Diving in Nungwi

  Nungwi, Zanzibar Archipelago, Tanzania
Wednesday, September 17, 2008

The Casa Umoja

Nungwi is on the northern tip of Zanzibar and is a popular spot for tourist wanting a great beach, great diving and some beers in the evening. We wanted to do some diving at Zanzibar so this was the perfect place to do it. After a long dala-dala trip up to Nungwi we found a great little place called Casa Umoja. It was set just behind the beach and we got a really nice and big double room, and it was decorated in an Arabian style. All for just 40 dollars including breakfast. 

Butterfly fish

We signed up with East African Divers for the Advanced Open Water course, which gave us 5 dives and allowed us to dive as deep as 30 meters. We had some amazing diving one day around a small island called Mnemba, where we saw green turtles and lots of other cool fish. You can stay on the island if you can afford it - around $1000 a night. We borrowed a camera from the dive shop and did some underwater photography. This was more difficult than we thought as you need to get quite close to them to get some good pictures. Small fish does not like big fish with lots of bubbles to close to them - go figure! We dived for a total of 3 days and saw so many cool and funny fish - really super experience.

Party at Cholos

In the evenings we went to Nungwi Inn, which is a small beach front restaurant recommended to us by most of the locals or to one of the other many restaurants on the beach. After dinner we always went to Cholo's, which is the place to be for drinking beer and party. We hung out with a few dive buddy's - Elaine and Vicky, a Swiss couple, and a bunch of Germans - all were really fun and we had a great time. We also had dinner with Vicky one evening and we found out that she had gone to school with Mike Tomlin, head coach of Pittsburgh Steelers, which could be quite useful later on as she would try get Christian tickets for a game. :-D

Saying hi to a turtle

We also went to a turtle sanctuary in Nungwi, where they keep turtles caught in the fishermen nets. They also take a few new hatchlings every season and feed them and after one year they release them. This way they make sure that some always makes it. They have a natural salt water pool, where they keep the big ones - a maximum of 25, and none older than 30 years. When a green turtle gets around 30 years old is able to breed, which is why they are released at this stage.

After 4 great days we left Nungwi and went back down to Stone Town and our little oasis.