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| me with a turtle |
Since I became a certified diver I had been looking forward to diving in
Mayotte, which has one of the world's largest - and reputedly most beautiful - lagoons (1100km2).
This trip to the
Mozambique Channel became reality in January 2013. After some initial research we decided to stay in three different locations to make the most of our voyage.
Mayotte's lagoon has 12 channels, 160km of barrier reef and an average depth of 40 metres. 254 different species of
hard coral have been identified there and its deepest point is 70m.
First off we started diving with
Reve Bleu, based in
Mamoudzou, to visit the renowned S Pass, a channel with about 20 or so different dive sites.
Needless to say in the time we had available we were only able to dive 5 of those sites: Coude à Jojo 2, Merou Palace, Balcon sur le Bleu, Pointe Barracuda and Canyon Vallée, the latter being a drift dive.
One of the first things we noticed was that the coral and plant life was in better health than what we're used to in
Réunion.
Mayotte is home to two species of turtle:
green turtles (the same as those found in
Réunion), and
hawksbill turtles.
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| Hawksbill turtle |
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| this particular Napoleon wrasse was seen from afar |
After several days we headed to the south-west of Mayotte to dive with
Abalone Plongée at M'Zouasia beach, near the town of
Bouéni.
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| Abalone Plongée, on land |
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| Abalone Plongée from the sea |
Abalone is within diving distance of three channels: Boueni pass, Bateaux pass and Sada pass. We dived l'Ancre and the north of Bateaux pass, and Patate à Barracada at Boueni pass. We also dived Lépoé, Oasis and Chamonix in the lagoon.
Backroll!
Abalone
drift dives one of the south-western passes in the morning to see
pelagic marine life, and the afternoons are spent diving the coral reefs inside the lagoon.
We dived twice a day for three days, and saw sharks (
grey reef and
whitetip reef) on every morning dive, as well as
barracudas and other pelagic fish. On one memorable occasion we were on the surface waiting for the boat to pick us and realised a grey reef shark was circling underneath our feet!
Giant clams of all sizes and colours were always plentiful on all our Mahoran dives.
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| giant clam |
This stingray made himself scarce!
Spiny lobster could be found at most dive sites around Mayotte, sometimes living in colonies.
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| spiny lobster |
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| school of barracuda |
We did a very interesting dive at Lépoé where we only explored the sandy bottom - we saw lots of pipefish, partner gobies, an ejaculating sea cucumber and in particular a
demon stinger scorpionfish.
Jean-Patrick, our guide, was especially excited as he'd never seen one in 25 years of diving (and neither had we)!
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| Demon stinger scorpionfish, also known as 'devil stinger' |
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| Happy Divers (left) when approaching from the sea |
Here we dived the sites
Porite fendu, Mtsangafanou, La Plage and Champs de pavot.
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| a shy octopus |
I got the impression we saw more
moray eels here in the north-west than at other dive locations.
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| the head of a very large moray eel |
This is the only place where we spotted a
crown of thorns sea star, although apparently they can be found all around Mayotte.
Returning from one dive our boat was surrounded by friendly dolphins. (Note that, like Réunion,
humpback whales can be seen in Mayotte between July and October. And ten days after we'd been diving with them, Abalone plongée saw a manta ray and a hammerhead shark on a dive!)
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| dolphins |
While diving in Mayotte we would have loved to have seen a
dugong, but as there are only seven of them (and a calf) in the whole lagoon we knew the chances were slim! And although
coelacanths are found in the area we were unlikely to see them either, as they are a critically endangered species and live at 100-500m ...
Most of the underwater photos were shot with a Go Pro 2.
Useful links:
For more links about Mayotte see
here.
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