June 20 - Tanzania: Zanzibar Scuba Diving
Jon and me on a little sand island in the Indian Ocean
Torrential downpour last night! I woke up to listen to it for a while. This, of course, is AFTER we were woken up by inebriated Aussies pounding on our door at 4:00AM. So when we woke up at 7:30 to go diving we made sure that they got a nice little wake-up call from us. I jumped up and down on Dennis's bed just to make sure he was completely awake to enjoy early morning Zanzibar.
We did a lot of scuba diving today with Kerry and Mathilde and it was fabulous. The dive shop we used was recommended by Kiboko and was wonderful. It's called One Ocean Diving (http://www.zanzibaroneocean.com). Here are the details of each dive:
Dive #1: Turtle's Den
Depth: 18 meters
Bottom Time: 53 minutes (38 for Jon, who ran out of air)
Visibility: 20 meters
Sighted: 15-20 Greenback Turtles, lionfish, trumpet fish, purple starfish, blue spotted rays
Lunch on a lovely little sandbar/island in the middle of the ocean (see picture above).
Jon's mermaids
Dive #2: Pinnacle
Depth: 12.2 meters
Bottom Time: 51 minutes
Visibility: 20 meters
Sighted: Hawkbill Turtles, blue spotted rays, electric rays, lion fish, sea cucumbers
Note: I accidentally knocked against some fire coral and wow does it ever sting. I'm writing this journal hours later and my foot is still burning! But it should be better in a few days.
Textile Market
Then Jon and I walked around the textile market looking for material for a "travel quilt" my Mom is making of our trip. We finally found vendors with bolts and bolts of material, but most of it was polyester and very little was African-type prints. Afterwards, we went back to the room to clean up a bit and Jon went to torment Dennis who was still in bed and suffering from a heinous hangover.
Jon's Words: I offered Dennis a beer, which was refused, and after I blew a few beer burps Dennis' way, Dennis stumbled to the bathroom. I of course taunted him mercilessly by offering Dennis more beer and even pouring some in the toilet for Dennis (where his head was barely inches from the African toilet water, I might add) so he wouldn't forget what beer smelled like.
Serves him right, of course, for waking us up at 4:00. Silly boy.
Dive #3: Night Dive at the Great Northern Wreck
Depth: 13 meters
Bottom Time: 46 minutes
Visibility: 10 meters
Sighted: Trumpet fish, Prawn, Kettle Fish. We've been on more exciting dives, but there's something about a night dive that is so intriguing!
For this dive, Jason and Matt came with us and did some night snorkling while we dove. This was apparently the first "night snorkling" the dive shop had ever done, so it was a new thing for all of us. So the six of us (Kerry, Mathilde, Jason, Matt, Jon and I) had the boat and the dive master all to ourselves. It was quite fun. We boated out to the dive site during sunset and it was as if we had our own personal sunset cruise! Unknown to us, the Aussies had re-attached Jon's tank to the side of the boat. So when he got up with all his gear on to jump into the water, the thick rubber band snapped him back into his seat. The Aussies thought this was the funniest thing they'd ever seen.
Evening Market
After the dive, we walked around the evening market and took the gang to Saroni's jewelry booth (See June 18). Then we went to the Zanzibar Pizza booth and completely pigged out on Zanzibar Pizzas (similar to crepes, but thicker). Jon - my husband with a bottomless stomach - also got some sugar cane juice and an ice cream. I think we'll just eat our way through Africa instead of doing this silly safari thing.
On the way back to the hotel we got caught in a sudden torrential downpour. So we sat in a doorway in one of Zanzibar's narrow, windy streets watching the street turn into a temporary river. Jon pointed out that this is obviously how they keep the streets clean, as the river was washing away all the trash.
Well I'm off to bed. We're doing a deep dive (40 meters) early tomorrow morning before we leave Zanzibar.