Snorkelling today. Hopefully. 2nd day of Christmas celebrations. Had a pleasant morning, breakfast was fruits and fried egg like yesterday. Took our snorkelling gear and headed down to the beach where a boat was waiting for us. Got on the boat, which took 1.5 hours to cover the distance between Pemba and the small island of Misali. The ride there was pretty fun, saw lots of dolphins.... here is one where it came quite far out of the water to say hello!
One of us, Kalpesh, got pretty sick on the way and threw up over the side of the boat. The boat driver's assistant was fishing off the boat on our way there and he managed to catch this big fish.
Got on the island around noon as we left fairly late, and were greeted by the Island Ranger who gave us a brief introduction to the activities on the island which included snorkelling, walking along the beach, exploring caves.
Did an hour of snorkelling. Was quite nice, but probably cannot be compared to what we get in Australia. Saw zebra fish, angel fish, black and yellow striped fish, swordfish, a completely yellow fish, and a few others I can't name. The corals were average though. Apparently we didn't snorkel in the right area as well so there were probably more things to see that we missed, unfortunately.
After that we had lunch which consisted of rice with a vegetable curry, and chicken that tasted like plastic fried in oil. Not very nice so no one at the chicken. But the rice and curry were alright. Lots of monkeys were watching us eat... here is one of them.
We then had a really relaxing time on the beach just lying on the bed looking out to see, listening to music and sleeping. Definitely worth the trip for this. Did that for about 1.5 hours.
Decided then to go for a walk, exploring the caves. Was an interesting walk, but we somehow missed the caves entrance, walked almost around the island, saw another part of the beach which was beautiful, as the water was clear, cool, and a few people had another swim although I didn't.
The maps and signs around the place weren't very good and we couldn't find the way to one of the caves. But we thought we'd take the next route and go to a different cave. We came across a settlement on the island where there were people cooking their dinner. Thought we were lost, but they showed us the way back, and we walked right past the entrance to that other cave but everyone was walking too fast and the person from the settlement who was leading the way probably didn't understand much english and walked us right past the cave entrance even though we said we wanted to go there. When he led us back, it was back at the main area, and our boat driver said we had to leave as it was getting late, the wind was picking up and the water was getting choppy, making it dangerous. So unfortunately we didn't manage to see the caves, or do another hour of snorkelling which we were planning to do.
The trip back was interesting, the boat rocked from side to side like in an amusement park. Was quite fun. Went back, and had dinner which was really nice, much better than the first night's dinner. I had a fish in coconut curry with rice and chips. Delicious!
After dinner we played some card games and headed to bed after a few minutes of packing. Leaving back to mainland Tanga, then Muheza tomorrow!
One of us, Kalpesh, got pretty sick on the way and threw up over the side of the boat. The boat driver's assistant was fishing off the boat on our way there and he managed to catch this big fish.
Got on the island around noon as we left fairly late, and were greeted by the Island Ranger who gave us a brief introduction to the activities on the island which included snorkelling, walking along the beach, exploring caves.
Did an hour of snorkelling. Was quite nice, but probably cannot be compared to what we get in Australia. Saw zebra fish, angel fish, black and yellow striped fish, swordfish, a completely yellow fish, and a few others I can't name. The corals were average though. Apparently we didn't snorkel in the right area as well so there were probably more things to see that we missed, unfortunately.
After that we had lunch which consisted of rice with a vegetable curry, and chicken that tasted like plastic fried in oil. Not very nice so no one at the chicken. But the rice and curry were alright. Lots of monkeys were watching us eat... here is one of them.
We then had a really relaxing time on the beach just lying on the bed looking out to see, listening to music and sleeping. Definitely worth the trip for this. Did that for about 1.5 hours.
Decided then to go for a walk, exploring the caves. Was an interesting walk, but we somehow missed the caves entrance, walked almost around the island, saw another part of the beach which was beautiful, as the water was clear, cool, and a few people had another swim although I didn't.
The maps and signs around the place weren't very good and we couldn't find the way to one of the caves. But we thought we'd take the next route and go to a different cave. We came across a settlement on the island where there were people cooking their dinner. Thought we were lost, but they showed us the way back, and we walked right past the entrance to that other cave but everyone was walking too fast and the person from the settlement who was leading the way probably didn't understand much english and walked us right past the cave entrance even though we said we wanted to go there. When he led us back, it was back at the main area, and our boat driver said we had to leave as it was getting late, the wind was picking up and the water was getting choppy, making it dangerous. So unfortunately we didn't manage to see the caves, or do another hour of snorkelling which we were planning to do.
The trip back was interesting, the boat rocked from side to side like in an amusement park. Was quite fun. Went back, and had dinner which was really nice, much better than the first night's dinner. I had a fish in coconut curry with rice and chips. Delicious!
After dinner we played some card games and headed to bed after a few minutes of packing. Leaving back to mainland Tanga, then Muheza tomorrow!
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