El Andalous - First Wetsuit

A Good Snorkeling Day

Although the sea here just now is warm enough to swim – my guess would be that it’s around 24 degrees centigrade – it’s a little cold for snorkeling and my arms get goose bumps if I’m not moving around at any speed. It had been suggested to me many times to get a wetsuit. I’ve been reluctant, because they look like a lot of effort to put on, but since I’ve been earning some money this year in Zurich, I thought maybe I’d buy one while I have the spare cash.

I’d decided that I wanted a wetsuit with short legs and long arms, since really it’s my arms that get cold. I looked around in Hurghada, but could only find full wetsuits or ones with short arms and short legs. So, I went to Miami with a mission in mind.

I can’t really say I enjoyed buying my wetsuit – it was all a bit embarrassing. The first one I tried on was too small (I thought it was my size, but I couldn’t get the zip done up). I got so flustered with trying to put it on, since I didn’t know how tight it was supposed to be, that I sweated quite a bit; in any case, I was in Miami with temperatures in the high 20s and then the wetsuit just made me feel hotter as I tried it on. And then I got more flustered because I was sweating and making the wetsuit wet, and that sweat in turn might just have been making me hotter still when trapped between the wetsuit and my skin. Or maybe it was menopause-related. Or a bit of everything. In any case, I felt embarrassed, but had to brave it out.

I had to ask for the next size up, which was the largest one they had in the store. Yikes. I didn’t think I was that big! The next one fitted and I felt obliged to buy it after sweating all over their first one, even though I looked like a beached whale in it. Every little bulge is visible; I’m not that lithe, perfect-body sportswoman that you always see on TV when you see people wearing wetsuits. Surely it’s impossible for any normal person to look good in a wetsuit? I’d really not appreciated that before. The one I was trying on was light blue, so maybe that also doesn’t hide your faults as well as black. Well, that’s my excuse.

I have managed to try it out a couple of times already. I was impressed with the long tape attached to the zip, so that you can pull the zip up at the back yourself.

I’d been away from Egypt for a while, so it is hard to judge how well it insulated me (I got a 2mm wetsuit). It doesn’t really save you much from the shock of getting in (I was reading up online about wetsuits and some people were saying they urinated in their wetsuits because the pee is nice and warm!!).

The first time I used it, it had been a full moon and the waves were really choppy, so it felt as if water was constantly sloshing into my wetsuit and I wasn’t too sure if I’d got it on correctly. Actually, if I were prone to feeling seasick, I think I’d have felt nauseous. As I was carried back and forth by the pull of the sea, there was a really bizarre optical illusion that made it look as if the entire coral reef was lurching backwards and forwards (but it must have been me, obviously) as if it were one huge shove-penny slot machine.

The sand was also swirling everywhere and when I got back, I could barely see two inches in front of me – the coral reef would suddenly appear in front of my face as I tried to find it so that I could get my bearings as to where to get out (there’s a bit where there’s a gap in the reef where I can get in and out). It was quite scary and I was careful never to get too close to the reef.

The second time it was calm. Because I knew what to expect with the wetsuit, I wasn’t so aware of water circulating around, but I felt colder, possibly because I was more relaxed. I think if I didn’t have the wetsuit, it would probably have been too cold for me to snorkel; I was at my warmest when I just floated rather than when I moved; I guess because the movement makes new water come in.

However it’s much, much easier getting out of the water with a wetsuit. It’s horrible when there’s wind as it’s just so cold when you walk back onto the land. There are often times where I am reluctant to swim, just because I know I will be really cold when I come out. With the wetsuit, I’m no longer a shivering wreck!

More on the Cruise

Coconut Beach, Barbados

I thought I’d use up just one more blog on my cruise since it was my first major holiday for quite a while.

I was quite curious to see what they’d do for Christmas on the cruise. Christmas day was scheduled to be at St Kitts and I’d heard several people say that the signature event of caviar in the surf was not to be missed. I did an open-topped train tour of the island in the morning (with rum cocktails included!); apparently they had three scheduled for Christmas day and since each one was about three hours long, that was a long day for those working. But I guess they have to take the tourists while they are around.

The caviar in the surf event was quite bizarre – the cruise staff came in by speedboat and dropped fully-clothed into the sea with a surfboard full of champagne and caviar. Everyone waded up and got their fill of champagne and as much caviar as they wished. The water was warm, maybe 27 degrees. They also set up a barbecue on the beach for lunch (including lobster, although I thought the chicken was more interesting…). It was a lot of work for the staff but a lot of fun for everyone, I hope.

There was turkey in the evening, but it was a fine dining turkey rather than your traditional roast with stuffing, brussel sprouts, gravy, pigs in blankets, and roast potatoes. Probably due to a discussion we’d had on board a few evenings earlier, where we were talking about snowballs (the drink - remember them?), they also offered everyone some egg nogg. The chief purser was hosting my table that evening.

