5th September 08

Date: 5th September 08
Location: Nhkata Bay, Lake Malawi
Weather: Clear blue skies and sunshine, 32°c
Status: Happy as can be, feeling fit again!

Ahhh one of those awesome days when you feel like you achieved a whole load in the day!!

Up bright and early to watch sunrise, gobbled some breakfast down and enjoyed some fresh fruit before meeting Craig and Belinda at the bar to plan our day ahead and how we’d get the PADI books across the lake to the dive school! Belinda agreed to walk around taking our books and Craig and I jumped in the warm lake water at 8am to start our swim across.

Flippin lovely to be back in water and swimming until the shoulders hurt,its been good for my legs this trip but not the upper body and so this every morning should do the trick. Took 15 mins to get across so I have slowed up since my early mornings at home but that’s understandable!

Spent the morning going through our equipment procedures and rigging our dive kit, then jumped into the water for familiarisation lessons on mask clearing, regulator knock outs etc. back to classroom for more videos then a break for lunch.

Then came the real deal and it was amazing, a beach launch for the three of us as we followed Dusty our instructor out into the lake until we were swimming with snorkels and then came the switch over to our tanks. One, two, three and we were breathing underwater, took a while to adjust our buoyancy and come to grips with everything but after 40 mins under it was much easier and SO good!

Saw loads of little chichid fish swimming everywhere! 99% of the worlds aquarium fish come from the lake and there are 150 different species herewith a new one being formed every 50 years or so! When young the fish swim back into their mother’s mouths for protection and we even saw this happening, wicked!

Back on dry land we filled in our dive logs for the first time and finished the day before walking back to the camp as swimming isn’t allowed after time spent under water.

A couple of friends from Canada are here and its one of their birthdays so we stumped for the very inviting BBQ and enjoyed a quiet beer with them, nothing too hectic as I have to dive again tomorrow!

End of day location: Nhkata Bay, Malawi
Distance covered: 0kms