Snorkelling, Kitesurfing & Cliffs in Kilifi

 January 3^rd-9^th, 2024

I have to admit that I was happy to be leaving Lamu and heading back to Kilifi.  The original plan was to go to a nice beach called Watamu, just south of Malindi where my flight would land, but due to my eye situation, I decided to continue on to Kilifi to make it a shorter travel day to see an ophthalmologist in Mombasa the following day.  It was a quick 25-minute flight from Lamu to Malindi in the late afternoon.  I walked out of the small airport while all of the other mzungu tourists were hopping in their private taxis.  I figured I’d get a matatu to save some money as I had the time.

The airport waiting area in Lamu:

However, before I even reached the main road, a motorcycle taxi pulled up and asked where I was going.  I asked him what he would charge for taking me all the way to Kilifi, about 50-60 kilometres away.  His price was decent so I decided to go for it, as it would be more comfortable than a jam-packed van, and quicker.  And much quicker it was…almost too quick.  This guy had the nicest motorbike that I’ve been on in Africa, and we were often cruising around 90-100 km/h…and even his speedometer worked so I could tell how fast we were going!   I swear that 90% of motorcycles and vehicles in east Africa do not have functioning speedometers.

 

It was great at first, as we were covering ground rapidly and the guy seemed like a competent rider.  But keep in mind, neither one of us were wearing helmets and I was even in shorts and a t-shirt…so the thought of a brain injury and massive road rash did enter my mind a few times.  This concern was magnified as the sun set and the evening dusk set in.  We would catch up to slow moving trucks or matatus, and he would pass on the opposing lane if it was clear, but on the shoulder if it wasn’t.  Crappier, slow-moving motorcycles would be plowing their way along the side of the road and usually they had no lights, or at least no taillights, so it would be easy to plow into them.  Let’s add to this that cars coming the other way would pass slow trucks, even if they saw a motorcycle coming the other way, because why not?  There’s lots of room on the road!  Yikes.  Now I knew that my driver had better night vision than me being a much younger man, but after a few scares, I asked him to slow down a bit as we were only 10 km away from Kilifi, and it was getting quite dark.

 

Since you’re reading this, you know that we made it.  He dropped me off at this cheesy hotel, the Peacock Court, where I was going to stay for one night as my Airbnb booking started the following day.  It was an alright place for one night.  It reminded me of some hotels in India.  My room was on the third floor and the stairs were uneven and tough to walk up.  Couple with that, they had blacklight in the staircases which lit up the fluorescent looking, orange logo of the hotel but wasn’t terribly pleasant for the eyes.

The next day I hopped in a matatu to go to Mombasa to see an ophthalmologist.  At the first clinic I went to, they told me that the doctor wouldn’t be in until 2 pm, and it was only 11:30 am.  I looked online and found another clinic back near the bridge heading out of Old Mombasa which I had crossed coming from Kilifi.  I grabbed a tuk tuk and he took me to the area that Google Maps stated where it was…but it was not there.  We pulled over and spoke to a traffic cop.  He was nice enough to call the doctor’s office and find out where they were.  Ironically, the place was only a couple of blocks where the first ophthalmologist was.  I had actually seen the place online, but it looked like it was an optometrist, not an eye doctor.  Oh well, I got a tour around old Mombasa and saw a few roundabouts I hadn’t seen before, one with giraffe statues, another with dolphins.

I noticed these two businesses in Kilifi before I got in the matatu...how convenient, if the driving lesson doesn't go well...you don't have far to go!

The ophthalmologist took examined my eyes and told me that I did have conjunctivitis, but it was not viral or from bacteria, but from allergens.  Huh?!?  Weird.  I have bad hay fever, but I have rarely had problem with my eyes.  This was kind of good as it meant that I wasn’t contagious.  I was prescribed some different eye drops than the ones I’d been using that I got from a pharmacy in Nairobi (which was for bacterial pink eye) as well as four pills to take to deal any pain that the eye drops might give me.

 

I returned to Kilifi in a matatu and checked in to my small, but self-contained Airbnb apartment.  It was a nice place just a kilometre and a half from Salty’s Kite Surfing School, where I did a lesson on Boxing Day.  Unfortunately, the first full day that I was back in Kilifi, the winds were too light to do a lesson.

 

The next day I was able to continue my progression in the sport.  My slot was the last one of the day, starting around 5:15 pm.  My instructor was Jacek, from Poland.  His girlfriend Patrycja was the office manager for the school and organized my lessons.  Jacek was awesome.  His instructions were clear and concise.  I liked that he used a teaching methodology that we try to embody at our flight school.  An instructor should do the following:  Explanation, Demonstration, Observation & Correction.

The view from Salty's:

Salty's in the evening:

The next day I had planned to do more lessons in the afternoon, but before that, I was going to go snorkelling.  I contacted a boda boda driver named Ziggy who had given me a ride to Salty’s for my first lesson there back on Boxing Day.  He had given me his phone number and described a snorkelling trip I could do that was about a half hour away from Kilifi, so I decided to him up on the offer.

 

Ziggy, sporting a Bob Marley type hat (if you don’t know, Bob had a son named Ziggy), picked me at 9 am and we headed south of Kilifi.  We left the highway, passing through a small village and then rode along a nice, recently paved road that paralleled the shoreline.  Not surprisingly, there were big stone fences obscuring the view of the fancy homes that had oceanfront property.

