Kas, Turkey - Swimming Holiday

Me Lagging Behind! Photo (c) Strel-Swimmming

Well, I arrived back safe and sound and, believe it or not, I even felt rested!

I don’t know if we’re having an exceptionally beautiful autumn this year or if it’s just because I haven’t seen an autumn for two years, but I’m often struck these days by the oranges and reds of the trees around me. It’s wonderful. When I took off from Zurich airport, it was great to see all the hillsides with splashes of different colours down below.

I changed at Istanbul to fly on to Dalaman and then, from Dalaman, I’d arranged to share a 2-hour transfer with a woman who was also on the same holiday as I was. I didn’t get into Dalaman until 21:20, so it always was going to be a late night. I was a bit nervous about sharing a two-hour transfer with a stranger, having to chat when I was tired, and then having to swim after a short night’s sleep but it was too late to do anything about that.

Anyway, it all went – err – swimmingly. That’s despite the fact that I arrived at Dalaman in the warm air, enchanted to see bougainvillea flowers around me, but then to find that my bag hadn’t arrived with me. However, it transpired that what they meant was that my bag was in the international terminal and I’d arrived in the domestic one. A short bus ride reunited me with my belongings and, for once, I’d taken my mobile phone with me and had it switched on, so I was able to text my transfer companion to let her know what was happening.

She turned out to be the same age as me and she’d been on two of these holidays before, so she was able to answer some of my questions as we drove along through the dark Turkish roads. She was great company, so it was all a bit of a relief. We didn’t arrive until 1am, and we had to be up at 8am for our induction, so that stressed me out a bit and I didn’t sleep too well. There was a list of participants handed to us, so it was good to have that to remind myself during the week.

Anyway, I got up to bright blue sky and sunshine and a view over the sea. I immediately felt better about things.

We had a short swim before breakfast so that they could group us into slow, medium, and fast swimmers. It was already clear at that point that I was by far the slowest swimmer; some people managed to see some turtles even on that first swim, but I was too busy trying to catch up or turning round early so that I wouldn’t be the last back.

There were nine of us altogether so it was a nice-sized group; there was one Australian couple, one Canadian couple, a Dutch woman, and the rest of us were Brits. Most of them were around my age, with just two who were probably quite a bit younger.

The routine was to have breakfast at 8am, which wasn’t too bad a time at all (much to my relief!), then on the boat by 9.15am, sail for a while, then we’d go on our mid-morning swim of over 2 km. After that, we had a rest on the boat or would play in the sea while they cooked our lunch. Lunch was served on a long table on the boat where we sat and passed round the dishes and chatted while we ate. We would then sunbathe, read, or talk on the boat for 90-minutes, and then we’d be taken on a shorter swim of just under 2km. We swam 23km in 5 days. I feel quite proud of myself.

The weather was fantastic – sun, blue skies, air temperature in the high 20s, and sea temperature around 25 degrees. The water was a swimming-pool blue and crystal clear. It couldn’t be better.

I did end up swimming quite a bit faster than I would do given the choice, since I was always far behind the others. I was the only one swimming breast stroke. They asked me to wear a bright orange buoyancy tag so that they could spot where I was and be sure I wouldn’t drown. I felt a bit of a plonker, but I could understand the rationale. Although I swam faster than usual and felt I was racing – that was me pressurizing myself, I hasten to add – I was quite pleased that actually the distances were fine and I wasn’t even out of breath by the end of it. I could feel my arms starting to ache a bit towards the end of each swim, but that’s a good thing (I think).

There was the main boat and 2 dinghies following us to see if we needed water or help. I felt fortunate to have gone with Strel Swimming as I heard that another, similar company tends to have competitive people on their trips all trying to swim faster than each other and you’re in the water by 7.30am. For me, that’s not a holiday! This was very relaxed and no-one minded me being slow.

Everyone in the group was friendly and encouraging. The Australian guy said his mother was still taking part in 3km swimming competitions at the age of 88 years old.

It turned out that the Canadian guy held the Guinness World Record for chin-ups; I can't remember how many he did now, but it took him 12 hours! Actually, the founder of the company has Guinness World Records for open-water swimming, including swimming the Yangtze where dead bodies were floating down the water in the darkness of the night. I can't say I have any ambition to do that.

I guess they have the privilege of saying that they had the author of 25 New Year’s Resolutions—For Fish! on their trip, but somehow I don’t think that’s quite so impressive.

Anyway, it was great. We had time to ourselves during the day if we wanted it, we swam in beautiful water in stunning scenery, and in the evenings we’d meet up and go out for a meal together. Kas was a lovely town. I wasn’t exhausted by the end; I’d felt I’d had a rest and with all that exercise I felt I’d managed to totally switch off.

It did make me miss Egypt a bit – that kind of lifestyle really is my idea of perfection.

Zurich - Booking a Holiday

Badi Enge - "Are you able to swim back, too?"

