Scuba diving at (BOMA – TANGA – TANZANIA) with Ancestor Travel & Tours Although not yet set up for scuba – we have (August 2013), conducted several exploratory dives within a couple of kilometers of FEP and found some wonderful reefs mostly within the 10-18m range. These dives were in close proximity of FEP, though we fully intend to go out further to the outer reefs (7-10km offshore) and explore them, where no doubt the diving will be even better and in clearer water, right up against the continental shelf and the Pemba channel, where we hope to find some spectacular wall dives. Report extracts as follows: Fan reef (Closest to FEP about 300m) This reef has sandy slopes with coral and fish at around 10-12m… Visibility was around 5-10m underwater and the current flowed across the reef… Makes it a very easy dive for novice divers… Lovely gorgonian fans, lots of reef fish’s wide variety of corals, large tiger cowries, nudibranchs, flatworms, huge cucumber slugs etc. Rocky reef Coral reef at 12-15m with sandy slopes below bottoming out around 18m. Many varieties of coral and reef fishes… great 2nd dive where the divers want to relax and just drift along the reef with the easy current. Mangrove reef High tide dive, as only several metres off shore. The top of the reef (5-12m) is alive with fish/corals etc… Again a drift dive with little current and virtually no surge affect, ending your dive on 5m coral reef – spectacular with tubular, large plate corals and then stag horn at around 5-8 metres. Fish life on this section of the reef was unbelievable; saw painted spiny lobster, lots of lion-fish, surgeons, tangs, parrot fish and general reef fishes. Anemones and dominoes/clownfish and other little fish living within the anemones. This is an easy dive to do on the high tide and can imagine it to be spectacular on the low tide especially for snorkelers… Nice coral heads, small overhangs and crevices to see smaller fish. Very colorful dive and fish are not darting away when approached. Easy a dive for underwater photographers and novices. Barrel sponge reef (A shoal 1,5 km due E of FEP, with water surrounding at 40-50m coming up to approx 10m below the surface) This reef, definitely the most exciting… gradual slope down to 30m and beyond, for a deeper dive… swim along the gentle slope to the top and end of the dive around the 10m area amongst the tubular sponges and whip corals. Visibility excellent. It looked like a garden that was tended with some barrel sponges easily 1.5m in height and larger than 50 cm at their openings. Whip corals over 2m swaying in the current. Soft corals covered the bottom… Prolific amount of anemones, clown fish and also general reef fishes, flatworms, nudibranchs and starfishes to be found on this reef. This reef structure is obviously stretched out along the coast, am sure there will be many more gorgeous sites. Whip coral reef An extension of ‘Barrel sponge reef’ (approx 300m away)… another spectacular, very easy reef to dive… visibility on this reef I would assume to be good at all times, whether low or high tide, further off shore and not as affected by the tide. Visibility on our dive -top to bottom, anything between 15-20m. Whip corals – a variety of colours, with fan corals in between and sponges (not as much as on barrel sponge reef), but more fish life on this part of the reef. Large clam shells, good corals and also not too much damage on the reef. Open dive, one can see and an easy dive to anchor the boat and get divers to go down, explore and return to the anchor to return up the anchor rope to the boat. Current not bad and easy to explore the top of the reef. Lots of small things to investigate and another photographers dream dive.
Posted on: Sat, 20 Sep 2014 06:47:44 +0000
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