whale sharks on mafia island

Two weeks ago we went to Mafia Island. Mafia is an island off the coast of Dar about equidistant from Zanzibar. It is less touristy than Zanzibar but generally awesome. We stayed at the Mafia Island Lodge on Chole Bay. Chole Bay is a marine reserve that has the bluest water I've ever seen. It was fantastic to boat out to our dive sites. We did two dives (scuba - whale sharks are a snorkelling adventure because they don't dive deep). I struggled on both dives with equalizing my ears but eventually made it down. We saw some tiny reef sharks, schools of barracuda, and wonderful, brightly coloured fish. Add in the "sunset cruise" as we rode back to the lodge and it was a great day.

Here is your primer on Mafia.

The next day we hung out in bandas with our friends KO'S and AK. We had a nice dinner together before retiring uneventfully. We found out the next day when we returned from our whale shark tour that AK had actually come down with malaria in the night. She was sick for a couple of days but recovered enough to take their scheduled flight back to the mainland.

The whale sharks were amazing. I'm a cynic and had just been on safari in the Serengeti so was kind of expecting to be underwhelmed after so much hype. The whale sharks are in this neck of the woods for about three months of the year (similar timeline to the wildebeest migration in Ndutu) and Mafia is the place to see them. Even at this time of year some people go and don't see any or two. We saw nine or ten (maybe some were repeats?). At first it's a little terrifying because the boat pulls up and the guides yell at you to jump in the water and then you do and you realize that this thing, even if it's not a real shark with teeth, is 9 yards long.

Once you sight your whale shark, you kick your fins as hard as you can for as long as you can so you can just to be close to this magnificent creature in complete awe. It can get a little crowded as everyone (the other 6 people on your boat) have the same idea. But eventually the herd thins and you are alone with the fish. Sometimes you're really lucky and you get to swim for two minutes with just you, the fish, and on the other side is your girlfriend. And that's a moment you'll cherish for a long time. Sorry, but you will.

Another great moment was being between two whale sharks for a couple of minutes when they decided to pull a u-turn, coming back to me. Flippers are not conducive to reverse gear. I was suddenly face to face to two whale sharks about five feet below me and I thought worst case, I'm going in someone's gigantic baylene mouth and best case I'm being pushed up and out of the water. Neither of these things happened, they just turned and continued underneath me. I managed to stay with one of them for another few minutes.

You schedule a morning for whale sharkin' but if you're lucky and you see as many as we did, you are completely spent for your slow boat back to reality and you don't mind that you left 45 minutes early.

Two of the guys in our boat got jellyfish to the face. I saw one of them happen. They were fine.