The Frommers' August e-newsletter discussed Spirit Airline's giving away of all seats on September 11.

Now, National Airlines is following suit; the seats aren't free, but they're only a single buck, and all the money collected will be donated to a suitable charity. Vegas-based National is also offering first-class seats for their usual low upgrade fees–plus the extra dollar–meaning you can fly first-class from New York City to Vegas for only $201. You can take advantage of this deal if you can depart out of NYC, Newark, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., Miami, West Palm Beach, Chicago, Dallas/Fort Worth, Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Reno or Las Vegas. When Spirit made their announcement, all 13,000 seats were taken in under 24 hours. For more on-line info, see www.nationalairlines.com/itn/index.asp?page=webspecials.asp.

You can book online at www.nationalairlines.com,or at any of the big three booking sites; www.travelocity.com, www.orbitz.com, or www.expedia.com.

Source: newsletters@frommers.com

Trade Aid a charitable trust whose aim is to create sustainable employment in Mikindani, Tanzania are organising a group trip to The Old Boma at Mikindani, at the end of October. With only seven rooms, The Boma has a Country House Hotel feel, but it does mean the number of places are strictly limited.

Special airfares have been negotiated with British Airways and Air Tanzania. As a Friend of Mikindani, and reader of this e-newsletter, you will enjoy special rates at the Boma, a beautiful 19^th century German fort, faithfully and lovingly restored. The group will finish with 3 nights in Zanzibar.

The price for a total of 14 nights comprising 11 nights at the Old Boma and 3 nights in Zanzibar will be from £995, on a B&B basis (apart from the excellent food at The Boma, there are other places to eat close by, although half board is available for a small supplement) and is dependent on the standard of hotel selected in Zanzibar. The price includes free excursions every other day such as snorkelling and swimming at the scenic bay at Msimbati and a trip to the Rovuma river where you can watch hippos and crocs. The flight departs on Saturday 26th Oct from Heathrow on a non-stop BA flight to Dar es Salaam arriving at 0640 with a connecting 0800 flight to Mtwara. A Trade Aid representative will accompany the flight and the Zanzibar portion will have a guide. Return to Heathrow is on Sunday 10th Nov at 1715 on a non-stop flight from Dar es Salaam.

If you are interested, please contact: tradeaid@netcomuk.co.uk or visit: www.mikindani.com

The Beetle says that this is an excellent deal, and knows the Boma: it really is quite beautiful and the rooms are fabulous, some with hard carved mahogany beds, and white muslin abounds. There's a pool, stunning views of the bay, great cocktails as you watch sundown, good service and attentiveness – what more could you ask for!

The whole story started when I wanted to go diving with the manta rays in Tobago. Unfortunately, at that time, the trip for a family of five like mine proved out to be a little bit too pricey for my shallow purse. It is then that the owner of Aquadreams, the very professional Gene Dold (Aquadreams which has its web site onwww.aquadreams.com, is a travel agency based in Miami and specialised in diving packages, with a focus on Caribbean islands; its prices are very much lower than comparable England based travel agencies and the service offered is first class [e.g., a specific email is sent to you to give you the UPS reference of a parcel that has been sent to you; the tickets for the trip came with a lot of documentation on the island and on the diving there; all questions are answered at once]), came with a suggestion which sounded more or less like “Why not try Curacao, one of the best kept secrets of the Caribbean islands?”

After some investigations (among other things, best thanks to Nigel Turner and Iona Hill who gave some very comprehensive answers to some of the questions which I had put on a divers' forum), I decided to give it a go and I must say that I have not had any single regret about it at any time.

If I were to describe the diving in Curacao at the Sunset Beach Waters Resort in a few words, it probably would be: “Easy relaxed diving on a magnificent resident reef, best dived at nights when all other divers are asleep, leaving you free to focus on what you want”.

But to give some inner feeling about diving in Curacao, let me try to make you share the sensations during one of these night dives:

“It is 9:00 o'clock p.m. and the beach is completely empty and pitch dark, except for the projector light and for the spare bulbs that are kept running at all times around the diving club, just to help the divers get ready. My buddy and myself are strangely silent, probably due to some primal nocturnal fears. When we arrive at the diving club, as agreed upon with Harry, the Dutch owner of the diving club, two tanks are waiting for us, bright yellow against the surrounding darkness, our own little lighthouses. We retrieve our equipment from the club locker and we gear up without exchanging a word, focusing on the “task” ahead.

After the usual checks (strange how at nights, such routine checks are even more important than during daytime to keep your mind from wandering onto more sinister thoughts), we walk the few meters of white sand that separate us from the sea and easily enter the refreshing waters within the boundaries of an artificially made lagoon. After taking our compass bearings, we hover over the ripples of the sand to the open sea, encountering in our way some ghostly grey snappers (Lutjanus griseus), which quickly swim out of sight.

