I just dove there in mid-March and stayed with Cassa Barry. Here's a quick trip report.
Cassa Barry - We also stayed here in a brick cassita, which was fine. No view but other than that, there is nothing bad to say about it. They picked us up and drove us to the airport, rooms were cleaned daily, nice restaurant, friendly, etc. They have a slide show and presentation on mantas and whale sharks on Mon and Wed evening at their bar was well worth going to. As somone wrote, they are no longer connected with Tofu Scuba so that mattered with breakfast. This was included in our package but Tofu Scuba morning dive was too early or Barry's restaurant opened too late depending on your view for us to get breakfast at Barry's. It worked out since Barry's was kind enough to give us a credit on breakfast (60 rand per breakfast credit) to be applied other meals. But if you are planning on diving every morning, you might want to pass on the breakfast plan since you won't have time and you can get a nice and much cheaper breakfast at Tofu Scuba.
Tofu Scuba also was fine. As someone mentioned, they are not connected to Barry anymore but they agreed to pick us up and drop us off each day. You can walk it easily also (about 10-15 minutes slow walk on the beach) but as someone said, if you have a big heavy camera, that walk could seem long but TS will drive you. They're a nice professional outfit with a good setup for your gear, and good DMs as guides. Their boats are crowded. Doesn't matter on the morning dive since that one seemed to always go to a big dive site where the divers could spread out. But the afternoon dive always seemed to be at a small reef where we did not move that much. With lots of photographers, it felt like a traffic jam sometimes. Also the boats are small so its a little crazy gearing up with all those people although I have to admit, TS has the gear up process down pretty good so it was much smoother than I thought it would be. My only other criticism is my pet peeve with almost all dive shops in that they have a set dive duration no matter what your computer says or air consumption is. I always could have dove another 5-10 minutes based on my air consumption and computer, which is a very conservative Suunto.
The diving was excellent although we saw no whale sharks in the 4 days we were there. They look for whale sharks on the way back from the dives and TS offers a 2 hour snorkel trip between the morning and afternoon dive. Someone mentioned this is the longest they had gone without seeing any. Not sure if this was bad luck or a bad omen. Mantas are my favorite site underwater so I was not too bummed. Plus, if you get a chance, go to Donsol, Legaspi in the Philippines. Whale sharks are there all year round. I saw 9 the one time I visited so I already feel like I've been extremely lucky with whale sharks.
We did two dives a day. No night dives allowed under some new Moz law. First dive was at the Office, where we were greeted by a couple of mantas who followed us even after we moved on. They got close enough to touch although no one did as we were instructed not to do. We saw a black tip shark, giant moray eel, a giant potato bass, some other types of rays and during our safety stop, 4 devil rays in single file formation went below us, which was very cool. This was a great dive.
Next dive was at Plaia de Rocha. This was probably the only dive I did not like. Didn't see much (the coral life is pretty average in Tofu), small reef, too many divers trying to see too little in too small of an area. Got to see a guitar fish.
The following day we went to Manta Reef in the morning and of course saw no mantas. This was still a great dive as we saw lots of schools of fish, black tip reef sharks, beautiful spanish dancers, other rays (giant ribbon tail, I think), and two giant potato bass.
In the afternoon we went to The Salon. Looked like a nothing reef, similar to Plaia de Rocha but this was another super dive. Saw a large octupus. Under a ledge was 10-15 spiny lobsters. A couple of torpedo rays. Lots of shrimp (hingeback, durban helmet). Also saw a white leaf fish and next to it was a juvenile green leaf fish. (Not sure how someone noticed it but it was a great find.)
Next morning I wasn't feeling well so I passed on the dive. I think it was the malaria pills. I can't remember where they went but my gf saw mantas and a school of jack fish.
Last dive was at Mike's Cupboard, also a really good dive. There were quite a few crocodile fish and another very big octupus. This one was out in the open, trying unsuccessfully to find a hiding place. It was moving around, changing colors. Really a great show for us.
That's about it. You'll have a great time, I'm sure. It's beautiful, laid back, easy to like. Don't forget suntan lotion as some did since no one sells it in Tofu and they had to waste a day going back to Inhambane looking for some.
If interested, I downloaded some pictures on google at:
http://picasaweb.google.com/mrrworld/MozambiqueDiving
This is the first time I've ever taken pictures as I bought the camera and casing for this trip so don't expect world class photos
but it was fun to do. If anyone knows a free website that I can upload videos with a Mac computer, let me know as I have a very good video (in my opinion
) of the octupus and a decent one of the mantas.
Any questions, feel free to ask. Have a great time.
Cheers
Michael
