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We woke up to a beautiful sunny day and got our first look of the resort by daylight. Its so cool! Our resort is right on the ocean with a pool area overlooking the sea. We wandered into town and went to a breakie restaurant that had a porch out the back right on the beach. We both ordered omelets (which were delicious) and freshly squeezed OJ to start our day. The restaurant was owned by this really annoying American woman who was treating the poor waitor boy like a school kid, telling him which way all the salt and pepper shakers had to face on tables...like, who cares!
We were reliably (mis)informed by our guide that we were booked in for 1pm for the Dolphin Adventure and we were to meet at the resort reception. It was about 10.30am by this point so had a couple of hours to kill. So we went replacement beach-dress shopping (refer previous Egyptian blog to find out what happened to Rach's previous one). We looked in every single store trying to find the perfect one. When we did find one, there was only a medium which looked way too big on Rach.
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our swimming poolWe finally went into a shop that had a few dresses Rach liked and she settled on this nice white and navy blue striped one. I think she looks really nice in it however Rach isn't sold on it after wearing it for a couple of days. So I would appreciate some comments in the blog or on FB next time you see her wearing it!!
We hurried back to the resort for our 1pm pick-up for our amazing dolphin encounter. We were waiting at reception for a bit and at about 1.20pm (with still no sign of our ride), we inquired to the woman behind the counter. She advised us that we would normally have to arrange our own transport out to the dolphin place. She called the organisers who confirmed that no transport was on its way!! And given that the boat was leaving in 5 mins, there was no way we'd be going on the dolphin tour today!! Man were we pissed off. Luckily they were able to rebook us for 1pm tomorrow so watch this space. So, the reason we missed the boat (literally) was because our stupid bloody tour guide told us to meet
at reception at 1pm. His sole job on this tour is to look after us and ensure things are organised. Why he wouldn't ring up and confirm the arrangements and tell us “by the way guys, you have to make your own way out to the dolphin place”. And its not as if he was run off his feet with our tour group booking things left-right-and-centre. Rach and I were the only ones to book an organised tour over these 2 days, everybody else was just relaxing and doing there own thing. After our initial anger subsided, we decided that we'd go down to the famous West Bay Beach and meet the rest of our tour group who were spending the afternoon in the sunshine. We hired snorkels from receiption who informed us that they are normally for 24-hour hire, however given we'd need them for the dolphin encounter tomorrow, that we could hang on to them. We were like, “we need to bring our own snorkels?” Another thing our intuitive tour guide forgot to inform us!!
Rach and I had decided a couple of days earlier that for every dumb thing our tour guide did, he would lose
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you can go on a submarine tour!!! only for $600 though a $1 off his tip at the end of the tour. So far he'd lost about $6 for screwing us around from the coffee tour (not telling us about the 3-course meal, not knowing who to pay etc.) We decided that we'd dock him for the cost of the snorkels plus another penalty for transport stuff up. At this rate, he'll be owing us by the end of the trip!!
Anyway, my rant is over...back to the day in paradise.
We got our snorkels and ventured into town looking for a water-taxi. We wandered passed a couple of dodgy-looking locals who proceeded to almost whisper “you looking for a water-taxi”. We felt like we were doing something naughty, following this bloke down a little alley way towards the ocean but turns out it was completely legit. And for U$3ea, we got a private water-taxi that took us out of the bay and down around the peninsula to West Bay Beach. The ride took us about 10 minutes and before we knew it we had landed on he beach.
We found our fellow tour members swimming in the sky-blue water, dumped our stuff and jumped in. The first
thing we noticed was just our warm the water was! It was like jumping into a bath. The next thing was that the beach was just so empty, there was hardly anyone on it! After chatting to the others for a bit (who were remarkably surprised that our dolphin encounter didn't take too long, until we filled them in on our misfortunes) we got out, grabbed our snorkel gear and headed over to the edge of the beach where we could see a bunch of snorkelers swimming around by the rocks edge.
I hadn't snorkeled for a little while so it took me a little bit to get used to breathing through the little mouth-piece again. I also forgot just how hard it is to put flippers on while getting battered with little waves!! However once I got the hang of it I was off and racing. The snorkeling was pretty cool, there were heaps of massive purple and blue fish all swimming around without a care in the world. The coral was just this browny sort of colour which was a little bland. We swam around for about 45 minutes until I got a little tired and Rach
head started to hurt (apparently she has an odd-shaped head and goggles don't fit nicely on her). We paddled back into shore and wandered back up the beach to wear our beach bag was. We then decided it was time to try and 'capture the moment' – I put all the snorkel gear back on and proceeded to stuff around in the water flapping around literally like a fish out of water; meanwhile Rach had the camera at-the-ready trying to capture the next stupid thing that I was planning. After exhausting myself with water handstands etc. it was time to swap over and Rach's turn to play water gymnastics.
Buggered and thinking we'd potentially captured our photo of the day, we laid on the sand for a bit to catch some rays. Just as the sun was getting lower in the sky, we thought we could capture some cool palm tree photos (including an awesome vertical handstand by yours-truly...I think I missed my calling...).
We packed up from the beach and headed off for a walk. There was a sign which said 'to the mall' and after wandering down an alley way were disappointed to find the 'mall'
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breakie at West End was just 4 shops, 2 of which were closed and the other 2 just little cafes. We stopped off in one to grab a milkshake and some chips to tie us over before dinner. We had organised with our tour group when we were at the beach that we'd meet up for dinner tonight...at the Argentinian Steakhouse!!!
We grabbed a water-taxi back (again for $3) however I don't think he was that happy about only taking 2 people back to the West End where we were staying because as we were putting along the coast line the driver kept yelling 'West End Water-taxi...anyone need a lift'. This is despite us being about 50m off-shore and buggered if I know how we'd get people on board if someone did want a lift!
We got back to our hotel, had a quick shower (and Rach had a quick lie down as I think too much sun had given her a headache) and we ventured out for steak. We met all the others there who were just ordering and we ordered filet mignon (sorry about the spelling) for Rach and beef tenderloin for me. To wash it down I got a
nice glass of red and Rach knocked back not one but two(!!!) strawberry daiquiris. She said it was the best one she'd had since Thailand with her mum (or was it Santorini...or the Gold Coast, I can't remember). And the food was amazing, and massive cuts of meat too! I struggled to get through mine and just finished it. To her credit, Rach almost finished hers off too and for once I was so full that I couldn't help her finish it. We called it a night straight after dinner. On the walk back I was getting meat sweats (or it may have just been the 90% humidity) and we went to sleep very tired and full, ready for our dreams of playing with the dolphins which I hope we can fulfill tomorrow!! :-)
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Mumi
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Love the pics!
Thought I'd leave you a comment here, instead of texting! Great blog Ben! Sounds like you could end up with quite a bit of money from your tour guide after a month with him! I love the snorkeling pics - of both of you...and the yellow soles of Ben's flippers have photographed particularly well! Your handstands are becoming quite a feature of this holiday Ben...this latest one is definitely worthy of a cover pic on your facebook page I reckon! It looks like a beautiful island....would love to visit one day... Oh...and....the dress looks good!