Dive Review of Extra Divers/Temple Point in
Africa/Kenya

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Extra Divers/Temple Point: "Indian Ocean Paradise", Jan, 2019, by Michael Joest, Kehl, DE ( Top Contributor 49 reports with 30 Helpful votes). Report 10818.
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Ratings and Overall Comments 1 (worst) - 5 (best):
Accommodations		Food
Service and Attitude		Environmental Sensitivity
Dive Operation		Shore Diving	N/A
Snorkeling
Overall Rating
Value for $$
Beginners
Advanced
Comments	In the 1970 and 80 Kenya was among the top ten dive destinations for dive travel agencies and divers. It however dropped off the screen then. Was it due to political unrest, riots, trouble, diseases or turning up of more exotic destinations, which offered more than Africa? Well, it seems now to slowly surface again in dive magazines and travel agents. There are some hotels with German dive center just coming out of their first steps, which advertise frequently and seem to attract new customers. I was one of them. I´ve been down to South Africa, Mozambique, Tanzania, along this line K was still missing, northward there was Somalia which you better forget about, Ethiopia and Eritrea followed, both I guess have nothing to offer but might be dangerous, in between Djibouti I could tick off. Sudan and Egypt is where the adventure for divers starts again. Charter airline Condor has direct flights from Frankfurt to Mombasa. It´s charter with all it´s side effects. You pay for headsets (3 €) only two movies are free, all the others are so called premium, you need to buy a code for 9 € to enjoy one of these. Same goes for the meals, if you want something special it comes with extra charge, otherwise there is no choice but one and for breakfast or snack a carton with a cheese roll and some juice. Seats in economy were a bit tight together, stretching your leg was nearly impossible, my back hurt after a while. First time I had a lady captain on my long haul with B 767, it seems women slowly conquer areas which were former male only jobs, and she did a damn good job with that. Via internet I had applied for the visa in the hope to get through a fast line at immigration. Well, who wonders, fast is a word, Africa will never get used to I feel. There was no such thing, so you had to queue up with all other customers, which still had to pay for the visa right at the customs counter. I had chosen Temple Point Resort, Watamu with Extra Divers there. It´s a wouh four star place, an enormous generously built hotel in a beautiful surrounding with monkeys climbing through the trees, colorful Bougainville and Frangipani decorate the parklike scenery. The setting is fantastic, right at the corner of ocean and Midas Creek with some mangroves and two lovely sandy beaches in between. Round the corner to Watamu you will find endless dream beaches. The bungalows are in two storeys, a huge room, with AC + fan, nice bed and bathroom, terrace with love seat, view to both sides of water. The sea water pool is big and ideal for some crawl training. They offered buffet which was plentiful and good but often lacked taste. The duck with orange sauce was nice but no orange, the beef with Béarnaise sauce was a poor try. Well I live at the border to France and know and enjoy the real thing. Mouthwatering however their goat soup and fish chowder and the fresh mango passion fruit pineapple watermelon etc. was yummy. Extra Divers have their center inside the resort close to the volley ball field near mangroves and a small jetty. There is plenty of room for your gear, two big concrete tubs, lockers, outside hangers, showers, dry room etc. I started with a 10 dive package for which they charged 335 € plus marine park fee of 15 each day. Mostly they do a two tank in the morning at the outer reef, more depending on demand. We reached the dive sites in around 20 min, they all stretch along the reef following the beach. First day and I was curious to find out how the quality is. I had heard that vis sometimes is a bit low, maybe due to the creek running into the sea close by. We started with huge swells above the reef, where it sometimes was difficult for the captain on our way back to find the right spot and moment to go in again. Low tide often increased that problem, it was rather shallow on the inside. Vis was so so, temperature at the surface 28 sometimes with thermoclines going down to 24. I was impressed by the really huge schools of fish around us, trigger, surgeon, grouper, fusiliers, snapper, jacks, trevallies, sweetlips, bat fish etc. I guess there sometimes were more than 100 animals above and around us. Taking pictures however in the soup we had the first two days was not really worth it. I had some guys from Luxembourg with me, buddied up with Michelle, she was not that happy with my idea of being a good buddy and felt, I was too far away for comfort. However she survived and I feel she noticed, I always had my eyes on here. At the end of the dive a remora tried to attach to her. She several times fought or kicked it off. I wonder why divers get stressed by that, the remora would remove itself from you when you climb on board again at the latest. Nearly all divers took their gear of in the water and reached it up, the fitter climbed up the ladder which was not that big a problem. In between dives they served lovely cakes and always fresh fruit, where I grabbed nearly all mangos. On day 3 we were cruising in around 16 m, vis was better now, less swell when Ruben our dive guide suddenly used his shaker to get our attention and pointed straight up. A 3 m manta ray was sailing past, wouh, with him were 3 bigger fish with dorsal fin, so it couldn´t be remora. I checked later in the dive center, these were Cobia, which behave similar to remora and often accompany mantas