Experiments in Moonlight Diving and Dugout Canoes
Trip Start
Jan 20, 2005
1
46
58
Trip End
Dec 27, 2005
Nkhata Bay,
Malawi
Thursday, August 25, 2005
After camping on a golf course in Lilongwe, we headed North to Mzuzu on our way to Nkhata Bay on Lake Malawi where we were looking forward to avoiding busses and the dusty road for a long while. As if to remind us how worn of bus rides we were, our 5 hour trip north took us 9 due to unexpected stops on our bus caused first by an oil leak, and second due to a busted brake pad (all these brake pad issues in Africa do give you pause to worry...). But we made it, despite some hair-raising thrills on the hilly terrain.
The next morning we left Mzuzu and headed off to Nkhata Bay via a minibus, which this time arrived 1.5 hours later without incident. Nkhata Bay is a little village on the banks of Lake Malawi and it is a pretty popular backpacker spot with a number of nice lodges offering beachside bungalows, bars and restaurants. We stayed at a really nice quite place called the Butterfly lodge and got ourselves a bungalow with a porch overlooking the lake. I think we spent the first day just enjoying the view of the lake and reading, trying to get our backsides to adjust to a life of leisure instead of travel.
Over the next 6 days we undertook some activity each day while reserving the majority of our time to relaxing and reading. It was a beautiful place to just relax. Many of you may think that this entire trip has been a vacation and only relaxing, but I can assure you that travelling is often as stressful as work. Virginie has said a number of times to me that before leaving on this trip she was a bit worried that she would get bored or find herself with so much time on her hands that she wasn't sure how she would fill the day. She has since realized that she has yet to have a boring day or a moment where she lacks something to do. Its amazing how quickly the days go by and even still how quickly the months go by. I can't believe we have been on the road for 7 months already.
The second day we were there I booked a Full Moon Dive with the local Dive company. Virginie didn't want to come as she doesn't like to dive at night. After hearing about "Bob", I was a bit nervous too, but shook it off. Bob is the name they have given to a resident crocodile that recently made his home in an acre of reeds at the end of the bay. Apparently Bob has been living there for months now and hasn't ventured out very far anyway and is more scared of people than anything (I was assured). Plus, they claim he is a "small" croc, with a head only a couple feet long. Uh huh. Lets say I thought about Bob a number of times on my dive.
My first dive in the lake was just after the full moon rose up red/orange into the sky (its red on full moon because it catches the last rays of the sun as it sets - really amazing sight to see the moon burning in the night sky). The first shock of the dive was after rolling into the water off the boat and tasting the sweetness of the water instead of the usual salt of the ocean. I then found that despite wearing a 5 millimetre wetsuit, my 3 kilos of lead weight were too much. I subsequently dove without a weight belt at all and had no problems. For those that don't dive, usually you have to carry weight to get you to sink, especially when wearing a buoyant wetsuit. In NorCal, I usually have to wear 30-35 pounds of weight with my thick wetsuit. In Mozambique, I wore 10 pounds. Here I didn't have to wear any because you are less buoyant in freshwater than saltwater. What a weird feeling. I made a joke to Virginie later that it must also have been due to my body's low fat content (fat floats/muscle sinks), to which she nearly spit out her drink and had to stifle a fit of laughter. I let her know I thought it was great she'd laughed at my joke, but she didn't have to overdo it ;)
The night dive itself was entertaining, but the lake isn't as full of life as the ocean. I spent most of the dive shining my flashlight onto little fish in the hopes of the schools of Dolphin fish, who used the light to hunt due to their poor eyesight, would get lucky. The terrain in the lake is also nice as it is jagged rocks with lots of nooks and crannies to look into. In the lake there were lots of little fish, crabs and shells. We turned off all of our lights at one point which gives you a kind of sensory deprivation due to the lack of noise, darkness and you floating in liquid. The moonlight shone through the water from the top and I could see the outline of our boat on the surface in the pale moonlight. Was pretty nice.
The next day we just relaxed. In the evenings we found ourselves over at the bar at Mayoka Village where the owners were very nice and there was always a buzz. They had a great BBQ some nights and the beer was cold (and only .75 cents). We spent most nights there, as it was a great atmosphere. We preferred sleeping at the Butterfly where it was quieter than the late night partying that went on there (man, do I sound old).