We got two small presents with one on Christmas Eve and one on Christmas Day (thus satisfying the Europeans and the UK folk), so that was a nice touch. Decorations were added to the ship each day and on Christmas Eve they brought out gingerbread replicas of famous world landmarks such as the Eiffel Tower and the Leaning Tower of Pisa adorned with a multitude of sweets and cakes that you could help yourself to.

I attended two nature talks but due to the hurricanes, the dolphins and whales did not make an appearance this year; normally they would have been in the bay at St Kitts, but they weren’t around and much of the coral had been damaged. My nature highlights were seeing all the pigeons in Parque de Palomas in Puerto Rico and the pelicans at Nevis. The pelicans were incredible as they dived down vertically like bombs into the sea, often just beside tourists swimming or talking in the water. I’d never seen that before and I could have watched them endlessly.

There was, of course, evidence still of hurricane damage with fallen trees and electricity lines drooping. It was the first time our ship had stopped in Puerto Rico since the hurricane. The town looked brightly painted, so maybe we even saw some of it at its best if it had been newly restored. On some islands, it was clear that they were desperate for some trade and even now I regret not buying a dress from one woman.

I hadn’t really been prepared for different islands to have different currencies: some had Euros, some had US dollars, some had Eastern Caribbean dollars. I’ll add a few more photos this time, just for posterity!

Three Pelicans: Flying, Swimming, Landing

Carbet Falls, Guadaloupe

Hurricane Damage, Illes des Saintes

Tsunami Evacuation Route, Nevis

Puerto Rico

Leaning Tower of Pisa in Gingerbread on the Ship's Stage

Puerto Rico Number Plate

El Andalous - Back!

A Toast to 2018! Me and Santa in the sea at Carambola beach, St Kitts

I just arrived back on New Year’s Eve, having come back from Barbados via Miami and Zurich. Some of the beaches in the Caribbean are really idyllic, although actually many of them aren’t so good for swimming as the waves are pretty impressive (and dangerous!).

After ten days of fine dining, I’m actually getting to the stage where I’m dying just to have some simple food for a change. I’ve eaten too much and it’s all starting to tell! However, I really enjoyed the cruise – I was invited to join a table of invited guests each night to dine with one of the crew, which was a great option, and my view from the cabin was always five-star by default (how can you go wrong with a constant, unobstructed sea view?).

I really liked both Barbados and Miami – in fact, I’m wondering if I could come over for a couple of months and work from Miami instead of Zurich for a little while. I’m not sure how practical that would be or even whether I’d want to spoil my experience by doing work at the same time, but it’s good to have a little dream now and again.

Sahl Hasheesh is gearing up for a big party to see the new year in, so maybe I’ll post some photos of that next week. Meanwhile, I’m going to start off the new year with a KFC in the evening of 1st Jan, so that already bodes well for the year ahead.

Wishing everyone a healthy and happy 2018 laced with pleasant surprises just to keep it interesting! Thanks for reading.

Basse-Terre, Guadeloupe

Carbet Falls Guadeloupe

I’m still alive and well – eating rather too much but wishing I could eat more without detriment!

Today (Sunday) was a trip through the rain forest to the Carbet Falls; it’s 24th December, so many people celebrate Christmas today rather than tomorrow. Apparently, in Guadeloupe they eat goat on 24th December, plus many vegetables and beans. There’s also a potent and sweet orange liqueur that they drink only at this time of year. The guide said twice that it was very strong!

I have a busy day tomorrow, Christmas Day. I’m booked on a railway tour round St Kitts on a train with an open upper-deck and wicker chairs on the bottom. Sounds fun. After that it’s straight onto the beach for “Caviar in the surf” followed by a beach barbecue, and then I assume I’ll be swimming or snorkeling. It all sounds good to me.

Thank you for reading my blog (I should have reminded you all to buy some of my “25 New Year’s Resolutions – For Cats/Dogs/Fish!” books as Christmas presents, but never mind!) – wishing everyone who is reading this a very Merry Christmas (if applicable) and in any case health and happiness in 2018!

Cruise - Miami

Bayside Miami

I don’t intend to write a blog for the next three weeks since I’ll be travelling on my holidays. By the time you read this, I’ll have left Miami and will be en route to Puerto Rico. I’m on a cruise round the West Indies.

I’ve met up with two sisters who are teaching me all the ins and outs of cruising (the biggest advice seems to be to order as much as possible and give your free bottles away instead of tips). I had a great day in Miami looking round Bayside and starting my holiday off with a speedboat tour of Miami. I was completely shocked to see how big some of the cruise ships are.

I had a bottle of champagne in my room as a welcome present , so drank a couple of glasses from that as we departed for Puerto Rico.

Anyway, I’ll try to leave a photo each week, but no guarantee of a proper update!

It’s warmer here than in Egypt

El Andalous - Cats

My December Visitory

A peculiarity (at least to me) of living in Egypt is the preponderance of wild cats and dogs that roam about the streets, restaurants, and cafes. It’s quite a topic of discussion over here.

