At the Beach

We left Stone Town on Monday for the northern beaches. We wound up in Kendwa at a place called Kendwa Rocks, which is where some of our colleagues had stayed a few weeks prior. Zanzibar has phenomenal beaches. Words can’t really do them justice, but we have never seen some of the shades of blue we saw there. Also, our camera can’t really do them justice, but here is an attempt.



In addition to relaxing and swimming near the hotel, we decided to go on a snorkeling trip to Mwemba reef on our second day. In our group were also some first time scuba divers. The open water between the shore and the reef was pretty rough that day, so Audrey was a little worried about sea sickness. That worry proved unfounded. There were, however, other problems…

We jumped into the water while the scuba divers were getting briefed. There were a lot of boats around and it was choppy, and Audrey immediately did not like it. During that first dive she spent a lot of the time in an orange doughnut lifesaver tied to the waist of the Tanzanian guide who spoke no English (not her proudest moment). Unfortunately, this meant that her face was not in the water most of the time but rather right above it where it absorbed all of the reflected sunlight. Despite having on SPF 70, she got pretty burned. Then Nick swam through a jellyfish. First his ankle felt pain so his hand darted down to see what the problem was and the thing got him on the forearm. He caught a glimpse of the tiny blob that had a hint of blue in it. He thought he was free, but a few seconds later he felt a stinging sensation on the side of his face and down his jaw line. A tentacle was tangled in his mask and around his snorkel. First Audrey tried to get it off but it started stinging her hand and she couldn’t get it off. Finally Nick ripped off the mask/jellyfish and gave them to the guide. A few minutes later the guide got stung and then Audrey got stung a few times by a different jellyfish. We headed back to the boat where we found one of the scuba divers who had been stung the minute he entered the water and got out just to be safe. It was not the greatest experience.

During lunch on the boat, we saw in the water this guy from our hotel who we had previously dubbed “The Lurker”. He had long hair and apparently only one pair of clothes, a white linen tunic and white linen pants. We kept seeing him around the beach and the grounds of the hotel with his camera in hand. He was never doing anything. Just lurking. There he would be standing next to a tree. There he would be in the restaurant, not eating anything. There he would be just standing on the beach. Acting weird. Lurking. That’s exactly what he was doing in the water, too. The captain of our boat even asked him if he was okay, at one point. He had a mask and snorkel on, but he didn’t have his head in the water. He was just kind of floating there, lurking. He will probably get really sunburned too.

Luckily, after lunch we went out snorkeling again and both decided to give it another go. We had a great time and saw lots of fish.

The upshot of all this is that Audrey’s face hurts, but it actually doesn’t look that bad. The part that looks funny is her bottom lip, which has swelled up every morning since getting the burn making it look like she got collagen injections during the night.