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An
Article by Francesco Zezza
LAKE MALAWI … below the
water line!!!
Part one
Having, at last, got a
digital scanner able to handle ALSO colour slides here begins one of my
dreams: share with MCH visitors what I’ve seen, and photographed, during
my dives at Lake Malawi. For this first, long
overdue,
step I’ll refer to my very first dive (actually were two in the same day)
at Lundo Island; along the Tanzanian coast
of Lake Malawi (a bit norther
of Mbamba Bay). It has been our
first
ever
day of diving
in Lake Malawi. A day I’ll never forget, believe me …
Now before moving on to
underwater pics a
few notes from my dive log;
we reached our dive point on a small motor boat from our main camp
at
Chinula Camp (to be as clear
as possible, see the
pictures below for details
of the environment as we saw it).
Jannadi, our
chief of support team (and
clever diver) calmly explains us what we’re going to do.
Ready? Let’s go diving, then ... :
The lake
as seen at the
left edge of Chinula beach
Crystal
clear water plays with sun ...
Dive number 375 (10th
October 1997). Bottom time: 57 minutes, max depth: 13 m (39 ft).
Boat dive, the lake is calm, sky partially cloud. Lot of cichlids (how
strange, isn’t it?). Too excited to identify them all
so
I have to mention
[at least]
lots
of Aulonocara and M’bunas.
Dive number 376 (10th
October 1997). Bottom time: 41 minutes, max depth: 8 m (24 ft).
Boat dive, the lake surface
is slightly rough, a bit of
mud/silt/sand is floating mid-water.
We spot more Aulonocara (steveni?) and Pseudotropheus zebra “Red Top”
(likely), a
huge nest – abandoned – in
the sand (I was
been told that it was
built by Dimidiochromis
kiwinge),
Malawi crabs
are moving along the rocks. I’m soaked in my dream …
And here we go with the
pics:
Stefania during our dive ...
Two shots
(M'buna) clearly showing two things:
1)
Frank is absolutely
right when he suggests to
use large boulders to aquascape a tank (bottom
picture)
2) No need (really!) to use coral sand in Malawi tanks (look and
learn, please ...)
The fish
in the top photos
could be a Pseudotropheus
sp. "Msobo" female (of the same kind George & Frank are, actually housing
in their tanks);
the parent trio had
been caught
(it was back in 1997) in
this area.
And
ahead (and deeper!) we go
Another M'buna (time will
come for other fishes). The picture is dark because of the lack of light
at this depth (and of the incorrect use of flash light by me...) but the
fish displayed is a male guarding its cave
continued in next
page..
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Footnote:
All pics (above and below the water) were shot by me; not to be
reproduced without permission. I've also rearranged the map to suit
the needs of this article.
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