We (my wife Daphne and me)
first went to Kenya in November 1991. The is was our first long haul holiday, up to this point we had not ventured beyond the Mediteranean. Daph did
most of the planning as she was desperate to go on Safari and see the animals in
their native habitat. At this time I was relatively unconcerned about animals. I
just saw it as a chance to get 2 weeks in the sun with the chance of some diving.
In the event we both got full value from the holiday as I found the 5 days we
spent on Safari totally entrancing. having started out to add a diving section
to the web site, getting to the Kenya page has made me realise that I
shall have add a Safari section at some point. Anyway, for the moment, we will
concentrate on the diving aspects on Kenya. We flew into Mombasa and drove South
to Diani Beach to the Leopard Beach hotel. It was everything we had hoped for,
right on the beach with lush gardens full of exotic (to us) animals and birds,
even a small family of monitor lizards and weaver birds (sadly no Leopards). The staff could not
have been more friendly and we went back again for a weeks short break in
1995.
Anyway, as we were away on
Safari for quite a period, I only did 5 dives though we did some snorkelling -
more later. Arrangements were fairly typical for Kenya, there was a dive
shop on site where you could do basic PADI training , book dives and hire kit.
For the actual diving your were driven to another hotel and which had the marina
and boats. So once on the boat, you had small groups from a number of local
hotels. Along most of the length of Diani Beach the there is a fringing reef
extending for 1/4 to 1/2 mile out to sea which is covered to a depth of 1-2
metres at full tide and almost fully exposed at low water. At the edge of the
reef there is a pronounced wall which drops quite steeply to probably 8-10
metres then slopes out to maybe 30M. No diving is done close inshore, though
local fishermen would provide snorkelling trips at low water, the strong surf
made it quite dangerous to snorkel once the tide was over the reef edge. Diving
could only be done around mid-high water to allow the boats to be launched. This
effectively meant it was rare to get more than one dive a day, which was
probably no bad thing considering it was primarily a family holiday.
The actual dive sites were
mostly fairly deep reefs with no walls or surface breaking reefs to allow long
fizzing of times. From my log book, I seem to have done all 5 dives on only 2
sites, Kinondo to the South and Galu to the North of the hotel. Viz was not
especially good and the corals seemed in the main not as good as I had
experienced in the Red Sea. Fish life also was less prolific though
you could see most of the same species though colours and sizes did vary a
little.
As the pictures show, we
did take a snorkelling trip with one of the local beach boys who are a feature
(plague even) of Kenyan beachside holidays. The outrigger canoe trip was fun, I
do not remember much about the actual snorkelling though Daph enjoyed it. Not
sure I even took the camera, if so I cannot identify after a lapse of 16 years
which were taken on the snorkelling trip. I concluded that Kenya was a superb
place for a holiday but the diving was a bonus, not the primary reason for going
there. The photographs are pretty dire
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Kinondo 25M 48mins
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Galu 17M 58 mins
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Galu 16M 51 mins
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Galu 18M 49 mins
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Kinondo 25M 46 mins
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Pictures
from Kenya 1991
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Fishes on top of a reef, not sure what type other than
the balck surgeon fish
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A turtle doing a runner
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Shoal of sweetlips
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A pufferfish
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The hotel seen from the boat
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Sponges and soft corals very similar to the Red Sea
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Boats loaded direct from the beach, no slipways or
moorings. When the tide went out, they were beached
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Happy group of divers
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Our dive guide Saleem stroking a very large Moray. I
screwed up my courage and stroked it as well, skin is like velvet.
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This was Saleem coaxing the Moray out of his whole. the
other fish were hoping for a free feed
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Our snorkelling trip transport, canoe was carved out of
a solid log. When they eventually became totally waterlogged, a new one
was built
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One happy lady having the holiday of a lifetime.
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We went back to the Leopard Beach hotel in
October 1995, it was just as good as the first time. This was only for a week so
we worked hard to cram everything in. I managed 4 dives (you can only do one
dive a day as explained above). The first 3 were done before our 3 day 2 night
Safari. Kinondo I had done before though my logbook records that it was
Spring Tides and viz was only 10M. Tiwi and Turtle Ledge were new. So far I have
found no pictures of this holiday so there is little to jog my memory. The last
dive was more interesting for a variety of reasons. We had booked a day trip on
a Dhow from a small marina opposite Pemba Island well to the South of our hotel.
Before lunch we opted to snorkel but this was a bit of a disaster. The Dhow
dropped the snorkellers and then took the divers of to another site. Daph found
herself in 2M of water and unable to touch bottom and freaked out. The shallower
water was a longish swim away, fortunately, I managed to get her aboard one of
the other boats and we waited until ours returned. I was not impressed and told
the owner so. Lunch did however go along way to restore our spirits, we went to
an Island (not Pemba but close) where we pigged out on crab. and then had a tour
of the island (at least Daph did , I seem to remember that I had a long nap to
prepare myself for the afternoon dive. This was in the Wasini Maritime
Reserve with a local guide and a chap called Dave who had only 4 dives to his
name (PADI training) and was a bit nervous. The guide was a bit inexperienced
and just shot off leaving us to follow so I kept an eye on Dave who actually did
very well. When I noted that Dave was down to 50 bar I signalled the guide that
we should ascend. the guide then showed me his contents gauge, he had well under
20bar. Fortunately we were almost under the boat so all was well. Second black
mark to the organisers. For me all was forgiven as the Dhow was put under sail
for the homeward trip and I got to steer it most of the way back. Overall it
could have
been disastrous but I guess the gods were smiling on us that day.