sharks turtles whales. I so far was not familiar with these guys. My buddy rushed over me at the exact moment I shot my first picture, damn. Lucky us the manta turned and cruised a bit above and around us. On another day it was me, who spotted a mobula and shouted in my reg, only few moments later a group of 7 sailed past, too far away for me. Armani dive guide 2 pointed out some crimson frazzled fish to us sitting on some coral. We all got real close and took some nice pictures. On the boat a discussion started, one guy said it´s a lion fish, the dive guide said leaf fish, I called it hairy frogfish, and the instructor even offered ghost pipe fish. The big question arose, who is right. Each one of us did some research on the internet, was it frog fish or Rhinopia ? At dinner we agreed, it must be the latter belonging to the scorpion fish family. The same happened with some angel fish I had not seen so far. It turned out to be an African angel. Scorpion and crocodile we often spotted, around us a colorful reef and good fish life. The areas on the reef often changed, sometimes it was a good mixture of everything, sometimes there were fields of only one species or anemones, often it was some green weed (?) with coral scattered in between. The reef started at around 8 m and slowly sloped down to sandy bottom at around 30 m. At the end often lovely overhangs with funny shaped outcrops where you found the blue spotted ray and sleeping sting rays. Nearly every other day we had sleeping turtles in the water and dolphins on the surface. The wind died down, calm seas and good vis up to 25 m greeted us. Only one day we had rain and spray on our way out and got wet before even hitting the water. Michelle showed me a free swimming moray eel and immediately jacks rushed in to chase her. Once we had 3 Napoleon which followed our track a bit deeper down. Sharks I only found once in form of a baby inside the mangroves where snorkeling was worth it to find all kind of creatures hiding there. Drift dives or strong currents we encountered only few times. Tanks got a good fill, my pressure gauge showed most times around 230 bar. My group dove with Nitrox, I stayed on air to get the chance to drop down in case there is something big. I had planned to go on a 3 night safari to Tsavo east and west. However the tour operator could find no ideal spots for me at this time. He offered 1 night Tsavo one Amboseli with a return trip of 10 hours in the car. No thank you, I need and want exercise and action not sitting in a car for most of the time. So no big five for me this time. However I went to Hell´s kitchen, a canyon where rain and rivers created some awesome Bryce Canyon like scenery in sandstone. We hiked all through the bottom in 1.5 hours, amazing what nature formed here in colors and shapes. It´s called Hell´s because temperature can reach 50 in the middle. On our way back we passed through small villages mostly just some wooden or metal huts and saw the Baobab trees I love so much. Kids seem still to be awed by folks with white skin. We did a rainforest walk but in dry season there wasn´t much to find, only one so called elephant rat funny to watch but shy. We went into Watamu, where nearly at all times some locals attached themselves to us trying to sell something, a nuisance. There is a yummy Italian ice cream parlor where you can enjoy iced coffee or frappucino with no consequences on your digestion, don´t worry. We visited a turtle farm where injured animals are treated. Often these are shark bites, boat propeller injuries, entanglement in nets ropes and garbage. The worst we found were turtles which could not dive anymore because they had eaten some plastic which gave them buoyancy they don´t need. There is only hope with giving some digestion oil or pills and hope for the best. Surgery in these conditions is not possible. Imagine an animal which lives in the sea not being able to dive down anymore, awful that. Students there also map the nesting around the beaches and follow their progress and babies. They teach at schools and educate kids to the importance of environmental efforts for the future of our planet. A good thing and work they do here all is voluntary without any payment. I did 30 dives which were really worth it. I missed the chance of spotting pelagics like whales or whale sharks or even sharks. Folks down there told me the big game fishing is worth it so there should be some heavy stuff around. Fishermen brought in a bunch of huge red groupers I would have loved to find under water.
Reporter and Travel
Dive Experience	Over 1000 dives
Where else diving	worldwide more than 100 destinations, mostly South Pacific and Asia, Afrika and Caribbean
Closest Airport	Mombasa	Getting There	2 hours transfer
Dive Conditions
Weather	sunny, windy, dry	Seas	calm, surge
Water Temp	28-24°C / 82-75°F	Wetsuit Thickness	5
Water Visibility	10-25 M / 33-82 Ft
Dive Policy
Dive own profile	yes
Enforced diving restrictions	[Unspecified]
Liveaboard?	no	Nitrox Available?	yes
What I Saw
Sharks	1 or 2	Mantas	1 or 2
Dolphins	Schools	Whale Sharks	None
Turtles	> 2	Whales	None
Ratings 1(worst) - 5 (best):
Corals		Tropical Fish
Small Critters		Large Fish
Large Pelagics
Underwater Photography 1 (worst) - 5 (best):
Subject Matter	N/A	Boat Facilities	N/A
Overall rating for UWP's	N/A	Shore Facilities	N/A
UW Photo Comments	[None]

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Dive Review of Extra Divers/Temple Point in Africa/Kenya

Extra Divers/Temple Point: "Indian Ocean Paradise", Jan, 2019,

Photos Submitted with this Report

Ratings and Overall Comments 1 (worst) - 5 (best):

Overall Rating

Reporter and Travel

Dive Conditions

Dive Policy

What I Saw

Ratings 1(worst) - 5 (best):

Underwater Photography 1 (worst) - 5 (best):

Dive Review of Extra Divers/Temple Point in
Africa/Kenya