buddhas of the sea. They never seem to be in a hurry to get anywhere and seem to have an aura of calmness about them. Okay, you could blame my perspective on nitrogen narcosis, but we were only at 12 metres, so it can't have been that. It's the biggest thing I've seen in the water since I've got here.
So, on that happy note, I'll sign off for this week. The volunteers - all 13 of them plus researchers - all arrive tomorrow, so I'm sure I'll have a lot more to report by this time next week.