All flippers and limbs, we gracelessly fell backwards from the boat and into the sub tropical Indian Ocean. Before I had a chance to adjust my eyes, I felt a bump and turned to face every plankton¹s worst fear; the gummy cavernous mouth of the world’s biggest fish. Unperturbed by my slack jawed mimicry, the whale shark casually propelled itself past with a few languid flicks of its powerful tail. It appeared to be moving in slow motion and yet we could barely keep up. More whale sharks appeared and we followed them until they dived too deep. We could hear humpback whales singing to one another in the distance.
Much like the whale sharks, Tofo’s locals have an unhurried, laid back approach to life. Fisher folk still sail in and out of the bay in dhows and time is measured not by ticking clocks but by the ebb and flow of the tide. We learnt how to play an ancient game called Bao as we waited (an African length of time) for our tasty prawns and calamari to be cooked up in a shack by the sea. With so many travellers washing in on its white shore, we felt blessed to witness Tofo’s culture, pristine dunes and abundant marine life before they are inevitably spoilt by its popularity.
