Whale Sharks, Ras Mbisi & Barefoot Luxury!


I love the blog from RasMbisi and @RasMbisi on Twitter too for that matter. Michelle, her husband and young family emigrated from UK a few years’ ago to set up their fabulous lodge on Mafia Island off the coast of Tanzania. Just how exciting and adventurous is that?

To prove my point, check Michelle’s latest blog about her Guests swimming with whale sharks:

“Kaskasi (northern trade monsoon) finally dropped slightly today, the sea looks like a mill pond this morning. Wageni (guests) off first thing to swim with whale sharks, armed with Bacon rolls, homemade pastries and strong coffee. Ibra our Dhow skipper spent 3 years working with a marine research programme and therefore has an extremely strong code of conduct regarding the Whale sharks, all guests get a lecture before he will allow them in the water. He and Johnson then swim with the guests watching out for the weaker swimmers whilst Bakari looks after the boat and gets the coffee and snacks ready for everyone when they get out. Hot coffee is always welcome after snorkeling even in the warm waters of the Indian Ocean.”

If, like me, you’re ignorant about whale sharks (whales or sharks? I asked myself) here’s about them:

“The whale shark, Rhincodon typus, is a slow moving filter feeding shark, the largest living fish species. The largest confirmed individual had a length of 12.65 metres (41.50 ft) and a weight of more than 21.5 tonnes (47,000 lb), but unconfirmed claims report considerably larger whale sharks. This distinctively-marked fish is the only member of its genus Rhincodon and its family, Rhincodontidae (called Rhinodontes before 1984), which belongs to the subclass Elasmobranchii in the class Chondrichthyes. The shark is found in tropical and warm oceans, lives in the open sea with a lifespan of about 70 years. The species originated about 60 million years ago. Although whale sharks have very large mouths, they feed mainly, though not exclusively, on plankton, microscopic plants and animals, although the BBC program Planet Earth filmed a whale shark feeding on a school of small fish.”

Michelle blogs her menus too, and sometimes Tweets them – don’t blame me if they have you drooling and already checking flights to Mafia Island. “Barefoot luxury” they call it “omg, smh” as they say on Twitter!

Awesome!

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