shafan1234
Registered
Hi all,
Just want to say thanks for all your help in helping me pick my last diving holiday and I thought I should share my Madagascar experiences with you:
Madagascar is a very beautiful country, rugged, filled with wildlife but at the same time very poor.
Trip Date: Nov '06
Weather: Hot, Damn hot!
I went as a lone traveller, i wouldn't recomment this as the nights can be rather boring as the majority of people are french & italian middle/old age couples. At 25 I felt incredibly young!
Flying from Europe I took the Air Madagascar flight from Paris, as they were offering a 50% discount on the internal tickets! The flight out was fine with the aid of a sleeping people.
I spent a couple of days in Antannarivo the capital - pretty drool place - hardly anything for the tourist to do as the Queen's place is being rebuilt. Artists market near the airport was good, but expensive.
After that I went to Antisabe to the jungle - was pretty amazing saw 6 specie of lemur, chameleons, snakes plus a whole load of other things!
After that I flew up to Nosy Be - considered to be the premier diving spot in Madagascar. The beach resorts are (pardon my spelling) Ambotoloka & Madirokley. I would recommend staying closer to Madirokley (i stayed in the middle) as Amb can get very loud at night. The beach strechs between them and is about 1km and absolutely stunning! It is a real backpackers paradise but there are not backpackers - the beach is pretty empty all day. There is no internet, although phones work.
There are roughly 6 or 7 diveshops (french or italian) who all run pretty much the same facilities. The 2 larger dive shops are Tropical & Manta, with smaller ones like Forever. All diving is done from small one engine speedboats - 6pax - there is no shelter and its very easy to burn in the hot African sun.
I booked with Manta Dive Club online who gave me a 10% discount at their very nice resort with an aircon room (very much needed!)! Would highly recommend them - very friendly bunch of people but little english was spoken.
The diving is done in the Mozabique channel with dive sites ranging from a 20 min - 45 min trip. All the diveshops go out for 2 morning dives leaving at 7:30 coming back at 13:00. 2 dives is 60 Euro.
November is whaleshark season - although there weren't many about until my last day, when we saw 2 swimming together and another couple seperately.
Diving is done on Plateaus and Pinnacles in the channel - diving here is for advanced divers with dive sites ranging from 40m - 12m. Your own dive computer is a must, as all the diving is deep. most divers bring their own equipment - and if you dont have a camera you will feel sorely left out!!
What I saw: Stingrays, Blue-Spotted Rays, White Reef Sharks x 2, Large groupers, leopard grouper, schools of jacks and travellies, clown fish, nudibranch, lobster. The corals are pretty nice.. with some huge gorgonian fans at one dive site.
There was also a double wreck located at around 25m - not that impressive but there were at least 10 lionfish.. some of them very big!!
Nosy Iranja is located 1.5 hours by boat from Nosy Be and offers some specatular diving as well as a lunch break on a tropical island (you can also stay there!). A beautiful day trip.. although i sun burnt myself.
Overall I was impressed by the diving in Nosy Be - although i was dissapointed at the lack of large amounts of fish (even though there is not a big fishing indsutry like Thailand).
If anyone wants any more advice, please contact me.
Just want to say thanks for all your help in helping me pick my last diving holiday and I thought I should share my Madagascar experiences with you:
Madagascar is a very beautiful country, rugged, filled with wildlife but at the same time very poor.
Trip Date: Nov '06
Weather: Hot, Damn hot!
I went as a lone traveller, i wouldn't recomment this as the nights can be rather boring as the majority of people are french & italian middle/old age couples. At 25 I felt incredibly young!
Flying from Europe I took the Air Madagascar flight from Paris, as they were offering a 50% discount on the internal tickets! The flight out was fine with the aid of a sleeping people.
I spent a couple of days in Antannarivo the capital - pretty drool place - hardly anything for the tourist to do as the Queen's place is being rebuilt. Artists market near the airport was good, but expensive.
After that I went to Antisabe to the jungle - was pretty amazing saw 6 specie of lemur, chameleons, snakes plus a whole load of other things!
After that I flew up to Nosy Be - considered to be the premier diving spot in Madagascar. The beach resorts are (pardon my spelling) Ambotoloka & Madirokley. I would recommend staying closer to Madirokley (i stayed in the middle) as Amb can get very loud at night. The beach strechs between them and is about 1km and absolutely stunning! It is a real backpackers paradise but there are not backpackers - the beach is pretty empty all day. There is no internet, although phones work.
There are roughly 6 or 7 diveshops (french or italian) who all run pretty much the same facilities. The 2 larger dive shops are Tropical & Manta, with smaller ones like Forever. All diving is done from small one engine speedboats - 6pax - there is no shelter and its very easy to burn in the hot African sun.
I booked with Manta Dive Club online who gave me a 10% discount at their very nice resort with an aircon room (very much needed!)! Would highly recommend them - very friendly bunch of people but little english was spoken.
The diving is done in the Mozabique channel with dive sites ranging from a 20 min - 45 min trip. All the diveshops go out for 2 morning dives leaving at 7:30 coming back at 13:00. 2 dives is 60 Euro.
November is whaleshark season - although there weren't many about until my last day, when we saw 2 swimming together and another couple seperately.
Diving is done on Plateaus and Pinnacles in the channel - diving here is for advanced divers with dive sites ranging from 40m - 12m. Your own dive computer is a must, as all the diving is deep. most divers bring their own equipment - and if you dont have a camera you will feel sorely left out!!
What I saw: Stingrays, Blue-Spotted Rays, White Reef Sharks x 2, Large groupers, leopard grouper, schools of jacks and travellies, clown fish, nudibranch, lobster. The corals are pretty nice.. with some huge gorgonian fans at one dive site.
There was also a double wreck located at around 25m - not that impressive but there were at least 10 lionfish.. some of them very big!!
Nosy Iranja is located 1.5 hours by boat from Nosy Be and offers some specatular diving as well as a lunch break on a tropical island (you can also stay there!). A beautiful day trip.. although i sun burnt myself.
Overall I was impressed by the diving in Nosy Be - although i was dissapointed at the lack of large amounts of fish (even though there is not a big fishing indsutry like Thailand).
If anyone wants any more advice, please contact me.
Thank's for sharing.
