Tofo, Mozambique - March 2010

by

Peter Szekely

As background this holiday came about by a very strange set of circumstances. We have a hard disk recorder that seems to have a mind of it's own and records things we haven't set, I know some can learn your viewing patterns but I don't think this is supposed to be one of them. Well one evening with not much to do we settled down to watch TV and with nothing on thought we would watch something that was recorded, looking through the list there was a Natural World we hadn't remembered recording, so a bit puzzled we thought we'd see what it was about before deleting it, and lo and behold next thing we are watching Queen of the Mantas and thinkingI have got to get me some more manta action. Basically the program is about a manta research station in Mozambique where they have resident mantas year round ..... those were the magic words I was looking for, so with the prospect of guaranteed mantas I set about doing some research about Tofo where this program was filmed. The bonus discovery was that they have a lot of whale sharks in that area too, it just gets better !!!

I booked the holiday individually rather than through an agent as being a bit tight I could save quite a reasonable sum of money. Booking flights is easy, all done online, fly to Johannesburg with South African Airways and then catch a flight from there to Inhambane with LAM. We were told by a South African friend to make sure you collect luggage at Johannesburg as it has a habit of going missing there so allow time for the connection. We had 3.5 hours and this was plenty for this leg as the airport was really efficient. On the return leg I thought I'd be clever and book a later flight from Joburg as LAM has a bit of a reputation for late arrivals. Boy was I glad, and even 4.5 hours was cutting it very fine ( but that's another story), so be warned. We booked a room at the only hotel in town, Tofo Mar and they had a special deal if you dived with Diversity Scuba - a 15% saving on your diving. We had to book it via the dive centre as the email to the hotel was a bit flaky, but this was no problem as Jacqui at the dive centre couldn't have been more helpful.

Tofo is a village that is on a spectacular sandy coastline that goes on for miles, has a wonderful market and really friendly locals even when they are not trying to sell you bracelets or wooden carvings !!! We stayed at the only hotel in town, it was clean and comfortable and as we had gone for the suite, was very spacious too. Only drawback of the suite is you don't get a balcony but we had lots of room to spread out and we could still admire the wonderful view of the beach as the hotel is right on top of it !!! There are some resorts in the area but I preferred the idea of being here with easy access to other restaurants and mingling with the locals.

First morning there we wandered the 100 metres or so up to Diversity scuba to dispense with all the formalities and to get ready for the first dive. They are a really well run outfit and have thought of everything to make it a great experience being with them. After the full tour we put our sets together and left them round the back where they get loaded on to one of there 3 large ribs. There was never more than 8 divers on the rib plus 2 dive guides and the skipper. While the staff are loading the boat and taking it down to the beach we went up to the covered roof terrace for a drink and briefing. Here they gave a thorough talk about launch and return procedures, what you can expect and then made us watch to short films on manta and whale shark etiquette so that you don't frighten them away and so give you a far better dive experience. I got a little worried at this point as a German couple who had been there nearly 2 weeks said that this was as close as he had come to seeing whale sharks :-(

Quick walk down to to the beach and we are ready for our first launch. The boat is reversed into the surf at high speed by a 4x4 that has seen much better days, they slam the brakes on, straight into forward, and the trailer tips back into the water and the rib is unceremoniously dumped there. There is a quick flurry of activity where every one pushes the boat round so it is facing into the waves. It is then pushed out till and everyone jumps on board as quickly as possible. It is probably here that I should mention that this beach is also very popular with surfers, and for good reason, you get waves between 1 and 2 metres high breaking along here. With this in mind back on the boat everyone is told to put there feet under the foot straps and hang on to the ropes and off we go. The first time you experience this it is a mixture of exhilaration and sheer terror as you head out to sea. I was very impressed at there skill in negotiating the waves and it was only on one launch that we went almost vertical, I knew it was bad because the manager Mark lost his sunglasses !!! Fortunately that was the worst that happened.

The first dive was a local dive called Salon and much to our relief only took 10 minutes to get to. A quick kit up and buddy check under the watchful eye of the dive guides and in we go. It was only a 15 m dive and Jayne best described the initial thought as oh it's like diving Tanville on a good day back in Swanage Bay !!! The viz was only about 10m and the sea bed was sand with big rock ledges covered in short animal turf, hydroids and the like. However once you started looking around you realized you were in balmy 27 degrees of warm water with tropical fish all around you. The second thought that struck us was that the fish were a lot bigger. We've seen plenty of crocodile and lion fish in our time, but these ones had been through the large it up process !! And as for scorpion fish and sea urchins, they were everywhere so good buoyancy was definately called for, and due to a rather big swell even at this depth you had to be very watchful. Sadly for me this swell made it very difficult to do much photography as most life went whizzing back and forth more often than not, but it was still a very enjoyable 60 minutes under water with many things we hadn't seen elsewhere. Then it was back to the beach for what I imagine is a commando style landing. Go to where the waves start breaking and then drive full pelt at the beach catching a big breaker at the end so that you end up deposited as far up the sand as you can and then everyone jumps out and a team hitch the boat to the 4x4 and drag it out of the waves. Wow !!!

Day 2 was cancelled :-( I had a suspicion as when I looked out the window the surfers were getting ready to go out. We still went to the dive centre and had a good chat with them. They promised it would be better soon as they had had a couple of big depressions out to sea but they were moving away so fingers crossed for tomorrow. Despite this we had a lovely day exploring the miles of beaches which you literally had to yourself.

