Mozambique for a Whale Shark Adventure to remember
Trip Start
Mar 30, 2008
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Trip End
Mar 31, 2009
Ponta Du Auro,
Mozambique
Monday, February 16, 2009
Friday 13th February - moz across border, snorkelling vid, shopping for dive school & accom, dive brief
Although it had rained all through the night it finally cleared up not long after we got up. Mike therefore proposed to take Remy and his wife across the border to Punta du Oura for the day, it made sense that this was our prime opportunity to go to Mozambique and try the diving there, we hurriedly packed into one bag and left the other and the car in Kozi. Lloyd and Philly joined us and we all loaded into Mike's Isuzu pick up and headed for Mozambique. The border was very relaxed and there was no problem getting an entry Visa here for 175R per person. From the border to Punta was via sandy tracks that had huge deep puddles in them, definitely four wheel drive only here. The children waved and gathered by the deeper puddles to cheer and hopefully help if anyone got stuck! It took only thirty minutes before we reached the small town, or large village of Punta du Oura.
Arriving in Punta we were first greeted by a large bustling market place before turning towards the diving camp. Here there are a variety of dive operators and standards of accommodation, but first we needed to help Mike. He needed some footage of snorkellors for his DVD so I put on my mask and snorkel and went into the shallow bay for Lloyd to film. Prior to this we had dropped our bags at a dive operator offering accommodation too, but when we returned they couldn't take a credit card and we had insufficient cash. We tried the local shops and restaurants, all three of them, for a credit card swipe, but none were carrying enough rand so we had to relocate our business and ended up at Scuba Adventures. The accommodation was better and we got a package including 5 free dives!
At 5pm we attended our first dive planning session and put our names down for two dives. We met a group of South Africans here including Jeff and Vickie, who lived in the UK, in London Road Southampton next door to the Alexander Pub!! They kindly invited us to join them for dinner on Saturday night to which of course we accepted.
Saturday 14th February - Punta, Mozambique, Dive 1 Aquarium & 2 Bass City, Whale Shark for Valentine Day! Happy divers.
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(-;We were required to be up at 6am today to kit up, ready to leave for the first launch at 7am. We were on time and found all the equipment we needed, we were relieved to find it was fairly new in good condition and surprisingly all working as it should do! The equipment was loaded onto a trailer for the short trip to the beach and then into the RIB (Rigid Inflatable Boat) or 'Rubber Ducky' as the SA's like to call them, by the locals working at the camp. Launching the boat was interesting as this was done not into the water, but onto the beach! Then when loaded it was man handled to face the ocean and pushed in, ladies aboard first then the gents. The two 85HP outboards were opened up and after a few circles to empty the boat from the scuppers we were ready to head out. Carlos the very able skipper had to choose a route through the huge surf and then time his run to avoid any breaking waves. This was great fun and we were soon on our way to our first dive site.
'Aquarium' was a 24m dive site, but unfortunately we were only to make it down as far as 10m. Clare was having problems clearing her ears. We tried various ways for ten minutes, but fearing damage we called off the dive and surfaced. We had seen some great looking jellyfish and some creatures that were glowing and flickering with bio-luminescence. The return to the beach was equally exciting as again Carlos had to pick his route carefully to avoid the breakers or ride on the back of one breaker all the way to the beach. Then it was full speed ahead to the command of 'Hold on' as we hit the beach at 20 knots quickly coming to rest there! We disembarked and the guys looked after our gear. Then we had our breakfast, it was just 9am.
The second dive, 'Bass City' was a 21m dive, but again Clare had problems with her ears. Again we tried and got a bit deeper but the left ear was painful and not right. I surfaced with Clare and she was happy to remain on the boat alone this time (with the surface cover) as I went back down to the join the group alone. This was the first time I had ever descended 21m through the blue all alone and was glad when firstly the bottom and then other divers emerged through the 10m of visibility. The rest of the dive went well and the reef here looked healthy. A huge Potato Cod followed us for the dive and as I no longer had a buddy I chose to stick with him! There were also some huge sting ray here lying on the bottom along with the usual reef inhabitants like Moray Eel, Lionfish and Nudibranchs (naked snails).
It was a long rough trip out to Bass City and so we weren't looking forward to the ride back that was until Jeff spotted something. A Whale Shark!!! It was so exciting, we couldn't get our mask, snorkel and fins on quick enough. We gently lowered ourselves down into the water trying not to startle it. It was rough so difficult to snorkell gently enough not to scare this youngster, he was only about 6 or 7m long (they can be over double this!). I managed to get some video and Clare had an amazing time as she found herself right in his path so was able to look him in the eye. This is what we had strived so hard for in getting to Mozambique and we were absolutely delighted to have shared a few moments with this beautiful gently creature, the worlds largest fish.
