Monday:
Another morning, another breakfast buffet. The selection of food stuffs available is most exciting and really extensive. There’s an interesting range, presumably trying to ensure all nationalities’ requirements are met. There are cereals, cakes, porridges, yoghurt & a fruit selection, which includes various salads, toast, pastries and a selection of fancy preserves and jams, also cold meats, cheeses, lots of jars of different nuts and also a hot section which includes bacon, sausage, eggs, beans, potatoes cooked various ways, omelette and a selection of veggies. For many people, this mix maybe be quite troublesome but for me with my orderly eating habits, I just enjoy each bit of as a separate element so alongside my egg, bacon and potatoes, I’ve enjoyed a side of broccoli, a little bowl of olives and today a carrot, courgette and onion mix! Delicious!
This morning, after breakfast feast, we packed up, loaded up our little rattle car and headed to Ayia Napa. I included a flask of tea in my supplies because I’m pretty sure that’s what all the young, hip party goers would take. Prior research had suggested some excellent tourist attractions included the Blue Lagoon and also the Bridge of Love (a stone archway like Durdle Door but considerably more sensationally named!). First stop, the Blue Lagoon which included a slightly treacherous road down a hill to a car park, complete with a cafe van. We diligently got out, walked across the rock, looked at the sea - which was a very pretty shade of blue, decided it was a bit rough for a swim and nowhere really to sit - so off we went in the rattler to the love bridge. It was a similar situation - a very pretty formation and beautiful clear sea, which we admired for a few minutes at peering over the cliff. Then off we went to the fancy tourist beach that is recommended by Trip Advisor and a couple of travel blogs.
Nissi Beach would, I imagine, be quite picturesque and pretty if you could remove the thousands of tourists and sun beds that line it. On arrival at 10.30am, all the sun beds were taken so we spread towels on a little patch of empty sand. The sea was crystal clear and flat calm so was a welcome cooling dip followed before a little time in the sun drying off buy then heating back up as no shade was available!
We decided to return to our little hotel and beach side for a delicious lunch, plentiful sunbed availability and a relaxing afternoon reading! Our hotel’s pool is very attractive but is less of a cooling dip than a breath taking (literally) hypothermia risk so one needs only dip a toe in to be sufficiently cooled off!
Cyprus is two hours ahead of the UK and also changed its clocked back an hour so on Saturday night when we arrived, we put our clocks forward two hours then over night they went back an hour. It was quite the confusion trying to make sure we knew what the time is on the first morning. We didn’t want to miss breakfast! We have to have quite a lot of naps to get over the jet lag. In between most activities, I have a delicious cup of tea and usually also make Sam a cup of her hot flower milk-water. She’s only brought 15 ‘tea’ bags with her which seems bad planning. I’ve got 30 caffeine tea bags and 60 decaf. Sensible. Some of Sam’s bags have dried flowers in them. ACTUAL FLOWERS!
Tuesday:
Today I went diving to see the shipwreck. It’s definitely a wreck and is huge. It’s the wreck of the Zenobia, a 200m roll-on, roll-off cargo ship that, in 1972, was going from Sweden to Syria but stopped into port here when it was encountering problems with its ballast. On deciding there was nothing to be done to save it, rather than allow it to sink and block the shipping lane or harbour, it was towed out to where it is now, a few miles off shore lying in 40m of water. It was sunk with its entire cargo of articulated lorries, carrying all manor of goods, still on board. A process that took 3 days before it was fully settled on its side on the seabed. Cypriot law means that since it’s in their waters, nothing is allowed to be removed from the wreck so it’s stayed there ever since.
Since it’s the Mediterranean Sea, there aren’t a huge number of fish about, as they’ve overfished it for so long, but there were some lovely groupers and some as yet unidentified (by me) nice silver fish, which could be bream, about and a lovely hermit crab with a pretty shell home that I appreciated. We did two dives on the wreck, one round the outside to orientate and one going into some bits. I was in a group of 4 who were all British and were nice. There is a rule with this company that you must surface with 50 bar of air in your tank. It is generally considered good practice for ‘just in case’ but is strictly adhered to here, to the point that if someone is getting low mid-dive, one of the guides will air share, which happened with my buddy. It seemed slightly odd to me but it made no difference to me either way so I just watched and continued my float along behind!
Exiting water on this boat was the most civilised of processes that I have ever encountered - they had a lift! The little person sized platform, complete with hand railed is lowered into the sea to about 5 feet, you swim over, organise your fin to stand on the platform and hold on and the rails and are lifted back up onto the boat to walk straight to your spot to set your gear down. I had to dive with one of the guide’s gear because they didn’t bring enough gear for us (quite a crap issue really but again, not something that bothered me as I was given other gear to dive either and one guide stayed on the boat - there were more than enough fortunately!). I was told that once I’d dived with this, slightly different to mine, set up, I’d never go back to my jacket kit. I didn’t really notice much of a difference at all so really don’t get all the fuss. The boat lift, however. That’s the game changer! I think I shall try never to dive again on a boat without a lift. Ever so civilised!
I’m not sure what Sam did but I left her some money, because she’s been good, and anything you order from the hotel is just ‘signed for’ with a room number given, which I’m sure means they give all to your for free! It certainly will be if you give a room number different to the one you’re actually staying in!
Contribution from Sam: I have indeed been very good, and I didn’t even spend any money today as we bought some 7ups in Lidl and they kept me going. I had two swims in the sea today whilst Pip was diving,as it is lovely and warm compared to the pool!
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