230: Breathless moments

Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take,
but by the number of moments that take our breath away.
(Anonymous)

That quote stares you in the face in my friend Kathryn’s kitchen in Zanzibar. Bernd and I slept in her guest-room during our first two nights on this Tanzanian island, in her Arab-style penthouse apartment atop Stone Town’s tallest residential building. Welcome to Breath-away Moment Number One, with its golden-glow sunsets and vast rooftop views! (I’m cheating a bit: the roof was six flights up without an elevator. So even if it weren’t gorgeous – which it was -- we would have been out of breath.) Far below, we surged through winding streets, propelled through the exotic local market like a rivulet seeking deeper water. And we had that, too: the beautiful blue Indian Ocean was just a few minutes away, with its quaint fishing dhows, haunting Muslim prayer-music, and the beckoning smells of a hundred different native spices.









Twenty-four hours later, we experienced Breath-away Moment Number Two. This happened five times, in fact, as that’s how often we went snorkeling during our week’s “re-honeymoon” -- sometimes surrounded by throbbing puffball jellyfish (slippery to the touch and barely stinging), sometimes by schools of iridescent blue and gold swarms (so many fish, they looked like floating snowflakes), and sometimes by large groupers, slim trumpet fish, beautiful angel fish, spongy sea cucumbers, long-fingered starfish, giant clams, and the occasional octopus or lobster -- but always with the gorgeous coral below us, like the flowerbeds of a botanical garden.







If you can imagine heaven as the Baltimore Aquarium, all warm-water and a hundred-thousand times bigger, then we were in the middle of it, without any glass windows or heaving crowds to separate us from the incredible, other-worldly surroundings. We wanted to ooh and ah every few moments except then we would have swallowed gobs of water, proving (among other things) that we weren’t in heaven just yet. So we gesticulated wildly instead, pointing this way and that. The fish names conjure up the incredible variety of what we saw: crocodile fish, parrot fish, sweet-lips, sea-squirts, basket-stars, lionfish, zebra fish, squirrel fish, damsel fish, lizard fish, emperor fish -- a veritable underwater safari.

Breath-away Moment Number Three took place when found ourselves face to face with a huge underwater hawksbill turtle that we followed until it surfaced for a gulp of air and then slithered away into the ocean depths.

Breath-away Moment Number Four happened on Zanzibar’s Prison Island, full of history and crumbling buildings, and now a sanctuary for giant Aldabra Tortoises (the Indian Ocean cousins to the famed Galapagos Tortoises), to whom we fed fistfuls of their favorite green-leaves. The tortoises gravitated to the food like waddling puppies to their mother, but even better than feeding them is this: As we learned from the much smaller land-tortoises we used to raise and release in Namibia, all tortoises love to be gently stroked under their necks and around their heads as they can’t reach this part of their anatomy in the event of an itch or entrapped dirt. Amazingly, these Aldabra tortoises loved the scratching so much that their necks protruded by almost a foot and got stiff like a hard-on, heads emerging from their winkled neck-skin and bobbing to the touch. Don’t think I’m joking or over-sexed until you try this yourself; then I promise you’ll find it as bizarrely sensual as we did.








Breath-away Moment Number Five also involved communing with animals. We visited Zanzibar’s only national forest where extended families of endangered Red Colobus Monkeys have become habituated to tourists. You need only to stand amongst them and they come seek you out, rather than the other way around. We could have stayed for hours longer, but nevertheless we took almost fifty photographs.







If you do follow us to Zanzibar, however, the one place you must absolutely visit is Chumbe Island. It’s a jaw-dropping, breath-taking, magical sanctuary like none we’ve ever visited before. Chumbe Island is the only private marine reserve in the world, six miles off the main Zanzibar coast, with seven overnight cabins, delicious food, fabulous views, and a gazillion environmental awards for their low-impact habitat, go-green pit-toilets, environmental research, and commitment to local education.







On land you can relax on the sandy beaches, walk amidst a dense mangrove forest, explore the inter-tidal marsh, or seek out the island’s four species of local crabs (including the endangered coconut crab, the world’s largest). The guided snorkeling is the best, though. You’re so close to the reef that scuba diving isn’t even permitted. The island’s underwater coral park boasts 430 different species of fish and Bernd says he wouldn’t be surprised if we saw almost all: the diversity overwhelmed and delighted us at every turn.

The difference between a damaged and a healthy coral reef is like night and day. To further the conservation messages we absorbed, let us briefly share what we learned about why coral is so important:

Waves: Coral reefs cause waves to break far from shore. This means less erosion and calmer water for people to work in and live by.
Fish: Coral reefs are full of little holes and spaces, the perfect place for young fish to hide from predators. The reef is also an important fish-breeding ground and nursery. In Zanzibar, over 70% of the local dietary protein comes from fish, so it is vital for fish stocks to be maintained. By contrast, less reef yields fewer fish and less food.
Biodiversity: Coral reef is the home of a huge variety of animals and plants. Just think of it as the rainforest of the ocean.
Medicine: Scientists are discovering that many marine organisms contain powerful drugs. For example, the Caribbean Sea Whip Coral contains anti-cancer drugs, and can even be used to replace bone!
Tourism: Coral reefs are beautiful and stimulate the imagination. But because coral polyps (that is, the little animals that make up coral) like warm water, most reefs are found in tropical or sub-tropical areas. Therefore, a lot of reef is located in poorer countries, where it attracts visitors, generates jobs, and brings in much-needed cash.
Our camera doesn’t take underwater photos, so hopefully you can see this for yourself some day. We promise it will take your breath away!