Zanzibar and diving in Fundu Lagoon

Hello from Lamu, Kenya! (To check out where Lamu is, trace the equator across a map of Kenya, then find Lamu, a small island south of the equator off Kenya’s coast…) I am sitting in the only Internet café in all Lamu Town, a creaky, seedy old fishing village with no cars, yet plenty of wandering donkeys meandering its narrow (6 foot wide?) streets. There are also Muslim women covered from head-to-toe in black bui-buis, dread-locked Bob Marley disciples, backpacking adventurers, and British ex-pats who decidedly ‘dropped out.’ Lamu does have its lush side, though – in fact, Princess Caroline of Monaco has a house here and the royal family of Monaco tends to spend each Christmas here…Lamu was a change of plans on-the-fly for Cathy and I – we just needed a break from the ‘African bush,’ but more on that later…)

By the way, I know there was a bug that caused the last update to come out as one sentence – I’ll try to fix that. It may have to do with the fact that my updates are becoming too long for the pages I’ve set up, so I may have to shorten my writing from here on in. Also, Internet access from now on looks iffy. We have a day in Nairobi on September 14th where we may get access, but after that, it’s off to remote islands in the Seychelles that may or may not allow me to mess with their office PC. After that is Mauritius, and I know the nearest I-Café is about an hour’s drive from our hotel, so that may be tough, too. I’ll try to update once more on the 14th, but that may be it until we return to the states on October 13th. It should be fine, though – there won’t be much to report from Seychelles and Mauritius other that sunbathing, fishing, and scuba diving. And once we get back, I’ll have time to fix all the typos and even add some photos to the page…

I left off on August 26th with a brief run-down of gorilla trekking, which – especially in hindsight – proved to be an excellent and worthwhile adventure. It was definitely ‘extreme travel,’ though, and Cathy and I were lucky to have a solid break built in after Uganda & Rwanda. It took a day or two to complete the travel, but ultimately we ended up in Zanzibar, Tanzania for one night, and Pemba Island, Tanzania for 4 more. Both are tropical islands with clear blue waters, great seafood, and fruity vacation drinks, and boy did we need that after our time chasing primates around the forest. (Did I mention the movie ‘Gorillas in the Mist’ last time? It starred Sigourney Weaver as Diane Fosse, the woman who really broke new ground in low mountain gorilla studies and conservation. She lived among the gorillas in the Virunga National Park, right where we were… I mention this because all the locals are very proud that their area has been depicted in a movie, but I need to point out one important fallacy – there was NO mist. I would have welcomed mist – I would have adored mist – mist has refreshing connotations, even. Instead, there was dust and dirt, and lots of it… that’s what the movie should have been called: ‘Gorillas in the Dust and Dirt’. Forget that ‘mist’ crap.)

