Caravans and Jackfish, a journey to and beneath Mafia Island.

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The Cessna Caravan left the blustery skies of the east African coast. Once again I was off Africa. It did not matter that I was flying to an Island that was a district of Tanzania, I was off Africa and I knew it. I always have this special feeling when crossing the African coast. I have mentioned this in previous blogs, perhaps it is the realisation of the enormity of Africa that is only visible from the air. It just goes on for ever, without a town in sight.

The airline was even called Tropical air. We were flown by owner commander, Captain Omar. He had a young Frenchman as his co pilot. Omar was an old hand of African flying. He flew us high over the Indian Ocean before we curled in towards Mafia Island. The crushed coral runway came into view over Omar’s shoulder, coral reefs flashed below us, reef! Beach! ,Palm trees! Runway! bang and we were down. Bouncing and vibrating all over the place as we rolled down the runway. This was worse than any bush strip, but we were down.

The terminal was a stone hut, the fire brigade was a pick up truck and a J bottle of C02. This was Mafia air strip. We tumbled down the steps of the caravan, collected our bags and went through the hut/terminal. Outside a plethora of ancient 110 and 109 landrovers were lined up against the terminal. Of course, as a lover of landrovers, I ended up in the oldest 109 with what sounded like clutch issues. We set off for Kinasi in the east.

The landrover grumbled crablike along the camber of the dirt road. The springs took the bumps easily enough and the driver did not wrestle with the wheel. He let it slip between his hands, gently guiding the ancient beast rather than controlling her. He knew what he was doing and so I looked out of the window. The village of Kinondoni was behind us, we passed small adobe houses with thatch roofs and palm fronds. The small pillbox like hats of the Muslims were in abundance, but the women were dressed colourfully. We came to a ridiculous gate in the middle of nowhere and had to pay $20 to enter the marine park. I had no objection to the Marine park or paying, but I had been nowhere near the sea and was having to pay to go to my hotel, which , as I understood it, was firmly rooted on land?

Kinasi lodge was a series of sand coloured bungalows perched on hill that overlooked the blue lagoon. The huts were of stone, the roofs thatched and the beds comfortable. The setting was clearly stunning. I had come to Mafia to Shoot Kinasi Lodge for the owner Peter Byrne. I dragged my camera out of its bag and started snapping, sketching almost, my initial views of the lodge. I always find that sketching is important, and initial impressions are even more important. Familiarity makes photography so difficult. As I edited the images I fell asleep on the stone bench.

The sun was high in the sky when Sufi, the Dive instructor called us to dive. We waded out through the mangrove sand to the two small dhows. Vaguely competent in one, total muppets in the other. I had managed to confuse them and get into the vaguely competent boat, which was 17 foot long, and consisted of wood, rope a mast, and two Yamaha outboard engines. They spluttered into life and we made way for the mlanago or gate of the lagoon. As we left, Kinasi Lodge, looked resplendent, perched amongst the palm trees on it’s hill, and I cursed myself for not being able to capture this.

While Sufi is the dive instructor, our guide was a thin African called Kasim. He had an ever present smile, had to be over 40 and looked like he weighed about 7 stone. He greeted us, we pulled on our wet suits while he gave us a short briefing and we rolled back into the water. We had been warned that dive inside the reef had bad visibility, so I was mildly surprised to have 25m clear blue water around me. We dropped to 14 metres and worked our way along the top of a stone escarpment covered by outbreaks of hard coral and some small fishes. This was all very pleasant and much more than I had been expecting. Diving with us were Elliot and Gareth, a father and son combination from the famous port city of Southampton. “I wholesale flowers” he had said. The five of us wandered out into the blue, as the bottom dropped away below us. Now we were in mid-water in what looked like some sort of channel. Kasim’s briefing had been very brief and had not mentioned hanging around in the blue, but the boys from Southampton did not seem at all bothered and Cisca was happily examining coral at 25metres. Out of the corner of my eye I glimpsed some emperors. We sidled over and had a look at them and then, out of the blue an underwater island appeared. We went around it and looked in it. It was covered with Nudibranches and had emperors and snapper hanging around all over it. We circled it and snapped off a few shots. The minutes ticked by, the bottom was at 25 metres and the top at 13. I could have spent the rest of the dive here, but Kasim had other plans for us, and after a quarter of an hour we set of again into the blue. All the while there was a very slight current pushing through the channel. Large schools of fish would sit in the current, gently waving their tails to see what would come along to eat. Three massive devil rays appeared below us. Gareth dropped down to have a look as I took some photos of him. One decided to follow Cisca which did nothing for her nerves or her air consumption.

Kasim led us to the far side of the channel where hundreds of snapper and some emperor were milling about. Some jacks came by, but then the sea went dark as a wall of chevron barracuda blotted out the light. The swam lazily across the channel at an imperceptible speed. I sneaked up to them and snapped off a couple of shots. The sight was impressive, but that brought me to the end of my air and the end of my dive. We all ascended to do our safety stop before popping out onto the surface.
I spat my regulator out, and turned to the others, the adrenalin still pumping.

“I’ve done over fifteen hundred dives and that rates as being one of the best I have ever done”

“Yeah, it’s not bad this place is it?” Gareth replied laconically.

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