The Dive ??????

” What the …am I doing ?” I thought. Diving was looming and breakfast under the East coast Zanzibar sunshine, overlooking an infinity pool into the turquoise Indian water which suddenly seemed a much safer bet. Then I thought  of all those adventurers from Victorian times and before that even and decided to stop bleeting and get to the dive centre. Bacari was waiting for me,

“Ah Mama Carol, are you ready for this? The sea is like my trousers”

I think he meant it was like his second home so I blubbered something insane and then attacked the wet suit squeezing it over my clammy body. I tell you now, that is the worst thing, being trussed up like a penguin in the heat and then having to wear rubber shoes as the tide was low and walk across rock pools,knee deep in water to get to the boat. That was the short way to the beach and I could see Cha Cha at his lonely outpost in his bar. Bacari knew I was apprehensive and he chattered on about how he had ever been to school, his 3 brothers lost their parents when they were young and now he was a senior dive instructor and he hadn’t lost anyone yet!!!

That didn’t really encourage me, neither did looking like an overstuffed beached land mammal walking in 30 degree heat.

But then there was the boat, long and low in the water and filled with oxygen tanks and flippers. It was made of mango, all the boats are and sported a high tech roof which was a piece of Kanga  cloth raised on two poles..That was our shade!!!

We had the safety talk, motored out towards the magically gleaming Mnemba island before stopping and being told to kit up. There can be nothing more ridiculous than me sat in a rubber suit, goggled with lips protruding over the mouth piece that I was sucking for dear life. I had to check it was working of course,I had to live to see my son, I couldn’t die now. Flippers flapping ,then  Bacari told me to lift myself up, oxygen tank and all, onto the edge of the narrow boat.

Was he joking? I felt 50 stone of me fully grounded in the bottom of the boat. The crew were over in an instant..three big black boys hoisting MamaCarol onto the side.

“On my count, fall backwards into the water. Don’t forget to hold your mask and mouthpiece and inflate your BCD” Bacari instructed.

Fall backwards ? Fear grabbed me and then an insane wish to laugh but I couldn’t do that either as my teeth were clinging on to the airway in my mouth. All I could hear was the roaring bubble of air in my throat..

I fell, I rolled, I breathed,I was alive and suddenly I was in the biggest most beautiful aquarium ever. A fish soup surrounded me.

An octopus a foot wide that flooded into a different colours if it was touched and then sped off to hide under a rock. Stone fish that rested on the sandy bottom looking like a piece of abnormal pebbledash but when tickled they fanned out brilliantly coloured orange and black zebra stripes on their pectoral fins. I was so busy watching a family of nemo fish in an anemone that I almost missed a huge grouper. His bottom lip was turned up as if he were bored and disgusted with everything around him. Shoals or blue fish that danced in the water as one. It was like watching a ballet….and yellow fish of every size and colour……18 .6 meters for the first dive, a break of cake and fresh fruit and hot tea!!! Followed by a second dive. Each one was about an hour long….I survived again and apart from not being able to talk underwater…. a great disadvantage…. I wanted to run to a reference book and name the fish I had seen.

I had booked a little sail trip,as I thought, to the fish market.  It would be a couple of hours relaxation after the dive. How wrong I was. ??⛵