I decided to write this part, if left to Mark's devices it would have turned in to a grand tale of gargantuan sea monsters, great ship wrecking seas and no doubt battles with rouge pirates... Mark is 'arrring' at me as I write, he says Joe, Zoltan and Mat would appreciate me mentioning it, plus he's quietly singing some song containing 'yo ho ho'?!? Your guess is as good as mine, anyway on with what happened...

Friday 17th September

Again we woke up at daylight to get ready for our 7am boat ride from Pangani (North East coast of Tanzania) to Nungwi (North of Zanzibar island). We finally had our clothes washed the previous day and had put them on lines across our bungalow to dry. Unfortunately this was a waste of effort for the ladies who washed them and a waste of money as the clothes had a horrid, almost sickening smell. Mark thought maybe some of the clothes had been washed with dirty water hence the bad smell. The clothes hadn't dried yet, but we frustratingly packed them anyway imagining the comforting scent of Lenor. We took a few pictures, waved goodbye to the paradise beach bungalow and watched some crabs scuttle out the way for us as we walked towards the shore.

Mark and I were both feeling rather anxious about the boat ride. First of all, we were told by the hotel owner to wear our swimming costumes as the boat wouldn't be able to come onto the shore to pick us up. Visions of swimming far out into the sea to clamber aboard a boat came to my mind. How were we supposed to get our bags on the boat without them getting wet?! Mark was agitated by the thought of a measly sized boat and how he would cope for three hours travelling across the sea. 

We tried to enjoy the glorious sunrise in the most perfect location and not too long after, we spotted our boat in the horizon. It was about a 16 foot long, 5 foot wide boat made from what looked like old worn planks of wood, it did not instil confidence! The 'crew' consisted of three men, two of which stayed by the engine. One man with dreads, came off the boat to help us with our bags and amazingly held the back packs above his head to minimise them getting wet and placed them into the stern of the boat. As we climbed into what Mark thought of as our 'coffin', the water came up to my hips which was manageable as the water was warm. Our legs were covered with sloppy sea weed and our feet had luckily clenched onto our flip flops, stopping them from drifting off into the sea. We sat at the rear of the boat on a bench, just in front of the 'crew' and a German family sat in front of us on another bench. The sea seemed calm as we turned around to see the last views of the stunning white sanded coast of Pangani.

Soon, the waves started to become more turbulent moving away from land. Mark's fear of the sea was going to get a stern test, but he dealt with it remarkably well. Initially, I was fine knowing that I've never felt sea sick before, but nonetheless that's probably because I'd only ever travelled on ferries or larger boats. However this was not a smooth ride. In fact it was quite the opposite. I could not feel settled, as the highs and lows of each wave made the ride bumpy and this started to rock my stomach! I tried to concentrate on the clear sky apart from a few wisps on the horizon, but I still felt sick. I even closed my eyes and thought of Pi and his struggles while surviving on the lifeboat. I tried to humour myself and thought at least I wasn't on the boat with a Bengal tiger!  (I'm reading 'Life of Pi' which is a book about a boy called Pi stuck in the middle of the Pacific on a lifeboat with a Bengal tiger.) Brave Mark attempted to rub my back and fortunately my motion sleepiness kicked in. I know I left Mark to deal with the sea alone, but if I didn't snooze, then the Indian ocean would have received the contents of my stomach! 

Not long after, I was awoken by the sudden shout by one of the crew members. "Shark whale" he yelled and pointed into the distance. Immediately we sprang from our bench to see and about 50m away, we saw the top part of the smooth black whale spraying water from it's blow hole. Quickly, we got our camera ready just in time to catch the live show of it leaping out of the water, twirling around, then crashing back in, leaving an almighty splash! It was incredible. We could not believe our eyes. It was like watching a real life documentary. The whale was gigantic! It was shiny black with a white under belly. Before both of us could even share our amazement for what we'd just seen, the whale did it again! It was almost like it was showing off to us, as it did it for the third time! In between trying to view the whale show, Mark had spotted a dolphin swimming on the left alongside our boat. It was diving in and out of the water, as if trying to impress us with it's fast swimming skills! The dolphin was too quick for us to see it clearly or get a good photo, but we didn't care knowing it was so close to our boat. All the excitement of our sea safari had made us forget about our sea sickness and fear of the sea and both of us felt so privileged to have witnessed a real whale and dolphin on our boat journey. (Although mark doesn't actually believe we saw a whale shark. He is convinced that the whale shark is the largest fish in the world and infact not a whale, therefore has no blow hole. The crew were fairly adamant so we are unsure, maybe someone with more experience can fill us in or identify what it was that we saw!)

The last hour of our journey was spent looking out for land. We saw many smaller inhabited islands before we saw the island of Zanzibar. Moving closer to the island, we realised why so many couples honeymoon in Zanzibar, it was a place even more beautiful than paradise. The water surrounding the island was a crystal clear turquoise colour and the sand was whiter than white! The lush palm trees stood on top of the cliffs and shallow caves that met the turquoise waters. We had big smiles on our faces thinking we were going to spend four days here. 

The tide was high, so as the boat came in, we again had to climb out of the boat and submerge ourselves into the water to get to some steps in between two cliffs. The guy with the dreads again had heaved the bags up the stairs for us and kept them dry. We said our thank yous to the crew and carried our bags to the top of the stairs to find a very touristy area. The top of the cliffs were lined with tourist beach resorts, villas, bungalows, bars, restaurants and tourists walking around in skimpy bikinis or tight speedos. This was a whole other side to Africa! 

It was now middayish, as we got a taxi to the Tanzanite Beach Resort, our £35 a night accommodation for the next four days. We were greeted with a cold fresh passionfruit juice and shown to our garden view room (sea view rooms were £70 a night). The room was clean and mostly bug free, but had the most awful stench of sewage! Trying to be appreciative of the £35 a room on a stunning beach resort, we sprayed the room with air freshner and hoped for the best. However, the room smelt vile still and made Mark feel uncomfortable. It wasn't long before we informed the receptionist. Both of us are not good at complaining about things, but the smell was unbearable and we had to be there for four days. The receptionist was extremely helpful and agreed with us about the smell and    told us to leave it with him. They had the toilets bleached and their maintenance man check out the sewage piping. Although, the smell had only slightly disappeared, so the receptionist kindly upgraded us to an awesome, much more spacious, sea view room! The door to our room opened out to the direct view of the beach itself and right outside was also a hammock. It was picturesque! We couldn't believe how lucky we were.

We thought we would take a romantic stroll along the beach to see what else was near our resort and find out other dinner options. As expected, further down the beach were more beach resorts and a small port where the local children were playing in the low tide around the fishing boats. We felt pleased with our resort, as it was in a more remote location, unlike further down the beach which was populated with many sunbathing tourists. We had a drink and then walked along the shore back to our hotel as the sun set. We had a delicious dinner and a game of scramble (20:12 to me!) by the open fire by our room and then retired to bed early.