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PembaGreat WallsThe
of
Big walls and tiny critters are an unusual combination, but
the island of Pemba, off the coast of Tanzania, specialises in
both little and large. Aaron
Gekoski takes a plunge on the wild side
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Small iS beautiful: a nudibranch in pemba
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the eyeS of a flounder
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I’m sat stationary in a taxi, being stared down by an ox. Behind
the stubborn beast is a toothless man, perched on a cart laden with
coral rock. My feet twitch: it’s an intriguing scene, but after a
two-hour drive from the airport through ancient forests and bumpy
dirt roads, I’m itching to get down to business.
In case I was under any illusions, Pemba is no ordinary dive
destination. Despite lying just 50kms north of Unguja, its
tourist-saturated neighbour and the main island in Zanzibar, Pemba
remains remarkably underdeveloped – there are only four hotels on
the island and little in the way of infrastructure.
ReinventinG the wheelBeneath the waves the contrasts continue.
Pemba is all about strong currents and steep underwater walls, as
opposed to cruising through Unguja’s laid-back, shallow dives. One
thing the islands do have in common is overfishing. With a rapidly
expanding population, most of whom live below the poverty line,
locals remain heavily reliant on the ocean for protein. The use of
dynamite, long lines, gill nets and spears means that Pemba’s dive
site Manta Point no longer contains mantas, the schools of pelagics
are shrinking, and turtles are rarely seen. It’s an all too
familiar tale for Africa’s vast coastline.
Pemba has adapted to these pressures and partly reinvented
itself as a place where the miniature wonders blossom among great
walls of coral. Thankfully I’m a keen macro photographer: everyone
knows what a dolphin looks like, but what about a harlequin shrimp,
a feather duster worm, or a dragon moray eel?
SwAhili DiveRSAfter a couple of hefty slaps on its juicy looking
bottom, the ox finally lumbers past, revealing the entrance to
Swahili Divers. Owned by an English national of Turkish descent,
Farhat Jah – or ‘Raf’ as he is known – appears to polarise opinion
among people here: as the Lonely Planet guidebook puts it, ‘you
either love him or hate him’. Raf’s away during my stay, so sadly I
don’t get to form my own opinion.
Swahili Divers is, without doubt, the most rural dive centre
I’ve come across in years working as an underwater journalist. The
accompanying lodge, Kervan Saray, has a slightly salty, wind-swept
feel to it. While the dive centre itself is not without charm, it
might benefit from a lick of paint here and a dab of cement there.
We are, however, in deepest rural Africa – why pretend
otherwise?
I’m met by fellow Englishmen Darren and Craig – incredibly
thorough and professional instructors who’ve clocked up more than
6,000 dives between them. Over breakfast Darren pulls me aside to
chat through the diving. The majority of dive sites, he explains,
are concentrated in the gaps that separate Pemba from the tiny
islands of Fundo and Njao.
miniature wonderS: a flat worm in full flight; a cloSe up of a
durban dancing Shrimp; a goby SitS on a whip coral
hard coralS thriving on
pemba'S reefS
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chriStmaS tree wormS
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»
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There are eight dive sites in each gap, some with vast
underwater walls that plunge down over 100m. Unlike nearby islands
Mafia and the rest of the Zanzibar archipelago, Pemba is not part
of the continental shelf. The water that flows through the Pemban
Channel brings with it a high density of nutrients, so life
thrives. It’s the huge volume of water that accounts for visability
that can reach 50m on a good day.
GettinG to woRkDisappointingly, this isn’t one of those good
days and the water at Njao Gap, a 15-minute sail away from Swahili
Divers, looks ominously green. Darren kick-starts proceedings at
Trigger Wall, which contains a number of staggered coral plateaus,
caves and tight swim-throughs.