 

We pulled into a gap in the fences that led down to the seashore to Nyali Beach.  We were met by a couple of local guys, including one man with some thick, bleached, 6-9 inch long dreadlocks.  He was to be my snorkel guide.  We entered a small shipping container and he sorted through a bucket of mostly crappy masks and snorkels until we found one that would work for me.  He then found a pair of plastic shoes for me.  I asked about flippers as I’ve never gone snorkelling without them, but he said I wouldn’t need them…turns out he was right.  The water was so shallow that flippers would have disturbed the silt and possibly caused damage to the coral.

 

We walked a 3-400 meters down the beach and entered the water which was quite warm.  The water level remained only 3-5 feet deep as we same a hundred meters or so out from the shore.  At first there wasn’t much to see, but then we found some nice coral conglomerations and a variety of colourful fish.  He pointed out some interesting starfish too, a few of which I’d never seen before.  It was an ideal place for a newbie snorkeller (not that I am), as at any point you could just stand up and catch your breath or clear your snorkel or mask if need be. 

 

Towards the end of the 60-70 minutes in the water, he led me over to an area where 8-10 metal tables have been dropped in the ocean.  It was a nursery for coral, about 6-8 different types.  Nice to see that the locals are caring about the nature here.  There were also some pyramid stacks of cinder blocks which also provided a nice spot for the coral to grow.

 

Afterwards, the guide (I didn’t catch his name) wanted to show me something.  I thought he said “Chalice, I want to show you chalice.”  Huh?!?  Well, it turns out he meant “Charles”.  Just two months earlier, on November 2^nd, King Charles III and Queen Camilla visited the beach and they put a small glass plaque with his royal emblem on top of a stack of cinder blocks.  Check out the video of the visit.

Heading back to Kilifi, Ziggy had told me about some big cliffs by the ocean that we had to check out.  It was best at hightide, and we were close to that with our timing.  It was a bit of a windy, sandy path passing by some mud-walled houses to finally reach the ocean.  There was a Mombasa Cement factory and a rock quarry nearby which was a bit of an eyesore.  Perhaps because there is an abundant source of building material, there was a super long concrete/rock fence running for a few kilometres around a few different fields.  Seemed like a lot of work and expense and it was tough to understand the need for it.

 

Arriving at the shore, it was immediately obvious that the volcanic rock was relatively new (geologically speaking).  It was very sharp and pointy.  The water was about 20 feet below and there were a few outcroppings jutting out over the ocean.  We wandered out on one point and Ziggy mentioned that local kids used to jump into the water below, until one of them drowned.  It looked like a great spot to dive in, but nasty to try and climb out.

We walked out on this point:

I was starting to fry in the sun, and I had my last kitesurfing lesson later in the afternoon, so it was time to go.  We took a different route back towards the highway, passing by more exhausted rock quarries and then passing by some small villages with a predominantly Muslim population. 

Ziggy asked me if I’d ever tried “coconut wine”.  He explained that guys climb a palm tree to hook up a plastic container which collects the sap from the tree.  We stopped at a local “bar” and purchase a wine bottle’s worth of the local moonshine for $1.  One of the ladies of this outdoor establishment brought us these tall shot glasses with these wooden straws.  Not surprisingly, the concoction was coconut milk white, but it sure had a weird taste to it.  It was fine when you first sipped it, but then there was this change in the taste that was almost like some kind of medicinal syrup.  I did not like it…but felt that I should at least give it a good college try.  Meanwhile, Ziggy had three helpings!  Time to head back to Kilifi.

Ziggy enjoying his drink:

This was across the path from the "bar"...perhaps a fellow Canadian!

For my second kitesurfing lesson with Jacek, the wind petered out near the end of the hour, but I was still happy with the progress.  When the wind started to die down, we covered a few really important lessons such as a self-rescue, something that I hadn’t done in years.

This was a woman from Peru, Beatrice, whom I met in a hostel in Nairobi about 10 days before.  She was randomly walking down the beach.

I rarely get pics/videos when I'm doing kitesurfing lessons so I asked if she would.  Super nice of her, but you can see that she shouldn't look for a job in filmmaking!

A bit of a view of the beach:

Riding some light wind:

Both Jacek and Patrycja insisted that for the following day, my final chance for some kitesurfing lessons in Kilifi, that they would give me a the 3 pm slot, when the wind, according to the forecast, should be the strongest.  Sounded good to me.

 

Well, they were right.  My last lesson was by far my best.  The wind wasn’t super strong as Jacek had me using a 17 square meter kite, about as big as you can get, but it sure made it easy for launching.  I was popping out of the water and riding like nobody’s business. 

The lovely beach in Kilifi, this was on my walk to my lesson:

The next thing to work on was transitions (where you stop and start heading back in the other direction without sinking into the water).  I did maybe half a dozen transitions in Peru a few years ago and a few the day before with Jacek teaching me, but they felt somewhat accidental.  Now I was focusing on the proper technique.  I pulled off another 6-8 transitions, one or two of them that were really nice. 

 

I also messed up, which wasn’t a bad thing.  You learn more when you make mistakes right?!?  One time I screwed up the transition and overpowered the kite, so much so that I “Jesus Walked” (where you launch out of the board and walk along the water).  The kite also smashed into the ocean so first I had to relaunch it, then I had to body surf my way back to the board which was upwind from my position, so you have to tack back and forth like a sailboat.  It wasn’t until I reached the board that I realized that I had launched right out of my beach shoes too!  They were still stuck in the straps of the board.

 

I was quite pleased with how I was able to manage after a big wipeout…and so was Jacek.  At the end of the lesson, he told me that he would happily give me my intermediate kitesurfing rating…sweet!  It’s taking me a long time, but I’m finally “Licensed to Rent”!

A new kitesurfing graduate!

Celebrating with Jacek and Patrycja.