Under the sea and relaxing in paradise

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After a really good nights sleep I was up early to go snorkeling. I have never been snorkeling before, and in fact have never been in the sea out of my depth before so I didn't know how much I was going to enjoy it.

The first task was to get the right size of mask and flippers. Something which took forever and I couldn't quite understand how I was meant to know if the mask fitted unless I put my head in the water to see whether it would leak. Oh well, I chose one and off we went. We went out in a typical Zanzibar fishing boat and followed the coastline for a while. It was great to see the coastline from a boat and as we followed it around you could see some very exclusive resorts with private beaches and secluded coves. I didn't take my camera along as I didn't want to risk getting it wet, which is a shame as I would have loved to get some pics of the coast. After about 15 minutes we seem to have arrived at our first snorkeling destination. The anchor was dropped, we got the flippers and masks on and dropped into the impossibly clear water. First of all it took me ages to even get used to putting my face in the water, then it was weird getting used to being out of my depth so all in all for the first ten minutes I was just wondering what the hell I had got myself in for. Then I seemed to get the hang of it OK but I couldn't stay snorkeling for more than about a minute before I had to come up. Turns out my mask was crap. Once I got a new one it was all good and I was away. I saw all sorts of fish, small blue ones which would dart away from me as soon as I got anywhere close, some which were bigger and had black and white stripes like Zebras, some huge grey and yellow ones (hundreds of these swimming all around me). I also saw a huge starfish. When the sun came out from behind the clouds it was so beautiful to see it shimmering across the ocean floor. After moving to a few different locations to see different types of fish our time was up. I'll definitely do it again one day, maybe somewhere in Australia when I am there. It's just a shame I don't have a waterproof camera to use.

The rest of my day was spent lazing on a beautiful beach, drinking freezing cold Sprite and Coke out of glass bottles, swimming in the ocean, a bit of sunbathing and generally enjoying the experience of relaxing in paradise. The day was topped off with a nice meal out and then drinks at a beach side bar around a campfire. Perfect!

The next day was spent in a fairly similar way, sunbathing in the morning then when it got to hot hopping on the internet for a while and having a nice lunch somewhere. A bit more sunbathing in the afternoon. A good meal out and some after dinner drinks. I watched the sunset in the evening which was simply beautiful and I now possess what I think is the perfect sunset photograph, capturing the beauty of Zanzibar all in one go. I will try to get it on here ASAP. After a few perfect days in Nungwi we were heading to Stone Town the following morning to see what else the island has to offer.

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