Friday:
Sometimes being on holiday can be terribly stressful and exhausting. The ladies clean my room each day and when I get back and need a nap or it’s bedtime, I have de-flora the bed from all the decoration they do before I can get in! Each evening during dinner, they come and collect your keys and go into the rooms to drop the mosquito net tents and give everything a spray to kill the bugs too. Aside from the killer ants, crows, a few mosquito and Dog, I haven’t seen all that much other land wildlife about, which is a relief really. I think this might be the first ever place I’ve been to where I haven’t seen an sparrows at all though. I’m sure they must be in Africa since they’re everywhere else in the world! The most treacherous thing so far here has been a couple of really windy days which periodically sent the hanging dead palm fronds and the odd coconut crashing down to the ground. Fortunately, I was sitting on my covered terrace when that happened and they fell onto the roof then down the side as I think it could have been quite a nasty injury. Falling coconuts actually injure (or worse) a number of people across the world each year. Not a hazard we need to be concerned about in the UK!
Diving wasn’t until midday today so I had time for plenty of cups of tea and some reading this morning, while also watching some of the maintenance boys do some gardening. They were cutting the grass today. This entailed using a long pole with a perpendicular blade at the end which they just swung back and forwards chopping the grass into an impressively neat and equal height. Mum, I think you should look into this for your lawn - it’s far more environmentally friendly than a fuel driven lawn mower so David Attenborough would be very pleased with you! Other than that entertainment, the rest of the day was diving … obviously. The first dive to a pinnacle was where absolutely tonnes of nudis live. I photographed all of the ones I could and most are above for your enjoyment, along with one or two other fishy friends. The second dive was outside the bay and with such exceptionally excellent visibility and pretty fish that is was like diving in an aquarium (only the fish were happy and free!).
Saturday:
Diving here is all dependent on the tides - both for timings and also visibility. So like the soldier I am, I opted for the high tide and was awake and ready for the 6am boat departure this morning! As I’m just next to the dive shop, this essentially meant I could roll out of bed, dress, swing by the shop for my fins and gear and roll onto the boat. We hit the water and descended for the first dive at 6.37am. And what a treat it was with beautiful clear visibility, prefect for lovely reef scape scene photos! Because it was so early, they brought us packed breakfast for out surface interval on the boat. I sat and ate my boiled egg, banana bread and fresh pineapple while floating on the blue of a thankfully very calm sea! On return, I commenced the rinse, flush through and set out to dry routine so everything is now spread about in the sunshine to dry off ready for packing. I am undertaking the very the task of ‘off-gassing’ for the next 24 hours ready to begin my flights home. The two others that I have spent most of the week with (Ana and Sarah) are flying home today so I shall have a lazy day of reading, napping and eating (not dissimilar to all my other days!) prior to packing and a final night in my mosquito tent bed!
I did also indulge myself in another little beach walk (with Dog - I don’t make him come, he just seems to enjoy following me and anyone else around to keep us all supervised and safe!). The tide was turning and coming back in as I walked. While studying the shell collection on offer (they mostly all have creatures living in them which is most inconvenient as I have to leave them on the beach and sometime they seem to sense my present, pick up and scuttle away on their little legs that suddenly appear when an escape is required), I noticed this little oddity….
A tiny little spring like water spout. I have no idea if it’s animal or mineral or natural feature… but I have a sneaking suspicion that it might actually be what’s in fact behind the cause of the tides. I don’t think it’s the moon and it’s gravitational pull at all; I think it might actually be these tiny water taps that busily switch on and fill the sea back up at every high tide.
I thought I’d done ever so well with some movement and activity for the afternoon with my beach meander so I was horrified when I got back to the hotel to find the nice family that were on our dive boat this morning in the middle of some sort of shuttle run activity a,ont the beach. They waved hello and invited me to join them for some exercise as they proceeded to drop to all fours (but with their bellies facing up and arms behind them) and race along the beach like deformed crabs. This was followed by some circuits and various poses and stretches. I politely turned down their kind offer and read my book on one of the beach loungers instead. Seemed much safer. And when I got back to my terrace, I had to do a bit of hopping about and energetic flailing in my attempts to remove the giant millipede that had taken up residence. Who needs formal exercise!
For my final dinner this evening, there was a sort of cheese and spinach concoction for starter, rolled-beef for main and then a cinnamon bun which was thankfully lacking in cinnamon - in the same way yesterday’s carrot cake seemed entirely lacking in carrot but was a delicious vanilla and sugar sauce sponge and the previous day’s coconut rice pudding was void of all coconut. I think some of my favourite offerings so far have included the massive portion of lasagne that was the starter the other day and also the different rice and potato salads that they give you alongside the meat or fish main!
My flight tomorrow (Sunday) isn’t until the afternoon from Mafia back to the capital so I have decided to order myself a lunch before I go. They do what they call fish fingers but is actually a MASSIVE heap of freshly cooked fish goujons. Delicious! And what an excellent way to finish my stay here before beginning the mega journey home. 3 flights, hours of stop overs in Dar Es Salaam and then Amsterdam (along with the jeopardy of ‘will KLM manage to excel themselves but actually providing the timely luggage transportation that they charge so highly for.’), approximately 26 hours door-to-home (and that’s as long as there aren’t delays or any problems). But it’s been worth it; a new country to add to the list - and the first new stamp to add to my brand new passport, 12 dives, bringing my total up to 276, some lovely people and my new friend Dog, the no-bag crisis survived and another amazing experience!
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