After all these years reading about them, I’m finally here,
exploring Pemba’s walls of coral. Like a kid in a candy store I
find myself at the back of the dive group, snapping various
colourful treats. This means I’m the only one to witness a black
and white shape contorting and dancing its way towards me – a flat
worm in full flight. Finally catching up with the group, I see
Darren – regulator out, mask off – sporting a face full of white
banded cleaner shrimp.
Our second dive is to Egger’s Ascent. A sharp current eases us
towards a steep slope that’s lined with coral bommies. But it’s the
day’s third dive that really catches my attention. The
site is called Aquarium (and what dive destination worth it’s
salt doesn’t have a site called Aquarium?). Fish swamp a large
outcrop of table, whip and brain corals. From the banded and
bearded, to the spotted and striped, they’re everywhere.
And then there’s Tony, the resident trumpetfish. Tony is an
affable creature who uses divers as cover to hunt for tasty morsels
among the coral. But it’s the smaller guys I’m excited to see. I
spot four different coloured leaf fish, a mantis shrimp who has
built his lair out of coral, a clown shrimp that lives on an
anemone that retracts if touched [not that divers should ever touch
anything – ed], and more goodies I’m too excited about to even
recall. It is, quite simply, the best macro dive I’ve ever
done.
BAck on lAnDAfter salivating over Aquarium’s macro goodies, we
arrive back to the dive centre in desperate need of a sundowner on
Kervan Saray’s deck overlooking the Indian Ocean. As the sky
blackens overhead, it awakens bush babies who fight (or fornicate –
I’m not sure which) in the trees above.
Dinner here is usually a simple, yet plentiful affair – often
soup, followed by fresh fish and local veg, topped off with
doughnuts in custard for dessert. There are no frills and
definitely no
above: relaxing on Kervan Saray'S decKleft: the wallS which are
pemba'S main attraction for diverS
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tony, a reSident trumpetfiSh at aquarium dive Site
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Pringles or chocolate bars on offer – if you want a snack, you
can eat some roasted nuts like the locals do. After dinner, I head
off for eight of the soundest hours sleep I’ve had in a long
time.
Over a breakfast of omelette and fruit, assistant manager
Tiffany explains the lodge staff have to preorder eggs a couple of
days in advance, which gives the villagers time to round up the
roaming chickens. Now that’s truly free-range. Coffee is an odd,
muddy concoction and chai tea is brewed here with cinnamon and
cloves. With 3.5 million clove trees on the island, Pemba supplies
70 per cent of the world’s market.
Back on the dive boat, we find Njao Gap still a bit murky so we
head to Aquarium again. This time I’m fortunate to see a moray eel
having its teeth cleaned by more white banded cleaner shrimp.
Darren is less lucky: he gets too close and the moray bites him on
the finger with its sparkly clean gnashers.
In the evening, Darren – bandaged finger and all – leads us on a
mini expedition along the beach to find a coconut crab. The largest
land crab in the world, this globally endangered species can weight
up to 4kg. We find a juvenile and watch it scale the restaurant’s
beams, as I perform a ‘viz dance’ in the hope of bringing in clean
water for tomorrow’s dives.
The gods don’t respond. Craig counters their snub by taking me
north to dive near Pemba’s lighthouse. This means I get to see
nearby Manta Resort’s newly installed underwater bedroom. From the
surface it’s an unprepossessing wooden concoction, suspended in the
middle of the ocean. However I’m sure the room itself is nice (for
$1,500 per night, it should be).
Back at the gaps, at dive site Rudi’s Wall, Craig’s the first to
spot a large blotched fantail ray resting in a swim-through. After
this he finds an octopus that would rather sit in a hole than pose
for a picture (quite sensible). Our safety stop in a bed of
seagrass, which is home to lengthy rope-like sea cucumbers and
gigantic orange nembrothas, beats hanging in mid-ocean for three
minutes.