Day 3 arrived and looked a little more hopeful so off to the dive centre where we were told we would go out but after a slight delay. This time the site we would go to was Galeria, a bit further out but a good spot for seeing Mantas as there were cleaning stations here. So off we went in the rain, didn't think I would see much of that in Mozambique, but it is quite lush there. You could tell it had been stormy out to see as there was quite a large rolling swell, so it was nice to get in the water. This was a 30m dive so I thought that there would be less swell at the bottom ..... wrong, and the viz was still only 10m. Never mind as before long a giant manta was gliding past. With wing spans of up to 7m they are truly wonderful creatures to witness, so graceful as they hang in the water being cleaned, and they need to be cleaned as most of them seem to have been appetizers for sharks with bites taken out of there wings !!! All too soon it was time to come up and head back to shore. As it was still so choppy, the second dive of the day was cancelled.

Day 4 and it's looking better :-) Off south to Kingfisher and Manta reef for a 2 tank day so only one launch to contend with and the prospect of looking for whale sharks between dives. Kingfisher is probably the furthest site away so took 40 minutes of bumping across the sea, curse those two depressions off the coast !!! In we go again and the visibility might be as good as 15m this time, but as we descend the bottom slowly comes into view and there are 2 potato grouper slowly swimming around, not having seen them before they are very impressive beasts at about 2m long, but were very shy so disappeared before we got close enough for that elusive photo, never mind a manta comes along to take away the disappointment. In all we probably saw 10 mantas that dive, not to mention many other intersting things, including lots of honycomb morays. All too soon it was time to come up but even this was made interseting by a group of 8 mobula rays going by in a little gang.

Time to off gas and look for Mr Whale Shark. I thought not much chance of seeing anything in a lumpy old sea but it wasn't too long before the shout whale shark went up. I was looking as hard as I could but couldn't see anything, the guides have eyes like hawks though and they spotted the dark shadow beneath the waves. So mask and snorkels in place and cameras at the ready we slide quietly into the water and wait for the shark to catch up. Seeing an impressive creature like this was probably one of the highlights and I can definitely say it was for Jayne too, it was only a juvenile at around 5-6m but it was wonderful. It swam by a short distance away and I thought that was it, but no, it decided it wanted to have another look at the 6 of us in the water so back he came, so cameras at the ready we all started to snap away. Now you are supposed to keep 3m away from them to give them space, but what do you do when they are heading straight at you ??? The answer is take more photos and hope for the best, after all they can swim better than me and it never came in contact with any of us despite the tail coming very close. It spent about 20 minutes swimming back and forth around us before finally getting bored and swimming off. Things don't get much better than that. As a little bonus though I got to see a Sargassum frogfish swimming around at the surface as it had got separated from it's lump of seaweed, not something I expected to see out here, and a topic that was a heated debate back at the dive centre.

Back to Manta Reef for our second dive, and yes it lives up to its name, lots of mantas coming in to be cleaned. Plenty of large schools of snappers and goat fish. Again a shortish dive as this was at 30m too. Heading home we had some dolphins keep us company for a short while and we saw over 10 more whale sharks though sadly we didn't have time to get back in the water with them.

Day 5 was another double tank day but this time heading north to Amazon and then Oasis. Here we would hopefully see some sharks as well as mantas. Visibility here was much better, 25m today as the swell had subsided a little. Both these sites were great with rocky overhangs and caves, and as we went down there were 3 white tipped reef shark swimming around. Some nice hard coral here too, but as always it's the big fish, more mantas, potato grouper and another interested mobula ray on our deco stop. Also a huge ball of trevally or king fish as they call them here swirling around in the blue. Sadly we missed the leopard shark the other group saw. We did however get to jump in the water with another whale shark on the way back, but this one wasn't as inquisitive so just kept on swimming.

Day 6 was our standby day in case we were blown out earlier, so we bought this in to play as it would still give us over 24 hours before flying the next day. Decided to dive on Nitrox for today ( and probably should have done so on the previous dives, hindsight is wonderful ) so that we could have some more bottom time, as we were going back to Kingfisher and Manta Reef. Sadly the viz here hadn't improved much on our previous time here but that didn't dampen our spirits, we saw lots more mantas coming out of the murk and Jayne found a new nudibranch she hadn't seen before. There were some huge schools of fish hanging around again some of which you could swim into with out frightening them away.

Sadly the holiday drew to a close, though LAM, the Mozambican airline did try their best to keep us in Mozambique for as long as possible. Would we do it again, definitely though with some changes. I would stay for 2 weeks to cater for the very changeable sea conditions, normally the dive centre will do up to 3 dives a day but we never got more than 2, not that we are complaining as it was very challenging dive conditions both up top at launch and down below due to swell and currents. We were more than happy to chill in the afternoons and walk the wonderful beaches followed by a nice beer for Jayne at the hotel ( £1.20 for 550ml ath the hotel and hlaf that from the market!!! ), you can see why this is a back packers favourite. Other than flights, accommodation is cheap and the food and drink cheaper still, you can get a wonderful lunch at the bread shack, half a loaf of bread scooped out and filled with chicken or veg stew, known as Bunny Chow, for less than £2 !!!

Top tip - take thin dive gloves for 3 reasons, 1 - holding on to rock while hanging at the cleaning station, 2 - stopping rope burns while holding onto the rib, 3 - the most important, stopping sunburn on the tops of your hands between dives, the sun is incredibly strong and lots of people had burnt hands.

Finally as mentioned, this is quite challenging diving and I don't like to get slow's on my dive computer, so imagine my dissapointment when I had 5 on one dive .... not much you can do about these when you have 2 to 3m swell passing overhead at the surface and you haven't moved from the sea bed !!! As all things in Africa, just go with the flow and you will have a fantastic time.