Scuba Diving and Water Fun on Kenya's Coast

Diving in the Indian Ocean through the coral reefs - this is brain coral. Such a great place to learn to scuba dive! Saw many beautiful fish including a lion fish, lobsters, octopus, squid, moray eels, shrimp, dolphins... 1 group even saw a whale shark!

So many things to do in the water here, has been so relaxing and refreshing to be on the ocean! The Indian Ocean is incredibly warm, but yet still refreshing to swim in as it is so hot outside.

Went swimming in Kilifi creek, on the beach of our hotel, the water is so warm and salty! It was fun. There were a bunch of fish by the dock, probably about 7-8 different kinds. One was yellow and black striped and there were 100s of them, you could get really close too.  I also saw another one that was a lot bigger than those and it had a long pointed nose and was green. It kept jumping out of the water, jumping about 3-5 times the length of its body, and it was so fast, almost like a bullet going through the air. There were also black, blue, and white striped fish. I also saw a crab and jellyfish!

A few of us decided to go windsurfing one day but there wasn't really any wind so we just took the boards out and practiced balancing and I rocked the board from side to side for a bit eventually sending me flying into the salty water. After a bit we just lay down on our boards forming a raft and let the current carry us away from the resort. So relaxing! We ended up floating pretty far away and it took us about 45min to paddle with our arms back to shore, a good arm workout I guess ... There were so many jellyfish in the water, every time you put your hands or feet in you could feel them all around. It was like sticking your hand into jello in a way. Luckily they weren't stinging though cause that would have been painful. We could even pick them up out of the water. They were pretty small and transparent looking.

We played beach volleyball during high-tide one afternoon… the water was up to my waist or shoulders depending on where I was in relation to the net. It was great though cause you could dive for the ball without worrying about getting hurt.. although salt water in the eyes hurts!

One of the great things about the coast is learning to dive. My first pool session was so fun! I was a little nervous at first but once I took my first breath underwater I relaxed a lot and it was no longer nerve-racking but really cool and fun! The first time we put the regulator in our mouths we all started laughing cause we all sounded like Darth Vader. Couldn’t wait to get out in the Indian Ocean as people had been seeing dolphins! I'm loving breathing underwater, I've always wanted to be able to do that and now I can, with a little help of course :)

My first ocean dive was great! I was a little nervous at first because of the depth we were going to go to, but it was actually a lot easier than I thought. I hardly realized how fast we were descending. We ended up going down to 30ft for about 45 min. When we first got in the water there must have been a lot of transparent jellyfish because we were all getting stung on our arms and legs but we couldn't see anything. The stinging wasn't actually too bad. And once we started descending they were no longer around us. There were some really pretty  bright colored fish.

Once I completed my open water certification I started seeing more animals! Saw an octopus, a shrimp, a lobster, a cuttlefish, moray eel, scorpionfish, butterflyfish, pufferfish, lionfish, catshark, goatfish, trumpetfish, parrot fish (and many other fish), sea cucumbers, some really cool starfish that have red spikes on them, tons of coral! So much life down there, amazing! Also saw dolphins twice from our boat! 5-10 of them jumping out of the water, including a baby! Truly an amazing experience!