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Kinando 29M 49mins
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Tiwi 19M 55mins
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Turtle Ledge 25M 55mins
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Wasini 13M 54 mins
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Regrettably no
underwater pictures
from this trip, just these Wasini trip pictures
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The harbour at Wasini
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On board the Dhow
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Other Dhows, very similar to the one we were aboard
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waiting to transfer to the Dhow after lunch
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Our third trip to Kenya was in February 2001. We had
flown out to Nairobi to start a full weeks Safari including Treetops and
finishing in the Masai Mara. We then flew down to Mombasa for a weeks recovery
at the Travellers Lodge hotel on Bamburi Beach which is North of Mombasa.
Comfortable enough and being All Inclusive helped the budget somewhat but it was
not in the same league as the Leopard Beach. Our hotel actually had the
dive shop and the boats this time so we departed from our own bit of beach. The
beach topology was the same as Diani Beach with a wide shallow reef which was
uncovered at low water meaning the boats could only depart at mid-high water. For
this holiday I had taken my newly acquired Sea&Sea underwater camera, the
Nikonos having been totally trashed in Grenada the previous June. I
did 6 dives. The first 5 were at different points on what is really the same
reef system. Quite often we would do our next dive at virtually the point
we had ascended from the previous days dive. The topology was very similar to
Diani Beach sites with the reef fairly deep with no wall or suchlike where you
could gently fizz off. Viz was a bit cloudy but not too bad and we did see
smallish grey reef sharks (2-2.5M) on several of the dives. Mostly they seemed to
be sleeping on the bottom. As the photos show, there was a range of other fish
life. Quite enjoyable, but 5 dives probably exhausted the variety of these
sites. There were other sites farther North in the Marine Park but we did not
venture that far. The 6th dive was a very shallow one (under 6M) as we were
flying the next day and I was pushing the limits on no fly time. Unlike Diani,
it was possible to dive and snorkel at the reef edge in a deeper water channel
which ran between inner and outer reefs - see picture taken in 2003 below. This gave a good opportunity to
do some photography in better light and try out
the new camera. I did see a stone fish but to be honest, I do not think my
camera work was very impressive on this holiday and the results are a bit
disappointing.
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Shark Reef 19M 59 mins
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Brain Coral Reef 21M 64mins
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Sand Bay Reef 23M 43 mins
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Shark Point 22M 68mins
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Shark Point 20M 69 mins
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Coral Garden 6M 64mins
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Pictures from Kenya 2001
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Big anemone and clown fish
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Angel fish of some type
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Couple of Blue Spot Rays digging in the sand
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Chris, the dive shop manager and a couple of
fellow divers
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Crocodile Fisg
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Mixture of fish species
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Potato grouper hiding under a rock overhang
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Moray coming out of his hole. He's obviously a regular
as I photographed him a couple of years later in exactly the same spot
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John and Karisa, tow of the dive guides
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Karisa showing of underwater
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Our snorkelling trip transport, canoe was carved out of
a solid log. When they eventually became totally waterlogged, a new one
was built
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Grey Reef Shark sleeping on the bottom before we
disturbed him
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Stone Fish - spotted initially by the dive guide, not me
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Titan Trigger Fish
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Turtle snacking on soft coral
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Unicorn Fish with a Sweetlips below
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Our most recent trip to Kenya was in
February 2003. In fact we had spent the first week of our holiday on safari in
Tanazania but spent the recovery week back in Kenya because the Tanzanian beach
side hotels were so expensive. We stayed at the Severin Sea Lodge hotel which was a mile
or so up the coast from the Travellers Beach and shared the same dive operator -
Barrcuda. I did only two dives, both on Shark Reef. The first was nothing
special according to my log book with poor viz. The second was one of those
dives which you remember forever. AS we dropped into the water, a large grey
shape was swimming by - a 7M whale shark! It was so big it was impossible in the
slightly murky water to get the whole thing in focus but I did a get a couple of
shots to prove that I had truly seen a whale shark at last. The encounter lasted
only a few minutes an then he was gone so we carried on the dive on a real
high. By the time we surfaced nearly an hour later, I had seen 2 turtles,
2 white tip reef sharks a load of blue spot rays and stroked the moray which I
had photographed back in 2001. I did no more diving that holiday, anything else
would have been an anticlimax. Sadly,
though we have plenty of landside pictures (everything was digital by then) I
can only find one very poor quality u/w picture, but at least its the whale
shark!
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Shark Reef 26M 59 mins
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Shark Reef 20M 58mins
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The beach at Severin with the tide out
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Another shot with the tide out. You can see a deeper
water channel bewteen the inner and outer reef where the dhow is
sailing.
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Same view with the tide in. dive boat on left
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Terrible photo but undoubtedly a Whale Shark
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