In August 2018 the Branagan family flew from Johannesburg to Vilcanulos, Mozambique. We stayed at Casi Babi with the lovely Sabrina and Denis who ran Odysseadive . Vilcanulos is a beautiful, unspoilt fishing village. We watched the daily catch come in everyday, it seemed that the whole village turned up to the beach to help unload the catch.
Our boys were then 15 and 13 years old. They are quite active , sporty boys. As a family we are not terribly good as sitting around and relaxing. The boys had ready had a taster of scuba diving in Thailand, and were keen to qualify as open water PADI divers. They had done all the written part of the qualification online, so they just needed to complete the practical parts and do some open water dives. Graham and I had qualified as divers about 25 years ago! But it still makes me feel apprehensive! The dive site were 2 miles out to sea , just beyond the Bazaroto Archipelego, getting out to these dive sites was quite hairy and did nothing for my nerves! But the boys PADI master was an amazing guy called Toni, he was fabulous with the boys and me. He was a great guide underwater, and extremely calm! Just what I needed! We dived with our boys, it was exciting to watch then run through all the required learning and then we all went for a look about! We saw some amazing things: turtles, moray eels, reef sharks, a fish tank of fish at what is called the aquarium. We sat on the bottom and watch Devil rays sweep in. We could hear the song of humpback whales, which unfortunately we didn’t see under water , but did see on the surface! We had lovely lunchtime breaks on Benguerra island and climbed giant red sand dunes. We were generally exhausted in the evenings. Casi Babi fed us from whatever had been caught that day. The village was big enough to go out and occasionally find a restaurant. We had a fabulous time. And the boys passed the PADI open water . Off to Indonesia next year for more diving!
Our boys were then 15 and 13 years old. They are quite active , sporty boys. As a family we are not terribly good as sitting around and relaxing. The boys had ready had a taster of scuba diving in Thailand, and were keen to qualify as open water PADI divers. They had done all the written part of the qualification online, so they just needed to complete the practical parts and do some open water dives. Graham and I had qualified as divers about 25 years ago! But it still makes me feel apprehensive! The dive site were 2 miles out to sea , just beyond the Bazaroto Archipelego, getting out to these dive sites was quite hairy and did nothing for my nerves! But the boys PADI master was an amazing guy called Toni, he was fabulous with the boys and me. He was a great guide underwater, and extremely calm! Just what I needed! We dived with our boys, it was exciting to watch then run through all the required learning and then we all went for a look about! We saw some amazing things: turtles, moray eels, reef sharks, a fish tank of fish at what is called the aquarium. We sat on the bottom and watch Devil rays sweep in. We could hear the song of humpback whales, which unfortunately we didn’t see under water , but did see on the surface! We had lovely lunchtime breaks on Benguerra island and climbed giant red sand dunes. We were generally exhausted in the evenings. Casi Babi fed us from whatever had been caught that day. The village was big enough to go out and occasionally find a restaurant. We had a fabulous time. And the boys passed the PADI open water . Off to Indonesia next year for more diving!
