The Great Blue Sea

Zanzibar was the sort of relaxing holiday location I never dreamed I would get to visit.  I can see why it is a popular honeymoon spot, and known well among Europeans.  The white sandy beaches, the clear turquoise water, the always-warm weather, and friendly natives - you can't tick all of those off anywhere in the UK.
I really enjoyed snorkeling and scuba diving.  It is another whole world down there, and such a treat to see exotic wildlife in their natural habitat.  I took a Discover Scuba Diving (DSD) course on one of the afternoons we were in Nungwi.  We first watched an instructional video to learn about the diving, the equipment, and the safety elements we would need to observe.  Then we had some classroom time with a Dive Instructor to learn how the equipment works and how to use it. Finally, we spent an hour in one of the hotel pools practicing our breathing, equalizing, buoyancy control, and some safety drills, like clearing your mask of water while underwater, and breathing from another person's octopus (backup regulator).  Dan also was with us for the course because he hadn't dived in a few of years and they required him to take a refresher course, which they ran alongside ours.  The DSD course includes an open water dive, but some of the students in my course elected not to continue with this because they either couldn't get the hang of equalizing, or the pool dive was about all that they could hold their interest for.  But diving in the ocean was the best part!  For the ocean dives we went out the next day on a 20 minute zodiac boat to Mnemba Atol, a marine wildlife reserve.  The boat was positioned at the edge of the reef, and before hopping in the water we had a bit of a briefing on the dive site by the Dive Master.  Since the water was a bit choppy and the boat was moving up and down a lot I started to feel a bit sea sick.  I was glad when we got in the water because under the surface you don't feel the effects of the surface conditions at all.  The scenery was spectacular - many kinds of coral made up the reef, and hundreds of fish were swimming around.  I saw some amazing lion fish, some clown fish hiding in their anemones, dory fish, a sea snake, moray eels, trumpet fish, giant trevally, and many many types I could not begin to identify.  The experience was so incredible, I've signed up for a course back here in the UK to get my open water diving certification!