My name is Adeline or ‘Addie’ Cloutier. I am fourteen years old and my home is in Morehead City, North Carolina. I have spent the last 4 years in Mozambique where my father has worked in public health. When I’m not in school or at swim practice, I’m either in the ocean or working on my marine art projects. My passion is swimming but I love to surf, freedive with marine animals, and scuba dive on occasion. Mozambique is a wonderful place. I love the people, the culture and the food. We have found some of the most amazing shells, seen some of the most incredible animals, and heard some of the most inspiring music in our time here.
I learned how to swim at a very young age. My father was working in East Timor or Timor-Leste when I was a baby and he would take me and my brother in the crystal clear reefs off the coast to snorkel. Some of my favorite things to see were clownfish, sweetlips and parrotfish. It was such a magical place. We still communicate with some of our friends there.
Before Mozambique we lived in Angola. It had a rough reputation but we found it to be an awesome place. We surfed every weekend, saw plenty of marine life, and got to go to places nearby like São Tomé where we saw even more incredible animals.
My inspiration is to use my art to raise awareness for marine conservation and use funding we raise for more research on some of the animals I’ve been blessed to interact with, like manta rays and whale sharks. Email me sometime, I’d love to hear about what you do!
