What happened on Pemba, won't stay on Pemba
Trip Start
Oct 16, 2009
1
14
16
Trip End
Nov 02, 2009
Pemba,
Tanzania
Saturday, October 31, 2009
That last entry was a little harsh. The lip of Raf lay heavy on my shoulders and I took that 30 minutes in the internet café in Stone Town to unload a little.
So what was our average day on Pemba? Wake up call at 7am to have our usual buffet breakfast. Never has Alizeti (chef's like this name. The resident chef, much like all the cooks on safari, took to it like kids to cupcakes, and hollered at me at all possible moments. Sigh. The little pleasures)...anyway, never has Alizeti indulged in pancakes (French, thus crepes, this time) quite as much as she did on this trip. Laced in honey and under generous heaps of fresh exotic fruits, she was never disappointed.
Wade, trusted Wade, would be in the dive shop from 6 or 6.30, checking regulators and BCDs, chalking up the dive board with this day's diving crew and boat crew and ensuring the right gear was set up and tanks were filled.
The Boat Crew, led by Mohammed (father to no less than 10, having two wives, the second of which is rather peeved to have borne him only two offspring and pining for two more...but he wants a crack at a 9th out of Mamma Uno....mamma mia!) would be seen from 6am on the boats or pulling the wooden barrow with oxygen tanks from the dive shop to the shore and on to either glitz glam Sea Wolf or Rock Hopper (our "vessels").
Around 9 to 9.30am we'd set off. Most of the time under brilliant sunshine with those water colours and white sands to make Europeans cry all around us. Day 2 however, was gray, overcast and VERY rainy. The rainy season had come early (punch lined with emphatic tones by Raf "which basically means the crops are f"cked AGAIN").
Day 2 was also the day my flooded mask mares of Sangat came back to haunt me. They'd already caused hyperventilation style oxygen consumption the day before but when Wade waded (ahahah) over to adjust my weights and knocked my mask, and so flooding it, entirely unknowingly, I pushed him away and shot to the top and sat out the rest of the dive...and the second dive of that morning. I was upset. I jumped back in the water and snorkled above Raf, shooting away with his camera underwater. THAT'S how perfect the visibility was.
After the first dive there is always a beach pit stop for tea or coffee and "dive debriefs" and discussions about "dive site 2" for the day. Lawrence and Jack had been great chinners uppers on the boat (they never dive more than 30 minutes, "cus they're too old and fat" (their words).
So I sat out dive two (that's how I know so much about Mohammed's family tree) and we went back for the typical massive buffet lunch which always had elements of indian food.
Maxine, the dive instructor from South Africa, was now back on the island and I had my first pool diving session ever. It felt like the fall of the mighty but you know what? It did the trick. I headed out with the grumpy geezers for dive 3 of the day and Maxine and I weighted down for 40 minutes sitting on the sand flooding my mask and just keeping me there breathing.
Worked a wonder. Day 3? Buoyancy back. Air consumption low as it used to be and switching off all alarm bells to float like an astronaut and really take in what was around me.
Mandela's wall (named the day of his release), Snapper's Point, End of the World (or, God's Garden in Wade's world...and he's right), Manta Point, Eger's Ascent, Land's End....all stunning and different types of dive. We had some genuine drift dives where you can just stand horizontally suspended in the water and swivel round: coral wall, great blue infested with fleets of fish, coral wall.....
Day 5, dives 9 and 10, I felt (Raf doubted) I was ready to get a camera unda da sea, down where it's wetta, dalin it's betta, take it from me.
Yep... the photos will, again, say much more than I can.
Day 5 was another rainy afternoon and being slightly chillaxed out, I grabbed my prized banana leaf hat, an umbrella, and donned a longer dress to hit the mud road into the village and see where it led.
2 and a half hours later, Mac drove by an Alizeti who had walked too far back having missed the turn off under her hat rim. He was later to dub me the Angelina Jolie of Pemba as apparently I looked like I was picking my "keepers" surrounded by kids on the road side. Pfff, whatever, they're the cutest kids. I even had a bunch of about 15 of them Pemba Break Dance for me and be overjoyed at the instant replay function....if they had cotton socks, I'd say bless them. But hakuna matata will have to do.
There were midnight swims in the dive pool, sunset shots, sunrise shots, dive shots...wishing for shots to get through Raf's whiskey induced military march around the tables dominating conversations.
The food? OK, if you don't have constant electricity there's not much point investing in a fridge. And if you're catering to western tummies you need to make darn sure you're killing anything in there that might cause Les Runs. Remember, Alizeti was travelling with DIY Chef Supreme D'excellence, Echalotte (Kitinguru Maji). Bof, zis meat, zat fish....it iz all overrrcooked. Ze wine? awww..I can drrrrink it.
Love it :) But he's right. Hence you start strategically stuffing yourself on peanuts during the apero phase.
The dogs? Thought Echalotte was getting island fever when he said they were "rotated"...then someone talked about those off rotation being in "compounds". Hey? Anyway, the whole pack of them would cause mayhem if all on the lodge grounds at the same time. So they take turns. 2 and 3 at a time, beg for food and perhaps the only "job" Cisca and Raf did continually was yell "Oi! Out!" everytime they approached the al freso dining area.
Mac, the manager: London boy who I'm not quite sure has fended off island fever. I'd go insane. No TV, no newspapers... but I guess that's what makes him a patient soul. He loves his dogs, speaks his good swahili learnt after only 14 months and lives for the weeks when Raf's not around, confusing the staff as to who the boss is and which rules apply.
The other guests were lovely people but you can perhaps begin to understand my young blood starvation when I tell you I had a ball of a time chatting to 17 year old Alex (Jack's eldest son, when they came back from the posh resort further up the wives, both named Sally, had insisted on after a few days of the bare necessity way of life Kervan Saray Lodge can sometimes be).
Though it's paradise and just what I wanted, as in, low maintenace and awesome, awesome diving... I was ready to leave come Saturdya morning early doors. And so that was it...a 2 hour drive back to Pemba airport and a flight back to Zanzibar....for 4 hours walking around with Echalotte before he headed back to Amsterdam...
And I planned on shaking down Stone Town...