Zanzibar is a very funky, dirty, dark, mysterious place. Almost seedy. Cathy did call it ‘seedy,’ in fact, but I preferred to think of it as ‘historic character.’ The history of the island is quite colorful – the Arabs settled it as early as the 9th Century AD as a trading post from which to reach mainland Africa, it was then taken by the Portuguese in the 1600s when they controlled the Cape of Good Hope route from Europe to Asia, the Dutch took it shortly thereafter, and ultimately the British arrived. There may have been some French influence in there somewhere, too. The local dress, customs, and language (Swahili) reflect this mish-mosh of cultures. Swahili, in fact, is a mixture of Arabic, English, Portuguese, and Bantu, and developed as a trading language. And – like most languages that facilitate commerce (as English today), Swahili became the dominant vernacular and continues to be the prevalent language – along with English – in East Africa today. We stayed in Stone Town, Zanzibar (the old port section) and I really enjoyed the old Arab forts, the more current British Georgian architecture and the over all feeling of a place that just dripped with history. We walked the port and took in the streaky-clouded sky and the blue sea, and the cling-clang of the sailboat rigging in the harbor. We also found some great local art and I particularly enjoyed haggling over prices with the locals. That’s always good fun… Our hotel was right on the beach and had a nice pool, and we enjoyed just breathing fresh salt air and bathing our bodies in the sun after our gorilla trek. We only had one night in Zanzibar (which is enough – it’s a small place) and on the morning of the day we were due to leave, I headed out to a basketball court we had spotted the day before. Some young guys were playing and I jumped in. Man, the ball felt like a foreign object in my hands after 5 weeks on safari! Next time I will take a ball along just to remember its feel along the way! After a few minutes it came back, though, and I had some good fun playing with these guys. It always amazes me to play ball overseas. Here I was on a small island in the Indian Ocean, off the coast of Tanzania, Africa…playing ball, being accepted, and making friends. I love that. Sports really is a great thing sometimes. And sometimes I love to picture myself in a satellite image that is slowly panning back, until my current position is just a speck off the African continent, and I can clearly get a sense of just how far away I am from home! I used to do that all the time back in my ball playing days – I’d picture Mauritius, especially, because it’s just so far away from home. In my minds eye the image starts with an overview of the court, then backs away to get the whole block, then backs further to the whole town, then the whole island, then the whole coast, then the whole country, then the whole continent, then the whole world and then – wow – look where I am!!! Anyway, turns out that the young guys (20s) playing ball were all on a local team and they were tuning up for that afternoon’s big Zanzibar tournament. There are 8 club teams on Zanzibar, apparently. I would have LOVED to have stayed and watched the games, but we had a flight to catch to neighboring Pemba Island.

Pemba Island falls into a category of ‘sister islands’ that I have discovered over the years. It seems to be a universal truth that every island has a less crowded, less touristy, more backward, less-modern, much more charming ‘sister’ island just off from it. You know, the island that time has forgotten since it was just that much harder to get to. There are large examples (Ireland to England, New Zealand or Tasmania to Australia) and small examples (Culebra to Puerto Rico, Gozo to Malta, Rodrigues to Mauritius) of what I mean. Turns out, Pemba fits right into my observation under ‘small example.’ Just to the north of Zanzibar Island, Pemba is similar in size to Zanzibar, yet for some reason in history remained relatively untouched. It’s mostly farmland and small villages. We stayed at a place called Fundu Lagoon, which required an hour flight from Zanzibar (and Zanzibar is already a 40-minute flight from mainland Dar Es Salaam), an hour drive through horrible, horrible bumpy dirt roads, and finally a 10-minute boat tide. I assumed that a place that required SO much travel would be pretty deserted, but we found the place populated with Americans and Brits! It must have been written up somewhere. The owner is a British fashion designer, so that would account for the English being there, but how did the Americans find it? (A quick survey told us how: the Internet. Fundu does have a really cool web page. Check out www.fundu.com. Or maybe fundulagoon.com. I forget.) As a side note, Cathy and I have HAD it with bumpy roads. Seriously. White flag. When we get home we plan on buying cups of scalding hot coffee, taking off the lids, and circling on-and-off expressway ramps and expressways for a while. Just to enjoy the damn smooth ride.

