Today’s activities started ambitiously with a longer beach walk before breakfast, no running but better than nothing – the sand is quite nice to walk in and since it’s so smooth (and wet) it doesn’t really get in all your clothes etc.

Back at Zanzibar Retreat for Breakfast, we decided we should give stone town a visit, tomorrow that is – no need to rush things.

So it was another day of reading, we have now examined the pool from all four sides I believe – this one gives the best wifi access but can be a little to much in the direct sun. Decisions decisions.

Since we were in a planning mode we considered whether to fly or take the ferry on our way to Dar Es Salaam, a quick check showed that flights were leaving almost every hour, took 20 minutes and 75 USD so we never considered the ferries.

Not sure whether I should do a refresher dive + dives for the remaining time, it but could be an option although Mona felt she had enough of snorkling and not interested in discovering or getting a Diving certificate. I’m well into second book in the series and have now maxed out vault size in Fallout Shelter. Candy is starting to run low, and Mona is on book five or something – I feel this is a losing battle.

Reading until getting a bit hungry – taxi to Waikiki for an renowned Pizza that indeed had a high quality – and since it was somewhat larger establishment there was of course the drunken tourist in the bar speaking loudly. I suppose if you have a sign in the bar saying “Here you never drink alone” you sort of get lone drunken guys coming looking for company.

As we got back we chatted a bit with Jan and mentioned flights, he asked who we intended to fly with – we hadn’t booked yet but were going with Air Precision. He said, well it’s of course up to you but I have given up on them for good after missing three flights to Europe due to them simply canceling a flight without notice if there are too few passengers and being generally exceptionally bad. Googling up some reviews about airlines I could see that he was not alone in this regard so we were probably just lucky when we were on our way here.

I woke up after a less than ideal night with weird dreams but had another omelette breakfast after packing the bag and were picked up right on time (08).

ScubaFish seemed like a rigorous organization, we got wet-suits (half) and the boat and crew both looked and acted like professionals. We also met some other travelers who lived nearby us (and thus close to one operator, ScubaLibre (yep)) who like us had heard that safety was so-so at that operator and this was the place to go.

Mona and I got our own guide (for 45 USD this was above expectations) and went off for the first session while the remaining people of the boat did a proper dive. The coral reef was really easy to access and had lots of colorful fishes – lion fish, lizard fish, trumped fish, clown fish, zebra fish and a dozen other I can’t remember the name of.

I was diving, swimming around below the surface without any issues but once I got back on the boat I got hit by some sort of vertigo close to motion sickness and were not in the mood to enjoy the snack and fruits in the break before the next session despite the sea being calm and weather generally awesome. Mona chose to skip the second session since she felt strained in her mouth after clenching the mouth piece too hard but I felt slightly better so got in the water again.

Now alone with my guide at another part of the reef we saw even more fish, including one zombie-looking fish who had a bite missing from it’s back – apparently some sea snake or whatever had taken a fair chunk from the fish (we’re talking a third of the fish’s height and perhaps a fifth of it’s length but the fish managed to survive that and the wound had apparently closed up.

As we got up, no vertigo but I realized I was a bit cold despite the wet-suit (it was perhaps 26 degrees) so I can only imagine how cold it would have been without it. We had to go back another route due to tide and after a busride we were back at ScubaFish and now starving for a nice Carbonara.

Another side of the pool

Apparently between ScubaFish and our restort I had managed to leave my sunglasses in the car but luckily the driver found them when we called and asked and delivered them within 30 minutes – well worth a tip. The rest of the day was spend by the pool and later in bed. I’ve finished the first book but Mona is already well into her third so I guess I need to cut down on that time-stealing Fallout Shelter game…

I woke up peacefully but realized when trying to visit the bathroom that my calves were not used to running in wet sand apparently – no run today but I suspect I need to punish the weak body to show who’s really running the show.

Another fresh breakfast, this time their omelette accompanied with the regular fresh fruits and tea. This does indeed beat the regular breakfast in Oslo in the form a cup of warm chocolate at work around 09.

Today weather was better, so we would focus our slacking outside our room, to be exact between 3 and 23 meter away depending on which sunbed would have the most comfortable temperature/light combination. Perhaps even an excursion to the ocean some additional 30m or less during high tide.

Eventually Mona, for the first time, considered to try the pool, but it was not above 30 apparently meaning too cold. She also kept positioned herself always out of reach from yours truly while I was in the pool so I could not help her into the pool either.We had tomato soup for lunch, another 15meters from where the pool is which would constitute maximal distance travelled from bed that day. We however booked a snorkling session with ScubaFish which was the recommended Dive Center for tomorrow, one can only take so much of doing nothing at all.

We skipped candy for dinner and instead tried the local restaurant (apparently if you are outside the room and by the pool they come and ask when/what you would like to have). I went for a local speciality – octopus in coconut sauce with rice while Mona went for hot coconut soup for starter and fillet of beef with baked potatoes for main. To both our surprise Mona was however unable to have desert being completely full – the sun can do strange things to people but this was something completely unexpected.

Satiated we stumbled to bed early with alarms set for 07, it was time to start doing stuff again…