The diving:
There are 2 diving centres in Vilanculos. Big Blue who never returned my emails, and Odyssee Diving which we ended up diving with.
Odyssea - Diving in Mozambique - Vilanculos, owned and run by French couple Sabrina and Denis. They were very helpful in giving us some information about diving in Bazaruto and also some general information about Vilanculos before we decided to book the trip.
They run a professional operation, are passionate about diving and are set on making sure divers have a good time and enjoy their diving. They treat everyone with special care and you get that personal touch that you do not get with some ‘cattle’ operations like Thailand or Egypt where the DM’s job is to get you to the site, in the water, back in the boat and back to land.
Diving is done with 5mm full wetsuits and the water temperature was always between 25 and 26 degrees. Their wetsuits are brand new and BCD’s are a mixture of new and old, but all in good working order, same goes for the regulators. They do not dive with EAN, but are planning to get that in the future. Diving is done from a 8meter RIB that can comfortably take 8 divers for a 2 tank dive with a minimum of 4 divers. They also have a 5meter RIB they use when there are only 2 divers.
We walked to their shop the day we arrived, our logbooks and qualifications were thoroughly checked and we fitted wetsuits and BCD’s – and the next day they picked us up on the beach in front of Palmeiras for our first dives – all our equipment was on the boat, and that was the case every day thereafter.
Pick-up was around 8:40 by boat on route to the dive site, and Sabrina would always phone when they launch the boat, so we could make our way to the beach.
After 45 minutes we reached the islands where we’d have a 15minute break and to do a dive briefing with a drawing in the sand, then another 10mins out to Two Mile Reef for the first dive. Thereafter you return to the island for a 90minue lunch break, where you can relax of climb the huge sand dune for panoramic views or the area. After the 2nd dive you have a 10minute break on the island and then back to the mainland. We usually got back around 3.30pm.
Bazaruto Islands
Crow looking to steal our lunch
Our bottom times varied from 45 to 60minutes. Depending on the size of the group, usually if someone reaches 50bar they and everyone else up to 70bar ascend along the boyie line where they are picked up by the boat and the rest continue the dive with a max BT of 60 minutes. We were never many divers on the boat – usually 4 to 6 with either Sabrina or Denis as DM. Largest group was 7 divers and they split us in two – 4 beginners with Denis, and the 3 AOW’s with Sabrina.
They have very beautiful, colorful and unspoiled hard and soft corals. The turtles, crayfish, groupers and Morays are massive. Not as much reef fish as I’ve seen on the inner reefs in the Maldives, but the beautiful corals make up for it. Visibility started off really bad around 5-8 metres on our first dive but that was because it was full moon the night before and the spring tide stirred things up a bit. 2 days later is was 15metres and by the end of the week we had 20metres. Most dives were between 15-18 metres either over the reef or a combination of reef and sandy bottoms with coral heads. Notable things we saw: 2 reef sharks, a 2 metre guitarfish, Sting Rays, Devil Rays, massive Morays & Turtles (Green & Hawkesback), few trumpet fish, porcelain crabs, nudibranc’s, christmas tree worms, blue spotted ray’s etc. We always dived on the outside of the reef, and depending on the day and site, you had hardly any current, drift with a mild current, or sometimes mild to heavy surge. There were always a few people on the boat going snorkelling, and they would be taken to the inside of the reef during our 90minute surface break to snorkel, and could also snorkel on the reef off the island while we were out diving. Every single one of them always said it was awesome! So if you have a partner that does not dive, you can always take them with to snorkel and relax on the island beach.
We paid 3400Meticais ($140) for a double tank dive (incl. all equipment and reserve park fees), and you get discounts for every dive thereafter. That is a bit more expensive than Tofu, but probably due to the distance to the reef and high fuel prices in Mozambique.
Worth a mention… I told Denis that I liked macro stuff, and wanted to test my new G9, and he arranged for Sabrina to take us to Alan’s Reef one afternoon on one of our resting days. Sabrina picked us up and drove us to the site with all the gear in the car – literary a 10minute drive to one of the resorts south of Vilanculos. Alan’s reef is a very shallow (3.5metres) and small artificial reef consisting out of old tractor tyres and 2-3 old cars on a sandy bottom surrounded by sea grass – at low tide, you walk 5 metres into the water, dive down and you’re there. The reef is a breeding ground for Nudibranc’s, lion fish, puffer fish and numerous others. We saw loads of Nudibranc’s including 2 that were busy laying their eggs. Also saw a few juvenile lion fish about (8-10cm long) and puffer fish as big as your thumb. We dived for 70mins, by which time all 3 of us were feeling the cold (water temp was 23 degrees – unusual for such a shallow site) Excellent place to practice macro photography - so if you are ever in Vilanculos and want to check this out ask them to take you to Alan’s reef.
Note to all - best not to go when there is a spring tide…visibility tends to be bad for 2-3 days around the spring tide, and you cannot go out to Cabo San Sebastian which apparently is an awesome dive where you might see Manta’s, hammerheads, reef sharks, king fish and barracuda’s. (definitely next time then…)
Keep an eye out on the Underwater Photography section, as I will be posting a few pictures there soon.