Under da Sea

While working on the game reserve in South Africa, I gained a great deal of knowledge with regards to the many wonderful creatures that live and roam on the land.

And so when I arrived in Mozambique, I decided to expand my zoological horizons a wee bit further by turning my eyes to the sea and completing my Open Water Scuba Diving Certification course.

Well, it wasn't exactly that simple. Before, when I thought about Scuba diving, a lot of dangerous scenarios popped into my head...

Riptides!
Drowning!
Decompression sickness!
Getting eaten by a seahorse!

It wasn't until I hung out with a Captonian guy in Maputo who happened to be a diving instructor in nearby Tofo that I gave diving some serious thought. Then all I had to do was part with $400 and I was on my way.

Getting your open water certification is quite an easy task, actually. You watch some corny videos, write a few exams, tool around in the swimming pool for a while, and you're all set to head out on the boat.

Which isn't to say that there's no intimidation factor. It's one thing to practice recovering a lost breathing regulator in a swimming pool, and quite another to do the same thing with 18m of ocean above your head. There are many challenging tasks to master on a dive, including mask flood purging, buoyancy control and emergency assents.

But let's cut to the chase here: Scuba diving is excellent. One, you're breathing underwater. Two, you're moving around in a 3-D environment, almost as if in slow motion flight. Three (and this is the big one), you are immersing yourself in a world that is far more rich in species diversity than on land.

Throughout the course, we did 4 dives, ranging in depth from 10-18m. Tofo has many reefs, all of which go by rather interesting names such as Hogwarts, The Office, Krakatoa, and my personal fave, Big Boobs Canyon. Well okay, I made that last one up.

The first 4 dives sucked, actually. Conditions were poor (as in bad visibility and strong swells) and I spent most of my time underwater trying to avoid crashing into the reefs instead of looking at fish. No harm done though... the purpose of a training dive is to hone your skill sets and not to identify the resident species of grouper anyway.

So in the end, I elected to fork over a bit more dinheiro to go on a deep water dive, which took us to Manta Reef, a massive dive site that rests 28m below the surface.

You know that tingly sensation you get when you bust your hump at something and end up being rewarded for it? Well, this is NOT what I was feeling at Manta. Sure there were tingles, but those were due to the nitrogen narcosis (a feeling of lightheadedness due to excess nitrogen in solution in the bloodstream) you get at such depths. It's a bit like having a few too many martinis, which can be quite disconcerting when you are at the bottom of the sea. The dive, however, was incredible. I saw dolphins, moray eels, lionfish, devil rays, parrotfish, scorpionfish, lobsters, octopi, (duh) mantas, and a giant sea turtle who came so close to me I could have kissed him. Though, that may have been awkward.

So now, as I travel further up the East coast of Africa, I can use my newfound aquatic talents to visit other famous dive sites, such as Lake Malawi, Zanzibar, and Comoros. Booyakasha.

"Each little snail here know how to wail here
Each little clam here know how to jam here
Girl we in luck here down in de muck here under da sea."
-Sebastian the Crab