The big question....

I had better get this out of the way upfront, although I think most people already know thanks to my excitable mother and Harper - Nicole and I are now engaged. Nicole has finally given up the search for someone better and has agree to marry me instead. Yay.

The journey from Mombasa to Diani Beach was pretty cheap and easy - about $4 in total using tuk-tuks and the local mini-vans (matatus), although you always feel as if you are taking your life in your hands getting in one of those. They all have encouraging logos such as "Dead or Alive" or "Relax, God is in control" plastered across the windows in between all the American rapper posters. Once again this is a blessing as it is better if you can't see out, although it is sometimes useful if the driver can. Judging by the frequent crumpled remains of written off mini-vans strewn along the side of the road, if God was in control he obviously took the opportunity to sort out a few sinners here and there. I was justifiably nervous getting in....

As it was we arrived in Diani Beach alive and decided to spend 4 nights (our longest stay in one spot so far!!) at the Diani Marine Divers Village (google it for a look if you are curious). It is by far the nicest place we have stayed, and also the most expensive, but made a great break. We took a dhow trip to Wasini Island on our first day and did 2 dives in the marine park (which was full of fishermen and fish traps - I am not sure what they are conserving but it isn't fish), which was very nice before landing on the island for a sea food lunch of bbq fish and more crab than we could eat. Accompanying us on our dive was a Norwegian lad by the name of Thor-something. In the good viking tradition he was about 6'8" but had only done 4 dives, 7 years ago, in the North Sea. We were ferried out to our dive site in a 5m banana boat powered by a long suffering 15hp engine (pole pole - slow slow - as they say here.) Things sped up once Thor hit the water through. Luckily both dives were very shallow but he still chewed a full tank of air in less than 20 minutes. It was great to watch as he tore across the reef, legs bicycling at a hundred miles an hour and arms flailing the whole time. Just when you thought you were safely behind him, he would come charging out from behind some patch of reef and belt you in the face on the way past before stirring up another huge cloud of silt and disappearing off in the opposite direction. Thankfully when he ran out of air he was banished to the surface to snorkel along behind us while we completed the other 40 minutes of our dive in peace. The reef in the marine park was actually really nice, although the fish stocks were somewhat depleted, and particularly our first dive was very good with +20m vis.

Unfortunately for the second days diving Nicole was feeling ill and couldn't come along. As it turned out she didn't miss much really. The first dive was a nice wreck with a good school of snapper and some big lion fish, but the second dive was pretty poor with low vis and very flat reef with almost no fish. It must have really upset one of the German divers as he started vomiting as soon as we surfaced. I didn't think it was that bad, although maybe he was thinking of the price - Euro108 - for two dives within a couple of miles of the resort and no lunch or soft drinks.

We are now back in Mombasa again having taken the easy option and got a taxi back this morning (no sense pushing our luck too far with the mini-buses!). We are heading north along the coast tomorrow to Malindi and then on to Lamu Island after that.