Visit Date: December 2008

Spent a glorious week at Fumba Beach Lodge in December. Only did two dives but they were well worth doing.

The Padi diving centre, Blue World, is run by a Davide, a Columbian and Lauren, who refers to herself as a loud, annoying American. Davide was in Columbia when were there so Lauren was running the show.

The philosophy of the dive centre is that you do nothing except dive – they do everything else. If you need to hire BDC etc you will be fitted – if you have your own stuff then you leave it at the centre and then all you have to do is turn up for the dive. The staff load the boat, prepare your kit, help you get everything on, tightened the straps etc - all you have to do is step off the boat – no buddy checks etc – just go. The same thing happens after the dive – the next time you see your kit is when you collect it from the dive centre – washed.

Being used to taking responsibility for assembling your own kit it was a bit disconcerting to trust someone else to do everything – but it was fine and by the second dive we were converted. In between dives we are usually dismantling and changing bottles but we didn’t have to do a thing other than enjoy the view, eat the fruit and talk to other divers – bliss.

A word of warning for any female divers who are used to the normal 12 litre bottles – Blue World automatically give women 10 litres and as you are not involved with the bottles until you are ready to put it on your back it is too late if you usually use 12 litres

Don’t expect a posh dive boat – the boats (there are two) are traditional dhows and rustic – picture attached.

The diving from Fumba is in the Menai Conservation Area. We dived Ukombe Reef and Kipwajini. There is a fabulous coral garden with some of the biggest corals I have ever seen – cabbage & brain corals are particularly huge. Lots of fish but not large shoals. Amongst many other things, we saw Pink Pin- Cushion Starfish and Giant Barrel Sponges and a Sharp-nosed Stringray.

As there is limited availability for diving I would recommend that you book in advance if possible. We arrived on a Friday and the next availibilty was the following Tuesday - we were leaving on Thus so we just made it.

The only down side is diving is expensive here - $123 per single dive - $170 for 2 dives, including equipment.

Blue World can be contacted via the Fumba Beach Lodge website – http://www.fumbabeachlodge.com/diving.htm.