FANJOVE PRIVATE ISLAND

News from a natural wonder.

August has been a diver’s delight!
Picture this: you are beginning your dive, only a few metres down and you are already greeted by placid White-Tip Reef Sharks, as you descend you hear the song of distant Humpback Whales, you reach the reef and are met by an Eagle Ray and Green Turtles.
It has not only been the reef dives that have been so successful, our Discovery Dive, taking guests only to a few metres to experience introductory scuba, has also turned up octopi hunting and even a few seahorses.
We have had one of the best months of diving in Fanjove’s memory, with particularly good numbers of the docile Grey Sharks and White-Tip Reef Sharks. An explanation to credit this may be due to the reduction of dynamite fishing in the surrounding archipelago, with the encouraging news that in the area surrounding Fanjove, zero blasts have been recorded since the camp opening in June.
Watch this video mimicking coral substrate to disappear to divers view!

On August 5th Fanjove took part in the 9 th annual Whale Watching Survey which is conducted by participants all over the East African Coast. Using Fanjove’s Lighthouse as a lookout point, we sat in pairs taking shifts throughout the day to count whales.
Once the first whale was spotted from the lighthouse we made our way by boat to the area, where we were rewarded with four beautiful whales leaping and tail-slapping.
The survey has many functions; firstly it acts as a sort of whale census, as well as collecting behavioral data, it also produces useful themes that may explain why whales favour certain channels and currents. This year’s survey has counted a staggering 538 whales from only eight locations!
The entire month Humpback Whales sightings have been steady and continue to entertain and amaze us.
Watch this incredible video of a whale taken with a drone by Johan.

Laura, Johan, Hakim & The Fanjove Team.

LAKE MANZE CAMP

News from Selous Game Reserve

The elusive items on a bucket list. Guests spend years trying to find the magnificent Wild Dogs. Although August is not the usual month for spotting them as they have gone to den so the alpha female with her helpers can rear the pups until they are big enough to come back to the Lake Manze area to hunt. Fortunately we found these two gentlemen close to Manze Camp on their travels. We suspect that the two dogs are looking for females to join them to enable them to start a new pack.

The graceful Giraffe, the national animal of Tanzania, is in abundance and we were lucky enough to capture a moment where a guest on a boat safari was able to see a tower of Giraffe of about twenty odd together.

The Selous has a magnitude of varied species of birds and a haven for the ardent bird lover. A favorite among everybody is the colorful Lilac breasted roller that displays itself as a goddess in the bird kingdom.

The eyes of the Lion look like the gateway into Africa. One stare and you are hooked
Watch the video of a lion parade with manicure

Safe travels.

By Shaun, Milinda and all Manze Team.

MDONYA OLD RIVER CAMP

News from the wild side

This month has been truly exceptional in terms of sightings of carnivores, all the big carnivores have been seen including wild dog and cheetah!
One pack of wild dogs was seen down in the Mwagusi river and as one set of clients were returning back to camp from the sighting the happened across a second pack of wild dogs on the road just as dusk was falling. I don’t think they will forget seeing two packs of wild dogs on their first day of safari in Ruaha!
Cheetah have been seen 3 times this month, first was a mother cheetah with 4 cubs, the second was a cheetah that had just had its meal of an impala stolen away by two leopards and the third time was 2 cheetahs spotted right here in the Mdonya woodlands.

As if that wasn’t enough excitement the lions and leopards have also provided some very interesting behaviour.
Some of our clients on their way back to camp for lunch came passed by where they had earlier on in the day seen a pride of lions resting, only this time to find the lions in full fight mode a new male was pushing out the former dominant male and driving out the two young male lions from the pride. The following day these same two young males were spotted at a bit of a loss wondering through the bush when suddenly the took chase and attacked a leopard that had been resting under the tree. After the leopard stopped fighting back they lost interest and eventually wondered away. Incredibly the leopard wasn’t killed and was later seen walking away from the scene.

A big thank you to all our guests who have shared their fantastic pictures of these events with us this month.

By Rebecca, Andrea and all Mdonya Team.