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The Sharks Are Out There
Swimming with the God-fish of Mozambique
“People might look for these fish all over the world — Thailand, Dominican Republic. See nada. Then they come to Whale Shark Alley and they can’t believe it.” Isham squints into the deep blue emptiness with the narrowing eyes of a big-game hunter. “The sharks are out there, alright. There’s an 80% chance you’ll see one today.”
It was always going to take something special to help us overcome the do-nothing imperative of Tofo. We’d followed in the wake of the hedonists, the in-the-know bums and the winter sun-seekers who have long frequented this immaculate notch of Mozambican coast. Theirs was the spirit in which our group — two couples on a temporary escape from the city-grind — had rattled down the 20 kilometres of broken asphalt that runs down here from the faded colonial sprawl of Inhambane: read a book, jump some waves and stoke the evening braai.
As time passed, however, the region’s other cause célèbre had become harder to ignore. From the beach-boys looking for kick-backs to the Saffer drifters downing shots of tipo tinto rum in the bars that line the dunes, word on the sand was: “The sharks are out there…”
Ordinarily, this refrain would be good reason to stay the hell away from the ocean, but these sharks…
