Beach Boys = Bad News

Another morning in Nkhata Bay and another trip to Aqua Africa. Today was my last dive in Lake Malawi (a deep dive to a little beyond 30m) and all things going to plan, I would be leaving the Bay as a PADI certified Advanced Diver. Michela and I met Andy at the Marina but there was no sign of Jonny. Jonny had over done it the night before and as you aren’t supposed to drink before diving (and especially not before a deep dive) had decided to give this one a miss. Andy gave us a really thorough run through of the theory and after satisfying himself that we were on top of everything, we were given the green light to suit up and were soon heading out to the dive site.

Side by side and using the anchor line as a guide, Michaela and I slowly kicked our way down to the lake bed. Andy was apparently right behind us but we quickly lost site of him as the water was quite cloudy with silt. It was really freaky actually – we had no point of reference (other than the anchor line) to help us maintain our bearings and if it weren’t for the bubbles, we could have easily lost track of which way was up. However, the water seemed to clear as we neared the bottom and although visibility was not as good as the day before, it was good enough.

Once on the bottom we had to answer a few quick questions (on a slate) that Andy had prepared for us earlier. The idea was to see how/whether the extreme depth (and the subsequent nitrogen narcosis) affected our ability to think – We had to do a basic arithmetic question, write down some important date and spell out our full names. From memory, I think I did okay but it was definitely not perfect. After the quiz, we went for a brief swim along a ridge that dropped away so steeply that we could not make out the bottom below – it was as if the bottom of the lake gave way to some endless chasm. Other than the big drop, there wasn’t a lot to see down there that we hadn’t already seen the day before. The only real highlight came when Michaela had a little moment (probably because of the nitrogen narcosis) and started swimming away from the ridge and out into the middle of the lake. Andy had to go out after her and when he finally got her attention she spun around like a deer in headlights, apparently completely confused at how she had gotten so far away from us. Thankfully though, she quickly snapped out of her daze and while Andy had to shepherd her back to the ridge, she was able to make her own way back to the anchor so we could surface together without issue – stopping at 15m for 1min and at 5m for 10min, just to be safe.

Once back on dry land, I headed up to Mayoka for lunch. There I ran into Milos & Elena (from Lilongwe and Vic Falls) who had come up by boat from Monkey Bay the day before. It was a beautiful day so we all decided to go for a swim out to the pontoon in front of Mayoka. We found a bunch of others lazing around out there recovering from the night before – including Jonny and his two new best mates, a cool couple of Israeli guys named Tom and Ben. We hung out on the pontoon for a few hours just sunning ourselves between quick dips in the water to cool off – it was a perfect way to spend an afternoon.

Pontooning

Jonny clowning around...

A different perspective on the pontoon.

Lost at sea

That night a group of us went into town for dinner. The local boys again tried to take us to that place behind the market but Tom and Ben (who had been in Africa far longer than me) weren’t having any of it. We ditched the local boys and ended up at a place called Kaya Papaya, where Tom and Ben explained to me why they try to avoid the local boys.

Many of the local boys at popular tourist destinations throughout Africa (commonly referred to as Beach Boys) have made a business out of scabbing off tourists. While they are not above guilt-tripping unsuspecting blokes (like Onno and I the other day) into buy them dinner, their real target are female tourists. They will approach a girl and tell them how beautiful they look and how amazing they are, etc etc. They keep up the barrage of flattery until the girl is swooning, at which point they start pulling on the heartstrings and laying it on thick with the sob stories (some of which I'm sure are true) about how hard life is for them. Often, the girl soon thinks that the Beach Boy is just this really nice, poor, sweet guy who genuinely loves and cares about them and who is just looking for love in return. If all goes to plan, the Beach Boys will become the girl's 'boyfriend' for the remainder of her time at the beach - which usually means they will have drinks, meals, clothes, etc. bought for them by the girl during that time. However, little does the girl realise that the Beach Boy has three other white girlfriends at the same time or that he had just said goodbye to another mzungu girlfriend the day before meeting her. I’m not judging these guys for doing whatever it takes to get by – I can’t possibly imagine what its like to grow up in a mud hut in Malawi like Benson and his brothers – but I’ll still be doing my best to avoid the Beach Boys from now on.

After a good meal at Kaya Paya we all went back to Mayoka to hang out and it ended up being one of my most enjoyable nights so far – just making new friends, playing pool and chatting with really interesting people.

Sunset at Mayoka