OK, sorry, back to Fundu… Very, very cool and relaxing place to hang out. The accommodations are basically wooden frames with canvas tenting, and it was solid yet ‘open’ at the same time. We were right near the beach and we could clearly hear (and feel!) the crashing waves as the tide came in each night. We indulged in three main activities at Fundu: first, unwinding after the ‘Gorillas in the Dust.’ Second, eating and drinking. (which we’ve managed to excel at everywhere. If eating and drinking were Olympic sports, Cathy and I would be gold medallists and on the Wheaties box, I promise…) Third, diving. After the bumpy, dusty, and hot African bush, we were really excited about diving into some cool blue-green waters. The only snag was that recent rains had clouded the water a bit, and visibility was not stellar, but we didn’t mind. There is an island off Pemba called ‘Misali Island.’ It’s maybe a mile or two in circumference and it’s a nature reserve, both on- and offshore. It’s actually called Misali because it’s a play on the Arabic ‘Maswala’ (I think…), which is the prayer mat used by Moslems. Legend has it that Misali was named so because it was God’s prayer mat. I understood why as soon as I saw it – it’s the quintessential ‘castaway’ island. Beautiful white sandy beaches that taper off into a dense palm tree forest, and crystal waters that move from green to blue as you move from shallow water to deeper water away from shore. We went to Misali three days in a row, in fact, and would not have minded being stranded there at all. The only other people on the island were another diving crew from elsewhere on Pemba and the local fisherman, who cruise by in their ‘dhows’ (the traditional Arabic fishing vessel), seemingly just to show off their white sails in stark contrast to the blue-green waters and the marine blue sky… Our routine was simple: Boat 30 minutes from Fundu to Misali, dive the reefs off-shore, return to Misali for a picnic lunch and a nap on the beach, then head back out for an afternoon dive. After that, it was back to Fundu (just in time for cocktail hour, I might add… note to self: check into AA as soon as we get home…). The reefs off Misali were pretty untouched – the only thing that marred a couple of our dives was visibility. All other factors were great: wildlife, calm waters, perfect depth, and great dive masters. I finally managed to get my official ‘Open Water Diver’ certification (Cathy already had hers) after diving ‘unofficially for so long.’ It’s nice to be fully and legally licensed now! We actually had so much fun diving that Cathy and I decided to go for our Advanced Open Water Diver certification. The difference boils down to 12 meters. If you are an ‘Open Water Diver’ you can pretty much do what you want up to 18 meters, of 60 feet down. But an Advanced Diver is free and clear to go to 30 meters, or 100 feet down. It’s can be a pretty big difference (especially if the wreck you want to dive lies at 25 meters down) and once licensed, we’d be that much more confident and knowledgeable in the water. To become ‘Advanced’ you need to complete 5 additional dives and skill sets. Three are required: the Deep Dive, the Night Dive, and the Navigation Dive. The other two are ‘elective’ from a list of about 20. Time was running out and we only had time for 2 more dives so we opted for the Deep Dive and the Night Dive. The Deep Dive was relatively straightforward – we went down 100 feet and performed timed skills, like tying knots. We also looked at a swatch of colored cloth to compare the color spectrum that deep to what it is at the surface. Interestingly enough, the colors were all wacky and our motor skills (once we tied the same knots above water to compare) were pretty reduced down there. The Night Dive was a whole other experience. I say ‘experience’ for Cathy’s sake. For me it was a nightmare. I do not like deep, dark water at all. In fact, were it not for a very knowledgeable and very experienced dive master, I never would have signed on for that one. As it turned out, it was pretty amazing. Not astounding, because I was still scared to death even when we were done with the dive, but overall very cool. You see a whole different set of animals at night, and the colors are enhanced because of your flashlight. You also tend to see a bit more because you are focused in on the beam of light that you direct. It’s incredible how much life there is in a square foot of coral reef. We saw all sorts of cool crabs, shrimps, and mollusks, including a bright red ‘Spanish Dancer’ that did her latin thing for us. Cathy also found the most amazing creature: it looked like an ordinary plant at first – or a piece of fan coral. It was orange and was made up of an infinite number of ‘fiddlehead’-type swirls branching out of a main ‘body’ about the size of a silver dollar. We were sure it was a cool type of coral. But then it moved in the strangest way, one fiddlehead branch flowing over an other. It truly looked like an alien life form or at the very least something out of a Dr. Seuss book. We decided to name it the ‘CathyG Fish’ on the boat ride home, but were dismayed on our return to discover that it was actually a Basket Starfish. I think CathyG Fish sounds a lot better.

We also had a lot of fun with the other guests at Fundu. Most of the people we’ve met on safari have been a bit older than us, and Fundu was the first place we felt among peers. People were very active (diving and swimming) and very personable. A British couple introduced us to a great new game (Perudo) and we met some very interesting American couples as well. Fundu also reminded us that, although we really enjoyed our safari trips so far, Cathy and I are both beach and water people at heart.

Ok, my time is up for now – here’s what I hope to cover next time I log on:

Sand Rivers Lodge, Tanzania
Ngorongoro Crater + the Serengeti, Tanzania
Shompole, The Great Rift Valley, Kenya
Lamu Island, Kenya