After another safe beach landing and telling our tales of Whale Sharks to the others Clare and I went to the Beach Bar for lunch. That evening true to their word the South Africans invited us to join them in a seafood feast. Natalie (Vickie's sister) had bought 3kg of prawns from the local fishermen and Mary, the receptionist had obtained about 10 Gunter Fish for her. She also insisted that she and the kitchen staff prepare the food with lots of garlic and butter, individually cleaning and stuffing each prawn. The food was braai'd under Jackie's expert and watchful eye with Jeff and I assisting, I specialised in loading prawns onto the wire trays!
We joined by Jules a friend of theirs and Natalie and Vicky's mum and uncle for dinner which made for a lovely sociable meal. The food was absolutely delicious and way too much, which was nice. The guys had a hot sauce from a local restaurant 360 which I poured over my rice and was sure I would live to regret!
Sunday 15th February - Mozambique dive 3 Pinnacles (Deep Shark dive - Bull Sharks and Devil Rays), & 4 Steve's Ledge, Dinner at 360 with Graham and Fiona
I was regretting the hot sauce from last night as we got up at 5am today to leave at 6am and head out to the star attraction dive site today. 'Pinnacles' was a long boat ride from here North and not far from Bass City. It boasted a bottom of 40+m with a large pinnacle of rock, rising to around 25m which attracted pelagics regularly. We were told we could expect: Zambezi or Bull Sharks, Hammerheads, and even Tiger Sharks. A Great White has also been seen here! Clare was a little nervous, but we were both excited and looking forward to the dive. Shame then when Clare's ears were still not right. That meant I had to surface and take Clare back to the boat and that meant I was on my own to go to find the group down there somewhere in that 'shark infested water'!
It was perfectly fine though and I felt relaxed when I found the group at 30m. I hadn't missed much as it appeared I arrived at the same time as the first Zambezi. He was a beautiful fish, but young at no more than 2.5m long. The bottom was just visible below us as we hung at 25m for this essentially blue water dive and so did the Zambezi, casually swimming in and amongst us, often within a couple of feet of me. Later another one arrived and then below us we saw a huge school of Devil Rays flying around. This was a great dive and when we surfaced and boarded the boat Carlos checked the GPS to find that we had drifted 2km from 'Pinnacles', but yet the Zambezi's stayed with us, I found that interesting. Are they curious or hungry!
For the second dive 'Steve's Ledge', Graham's buddy Fiona and Clare decided to stay behind so Graham and I buddied up. Graham was a very confident and safe diver, he is also an instructor and I enjoyed discussing diving things with him. This was a shallower dive and we descended to 17m before gently drifting along the reef. I was trying to be careful not to bump into other divers or more importantly the reef, which is more that could be said for a others we came across. In particular I was finning gently with the current when a 'diver' bumped hard into me. I looked around and was amazed to discover that this diver was in fact a large Green Turtle. How careless of me to have got in his way!
There were some beautiful things to see including tiny Box Fish, large Porcupine Fish, nudibranchs and plenty of eels. One by one as divers ran out of air they surfaced, but I had a trick up my sleeve, by buddy was generous and hardly breathed. As he had plenty of air Graham offered his alternate air source tome and I gratefully accepted. We surfaced with the Dive Master after 69 minutes both still with 50 Bar after a long 3 minute safety stop at 5m.
That evening Graham and Fiona took us to 360° , the restaurant we mentioned earlier. This had great panoramic views both inland and out over to sea and we had a lovely evening with them. Shame that much of what we talked about was concerns for the future of life in South Africa, but it was interesting for us and we all admitted that despite this the country remains a beautiful place with a great outdoors lifestyle and it's got great dive sites. They also offered a lift back across the border and to drop us at our car in Kozy Bay.
Monday 16th February - Punta du Oura to Johanesburg
We left at 7.30 am and were at the border as it opened at 8am, back at our car by 8.30am. We said our goodbyes and Graham and Fiona, with luck we will dive with them again one day. They left and headed back to J'burg to be reunited with their 5 and 2 year old boys and so we decided to make for J'burg too. We arrived at the Ritz Backpacker at 6pm and checked in. Supper was the last of the Gunter left over from Saturday night..
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