Aqua Africa - Nkhata Bay

When in Nkhata Bay, one must explore the third deepest freshwater lake in Africa and seek out the splendour of life below the waters. As this was Shereen’s first diving encounter, we opted for a half-day Discover Scuba Diving experience course offered by a PADI Dive Resort situated on the shore of Lake Malawi. Deborah was ready and waiting to welcome us back to the shore with offerings of warm tea and coffee, and a listening ear as we shared our discoveries.

We were in the skilful hands of Jason, our dive instructor, whose quick wit and humour kept us on our toes. Alas, Shereen struggled to equalise the pressure in her ears and was unable to join in for the final 20-meter descent, but here is a snippet of my experiences underwater……

Moments before, Jason, my instructor, indicated that just off to the side was danger: a precipice. We were on the edge of a shelf so deep that despite being midday, it was inky black below. I checked that Jason, was watching - then made my move. Gripping a jug of rock, I lunged upwards and across, aiming for a grip half a meter away. I was without a rope, wet all over, and the rock covered in a brown slime that made it almost impossible to grip. As I fell backwards towards the abyss, my arms extended histrionically outwards, my eyes were wide, and my mouth open in a soundless gasp. I fell away from the rock in slow motion, gravity tugging slowly at my form, I glance at Jason, and he appears to be laughing. A stream of bubbles extend upwards and disappear beyond my vision. I flip over to face downwards, press the button that squirts a jet of high-pressure air into my vest, and my descent stabilizes. I look at Jason and he gestures clapping. A flick of my fins and I'm rejoining just behind him. A few minutes later Jason points to a shoal of miniature fish, then to another fish nearby. He cradles his arms, then repeats the gesture. I give him the okay sign, but don't get it. Later on at the debriefing he explains that the surrounding fish was mum, aggressively defending her fingerlings that were now too big to fit in her mouth. Circling back towards the Aqua Africa dive center I tried to enumerate the various species of fish I'd encountered thus far. There was the only pink fish I'd just seen, then the shoal of littlies, at least three bright yellow species, about twenty species with variations on grey and electric blue, one that couldn't decide whether 80's yellow or neon blue was fashionable, so went with both, and a fish with marked yellow spots on its tail. This Jason explained was a mimic of eggs that a wandering female felt compelled to gobble at. This act stimulated the male into ejaculating, and his sperm would then fertilize the thusly employed female. Then there were the two fish rutting, their malicious charges at headbutting the other then followed by an attempt to bite the others face that looked to the naive, like the planting of kisses. As we glided back, finning slowly and efficiently, the desolate apocalyptic scenery slipped by. A leafless branch seemingly frozen in time. A tyre covered in slime. A knotted net sprawled across the bottom. This had been a radicle departure from my training in the Cape. Those conditions under the tutelage of the indomitable Andrea Plos that merged into winter made us into raw aquatic warriors. The scientific equivalent of the Green Berets or the Marines. Everything was harsh and an assault on the senses. Swimming without a mask caused me to gag and cough and I'd stick my head out of the water. Again! Andrea would command, and I'd go a few more meters before spluttering to the surface. The imperative to "Carry on!", and I'd strike again for the other end of the pool. This time though, something barely perceptible shifted in my sinuses or nasal cavity. A long-forgotten reflex kicked in and from then on I was able, time and time again to swim with just the snorkel and without a mask. Then there was the black mask training, having to find and don the rig without air or vision. The zero-viz dives in murky brown dams down to 30m. The swimming through kelp forests and waves that clutched at my limbs, tank and peripheral gear that made me want to rip the regulator from my mouth and gasp for air and scream for help, but we had to fight the panic, bite down on the mouthpiece, regulate our breath and push methodically forward. A confession of malpractice: when we dived the Clan Stewart wreck off the Simon's town coast I was so cold that within minutes I was shivering uncontrollably despite my 12mm of combined wetsuit thickness. My respiration was so high that shortly after exploring the wreck at 20m, my breathing became laboured. I'd run out of air prematurely. I signalled to my dive buddy and partner at the time, Marta, that I was out of air and she rolled her eyes. In those days we forewent the now mandatory spare regulator, and she took the regulator from her mouth and handed it to me. We slowly ascended, attending to our safety stops and taking turns with the regulator. We eventually made it to the surface with a few bar to spare.

Fish aside, Scuba here was an entirely different kettle of fish. Under the expert guidance of Jason, I relearned how to dive. In one morning, we were given a rudimentary dive course that covered the basics and enabled us to dive accompanied by an instructor. After a few minutes of descent after attending to the basics, Shereen called time-out. She'd had enough torture. It's not that she couldn't hack the technique that had, by her own admission, been a full-on experience and assault on her vital senses like breathing and vision, but her sinuses weren't playing ball. Hours later in the car she was still suffering from a headache and earache. For myself, however, it was an opportunity to hone technique and actually enjoy diving. The water here had high visibility, was fresh and without a hint of salinity, calm and a tepid 27 degrees. Importantly, while at Monkey Bay and Cape Maclear I was scared stiff to go in the water due to Billharzia, here, I only had to concern myself with giardia, a parasitic gut protozoan easily diagnosed due to liquid diarrhoea and rotten-egg burps and rapidly knocked out by a course of Flagyl. It was a magical experience and a toe-dip into the splendid biodiversity of Cichlids that contribute to the endemic biota of Lake Malawi. For people wanting to transcend this planet, Aqua Africa based at Nkhata Bay not only offers full Padi courses, but their night dive with UV torches makes fish light up like creatures out of Avatar.Read more