I mentioned a while back that I’ve booked myself on a swimming holiday. I stumbled across it in the summer months when I was searching for some long-distance swims that I could take part in. There were two in Switzerland (2.65 km and 3 km; the 2.65 km one I’d done before, so was really looking for something a bit longer) and, actually, I ended up missing them both. They were both on the same weekend and it happened to be one of the very few weekends where it was raining, so I opted out. Typical!

Anyway, because it was “swimming season”, I was feeling all enthusiastic and full of desire for new challenges. I like swimming in the lake, but there’s only so far you can swim, so you have to repeat stretches if you want to swim a certain distance. Consequently, I was trying to find these “long distance” swims to take part in. During these swims, the waterways are closed off to other boats, and the way is indicated and lined with rescue boats for a safe swim.

I finally found a really good site and it asked you to state your competence for it to select you swims of an appropriate distance. I naively thought that if I could swim around 3 km, I could be fairly termed as an “intermediate” swimmer. To my horror, the intermediate swims started at 10 km in length. Even the beginner ones went up to 10 km, so it was a reality check. Maybe it was meant more for professional open-water swimmers?

The other problem I have is that the longer swims usually require you to swim crawl, whereas I swim pretty much only breast-stroke. I can see the logic, because they can’t close the waters all day while people just go along casually at their own speed, but it doesn’t make it any less frustrating when I’d like to have the opportunity to push myself a bit.

Anyway, on the left-hand side of the website there was an advertisement for a swimming holiday. When I clicked on it, I found that it was doing exactly what I wanted. You go out on a boat, swim 2-3 km in the morning and the same again in the afternoon. You have lunch on the boat. You’re accompanied by a few dinghies so that all swimming speeds are catered for, and you swim from bay to bay or island to island. I will definitely be in the slowest group, since even my breast stroke isn’t that fast. If you want a rest from swimming, you can just sunbathe or read on the boat instead. Perfect!

I’ve booked myself on a week’s holiday to Turkey (taking in one Greek island as well) and they are claiming the water will be 24 degrees. I hope this is true as I’m not very good with water that’s much colder! I’m a luxury swimmer at heart. On the first day they also film you from below and above water and give you tips as to how to improve your swimming. It should be interesting.

Of course, now that I’ve committed to it, I’m feeling a bit nervous. What if I can’t do those distances, will we have to get up really early in the morning, what if I’m so much slower than everyone else, what if the water’s too cold, will they try to force me to swim faster, what if I need the toilet, will I be too exhausted when I get back to do any work?

By the time you’re reading this, I will have returned, so I’ll let you know how I got on next week!

Zurich - Long Night of the Museums

Zurich Tomato Festival

Zurich is full of festivals; it’s probably one of the things I miss most when I'm in Hurghada. In Zurich, there’s always something new happening, something going on. In Hurghada, it can be a struggle to think of something else to do. It’s partly a function of Zurich being a larger city and partly a function, I guess, of it being located in a richer country. There are, of course, also advantages that Hurghada / Sahl Hasheesh has over Zurich, otherwise I wouldn’t be living there.

Anyway, when Geraldine came over to visit, as well as it being the month of “Zurich Eats!”, it was also the weekend of the “Long Night of the Museums”. This is the one night a year when all the museums stay open until around midnight and you can buy a single ticket for entry to them all.

We’d done this in a previous year, but we messed up a bit when it came to the clock museum because we got lost. Looking back, I can’t understand how this happened, because the museum is in the main shopping street and we’d ended up in some rather dodgy back streets with no form of public transport. And, when we did finally find it, the tickets were sold out (it has limited entry). But I could swear that when we’d found it, it wasn’t on the main street, but I could also swear that the museum hasn’t moved. It doesn’t really add up, but that’s memory for you.

So, this meant that we both had a certain determination to get in this year (and not to get lost!). I was a bit more on the ball (at least I’d learned from past experience!) and discovered that you can reserve places in advance from the museum itself. This was helpful because not only were we guaranteed entry, we also knew exactly where it was before we had to get there.

Although special buses are laid on for the event to take you from museum to museum, in practice it’s not so easy to see that much because it requires a lot of coordination. There’s not one circular line; there are five or six separate bus routes, so you need to know which buses go from where and what times and to which places. Inevitably, I haven’t worked all this out in advance to military precision.

We didn’t do so badly, though. The cactus collection (yes, not really a museum, but the zoo and botanical gardens were also included, for example, so the term “museum” is quite broad) was just up from the Street Food Festival that we went to, so that was our first stop.

For the Long Night, they’d laid on a musical performance as well to reflect how music, like plants, can also adapt. They hadn’t really made any concession for foreign visitors though – not only were all the introductions and explanations only in German, they were actually only in Swiss German. I could get a rough gist of what they were saying, but I was lost for quite a lot of it. Geraldine, who doesn’t even speak German, was probably completely flummoxed.

