I stepped out onto the beach at sunset yesterday and glanced down the coast. Sand covered the rocks and the san sank lower on the sea, The realisation that I live on a small Island in the Indian ocean hit me again. For sure we have our problems on this small island, but we are on an island, and the island is dreamlike. And so I wondered why I was suddenly so taken again with Pemba. We had been diving that day, at the world famous Fundo gap; Perhaps it was the diving which had put me in such a good mood, or was it the sunset? To best explain it , I thought perhaps, I should think back to one of the dives..
We descended off the boat over a large underwater mountain. This was called Manta Point by the first divers here as it had been a manta cleaning station. Poverty during the socialist era and a lack of understanding had pushed the natives into catching or driving away the manta rays. We swam lazily over the coral covered mountain and looked down the west wall. The water was clear, and blue. Not the stunning 200 foot visibility of Pemba’s best days, but a good 100ft. I swan dived down equalising as I went. A school of surgeon fish shot by below me and were gone, but I continued my descent without worrying. Surely they would be back. The group were all reasonably experienced and followed me down. There were only five of them. Laurent, a young Frenchman from Paris was my erstwhile buddy, but he seemed more interested in what was under a rock than in me.
I stabilised at about 70ft and turned left along the wall and kicked south. There was a very mild current running, but not enough to inconvenience me. To my right and just below me, a series of large gorgonian fans appeared. I knew them to be at a cool 106 feet, so this meant that I had dropped to 90ft. I pushed a bit of air into my old and worn stabilisation jacket and levelled off. “I really must fix that leaky inflator button” I muttered to myself as I meandered on. After a while we came to the end of the wall and had the choice of going around the mountain or coming. I have always liked the seaward side of Manta point, so I turned the group around we came back with the current. I looked back and saw Laurent coolly inspecting the fans at 100ft. He looked extremely relaxed and his buoyancy was impeccable, but this was his first dive with Swahili Divers, and I had asked him to stay above me. He turned when I gently tapped my tank with a rod, and he moved marginally surfaceward when I asked him to ascend slightly. But he seemed very capable and responsive, so there was no need to bother him further. When it comes to experienced divers I am a very non judgemental dive guide.
A massive school of black snapper and pompano appeared at 140 feet and shot up towards us in a very dramatic manner. They, played around me and then carried on upwards equally quickly. I snapped off a couple of photos, and glanced at my gauges. I had plenty of air left, but my rather battered orient automatic dive watch told me that it was time to ascend. I double checked with my Aladdin computer who confirmed that in order to avoid making a decompression stop I should ascend. Decompression stops are sometimes a necessity in diving, but very rarely in Pemba Island. By now all of my clients, with or without computers were obediently above me. It was time to ascend slowly.
At this stage my orient dive watch was less useful, and the Aladin computer allowed us to make a multilevel dive. As we passed 40 feet. The coral became alive with smaller colourful fish. A dark shape appeared above me. I looked up and a 200lb kingfish swam slowly over me. blue. I stopped and stared as it made its sedate but deliberate progress down into the blue. My other divers looked on mesmerised by the hunter. And then we were at 20ft and swimming around bommies of coral covered in anthias, damsel fish, hawkfish, clowns and moral eels.
The bezel on my orient clicked around as I set it for my first deeper safety stop. I like to treat every dive like a decompression dive, with a stop at 27ft, 20ft and 10ft. My divers rarely realise that we are offgassing in such a precise manner as I work it into the dive. Today was no exception, no one noticed the winding, observation and rewinding of the bezel. Eventually some of my slightly less experienced divers were on their air reserve. I took them up leaving the computer diving experts at 30ft to conduct their own safety stops.
I wound my way up my surface marker buoy line, watching at all times, my small bubbles and then broke the surface under my bouy. Strangely it was raining. But the rain was warm, and Captain Mkanda had our 33ft rib manoevered over to me in no time. He was grinning as he pulled my aqualung set over the rubber tubes and placed it on the fibreglass floor.
“good dive?” he asked.
“Yes as a matter of fact it was” I replied. I scrambled up into the boat, helped my buddies, and sat down to wait for the others and the sun to come out. Both of which happened fairly swiftly. This was Pemba.
