Raising the Zanzibar

After our safari adventure, Matt and I decide to take it easy by heading to Zanzibar to experience the island life. I was pretty excited to go there to experience the beautiful waters but also so I could say Zanzibar in a weird and exotic voice.

Instead of staying near Stone Town or near the city, we opted to stay up north where it’s better conditions for water sports. It’s also a bit quieter and secluded feeling which encouraged us to really relax. It was a bit over an hour from the airport.

Once we got there, we were wowed by how picturesque the beaches were and the blue-ness of the water! I could try to explain to you the beauty of how the different shades of aquamarine, turquoise and sky blue blended together and then kissed the white-sanded beach or I could just show you photos…. I’ll stick with the photos.

We had two tickets to paradise.

We packed our bags and arrived at night.

Matt and I shared long walks along the beach in the early morning and/or evening to soak in the views. The sand was perfect- soft, clean and never too hot and there was usually a nice breeze that kept you cool and brought in a subtle salt aroma.

Happy as clams.

Enjoying our long walks on the beach.

Sorry, not sorry.

Besides walking and relaxing, Matt and I did some scuba diving and snorkeling. (Matt dove twice, I dove once and snorkeled once). Unlike our experience at Koh Tao, the water was much more calm and clear. We were amazed by the visibility underwater! Visibility was 40 meters, so even when Matt reached 16 meters (more than 50 feet), it was easy to see the top. The water was so clear that our instructor said that it you could often accidentally go too deep!

Aboard our diving boat. Photo credit: Donny from our boat!

Since the waters were so clear, we also got to see a lot more marine life than we did in Thailand. Some highlights of what we saw:

• 4 different species of eel (golden eel, moray eel)
• Trumpet Fish
• Sole Fish
• Stone Fish
• Rock Fish
• Scorpion Fish
• Full Manchu lion fish
• Shrimps
• Nemo (AKA Clown fish)
• Octopus
• Lots of coral and starfish

Unfortunately, we don’t have an underwater camera or a GoPro but we do have these pictures of us aboard the boat. We met a ton of really nice people aboard and one of them snapped these photos of us with their phone and sent it to us!

Enjoying the clear waters!

Scuba Fish!

 

We spent all of our down time at the bungalow where we stayed. We ate dinner there every night and spent a lot of time talking to a German couple that did a diving trip every year. They were on our dive boat with us and also ate at our bungalow each night. They are also big travelers, so it was really fun to compare notes and get to know them. Hopefully, we’ll meet them when we are in Germany. Otherwise, we played lots of canasta! I was super pumped to beat Matt twice while we were in Zanzibar!

In general, this is how we felt about our time in Zanzibar: 

Trying to hard to get some height.

Matt has the height advantage.