Tanzania 2014 - Zanzibar

East Africa, august 2014…..

Offshore of the coast of Tanzania, lays the idyllic island of Zanzibar, which has been property of many different countries through the years. This centre of trade is famous for its herbs, and I don’t mean the smoking kind. We checked in at the Sandies Mapezi Beach Club hotel which is owned by Italians. Very luxurious, great tasty food and well styled if you want to describe it in a few words.

Zanzibar is surrounded by a reef, which is about 2.5 miles out of the beach. The laguna from the beach till the reef, is like a minefield of sea urchins, you won’t get very far without water shoes in this place. The laguna inhabits sea urchin in all kinds and colours, same thing for starfish. The locals use the laguna to grow seaweed, from which they make soap and other products. The laguna is no good for fishing, there are only small fish living in it.

You can fish from the coral on low tide, but it’s quite a walk, and you can’t cast near or over the surf, that’s still about 300 meters away from dry ground. Discovering all this, we came to the conclusion that the fishing had to be done from a boat. Behind the wall that separates the hotels’ private beach from the public beach, is very crowded with locals who permanently offer you all kinds of merchandise or excursions.

Our beach was on the East coast, the hotel manager told me that the North of Zanzibar was a lot better for fishing because there would be still a couple of feet water remaining after low tide, instead of almost totally dry at our spot. The two top dog beach salesmen go by the nickname of James Bond and Ali Baba.

Ali Baba offered me a boat trip for 250 US dollars for 4 hours, on a local old fishing boat, no modern stuff at all. I said I wanted to think about it and the next day I met another beach salesman on the beach of the hotel next to us. He asked me to rent the same boat. I told him that I had an offer, but it was too expensive. When he asked me how much, I said "150 dollar". He said to me he could offer it for 130 dollars and I said we had a deal. I didn’t realize I almost created a tribal war, when I told Ali Babi I booked with his colleague for only 130 bucks! Ali baba exploded in anger because my hotel was on his turf, the other guy shouldn’t have taken my deal! I told him about free trade, and I’ll take the lowest price, don’t care who’s offering it. So Ali Baba made me deal for a 120 bucks and was going to tell his colleague the deal with me was off. I booked this boat 3 times, 2 times for 120 bugs, the last time for a 110!

On the first trip we found a feeding frenzy of yellowfin tuna in a big school which was moving fast, I had only one cast with my spinning rod when we caught up with them, but they didn’t take any Rapala’s, pilks or spoons. After a while we spotted a couple of sails out of the surface, I got excited! We hooked one on trolling, but after a few minutes we pulled the hook, after that we had to go back because time’s up.

The second boat trip, Ali Babi added some extra experience, his name was captain Peter. This guy had the eyes of an eagle and knew these waters like his backyard. After a while he spotted diving birds where none of us could see any. He appeared to be right and pretty soon we got a strike. I took the rod and set the hook, after a great exciting fight a beautiful yellowfin tuna was gaffed next to the boat, celebration time!

The third time we went, I insisted captain Peter came along, I asked him if he knew some wahoo spots, because I believe the crew wants to catch yellowfin, that’s the most profitable specie. He said he knew a spot near an island with a straight reef next to it, perfect ambush spot when the tide comes in. After 15 minutes we got a double strike, little deckhand and me taking a rod each. The boy pulled the hook, mine was fighting like hell and felt real heavy. When the fish took off again, the rod snapped and broke off at the top. Panic in the house, everybody did there, handling the boat, taking the line away from the sharp broken off edge, the gaf ready and me drilling with patience. When I saw colour, the endorphins floated through my veins and pretty soon we landed it, real f-word celebration time! My first wahoo, and a big one too!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The new Rapala had a bent out rear and I’ll have to admit that we were very lucky not losing this fish. I kept singing for another 2 hours and the crew had a lot of fun, I gave my cap to the young deckhand. We missed another strike but my main mission was completed, wahoo on the list! We took a lot of pictures when I got back and I was telling Simone and the couple we earlier met, Joost and Charmaine, the whole story.

Joost had never been fishing the sea, and I persuaded him to try to. I arranged everything with Ali Baba, going to the wahoo spot, in case of sea sickness bottom fishing with bait behind the little island. Joost brought my travel rod along and when he came back in the afternoon, he was standing on point, two fists in sky! They caught two beautiful wahoo’s and Joost looked like a boy scout in a brothel, congrats mate! On our last day Joost and I went fishing at low tide from the coral. The squid and shrimp I took from the hotel kitchen didn’t give any bites, and we lost a couple of lines easily by currents pushing the rig in the rocks. A local said we needed some other bait, he would go get it if he could keep the fish we might catch. We made a deal on that. He started looking for some really beautiful shells and broke them down on the coral bottom. A tarantula/squid looking beautiful red hermit crab came out. It felt very soft and a little hairy, after we baited the hook with it, we caught to snappers like fish instantly. We did quit after that because I didn’t want the local to break down more shells.

Zanzibar was fantastic! Great Holiday!

Tight lines!

Lee