El Andalous - Back in the Sea

Longfin Spadefish

Well, I can’t really not have a sea-swimming blog while I’m over here! I was back swimming in the sea after about 5 days after my arrival, so the sea warmed up more quickly than I thought it would (or the coldness really was in part tiredness on my first day). Now that I’ve been here almost four weeks, I’d say it’s about the temperature I was expecting it to be when I first arrived. It’s really quite warm; a bit cold when you first get in, but I can get in straight away without any drama; my guess would be that it’s around 26 degrees .

We’ve had a heatwave since about Tuesday and I think it will last until I leave. This means temperatures of around 40 degrees here and over 50 degrees in Cairo. Here, it’s quite manageable as long as you sit in the shade. Temperatures at night are around 31 degrees, but I’m sleeping well (with my fan on).

I’ve had to change my swimming direction, since the route I like to swim is currently blocked with jellyfish. When I tried going in that direction, I could have sworn that the jellyfish were all ganging up on me. One seemed to cling to my armpit, they kept on banging into my face, and if I swung to a different direction, they just seemed to follow me. I didn’t think they stung, but after a few days I had a swollen lip and a swollen nose with what looked a bit like bites, and I think that was from the jellyfish. It didn’t hurt at the time; it was just very annoying and constantly alarming as they magically drifted right towards me as if I were some kind of magnet.

Maybe I’m attractive to fish? Maybe they think I’m a big superior fish to be adulated? When I swim in the other direction and look at all the fish hovering underneath the old dock, the rudderfish also make a beeline for me. Normally, I like being among the fish, but these ones zoom right towards me at high speed and it’s quite scary, even though they are small. It’s like a game of chicken as at the last minute they always divert round me, and then swim back and do it all over again. I try splashing about a bit to try to deter them, but they still persist. I’m not sure if they are expecting food (since if I swim away, they seem to follow me fairly placidly as if I’m one of their shoal, so it doesn’t seem that they are warning me away, but maybe they are and they are just seeing me of their premises) or what it’s all about.

The other fish are more placid. At the moment, we have some beautiful longfin spadefish (also known as batfish, see photo) hovering under the old pier. I’ve never seen them before, so it’s always a treat to watch them (they don’t really do much).

I also saw a huge turtle maneuvering itself to grab hold of the coral and bite a chunk off. I have a tendency to blame the tourists for broken coral, but the parrotfish and, apparently, turtles, are also guilty. I went over once to the Tropitel to snorkel there, but they’ve now cordoned off their reef so that you can’t get too close to the coral. I guess this is good as some of the tourists did used to stand on it, despite warning whistles from the guard, but it’s a shame as you can’t get such a good view any more. Still, it’s good to see they are trying to protect their underwater heritage.

As for my swimming, I was quite pleased as my speed in the open water seems to have got a bit faster since I was last here; however, I got someone to take a video of me in our swimming pool and I posted it on a swimming forum for some expert advice on my stroke. After that, while I’ve been trying to correct my stroke further, my speed has once again gone right down and is now worse than it was before, presumably because I'm struggling to do it correctly. I will just have to keep the faith that in the end, it will indeed help.