The 230 alarm was soon silenced and before long we were navigating around Stone Town on our way to the airport. Fortunately it was much more civilised than Kigoma and we ate our packed breakfast of fruit whilst awaiting the arrival of the Oman air flight. The first leg was comfortable enough though Omani hospitality was akin to Tanzanian indifference. I would thoroughly recommend a transit in Oman if you like sand, heat exhaustion and waiting in a room with no f...

After our rooftop breakfast overlooking the docks, and listening to the call to prayer roll around the city, we walked along the front into town. Ramadan was in its final days so Bob covered up despite the expected heat and we were soon winding our way through the narrow maze of passages which made up the heart of the old spice town. Intriguing alleyways ended in huge, ornate Persian doors embossed with intricate carvings and opulent ironwork, the most impressive...

We bolted an excited breakfast and headed to the dive centre where we geared up and loaded into a monsterous high speed RHIB whose twin 115hp engines powered us at an incredible speed over the water, inducing an uncontrollable grin in all of the passengers clinging to the footstraps and gripping the safety lines for dear life. The arrival of a 4ft swell barely slowed our progress but it did make several stomachs start to churn and by the time we arrived at the at...

At breakfast the lady from the dive centre managed to track us down with the owner of the sick dog in tow. It was a slightly surreal experience sat in a local house examining a beach mutt and trying desperately to remember lists of exotic canine diseases which might fit the strange list of symptoms in front of me. I finally settled on babesiosis as my most likely differential, left the owners trying to collect a urine sample and returned back to the dive centre t...

We set out early with our new friend Ahmed to board the boat which would take us to the Mnembe Atol snorkelling for the day. Having picked up an assortment of mismatched fins, masks and snorkels we waded out to the wooden dhow, boarded ungracefully, and settled in the bow of the bobbing ship. Our fellow passengers were an interesting pic 'n mix of society and the 90 minute stomach churning passage to the east coast gave us ample opportunity to perform a complete ...