Sun, beach, incredible scuba, 2M, great seafood
Trip Start
Jun 18, 2009
1
3
6
Trip End
Jul 07, 2009
Inhambane,
Mozambique
Sunday, June 21, 2009
due to time constraints we flew, as driving from Joburg would have been full day, only airline is LAM, not cheap, tiny little 30 seater plane, not a bad flight though, 1hr 30min
organised a cab through Albatroz, app R200, roads are pretty tough, wouldnt be much fun in a car,4x4 better
rented a 3 bedroom thatched house on the dune, stunning views, great balcony with braai, house comes with a morning cleaner, good value at R650 a night for the house
everyday we popped by the market (no shops) to buy supplies, and the might 2M (local beer), accepted both Rands and Meticais
beers 30 metis (R10, £0.80)
everyday the fishermen come to the house and offer you their catch, prawns, crayfish, crab, langoustines, fish, prices are negotiable so depends how good you are at that to deicde what you pay, test their scales with a 1kg pack of food from the kitchen, we bought tones of seafood and braaied almost every night, as a price estimate for R50-R70 (£4-£5) you get a massive platter of anything you want, I did hear from others that they had been at the right time, right place and had got even cheaper than that, but I wasnt too bothered
quite a few restaurants in town, offering mainly seafood, pizza amongst others, not much red meat on offer, restaurants were fairly pricey, I would say on par with SA prices
beach was amazing, great swimming time, good waves, high twenties temperature, water was warm, beaches were generally empty, often we were the only ones for 500m, thats crazy
THE DIVING
sensational, and we have dived Red Sea, Turkey, Zanzibar, and this place kicked ass, the quantity of sea life was amazing, and huge sea life
we dived with Tofo Scuba, after doing the rounds and visiting all the dive schools, Diversity also looked pretty good, Tofo Scuba had a great setup on the beach, and we negotiated on rates and they gave the best deal, enough said
they were very good, very very high safety standards, very well organised, most dives were 6 divers to a dive master, and its challenging diving too, no comfy dive boats, all rubber duck, and negative entry too (fall back off the boat and go straight down), saw lots of divers a bit flustered by this, and the good dive sites are pretty deep, straight down to 30m, good thing about this is air isnt normally a problem cos you have fairly low bottom times anyway
what did we see, some good stuff, and some huge stuff, massive potato bass, I mean the size of small whale, these fish were monsters, and close up, of sourse the major drawcard, manta rays, huge, majestic, giant spiny lobsters, huge schools of baracuda etc etc etc so much life down there, and such great dive sites
in between dives (we mainly did the morning 2 tank dive, so you stay out at sea between dives) was great snorkel chance to snorkel with whale sharks, and we got lucky once, a stunning 6-8m wwhale shark (young one) which I got to paddle along next too for about 20 min all on my own cos no-one else wanted to jump in, was awesome and one of my highlights
thanks to the Tofo Scuba team, highly recommended
of course the Saturday saw the continuation of the Lions series, and we found a spot showing DSTV, what a nailbiter, and with a penalty in the final second the 3 match series is won, jubilation
back to SA on the Sunday
