Diving on Diani Beach, Kenya
Diani Sea Lodge Hotel
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Scuba diving on Diani Beach, Kenya - Visit Report
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Diani Beach is situated just south of Mombasa in Kenya. The flight from central Europe
to Mombasa takes some 8 hours after which a bus will take you to the Diani Sea Lodge resort
in another hour. Usually, there is quite a bit of wind which caused us (as well as many
other guests) to become terribly sea sick. Typical guests are elderly German couples.
The hotel staff very often speak quite good German.
Dive trips usually take place in the morning. At 7:50 am you are picked up by a van and
taken to the dive center. There you put your gear and equipment together while waiting
on dive guests from other resorts. After a short briefing it is then off to the boat.
After the first dive (max 1 hour) you spend another hour as surface time on the boat before
going into the water again for the second dive. Usually we were back at the hotel by 2pm.
The high waves and strong winds caused diving to be just a little bit more challenging.
On the other side, we got to see delphins and even whale sharks.
When being in Kenya, you should not miss out on a real safari. We were on a 2-day safari
to the Tsavo East and Salt Lick parks. Well: just great! You get bounced around in the
van quite a bit, but your reward is spotting elephants, giraffes, hippos, lions etc.
Our personal rating (January 2002)
| Topic |
Rating |
Comments |
| Diani Beach |
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Diani Beach is a long stretch of sandy beach. Sea levels vary quite a bit between
high and low tides so that swimming is hardly possible during low tide. You will also
find much seagrass there. On the beach you are often addressed by locals trying to
sell some souvenirs or day trips. Many guests do not appreciate this much. Here is
a tip: learn some words Swahili. We found them however very friendly and had absolutely
no difficulties with the locals. |
| Hotel |
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The Diani Sea Lodge
has many spacious rooms (superior) with air conditioning and shower. All rooms are
semi detached and each room has its own little terras. |
| Eating and drinking |
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The Diani Sea Lodge is an "All-Inclusive" resort. All meals are served
in buffet style. The variety and quality were not as good as we expected. |
| Facilities |
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There were just a few divers among the many (elderly) guests. The "Animation
Team" offers various activities in contrast to just lying there on your sun bed.
There are quite a few day trip opportunities in the vicinity of the resort. And ofcourse
you should go on a safari. |
| Under water |
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Usually we experienced quite some wind and some fairly high waves. Sea sickness
pills were thus an absolute necessity! Together with the occasional rain shower, this
also caused visibility to drop sometimes under 5m. Stil it was worth our while to
go diving here since we spotted some fish previously on our list of "never seen
before". Also, such slightly more difficult situations only add to our diving
experience e.g. in dealing with washing machine types of currents. The water temperature
was 27°C (even with a 5mm Long John we felt sometimes a bit cold.). |
| House reef |
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The house reef lies some 300m from the beach which is too far to swim (at low tide
the sea level is even too low). There is also no boat service to the house reef so
that individual diving trips to the house reef cannot be made. |
| Dive sites |
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There are some 15 dive sites at distances ranging from 25 minutes to 1 hour by
boat (leaving directly from the beach). Due to the wheather conditions we concentrated
mainly on only a few dive sites. |
| Dive center |
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The dive center (Diani Marine)
was well equipped although it was sometimes a little bit difficult to find our stuff
since equipment was put away in different locations and lockers all the time. |
| Prices |
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Diving costes approx. 25$-30$ per dive (including boat, tank and weights but assuming
you have your own equipment). |
| Conclusion |
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We certainly our going back for a longer safari but whether we will go diving
again........
Maybe. |
Further information on Diani Beach
If you want more information on Diani Beach, checkout this site.
If you have any comments, don't hesitate to
let us know!
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