Soon after, we come across the remains of a small plane sunk on purpose for try-dives. In the light of our torches, it comes out brightly lit in orange by all the orange cup corals (Tubastraea coccinea) that festoon it and only open at night to reveal their striking colour. This is a truly magnificent sight!

But, it is time for bigger things and we swim away to deeper grounds. A couple of fin strokes take us to the edge of the shallow waters and we peep into what we know to be almost infinite depths (during daytime, we have been able to get a glimpse of what lies down there and it seemingly goes down forever and ever, up to…150 meters, according to the local divers). We glide effortlessly down until we reached the agreed upon depth of 20 meters where we adopt a more horizontal course.

The first thing that strikes me is the variety of corals: although I am not an expert, I can easily make out more than ten different varieties in terms of forms, colours or shapes. Everywhere around them, hundreds of marine creatures are busy finding their way and food, from small, transparent larvae that hover in the open and which you can only notice at night when your torch lights them, up to some very large specimen of Caribbean spiny lobsters (Panulirus argus) and hairy clinging crabs (Mithrax pilosus), very similar to spider crabs. In between these two extremes, when looking carefully in all nooks and crannies and waiting long enough to detect movements, I can see little banded coral shrimps (Stenopus hispidus) which are commonly seen at cleaning stations, some Pederson cleaner shrimps (Periclimenes pedersoni) with their transparent bodies and their purple legs, several blue-eye hermits (Paguristes sericeus) as well as a delicate banded clinging crab (Mithrax cinctimanus) in the middle of a giant anemone (Condylactis gigantea).

Then, all of a sudden, a startling spot of bright turquoise colour catches my eye and I see a specimen of a juvenile Caribbean Reef octopus (Octopus briareus). For some unknown reason, he likes my torch and decides to spend some time playing like a young pup with me, swimming back and fro between the reef and me. Eventually, it disappears in the darkness below, changing colour at the very last moment from its original turquoise to a dark orange.

Then, something more sinister then slowly edges its way in the area lit by my torch and a hunting purplemouth moray (Gymnothorax vicinus) comes to investigate all interstices to find its “catch of the day”. The way this moray thoroughly and methodically investigates all potential hides, one after the other, leaving no ground unexplored, gives me the creeps and leaves me sorry for the fish that have hidden there. All of sudden, it does not seem a good idea anymore for a fish to hide in the reef during the night, especially if you consider the number of morays that hunt there and their methodical hunting process.

Other morays like the spotted morays (Gymnothorax moringa) which I observed during the same night dive, also seem to hunt in a similar pattern, gliding stealthily and deathly from one hole to the next, up and down. Later, I even get the chance to watch one when it catches a prey: in a split second, it is over. The frenetic moves stop, the water calms down and the moray resumes its quest for some more food.

By the time we have seen all these things, we have to get back to shore: using the shallow wreck of the airplane as an indicator to the way out, we are soon back to the club where it is difficult to acknowledge that already an hour and a half has gone by in what had seemed to be a ten-minute dive at the most.

Next time for sure, I will bring an underwater camera!

A survey conducted by the English Tourist Board has revealed what the English public considers the “Seven Wonders of Britain”. Participants in the survey were asked to select their choices from a short list of 17 possibilities within England. Here are the results of the survey:

1 . . . Houses of Parliament and Big Ben
2 . . . Stonehenge, Wiltshire
3 . . . Windsor Castle, outer London
4 . . . Eden Project, Cornwall
5 . . . York Minster, Yorkshire
6 . . . Hadrian's Wall, up North!
7 . . . London Eye, London

Source: http://www.britainexpress.com

Readers may recall that for the last couple of months, we have had an appeal by Mike who was looking for his friend Bob, who was sailing around the South Pacific. Well, the good news is that Bob, Mike's friend did get in touch, so all is well. But here is a quick but fascinating piece on how Mike got to know Bob, and Bob's sailing adventures.

I, as a young engineer fresh from university, first met Bob in 1962. He had done an apprenticeship as a watchmaker and was therefore a “real” engineer in my eyes. After some initial arguments we became good friends and have kept in contact, even when I changed to medicine. About fifteen years ago he decided to sail, and bought an aluminium 40 ft sloop from a Count in Brittany, who had gone bankrupt. It was a bare hull with sails and engine, and Bob moved it to the garden of his bungalow near Chichester, and spent the next twelve years fitting it out.

He did a beautiful job, but did not have the funds to buy electronic navigational equipment; he uses a sextant. He was going to call his yacht Rabia, after my wife, but we thought that would be unwise because Rabia means rabies in Spanish. Two or three years ago, I lose track of time, he set off for Australia with his son. Their main problem was finding experienced crew because neither of them knew much about sailing. Bob's son soon gave up and returned home, and Bob has continued with anyone that he can pick up on the way. Recently he spent five months in the Marquesas looking for crew, and eventually found a treasure hunter searching for fifteen tons of gold in Tuamotu. They found lots of sharks instead. He has reached Pago Pago in Samoa and is wondering what to do after he has landed at Australia, sell the boat and retire, or carry on sailing.