We have a few wild cats in El Andalous, but they look fairly well fed and almost as if they are descended from domesticated cats. I had one visit me twice this week.

The first time, it was yowling outside my balcony. I stood up to find out what was making the noise and the cat looked up at me. I invited it onto my balcony and to my surprise, it ran across, jumped over my wall and joined me. What was more astonishing was that it seemed to be wanting someone to stroke it rather than desiring food.

I’ve never seen a cat look so happy to be stroked. He purred and slanted his eyes in happiness, nudged me to continue, turned his head if he wanted to be scratched behind his ear or on his neck. Every time I stopped, he started to yowl again. Every time I went into the kitchen to get something to drink, he would yowl outside. When I sat down, he sat on top of my computer or tried to nudge himself to sit right beside or behind me. It was very cute. He was actually still a kitten because his paws were still quite large, but it wasn’t a tiny kitten. I’d say it was an adolescent.

I was tempted to feed it, but since I’m going on holiday soon and I don’t stay here all year round, I didn’t want him to become dependent on me. Also, it would be a good idea for him to kill some of the rodents that must still be around rather than eating canned food. He stayed the entire day right up until it got dark, much to my surprise.

He visited again two days later, but I haven’t seen him since (I have heard the yowl, though!), and he didn’t stay so long on the second visit.

If you get too many cats around in any one place, of course, they can be a nuisance and there are many horror stories going around in Hurghada about people leaving poison out to kill them off (and then people’s domestic cats also get killed).

Joke told me that one café was being troubled by too many cats, so she advised them, ironically, to keep a cat family there who would regard the café as their territory. The cats would then make sure that other cats would not come. They did this, Joke comes in to feed the cats, and the cats in turn are indeed protecting their territory and the café is no longer overrun with them.

There’s a charity – I think it’s called Blue Moon – that will neuter cats and dogs in order to help keep the problem in check. A daughter of one of the owners over here, who is a vet, came over to do some voluntary work for them. She said the government had even offered a financial incentive for each cat or dog brought in to be neutered, only most people can’t afford the taxi ride to get it to the vet.

And there are a fair number of cat lovers over here. There’s a café called the Purrfect Cuppa which houses loads of cats that just roam the place. The tables are armed with water bottles so you can squirt the cats with water if you don’t want them near you. I’ve never been there myself but several people say it’s a great place to go (if you like cats, I guess!). I can’t imagine that taking off in Europe, though!

El Andalous - New Camera

Sahl Hasheesh, Entrance Piazza at Night (Courtesy of New Camera)

I managed to get my credit card unblocked and in the mean time my camera started to work again. However, it took only one snorkeling trip and me taking the batteries out afterwards for the camera to decide it didn’t want to do it again. I think it’s just getting a bit old (a bit like me!); a little bit of water is visible when I open the battery compartment and although I leave it open so that it can dry out internally, I suspect some damage may have been done. Either that, or it always takes a few weeks for it to dry out completely but that’s just too long for me to wait.

I tried searching online for anywhere in Egypt that would sell me the camera I wanted (or indeed any decent underwater camera), but the only vendor I could find was in Cairo and seemed to be the same one that was selling it via souq.com (and thus sold out), so I didn’t bother.

I decided it might be interesting to go on amazon to look at the reviews of the camera I wanted and also to see the reviews of my current camera; to my astonishment, the amazon site for the product came up with the message: “This item can be delivered to Egypt”. I couldn’t believe my eyes! Amazon never used to deliver to Egypt at all (not even kindle books). This was a major step forward in life!

It did make some sense, since I’d noticed that souq.com now also had the amazon logo on its page and was somehow related to amazon.

I decided to give it a go – I ordered it from the UK site, my credit card was accepted first time (hurrah!), and the site informed me that the camera would arrive in 4 days’ time! Impressive. I wasn’t quite ready to believe it, so I waited for a message that my order had been cancelled but, no, instead I got an email informing me that my purchased item was on its way.

It actually took 6 days to arrive rather than 4 (for some reason it went via Germany and France), but that’s still pretty good for Egypt. I had to pay an extra 45 GBP import tax, which is quite a lot (about 15%), but it was well worth it!

I can’t explain how exciting it is to think that I can now order at least some things off amazon from Egypt. It’s up there with having a supermarket open in Sahl Hasheesh. I do try to buy locally, but some things are just impossible to get over here and more so since Egypt has fallen on hard times.

I eagerly went out on Sunday to try the camera out (it’s the first time I’ve ever had a top-of-the-category camera), but unfortunately, due to the Super Moon, even though it was an unusually non-windy day, the waves were large due to the pull of the moon (I guess). Trying to see underwater was like gazing through fog with all the sand that was being swept up with the waves. I was actually a bit scared of being thrown out onto the coral by the waves, so I stayed a respectful distance. I took some photographs, but although some of them were promising, they all suffered from the “fog” blurring the images. Hopefully the tides will have calmed down by next week!