With all the paperwork for diving out of the way, we did a later pickup after breakfast at Alfajiri, getting to the dive center at 0800. By 0815 we were on the boat. Jon was not joining, so I basically had a private dive boat to myself with our two captains and Saidi as my dive master.

We did our shore brief, planning on two sites – Nick’s Place, and Shark Alley. Nick’s Place was named for an advanced diving student who discovered the site, and Shark Alley because once a white-tipped shark had been spotted there . . . once. But Shark Alley sounds cool 😊

Nick’s place was a first for me, because it was a one-way dive. Basically, we got off the boat and went down to the mooring, then swam at about 18m for about 40m up to the mooring for Shark Alley. I saw blue spotted rays, tons of amazing coral (both soft and hard) and reef fish, as well as her , some more lion fish, angel fish, clown fish (in sea ananome), more lobster, and . . . more. It was a fun dive with the current.

On the way back up the mooring we took our safety stop, and another group was coming down the mooring. I hadn’t seen this before, but it was super interesting watching this family descending. There was a 12 year old boy who was just killing it, and his dad really struggling with buoyancy control. Generally just interesting to watch the dynamics while Saidi and I hung out.
We surfaced and our boat was tied to the stern of the other dive boat, so we swam past both as I listened to Saidi and the captains chatting with the other crew in Swahili.

Back on the boat, we relaxed for a 40 minute surface interval, then at this point really comfortable, I went over the side for our last dive. By this time we had moved up to primary spot on the mooring, and we descended really quickly and efficiently.

Saidi retied the mooring line, which was pretty cool to watch, and then we started a loop around shark alley. We didn’t see any sharks, but we did see a bunch more sea turtle and other reef fish. One of the highlights of shark alley for me was the really tall coral formations with mini caves under that acted as nurseries for baby fish.

The net effect of this is that you could swim below these clouds of brightly colored fish flashing in the sunlight, with these alien landscapes above and around you. I was super careful not to touch coral and I look forward to getting better buoyancy and positioning control as I gain experience – I am still very conscious of my placement. That said, my buoyancy control was really noticeably improving by the fourth dive, gaining confidence and reducing air consumption, so that was cool.

Back to the mooring, we swam a little more until we were at 50 bar of air (or I was, at least – Saidi, basically, doesn’t breathe – 30 years as a dive master and he is just SOOOO efficient), then ascended for our safety stop where I more or less napped and watched the sun dancing off the surface until Saidi indicated for going up.

Back on the boat, I got out of my wetsuit and had some fruit to clear the salt, and we motored back to a fishing pier to disembark – the water was just too skinny for us to get back to the dive center.

The dive center truck drove us back, and I turned in my dive gear, gathered my street clothes, paid the bill and off to Alfajiri I went. I had an interesting convo with the driver – the second time I heard the perspective that hey – we have typhoid, malaria, diptheria etc – covid just gets added to the list. Its a bit fatalistic, but faced with not being able to feed their families due to lack of employment, you can see why they want to get back to it.

At Alfajiri I came back to another amazing lunch. Was this one the tuna tartar? Maybe. I dunno – its a huge blend of amazingness 🙂

I had lots of time to relax and get cleaned up and relax after lunch, then we had our massage – still amazing – and more relaxing (is there a theme?) just delighting in the Cliff House at Alfajiri, then it was time for dinner.

Sofia joined us for snacks and a cocktail, and we had a wonderful freewheeling conversation and had the opportunity to learn a ton about how Alfajiri came to be. I am sure their website tells the story more properly, but basically Sofia’s dad, Fabrizio, was working in hospitality in Kenya and bought the initial property to live on. He built the cliff house for his parents and in laws to stay in when they visited. Once a friend came to stay, and was just blown away and said – wow, you have to offer this experience to other guests. So they did. Eventually the neighbors sold, and the second two suites (Beach and Garden) came to be.

Sofia is a blast – an equestrian, surfer, diver, traveller, and of course proprietress for the property, and the conversation went until about 2030 when she excused herself so we could have dinner. This time was an amazing seafood salad served in big oyster shells. So good.

It was at about this time that we had to reason over a flight change (our original homeward flight cancelled, and we had to stay another day. Should we spend that day in Nairobi at the Marriott? Or at Alfajiri? The answer was pretty obvious, so we extended another day.

We decided we’d go snorkeling in the morning and shopping in the afternoon 😊