We also visited the Botanical Gardens – not that you can see a lot at night, but they’d got food stalls there, a special display where you sniff things hidden in barrels and guess what they are (I think I identified only one out of six!), and a display of saffron, which was their theme. They even offered a saffron cocktail for you to sample, but I’m not sure I’d drink it again.

After that, we finally made it – without problem – to the clock museum. It’s inside a very posh shop – I can’t quite remember but it wouldn’t surprise me if the salesmen were wearing white gloves – and, again, the tour did not consider the possible presence of foreign visitors, so the spiel was all rattled off in Swiss German. However, with it being an upper-end shop, the snacks provided were also rather delicious. It was just sandwiches, if I recall correctly, but I also remember that they tasted very good. We even got a glass of Prosecco with the snacks and then a Lindor chocolate ball as a leaving present.

Oh, and the museum was good too (I almost forgot in my excitement over the food and drink)! It took you through the history of clocks from using water and sun to tell the time, and even incense sticks, to modern-day waterproof technology and, of course, fine, high-end timepieces as well.

And that was about all we had time for. I think I’ve been three times now and have never repeated a museum yet!

Zurich - New Year's Resolutions--For Fish!

Now Out on Kindle! Thanks to Everyone who Voted.

It’s that time of year again where I indulge myself in talking about the release of my annual New Year’s Resolutions book.

I’d kind of committed to releasing 25 New Year’s Resolutions – For Fish! (NYR Fish!) in October this year, since I’d stated the date in my other books ( –For Dogs! and –For Cats!). At the time, I hadn’t realized that I would be back doing a full-time job in Zurich. It would have been much easier to get it out in time if I hadn’t needed to work!

I also didn’t know that I would be so busy in September (I haven’t had a single free weekend), so it’s been a bit stressful getting it done and even now I’ve only managed to get the kindle version out so far (although the paperback should follow this week, if I’ve done the set-up correctly).

NYR Fish! was enjoyable to write as it took me back to being in Sahl Hasheesh and my daily swims; those swims already feel like another world now. I’ve even started to forget the names of some of the fish, whereas when I was living in Egypt I was completely absorbed in it. Most evenings I would spend time reading my guide books and trying to identify which fish I might have seen that day.

As usual, selecting photographs was the most time-consuming part of the process. On this occasion, it was a bit of a mixture between my previous two techniques. I had the resolutions first and then found the photographs, but some of the resolutions had been inspired by photographs that I knew I already had.

Collecting fish is allegedly the second most popular hobby in the world, and to my great joy this was borne out by there being loads of good photographs available on Flickr.com. Unfortunately, there were two resolutions (“Do the longest poo” and “Contribute to the environment”) where I experienced particular difficulty in identifying a suitable picture. I’d found two really good options on the internet (one of which had inspired that first resolution), but neither of them had an attribution to the photographer. Consequently, I was stumped as to how to get the copyright / permission for using it in my book. I spent quite a lot of time sending out enquiries, but to no avail.

At one point, I considered risking it and adding a note in the copyright section of my book asking the photographers to come forward if they found their work printed in my book. Neither of them were professional photographers, so I didn’t think I was taking away income from them.

But I chickened out. I re-read all the copyright stuff that I’m so familiar with. I even toyed with the idea that maybe I could argue that the photographs were being used for commentary. But in the end I had to admit that I shouldn’t really use them without permission.

I also discovered a blog where someone had been prosecuted and fined for using photographs from the internet, even though she hadn’t used the photographs for commercial purposes and she’d removed the photographs immediately once she realized she was breaking the law.

And then I read claims that one company finds people who have not asked for permission to reproduce photographs, they then purchase up the copyright themselves, and subsequently prosecute those people for using them without permission. These rumours may well be completely false, and in my opinion it’s dodgy on legal grounds (at the time of implementation, the photographs were not under that company’s copyright), but it was enough to scare me. Having said that, I can’t see how anyone could have located the photographers of the photos I wanted to use because I, at least, found it impossible.

Anyway, I ended up playing safe and staying 100% legal. Life is too short for the potential stress that could occur later.

But it left me with a problem, because I couldn’t find any Creative Commons-licensed images to fit my needs. I ended up looking at photographs with rights reserved where I could find out who the creator was in order to ask for permission. I got there in the end, but it was a lot of work that you don’t really appreciate when you look at the end product.

I’ve also learned from past experience to keep a screen grab of the Creative Commons license for each photograph; I’ve had cases in the past where people have removed the Creative Commons license and demanded money as soon as I informed them that I’d used their picture in my book. I couldn’t argue that they were bound by the agreement, because I had no proof that they had initially licensed their work under Creative Commons for commercial use. In these cases, I’ve always removed the photograph and used another one – I’m not going to reward that kind of behaviour!

Anyway, the kindle version (US, UK) of NYR Fish! is now available; the paperback should be out by the end of this week, with any luck. To find out about price changes, free giveaways, etc, just visit and like the dedicated facebook page!