PfcAJ
Contributor
On a trip to Zanzibar, Tanzania in Dec 2024, I saw on Google Maps that there were a few tourist swimming hole "caves". My wife and I hired a driver (Danny) for the day, and we stopped by the 3 or 4 sites I could find. They all looked good to me, so a few phone calls (along with some enthusiasm) convinced David Doolette, Brian Richardson, and Mark Redmon to join me for a week on the island in June 2025.
During that 1st trip, All the landowners I spoke with had zero knowledge of any real exploration in the area, but everyone said, "Oh yes, someone dove years ago and it goes back thousands of feet!".
Long story short... that was not the case.
Danny picked us up at the airport in the late evening, and we got to work first thing the next morning. Brian and I were first in at Swahili Cave, and we were met with a small-ish entrance that popped out into well-defined cave passage headed west with a depth of about 40ft. Had we just unlocked a new cave diving frontier??
We laid about 300ft of line and the cave just...stopped. Done. No side passages. No leads. No "eh maybe we can squeeze through". Nothing. Oof. D3 and Mark confirmed on their dive after us. Ok, we'll try again tomorrow no big deal.
Off to Kuza Cave. Kuza is a massive sinkhole that's been turned into a cultural center with traditional music and cooking classes, demonstrations, and is just an all-around cool spot. This was another one of the "goes back hundreds of feet" spots. Mark and D3 spent the better part of an hour scouring the cave, only to find a few undercuts that went back 15-20ft.
That evening took us to the best cave of the trip, Maalum. Maalum is surrounded by a luxury nature spa complex and has an incredibly serene feel to it. It's very private; we even had to dive at night to avoid impacting their operation, and even then, it was tough to negotiate access. Brian, David, and I dove and found an absolutely gorgeous cave passage with dry features, air domes, and saltwater vents on the floor. There was line in this one, and I believe it was originally explored by Patrick Widman. It ended at another sinkhole out in the jungle after some 800ft, but again, no side passages and no possible way on. Fun, pretty, snagged the survey data, but still a little bit of disappointment creeping in.
We shifted gears from the tourist spots and started in on some more off-the-beaten-path locations I had learned of from Danny. He seemed to know everyone in the area, and every day it was like he found a new spot for us to check out. All of them had clear water but only went for a couple of body lengths with the exception for one spot that went back a few hundred feet to a max depth of 80ft, but as usual, ended abruptly (also previously explored by Widman).
On this trip, we visited a total of 13 different caves, some involving rope access, but only three had any real passage. They all looked *amazing* from the surface. We had a blast, got sweaty, covered in dirt, dodged malaria, yellow fever, and the swahili squirts, and the entire vibe of the trip was impeccable.
During that 1st trip, All the landowners I spoke with had zero knowledge of any real exploration in the area, but everyone said, "Oh yes, someone dove years ago and it goes back thousands of feet!".
Long story short... that was not the case.
Danny picked us up at the airport in the late evening, and we got to work first thing the next morning. Brian and I were first in at Swahili Cave, and we were met with a small-ish entrance that popped out into well-defined cave passage headed west with a depth of about 40ft. Had we just unlocked a new cave diving frontier??
We laid about 300ft of line and the cave just...stopped. Done. No side passages. No leads. No "eh maybe we can squeeze through". Nothing. Oof. D3 and Mark confirmed on their dive after us. Ok, we'll try again tomorrow no big deal.
Off to Kuza Cave. Kuza is a massive sinkhole that's been turned into a cultural center with traditional music and cooking classes, demonstrations, and is just an all-around cool spot. This was another one of the "goes back hundreds of feet" spots. Mark and D3 spent the better part of an hour scouring the cave, only to find a few undercuts that went back 15-20ft.
That evening took us to the best cave of the trip, Maalum. Maalum is surrounded by a luxury nature spa complex and has an incredibly serene feel to it. It's very private; we even had to dive at night to avoid impacting their operation, and even then, it was tough to negotiate access. Brian, David, and I dove and found an absolutely gorgeous cave passage with dry features, air domes, and saltwater vents on the floor. There was line in this one, and I believe it was originally explored by Patrick Widman. It ended at another sinkhole out in the jungle after some 800ft, but again, no side passages and no possible way on. Fun, pretty, snagged the survey data, but still a little bit of disappointment creeping in.
We shifted gears from the tourist spots and started in on some more off-the-beaten-path locations I had learned of from Danny. He seemed to know everyone in the area, and every day it was like he found a new spot for us to check out. All of them had clear water but only went for a couple of body lengths with the exception for one spot that went back a few hundred feet to a max depth of 80ft, but as usual, ended abruptly (also previously explored by Widman).
On this trip, we visited a total of 13 different caves, some involving rope access, but only three had any real passage. They all looked *amazing* from the surface. We had a blast, got sweaty, covered in dirt, dodged malaria, yellow fever, and the swahili squirts, and the entire vibe of the trip was impeccable.
