Abandoned in the Indian Ocean

Greetings from glorious Zanzibar!

I'm in the historic port city of Stone Town, Zanzibar - just off the coast of Tanzania. Stone Town is a charming town with narrow streets and beautiful historic architecture at its heart, conjuring up images of Indian, Arabic and Portuguese settlers and colonialists, slave and spice traders, Sultans and separatist movements.

I came here to visit with a close friend of a close friend with whom I came into contact through AIESEC - the youth organization I used to work with. Inbal and her two flatmates - Anna and Sanjya were fantastic hosts and have become good friends. When we learned that there was a full moon party on one of the northern islands, we all decided to go.

We stayed in beautiful Nungwi beach where the white sand, turquoise water and stunning sunsets are enough to inspire even the most ruthless to sit down and write a romance novel. We walked over to the full moon party beach, littered with drunk British tourists, acrobatic entertainers and phony Maasai warriors dancing to horrible western music until the sun came up. Once the tide came in, there was no way to get back to Nungwi except by boat which we eventually returned with at around 6:00AM.

Inbal and her friends returned to Stone Town but I stayed on long enough to lose my heart to a lovely British girl. I decided to upgrade my diving certification and experienced the sensational diving that Nungwi and the Indian Ocean have to offer. It became an interesting and life threatening experience.

I went on my first ever night dive with two other people and when we surfaced there was no boat to meet us. We waited for about 10 minutes before we gave up on the boat and decided to swim for shore, which was several miles away. I don't know why but there's something about someone screaming at you "don't panic!" that kind of makes you want to panic. I had a difficult time because my BCD (buoyancy control device) wouldn't fully inflate so I had to use a lot of exertion to stay afloat. It also didn't help that the waves were smacking us around pretty good so I swallowed a lot of salt water and felt like I was drowning. Fortunately after about half an hour in complete darkeness the boat found us. I was filled with such relief until I realized that the waves were pulling me so far away from the boat that I wasn't sure I could reach it. The dive master came out for me and swam me in, literally saving my life.

The expereience was enough to turn anyone off of diving but I was determined not to let it stop me from obtaining my Advanced Open Water certification and I was back at it the next morning. This time it was my first ever deep water dive. An Open Water certificate entitles you to dive to 18 metres but in the advanced course you have to get used to reaching 30 metres and experience Nitrogen Narcosis. This is when the nitrogen in your system is so high that it creates a euphoric feeling of drunkeness and slower response times. I had to do a mathematical equation, count backwards from 10 and write my name backwards, but I had no problem with these exercises. Perhaps I didn't experience nitrogen narcosis or I just have a higher threshold for it. The bad news on this dive was that I got an air bubble under my filling in my tooth and when I surfaced, the air bubble expanded causing my tooth to explode. I will have to see a dentist about it when I get back to Canada. At least I did get my advanced certificate in the end.

I have much more to write but I've run out of time. I'll tell you more later and also fill you in on my experiences in Kenya.

Take care,
L.