El Andalous - Boat Trip

The Island Where We Moored

All is well here. I must have had about ten days not really seeing anyone much – just writing and swimming (and failing to get into the self-assessment site for my UK tax return)  – so I was pleased to be invited out to a boat trip with some of the Christmas crowd from Sahl Hasheesh. We were on a private boat with just us, so I thought it would be safe. And we’d be in the open air, of course.

We were blessed with a beautiful day – around 27 degrees – and the sea was very calm. When I’ve been on boat trips in the summer, the sea’s been choppier. We left at a reasonable 9.30am, so it wasn’t a horrifically early start and we were a convoy of three or four white cars, so we must have looked very purposeful.

We stopped off to do some fishing (I didn’t fish, and just remained talking to the three people who were on the top deck). They didn’t have much luck so, in the words of the ship’s captain, they decided to move on to somewhere where the fish were less intelligent.

On the next stop, they met with some success. I hope they released the fish; they were putting them in a bucket of water when I looked and someone else was saying she’d make sure they returned them to the sea. I didn’t enquire any further…. Although, to be honest, I wouldn’t blame the crew if they took some for supper.

The following stop was for snorkeling. I wish I’d asked how long we were staying as I’d have snorkeled for longer and it turned out that we moored there for a few hours. If I heard correctly, even the boats have to socially distance these days, so it was nice not to have other people around me while I snorkeled. We were moored by a small island. Coming back, I returned to the wrong ship (but realized before I tried to get on), so in a way I was longer than I meant to be.

Theresa and the daughter of Fran made pizzas on board (there was a small kitchen and a large dining table on the boat). Some people started jumping in the water again. Amazingly, Alexa jumped off from the very top of the boat and she’s going to be 80 years old next birthday. You wouldn’t believe it to look at her and she has more energy than most people I know. She’s such an inspiration. I was quaking at jumping off from the edge of the boat! Needless to say, she gave me some stick for that.

I finally dived from the side and went for a swim. Unfortunately, the boat left, not realizing that I’d not got back on. That’s the second time this has happened to me now. However, this time I didn’t realise. I decided maybe I should turn back and at one point I noticed that the steps to get on the boat had been pulled up, but I just carried on swimming (I’d just have to shout at them to pull them down again, I thought). Apparently, someone asked where I was and they stopped the boat! This resulted in everyone standing by the side of the boat and cheering me on as I swam. I got a load of really nice compliments on my swimming afterwards, so I was completely unfazed by it all.

Next stop was somewhere calm so that we could eat. The pizza was delicious – they made some without cheese for me. I’m not normally a fan of pizza anyway, but the crust (the pizza was all home made) was amazing. I’ve never tasted such a nice crust before. It all had to be eaten up, so by the end I was really stuffed.

We arrived back at sunset. All in all, it was a perfect day and was just what I wanted at this point in time. I am so privileged!