Sahl Hasheesh - Exploring

Chevron Butterflyfish

Now that it’s October, quite a few of the owners at El Andalous are returning for longish stays. This is nice for me, because it means it’s more sociable. It’s dark here now at 6pm, though, so the days are short.

Anyway, I hate to admit it, but I’m a bit of a creature of habit. Although I like travelling and experiencing new things, somehow I end up just doing the same things all the time. Possibly part of it is that I feel that once I’ve found something I like, I don’t want to risk trying anything else in case I’ve wasted time somewhere that’s not so good.

Once I’d settled here in El Andalous and got my bearings, I ended up only ever using two of the many beaches – the two that have free sunbeds for residents (ha! There’s one reason for my lack of adventure. I’m a cheapskate). Fortunately, having others around pushes me into broadening my horizons a bit.

I’d heard a few people talk about a really good place for snorkelling just past the Pyramisa hotel next door. However, I’d been told that you can’t really go on your own. It’s a shallow bay and then a huge drop, which is where you can view the reef. If the tide goes out, you can’t get back into the shallow bay and you’re trapped. Also, the sea can be quite rough. Consequently, you can only go in the short period of time when it’s full tide. All in all, that sounded too scary.

However, Jeff and Vanessa were here and they persuaded me to give it a go. They had a spare set of flippers (I was reluctant, but they insisted I would need them), so off we went. It was a bit of a failure.

First of all, my snorkelling gear broke as soon as I got in the water. I was also the complete novice out of the three of us; I was pretty clueless about what to do when wearing flippers. Jeff and Vanessa advised me just to push myself into the water and somehow this took me some time as I couldn’t work out how to manoeuvre myself properly with those huge things on my feet.

We were only knee high in the water, but the waves were too strong to get very far out. We tried standing up and walking, but I kept on getting knocked down by the waves each time I stood up. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I felt like a right plonker and must have guzzled gallons of sea water in the process.

In the end we gave up as none of us could make it out to the reef, even just in the shallow water. We sat by the water’s edge for a while hoping that the tide would turn and the waves would subside, but it just didn’t happen.

On the way back, we stopped off at another empty part of the beach where the water was calmer and very shallow. It was also very warm, so when winter comes, I may take myself off to this part of the bay for more manageable temperatures (I’m a wimp).

Anyway, although it was shallow for quite a distance (which makes me nervous as I swim because I don’t really want to scrape along the bottom), it was actually brilliant to experience a new area of water with some different fish from what I normally see. Apparently, there were seahorses, but I didn’t get to see them. I did see a different type of butterflyfish from what I usually see at El Andalous and quite a few other species that were new to me of various colours, shapes and patterns.

To my immense surprise when I got back to my flat and changed, a whole load of sand dropped out of my swimming costume as I took it off. Honestly, there was almost a whole beach full of the stuff. Even as I dried myself off after my shower, sand kept on dropping down into the shower as the towel dislodged the grains. I guess those strong waves just forced bits of sand everywhere on my body.

It was also painful to sit in the evening as my bum hurt after my many falls from trying to stand up against the waves.

However, despite the failure, I felt like an intrepid explorer and it was exhilarating to be somewhere different. I really don’t know why I haven’t explored more or tried out other parts of Sahl Hasheesh. We plan to go somewhere else later this week, but even if we don’t, I will have to kick myself into ensuring I do this anyway!