We continue to marvel the wondrous location of our campsite: 10 steps from the edge of the water in our private coved-in beach. We pack the car for what Willie calls “dive-crawling”. Our first stop is at a beach where several other people are snorkeling – clearly a popular place as there are mini-vans that brought tourists. I sit on the beach while the 3 guys go in. I am intrigued with a woman, bare feet, with a head and mouth covering, who is reading from a book which could be the Koran and my thoughts are that she must be a very devoted Muslim. She is part of a group – 2 middle-aged men and another woman with a headscarf – fully dressed but enjoying the beach. The woman walks my way and then addresses me in a thick English accent asking me whether I think it is ok for her to keep a shell she picked up from the beach. She sits down next to me and we have a very interesting conversation. They are from Yorkshire in England and are visiting. She’s been raised in England and they have a small business. Her every word revolves around her belief and she shares very interesting facts with me – many about her own struggles with racism after she hears that I’m originally from South Africa. She tells me a little of her family and my appetite has been whetted to hear more about her when they had to go. I am disappointed and really would have liked to spend more time with her.
I go into the water after the guys report that the coral and fish are beautiful. I am carried into a different underwater world – a world that silently continues to exist; filled with incredulous beauty and life; a world I never knew of and words cannot express my gratitude for the privilege I have to experience this.
As I surface from the underwater world I notice that Fatima is back and is talking to Hugo and Andrej while her husband is having a conversation with Willie. She comes to me and I give her my e-mail address. She tells me that it is not a coincidence that we’ve met and that we will hear from one another again. I will be so happy to continue my conversation with her and to get to know her and her family better.
On with our dive-crawling and the next stop is where several boats, hovering slowly over the coral reefs, can be seen. Willie and I go in first and I get smashed on the shallow reef a few times before entering into deeper waters. What we see is breathtaking – a never-ending lush, colorful underwater coral garden with fish – big and small, different shapes, sizes, colors, everywhere – as far as the eye can see – a magic, silent, unseen, underwater world – magnificent, brilliant, wonderful, dazzling, bravura fall short in describing the beauty!
We see two new species of birds and suddenly a very unusual bird appears from nowhere – we could not identify it, except that it kept on saying, “I’m hungry, I’m hungry…!”We are still working on it.
As I surface from the underwater world I notice that Fatima is back and is talking to Hugo and Andrej while her husband is having a conversation with Willie. She comes to me and I give her my e-mail address. She tells me that it is not a coincidence that we’ve met and that we will hear from one another again. I will be so happy to continue my conversation with her and to get to know her and her family better.
On with our dive-crawling and the next stop is where several boats, hovering slowly over the coral reefs, can be seen. Willie and I go in first and I get smashed on the shallow reef a few times before entering into deeper waters. What we see is breathtaking – a never-ending lush, colorful underwater coral garden with fish – big and small, different shapes, sizes, colors, everywhere – as far as the eye can see – a magic, silent, unseen, underwater world – magnificent, brilliant, wonderful, dazzling, bravura fall short in describing the beauty!
We see two new species of birds and suddenly a very unusual bird appears from nowhere – we could not identify it, except that it kept on saying, “I’m hungry, I’m hungry…!”We are still working on it.
We go to Sharm-el-Sheikh to buy food and find a dead tree on an empty lot. The American cowboy and African farmer conquer the tree and we leave Sharm loaded with a wood supply for a long awaited evening fire. We have our first “braai” (barbeque) – with Kofta (a kind of spicy sausage), onion and potatoes in foil with pita bread to round it off. We watch an interesting, controversial documentary (quite bizarre – watch a movie on a laptop on the edge of the Red Sea in the Mount Sinai desert!) on the true location of Mount Sinai: Saudi-Arabia or Egypt…? A perfect day at a perfect place!
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