We are sailing!

Excitement in Bilene: a sail has made an apparition in the lagoon:

David had told me he'd ordered a sailboat from Europe. In the general everyday turmoil, I had stored that information at the back of my mind (right at the back in fact), and when Anthony came back with it from his shopping trip to SA, my interest was renewed.

On Friday afternoon, the tide was low, we could not go out to sea, I set about assembling the little cat. It's a portable cat, one you can store in the trunk of your car (see the commercial blurb here)

All the while, Rod Stewart was singing...

The assembly was a little puzzling at first, but between the three of us, we quickly figured out what goes where.

Then the moment of truth, will she sail?

Sailing she did! Wow! What a performance!

I must admit to being a little skeptical at first. Come on, an inflatable cat? 

The wind was very light when we put her in the water, Anthony and I climbed aboard, and after fiddling with the jib sheets and the rudder for a little while, we got on our way. The boat itself is very light, and even with our combined weights (Anthony pointed out that he's heavy with knowledge, I'm still looking for an excuse), the sudden acceleration with every puff of wind was impressive.

We decided to do a crossing as a maiden voyage, so set course to sail past our buoy at Legoland, to the other side of the lagoon.

We appreciated the fact that the boat is fast, we didn't even have time to get bored, and once we reached the shallows on the other side, tacked to come back. 

This is my first experience with a small cat, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. The return, in even lighter breeze, was quite fast, I was thrilled with the capabilities of this vessel. We will definitely be getting a few more of these boats, and some of the larger version, this is a two person cat, we also want to get the four passenger ones.
The next day, Ernesto, our local skipper, came for a short sail with me and loved the fact that the boat was going "too much fast", without a need for petrol or oars. Quite a few of us have been pondering on how the locals here use oars to move their boats, and none of them use sails, where it would seem an obvious choice for such a protected, enclosed area.

Stay tuned for more diving news, don't hold your breath,

Daniel     ;-)

Fantastic conditions

This was a busy week-end with notable visits by a group from Maputo, and Trish and Graham stopping on their way through Africa.

The conditions were the best I've had in Bilene in the last month. The wind had shifted around quite a bit over the past few days, flattening the sea. The calm swell made the launch through the mouth very easy, the smoothest rides we've had so far.


As we dropped, a school of Kingfish circled around us. I'm not sure whether they are resident on the reef, or whether there's a different school every time we dive at Shark Alley.

More photos from the dive here

On this dive, I noticed what I think is an anemone, maybe a tube anemone, but if anyone could confirm, I would appreciate it. When approached, it retracts into the leathery foot very quickly.
If you look at the other pictures, there's another photo of a similarly behaving "anemone", of a different colour.

More photos from the dive here

Some sad news: we went out to look at the seahorses, really struggled to find some, and while we were swimming around some of our group on the beach saw local fishermen with handfuls of seahorses they had just caught. My suspicion is thus confirmed: the seahorses in that spot have been fished out...

More about that in a different post...

Stay tuned for more diving news, don't hold your breath,

Daniel     ;-)

A couple of dives...

There are very few of us on the boat today, so we load it with spare cylinders and head out for a double-tank dive.
The wind of the previous night has created a cross swell that is a little unpleasant for the ride, but it's still better than some of the conditions we had a couple of weeks ago.
Our first destination, since we enjoyed the dive there so much two days prior, is Shark Alley. On our previous visit, we explored the Northern side, so this time we drop on the South end of the reef.
The viz is not as good as two days ago, but we don't need that much to see the profusion of fish greeting us under the surface.
The reef on this side is very interesting, with huge boulders creating overhangs and caves where the fish seek refuge.
We even see a honeycomb moray eel completely out of its hole, inside a shallow cave.

There is also a profusion of Twobar Clownfish, small and big (Cobus and Ian remark they've seen a pair of the biggest they've ever seen on this dive)

We surface after 46 minutes, having gone all the way to Pride Rock, with still some air to spare, but wanting to keep a decent amount of bottom dive for our next dive.
After changing cylinders, comparing our impressions about the dive, having a bite to eat (for some of us), and stretching our Surface Interval Time, we slowly travel to Babylon.
As is usual on this reef, a huge amount of fish, big and small, awaits us.  One notable encounter is with a curious Trumpetfish:

and of course the encounter with the Scorpionfish just before the end of the dive:

( More photos of this dive here )

Stay tuned for more diving news, don't hold your breath,

Daniel     ;-)

Clearing water, and disappearing seahorses...

Went for a double tank dive today, at Shark Alley (which is becoming my favorite site) and Pride rock. The visibility has been steadily (although too slowly for my taste) improving, each dive reveals bigger and bigger pictures of the reefs structure.
As in previous dive, there was an amazing quantity of fish, big and small, which made the dive very enjoyable.

(More photos from this dive here )

In the late afternoon, we went to our usual spot in the lagoon to spot the seahorses, and I found it extremely difficult to find one, where we spotted dozens yesterday...

(More Seahorse photos here )

Was it too late in the day, was the tide wrong, did they all go to a party where we weren't invited?

Let's see tomorrow if we see them at a different time.

Stay tuned for more diving news, don't hold your breath,

Daniel     ;-)