Zanzibar and Pembe

A regular Kind of Day on Zanzibar and More

The last 24 hours in a 400-year old house in Stonetown in Zanzibar
--a power surge, which meant this computer didn't turn on this morning until the repair person came to fix it
--no water, due to a drought, more on the mainland than on the islands given that there were torrential rains this morning. Of course that was exactly when my travel mate for the past few weeks was leaving
--A power failure, so even though we could hear several generators and the messages from the local mosque for their last prayer session of the day, we were sitting here by candle light.

The power has obviously come back, and men are now working on our water supply, so I'll be able to shower before heading to Johannesburg tomorrow. That's a relief because it's a little on the warm side here--probably in the mid-90's.

The adventures keep coming. Trekking Kili, seeing the big five on the Serengeti, then up to the north of Zanzibar for some R&R. But that wasn't nearly diverse enough. Another sojourner and I took the 1-2 hour trip from that northern part of Zanzibar to the airport and flew to Pembe. The descriptions in the tour books lured us to the more remote island, and then, as we like to say, were kidnapped by the owner of Pembe Afloat to his 3-boat flotilla on the northwestern tip of this island. We'd actually booked a week at one of his competitors but were glad we succumbed to Philip's persuasion, especially once we learned they lost five divers in 2005. They temporarily lost 3 divers this week, but found them-- luckily still the same day though after dark . The five were never found.

Our adventure started on the trip up to the boats. We thought the roads up to Nungwi on Zanzibar were bad. These roads are only for 4-wheel drive vehicles. We arrived at dark, had marvelous fresh seafood (as we did each day for lunch and dinner) and slept on deck. That worked pretty well except for the occasional rains almost every night. (Rainy season is starting early this year.) We got the drill down to send our bedding into the main cabin, close the forward hatch, including topping it with a chair due to some leakage, the front and side hatches, and sometimes more depending upon the rain. It was a new moon, so when the stars were out, we saw the Southern Cross and all the others visible in this hemisphere.

Currents and tides are all factors here as well as triggerfish which are mating this time of year. The divemaster was attacked on his first dive out with us (he's fine, but with a nick out of his head that needed to stay out of the water to heal), so luckily Ginny, my travel buddy, was able to step in and be our divemaster. Her Cozumel drift diving experience certainly was reassuring given the strong tides and currents here. We tried to time our dives with the incoming tide, but they weren't always cooperative. Luckily Philip told us about one dive called the Washing Machine, because the next day, though he didn't intend for us to do it, the current made it happen. Our speed underwater was projected at 4 knots. That ended up being our shortest dive. It wasn't uncommon for Ginny and I to be down for 75 minutes, much to the chagrin of Philip, who had to bear the heat and sun while we played with the fish. Great barracuda, Titan triggers, turtles, 6-7 foot long humphead wrasses and so many more. I felt like a beginner diver seeing all these new fish. Oh, and how could I forget the lionfish--both adults and juveniles!

We walked into the village to see the school that Philip and Charlie funded, and at the same time observing many malnourished children (that apparently have to grow out of it), witnessed Charlie being medicine women for children that would come out to the boat, sometimes twice a day, to have wounds and scavvy (I think that's right--head problems but not lice) treated, and watched the local fishermen work both day and night. We saw crops in the field, but not cloves, since it's out of season, though that's the biggest crop here.

Today has been my catch-up day. I read through some of the material for my upcoming adventures, gotten myself organized, gone through emails, packed yet again, and now am wondering if I've just gotten bitten by one of those nasty mossies--that's mosquito in some other languages. Hopefully it was just a regular mossy, not a malaria one, because otherwise this will hit me in 10 to 14 days, when I'm heading up the west coast of South Africa. I hear it's not too much fun. And yes, I do have deet repellent on, maybe just not thick enough. Well, hopefully you'll hear more about my adventures sans malaria in the next week.