Dive Review of Forever Dive/L´Heure Bleue in
Africa/Nosy Be

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Forever Dive/L´Heure Bleue: "easy peasy", Sep, 2022, by Michael Joest, Kehl, DE ( Top Contributor 49 reports with 30 Helpful votes). Report 12073.
Photos Submitted with this Report Click on an image to see an enlarged version and captions
Ratings and Overall Comments 1 (worst) - 5 (best):
Accommodations		Food
Service and Attitude		Environmental Sensitivity
Dive Operation		Shore Diving
Snorkeling
Overall Rating
Value for $$
Beginners
Advanced
Comments	Coming from that quiet and peaceful place on Nosy Sakatia it was like stepping from a garden path right onto the highway, traffic noise hundreds of people, bars restaurants loud music, boah had to digest this first impression of Madirokely. L´Heure Bleu hotel gave me a nice bungalow over the beach next to a swimming pool and restaurant terrace overlooking the whole bay. The staff is friendly and efficient. There are quite a few dives center, I chose Forever Dive, one of the oldest operators here with the best knowledge on dive sites. It´s a 10 min walk from the hotel down the bay and a bit inside behind the beach restaurants. They dive with aluminum 80, each has it´s own idea what´s best. Sylvia the owner warned me, the go out very early to be the first boat on the site, no problem for me I´m an early bird anyway. Start at 7:30 with our aim Tanikely a protected marine park where an entry fee of 5 bucks has to be paid. Vis was great, fish life fantastic big grouper bat fish schools of snappers an amazing coral garden in the shallows. Our surface break we spent on the island with hot tea or coffee + cookies from Sylvia. You notice she surely knows her job, experienced divers she allowed to run on a long leash. Her crew is fantastic and the boys do a great job. On dive 2 T K west vis was around 6 – 10 m. S spotted a shark, gave the sign every diver knows and the whole group kicked into the blue to catch a glimpse of it. Well I would not call it chasing the animal but maybe it would have stayed around a bit longer, if we had behaved ourselves. At around 10 in the morning already a couple of tourist boats had arrived plus some more divers. I guess at high noon the place will be crowded and busy with folks. During breakfast the next morning I thought I´m still dreaming as I heard mooing from cattle. Sure enough, when I walked along the beach I saw guys driving a bunch of cows into the sea and the animals seemed to really enjoy it. Bitter + sad however is the fact that nearly all dogs running around here are in truly bad shape. Their fur shows bald patches and wounds, you can count the ribs they are plagued by fleas and other insects. Sylvia told me they suffered the most during Corona time, no tourists meant nearly no food for them. I bought some dog food and each day I took a tin of it with me which was empty before I reached the dive boats, so many dogs begged for a piece. The beach is more or less clean however I found batteries, glass shards and plastic. I feel it would be a good idea from the dive centers to suggest and support a daily beach cleanup. These people need to be educated in environmental things. I saw a guy right in front of me coming from some restaurant throwing a plastic bag with old food into the ocean. The food went down, the plastic floated away. Once you walk deeper into the village you will find garbage nearly everywhere, in garden, beside roads in channels. Cattle and dogs try to find something to eat among that stuff. On my second day we went far out into the Mozambique channel, a wall dive at last was waiting for me. We swam down to a slope starting at around 20 m reaching far into the deep blue. Expectations were high as S had talked about tuna barracuda sharks Napoleon etc. There was no current so only one lonely Napoleon showed way too far for the go pro. Above us cruised a bunch of fusiliers and swarm fish. Dive 2 took us to Rosario a stunning coral garden with humongous gorgonia and table coral, fish was rather rare here. On the beach I saw fishermen carrying a big Marlin, would love to spot this under water alive. Day 3 was a deep wreck dive. The lower part was hiding in some kind of fog, maybe silt kicked up by the many divers the day before. Awesome fish life around the upper part bat fish a bit away, jacks cruising, fusiliers, it was fish soup. A puffer with a remora approached me, a lovely photo opportunity. However that moment my Hero 3 decided to be low on battery and quit her job. 2. dive went to a coral platform “Enchanted Forest” where a huge school of yellow snappers were waiting for us. They drifted apart to allow us through only to close their ranks right after, a wonderful scene. Vis was not too good but we spotted a big old turtle and again kicked fast to reach the animal. I surely learned to do this in a different way. Saw a video sequent from F D of a dive site called Atnam, outstanding, a canyon with really huuuge gorgonian on both sides. Wwould have loved to go there and did tell S, but staying for only 5 days just wasn´t enough for that, seems to be a long ride out into Mozambique channel with a deep dive, the latter I wouldn´t have problems with. In the afternoon I walked into town to a market for some vanilla sprouts. Nothing there but S managed to get me 1 kg of it for 80 € the smell was woouh and filled my whole room. Again I was on half board with the hotel. Dinner most times was a feast, the menu was written on a blackboard which wandered from one table to the next. Still lingering on my palate is the “Terrine foie gras” a gourmets dream. Another excellent meal was “Zebu Rossini”. Sometimes however I wondered what the chef had been thinking when I was served a delicious “Magret de Canard” with croquettes swimming on a thin layer of ketchup urgh. I learned fast time went a different way here, when a whole meal with starter main course and desert ran around 2.5 hours. This is either a typical French thing or Africa. Often I sat there for half an hour with only few guests around before a waiter would ask me for my pleasures. Soon I skipped the starters to not spend so much time in the restaurant. Well, I was on vacation so why should it bother me. At nighttime you often heard the basses from some discotheque in the village hammering all over the bay. So make sure which place you chose to stay at. L.Heure Bleu is nice but surely could do with a bit of a “facelift”. It sits on the foot of a hill facing to the east, that means you enjoy a wonderful sunrise but already in the middle of the afternoon the hotel lies in the shadow of that hill.
Websites	Forever Dive L´Heure Bleue
Reporter and Travel
Dive Experience	Over 1000 dives
Where else diving	worldwide more than 100 destinations, mostly South Pacific and Asia, Africa and Caribbean
Closest Airport	Nosy Be	Getting There
Dive Conditions
Weather	sunny, cloudy, dry	Seas	calm, no currents
Water Temp	26-27°C / 79-81°F	Wetsuit Thickness	5
Water Visibility	6-18 M / 20-59 Ft
Dive Policy
Dive own profile	yes
Enforced diving restrictions	[Unspecified]
Liveaboard?	no	Nitrox Available?	no
What I Saw
Sharks	1 or 2	Mantas	None
Dolphins	1 or 2	Whale Sharks	None
Turtles	1 or 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 Forever Dive/L´Heure Bleue in Africa/Nosy Be

Forever Dive/L´Heure Bleue: "easy peasy", Sep, 2022,

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 Forever Dive/L´Heure Bleue in
Africa/Nosy Be