With conditions still not playing ball, I concentrate on the
macro life that Darren and Craig are so adept at unearthing. They
take me to dive sites with some rather peculiar names, including
Emilio’s Back Passage (great vertical walls covered in corals and
sponge that plunge to 45m), DF Malan (stepped walls with a couple
of underwater ‘islands’ and 50 uninterrupted
metres of large table corals), Snapper Point (lots of
nudibranches in the shallows and schools of big eye snapper), Manta
Point (challenging currents and an underwater mountain that rises
to within 5m of the surface, with great macro on top) and Aquarium
several more times. I’d like to think that Tony the trumpetfish
recognises me by now. Surface intervals are spent on tiny beaches
and coves lined with baobab, mango, cashew, papaya and banana
trees. They’re simply idyllic places to eat sweet pancakes and
drink muddy coffee.
One day, we break up the diving with a spooky kayak trip among
the mangroves. You get the feeling that one wrong turn and you
might never find your way out. On our return to the lodge the
tide’s out and we search for nocturnal creatures among the jaggedy
rock pools – a toe-stubber’s paradise. Craig’s torch reveals a
flounder the size of my fingernail, a baby octopus that uses its
tentacles to hunt among the crevasses, a leafy green nudibranch and
some huge brittle stars.
In true Hollywood style, we save the best dives until last. The
viz Gods have finally brought in clear water. They’ve even put on a
leaving party at Egger’s Ascent, inviting a dozen giant trevally
that hurtle towards us for a good stare. Following them, a school
of great barracuda torpedo by watched on by fusiliers, unicornfish
and surgeonfish. And as we begin our ascent, Craig spots a
cuttlefish on the wall.
In such clear water, Trigger Wall is a different proposition to
our first dive there and gigantic gorgonian fans beckon us from the
deep with spindly fingers. When Cousteau’s Calypso first sailed
here in 1967, he described the richness of these waters and
remarked on the abundance of fish life. As Pemba’s famous current
sweeps me along, I close my eyes and imagine how this site might
have looked nearly 50 years ago. While the diving here is still
excellent, in Cousteau’s time it must have been out of this
world.
it’S A wRApIt’s been a hardcore, thrilling, relentless week of
diving. If I haven’t been photographing the fish, I’ve been
discussing them, identifying them in books, trying to catch them on
hooks, or eating them. Like Pemba’s waters, I’m a little bit fished
out. Well, for a day or two anyway.
I crack open a Kilimanjaro – one of Tanzania’s local, tasty
beers – and head back to an empty deck to reflect on my time here.
This is what Pemba is all about: no other dive boats, no package
holidaymakers, no supermarkets, no gimmicks. Just first-rate diving
in a place of raw, untamed beauty. As Raf explained in an email
before I arrived, ‘Pemba may just be one of the last remaining
diving wildernesses’. I couldn’t have put it better myself.
Aaron Gekoski is a journalist, photographer and videographer
based in Cape Town. He writes for FHM, National Geographic
Traveller and Africa Geographic. He's sponsored by Cameras
Underwater, www.camerasunderwater.co.uk. www.aarongekoski.com
“ He gets too close and the moray bites him on the finger with
its sparkly clean gnashers
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GettinG theRe:Fly from Zanzibar to Pemba: www.zanair.com,
www.coastalaviation.com Between $90-110 one way from Stone Town to
Chake Chake.
when to Go:Conditions are good from July to March, with the best
period between July and November when a southern wind brings in
clear, cold water. Humpbacks visit the region from July to
October.
lAnGuAGe: Swahili
cuRRency: Tanzanian shillings
pRiceS:Due to its remote location, it’s not cheap to dive here.
Packages start at 2 nights accommodation plus 3 dives for $470.
More information can be found on www.swahilidivers.com.
MiSAli iSlAnD:Receives rave reviews for its coral and fish life.
Over an hour’s boat ride away, visiting requires a minimum of five
divers paying an additional $70pp to cover the fuel costs.
-ReMeMBeR:Pemba’s a Muslim country so dress appropriately. That
means no bare shoulders or short shorts when you’re outside the
resorts.
Need to know:
a jellyfiSh at the Surface
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