Bring on the Island Weather!

So after the first week the moon started to wane, the wind died down and so did the waves all of which considerably contributed to decreasing my daily seasickness. Nungwi started to look more like a tropical island with blue calm seas.

With the moon disappearing the fishing Dhows started to go out again. Every evening the Dhows put up their huge white sails and literally sail into the sunset. It is probably one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen...to have the horizon of aturquoise water specked with hundreds of white sails.

Then if you wake up with the sun the following morning, you will catch them all sailing back, the morning light catching their sails as they glide onto the beach. The fishermen unload their boats with huge Marlin, Tuna and Barracuda that any sport fisherman would give his eye tooth to catch as well as Turtles and reef sharks that any marine ecologist would have a hissy fit over....everything is caught is huge nets that the fisherman drop over night. The fish are sold off in an auction as they come up off the beach. With the help of one of our captains I bought a "small" Tuna....it managed to feel four of us for 4 meals! There is nothing like fresh braai-ed tuna on the beach.

Last weekend a bunch of us all piled into a taxi and headed to Stone Town for Busara (a local music festival). The fest was fascinating and awesome. It was in an old fort, kinda like the Cape Town castle but a lot more run down. The first act I saw was Muslim music but the woman who sang is over 90years old! Apparently she is quite famous, even outside of Zanzibar. Next was a couple of black Kenyan Mamas shaking their asses in leather dresses! A woman from the Comores then performed...very whiney music but good....the comment made was that there are only 3 reasons one would listen to this type of music...to do Yoga to it, to do contemporary dance to it and to have sex to it.
Then a crazy, young upbeat chick from Egypt performed with a really good band and guy on Jembe, they were followed by a Tanzanian local band.
All it all it was a good night out and worth the long taxi ride there and back.

I am still diving every day and the number of dives is slowly increasing (I have now doubled my dives that I did last year). I am slowly beginning to know some of the reefs and my instructor is letting me lead a couple of dives, which is kinda scary especially since the first one I botched up so badly by getting lost.

But hopefully with some practice I’ll get there eventually. :-p

Beginning few days

Zanzibar is beautiful!!

But let me put you in the picture a bit....
I got fetched from the airport on Saturday by Alba the Driver for East Africa Divers (the company I'll be with for the next couple of months). I froze on the plane even with my fleece but as i walked out i was hit by this thick, humid heat...its awesome! Abla then took me to Nungwi (about an hour drive) we had to stop a couple of times, once to lift a policeman from one road block to the next and another time because the car broke down..."the fan belt" Abla tells me, "but its OK, its just for the steering, we go now!" I was kinda nervous that Abla wouldn't be able to steer, but he was confident he could and i got there safely....

We arrived in Nungwi and left the tar road to enter a maze of local cement houses. The car comes to a stop on the beach, next to the dive centre. The Centre is pretty simple, but it looks straight onto the beach and beautiful sea.


The beach front is very different from the rest of the town. Its built up with tourist accommodation, bars, restaurants and dive schools. My days are pretty routine, we set up and go diving in the morning (2 dives) and then i do theory for my dive courses in the afternoon. I have to stay at the shop until it closes at 18:00. then we (myself and two instructors) head down to Cholo's beach bar for sun downers.

It is very quiet at the moment. All the dive schools are battling and some are even packing up for a couple of months and going on holiday. Damn Economic Crisis!

Diving is good here. I have gone to a couple of reefs including once called Shane's reef (cool hey?). But unfortunately i have been affected by a chronic case of Seasickness, which doesn't make the time between the dives very pleasant.

But so far, so good. Enjoying the heat and chill out time.