On Sunday I went back up the Congo River, once again hoping to see manatees. By now I’ve started to get a pretty good sense of the area. We go up the main river for about an hour before turning off into a tributary.
Heading up the Congo River from the mouth, in the early morning calm
At the mouth of the tributary is an Angolan navy outpost where we check in. On Sunday a navy guy came over and excitedly told us they had just seen a manatee go by, heading up the tributary. So we motored up a short distance, turned off the engine and drifted, but we never saw it. The river was very deep, 17-22m. We headed upriver past Kibaka and returned to a village called Nzadi Caca. There are actually two villages across the river from each other, all built on large mounds of clam shells. Not surprisingly, the large freshwater clams are the main food and livelihood of the villages in this area. The men free dive as deep as 16m in the river to get the clams, which they tell me the manatees eat as well (they specified that manatees only eat rotten or baby clams, presumably because they can actually get them out of their shells). Clams have been found in manatee stomach samples from northern Africa, so it was interesting to hear it described here as well. Joao bought some clams from the village and I tried one… unfortunately the kindest way to describe the taste was salted sediment.
A village across from Nzadi Caca built on millions of clam shells
Skewers of clams being smoked at Nzadi Caca
Villagers at Nzadi Caca frequently see manatees and were very helpful in describing behaviors they observe. My fantastic translator Joao and I are on the back left, and Mike Carpenter from Angola LNG is also in back (photo credit goes to Mike!)..JPG)
After leaving Nzadi Caca we drifted downstream for awhile, once again hoping to catch a glimpse of a manatee. But this day was a reminder that we had been incredibly lucky last Thursday, because we didn’t see any all day. However, today there were also a lot more motorized boats heading upstream, all filled with gas drums headed for the Congo.
On our way back down the main river to base, we passed the town where the manatee hunter lives. There were several fishing boats out in front, so we asked a fisherman if the manatee hunter was there. He said yes, he was a short distance away on another boat. He paddled over to us and we were able to interview him (with Joao translating). The manatee hunter is named Sebastian and he has lived in this village his entire life except from 1955-1958, when he was sent to India with the Angolan army. He is an old man now but still hunts both manatees and crocodiles. He showed us his harpoons and net and gave a lot of good information about manatees. Although it is depressing that he is killing manatees, these interviews have to remain completely non-judgmental if I’m going to gain trust and get good information. He does have some bones in his village and hopefully next time I will be able to convince him to let me take samples for genetics.
Sebastian and one of his harpoons. He uses one (with bouy attached) to initially harpoon and then follow the manatee, and he has another 2 harpoons to finish the job.
Fishermen display the manatee capture net.
Joao and I interviewing the manatee hunter (photo: Mike Carpenter)
Manatee back / dorsal as it makes a deep dive in the river.
Manatee peduncle and tail as it dives (heading left). You can see the distinct outline of the tail vertebrae in the center of the fluke. 
Tim and Joao (front), Brian (in back in the tan cap) enjoying a really nice day on the river.
A man at the last village we stopped at, Luamba, drew a manatee in the sand to describe what he has seen. 
Eggs being laid into the nest. The last eggs were much smaller and probably were infertile. You can see one of the larger (normal size) eggs on the right side of the photo below.
Josie, Miguel and a nesting leatherback.
Heading back to the ocean after nesting. She will lay several clutches of eggs during the nesting season.
What do marine biologists do for vacation? They go to the desert! I just spent a fantastic week in the Kalahari Desert at Kgalagadi Transboundary National Park, which is in the northwest corner of South Africa and includes portions of Botswana and Namibia (hence the name). A group of 8 of us drove up from Cape Town (15 hours) and stayed at three different parts of the park... at each site we stayed in nice bungalows complete with BBQ grills, a pool and in 2 cases a blind overlooking a waterhole. We saw fantastic wildlife every day, so I'll mostly let the pictures speak for themselves:
We saw lots of Oryx (Gemsbok) and not surprisingly this was originally named Gemsbok Park.
Springbuck. These were everywhere in large herds. They do gorgeous leaps when they run.
Wildebeast herd too shy to come all the way in to the waterhole.
Giraffes were re-introduced to the park a few years ago, so we are lucky to have seen about 20 of them. They were definitely one of my favorite animals there. So graceful!
Pale Chanting Goshawk. We sw lots of these birds and they often feed cooperatively with honey badgers. We saw 2 honey badgers at night with a cobra they had killed, but I wasn't able to get a photo.
Spotted Hyena eating a Red Hartebeast carcass; there were actually 4 hyenas at this kill.
We saw lots of Black-backed Jackals throughout the park. They reminded me of coyotes and were really neat animals.
Kori Bustard, a very large and very cool bird.
Kalahari Tortoise, which is pretty rare.
A group of ostriches at a water hole. The ones laying down are having a giant bird bath.
An Oryx carcass in the road. We saw lots of carcasses, some from kills, some (mostly Eland) that had died as the result of dehydration during the dry season.
Yellow Mongoose
Sunset over the water hole at Nossob.
Our very fun group at breakfast! Gill, Sal, Hilde, Tim, Ken, Marco and Christina. Definitely the trip of a lifetime.