Virginie and I went on a morning dive the following day and it was a lot of fun, though V said she got a bit bored half way through the dive. It's true that diving in the lake is not as varied as in the ocean, but it was pretty cool we both agreed. The fish during the day were much more colourful and plentiful. They came in bright yellow, blue, gold - fish you'd expect to see in the ocean not in a lake. The vast majority of the colourful fish are Cichloids, fish that were used by Darwin to describe his theory of evolution. There are over 600 identified species of cichloids in the lake, and they estimate there are over 1500 different total though not yet identified. The cichloids are similar, but different species have adapted to different functions of food collection in the lake, some have big lips to sift sand for food, others teeth to scratch algae off the rocks, others eat other fish. We also saw lots of Mouthbreeders - these are fish that protect their newborns by herding them into their mouths. At the first sign of danger (usually us cruising up on them), the mother will swoop through the cloud of youngsters and collect them in her mouth. Usually it takes a few swoops and occasionally she would forget a couple that in one instance got gobbled up by a couple of fish preying on them. Mom seemed to be irritated, but happy that the majority of her young were in her mouth. It was sad to see once that two who didn't make it in the mouth were banging on her as if to say, "hey, don't forget us, let us in" only to have a fish come gulp one down. Circle of life, my little friend, circle of life. Right then I thought about Bob and was less sanguine about my own position in that circle.
Another day we took a long hike through the hills around the lake to visit a far off beach that was recommended to us. Catherine at the Mayoka had drawn us a map on how to get there and we set off early to avoid the heat of the sun. It was a really nice walk through the rural villages, up and down hills, and down to a secluded little beach that wasn't as secluded as we'd anticipated because it was the home of a number of fishermen and their children who were sitting on the beaches mending nets and preparing to go out fishing. Along the way we got lost a number of times and people were always too glad to show us the right path and walk with us a while. Everyone here was extremely glad to have us. On the beach we read a while, until the kids surrounding Virginie who kept poking her legs ceased to be cute admirers and became somewhat irritating. The kids showed us the right path and we hiked back along the hills over looking the vast lake back to our bungalow.
One afternoon I got it in my head to give canoeing a try. The manager at our lodge offered me a medium sized dugout canoe, but seemed to laugh as he went to get me a paddle as if he knew something that I didn't. The canoe seemed sturdy enough made of a single piece of tree trunk, and I'd seen dozens of local fishermen in them from my bungalo each day. I packed up a few things V and I would need in my dry bag, just in case and went down to the shore to push the canoe in. The lodge manager recommended that I give it a go first before getting Virginie into the boat - "just to make sure I was ok with it". V was happy to oblidge as she wasn't that keen to be part of my experiment. After some initial suggestions from the peanut gallery that had assembled to see me off, I got astride the canoe and pushed off from the bank. I was floating ok and felt good until I raised my arms to paddle - this threw my balance and the canoe rolled to one side so hard that I had no chance of staying on - Splash, I was in the water. The glee with which Virginie watched my attempts to maintain myself on the canoe over the next 30 minutes was not as inspiring as it was challenging. After having little luck, other than sitting on the canoe and letting the current and wind propel me, I gave up. Virginie thanked me for giving her the pleasure of having been present to witness the event and said she hadn't laughed so hard in a while. I aim to please though any notions I had of me paddling along the lake, much as Dr. Livingston did here 150 years ago, were banished from my mind.
After spending a number of nights in Nkhata Bay, we reluctantly decided it was time to move on as we wanted to head north to do some hiking. We left early in the morning, but decided to stop back in Mzuzu to see a doctor about Virginie's eye again. Unfortunately, her infection came back after she decided to wear her contacts and it was really bugging her. So now we've been in Mzuzu a couple nights as she tries to get the infection under control with some antibiotics and a dark room to rest in. Its irritating for her that she can't shake the infection, but she's feeling better today, and we're thinking we may leave tomorrow. The Dr. assures us that it is no big deal, just frustrating for Virginie.
