By the next morning the pressure had subsided enough so that when I turned the water back on, there were no more leaks. The bathroom had also completely dried out, much to my surprise. Skipped the grapefruit seed extract as it was our last day and couldn’t really face it. Had two boiled eggs as the cheese was crawling with flies!

It was a lovely calm morning and I watched the “Sea Star” head out to the dolphin house reef with Maja on board, who was having the last of her three trips. Mahmoud & Julian had predicted that there might not be many dolphins in the reef as it was so calm and they tended to go out hunting in such calm weather. Whilst we waited for the morning activity, Frankie showed me her pet obsession further along the beach – a colony of nutty crabs that lived in holes dug in the beach. These things have such good eyesight (or sensitive toes!) that they can see or sense you coming from 50 metres away. You can see them scurrying back to their burrows as you try and sneak up on them. Frankie had been spending hours sitting by the burrows watching these mad creatures and trying to catch one out of its burrow. I tried creeping up from the landward side of the beach so I could get some pictures of the crabs, but the closest I got was about 20 feet away.

The last day had arrived and Ruth had arranged for us to be taken out quarter of a mile or so around the left edge of the house reef to be dropped off so we could snorkel back in with the prevailing current. Everyone except Val, Sharon & Linda came out and we took all the remaining underwater cameras with us to use up the film. Much to Martin’s horror, once we arrived at the drop off point, the sea was thick with jellyfish again. The water felt extremely cold when we jumped over the side and it took a few minutes for my wetsuit to start working properly. It was strange for the first time in the trip to have the sea bottom drop off out of sight. Until now, we’d always been able to make out the bottom but off to our left the reef disappeared into ominous deep blue depths and my fertile imagination was starting to make big shark-shaped shadows move around down there!

The first thing I saw (apart from jellyfish and plastic bags) was a huge school of unicorn fish. These odd critters with a long, thin protuberance over their mouths were all over the place, but usually only in pairs or small groups. This shoal numbered at least 50 good sized fish and they stayed with us most of the way back in to shore. It was a leisurely swim in and I had lots of goes at pushing myself as far down as I could get in surface dives, seeing as it would be a while before I could have another go! I reckon I made it down to about 20 ft at one point, judging by the distance the others were above my head when I turned around… The fish at that depth were a little different to the ones higher up – it was a shame I couldn’t hold my breath for long enough to stay down there a bit longer.

Saw a few more new fish on the way in, including (at last) the gloriously-named and beautifully-coloured “sweetlips”. As we neared the spot where the barracuda shoal was, we noticed they were looking a bit agitated and were moving around more than usual. The reason (or reasons!) for this soon became clear as two 4ft long tuna appeared from the side, ripping through the barracuda in an attempt to grab one or two. It appealed to my warped sense of irony to see the usual hunter become the hunted, but even though I watched really closely for ages, I never actually saw either of the tuna manage to catch one of the thousands of barracuda on offer. I noticed after a few minutes that I was on my own and, sticking my head above the water, heard Ruth shouting to me (from a safe distance!), “Barracuda!” “Yes, I know; I’m watching them!” I shouted back. “No, not the small ones,” she replied, “there’s a 2 metre long great barracuda been spotted out there and it could snap at anything it lays eyes on!” I swam back to shore trying to look as big & scary as possible (not hard, in my case – well, the big bit, anyway…) but didn’t encounter anything more threatening than a dwarf lionfish.

Frankie & I then spent 15 minutes or so in the shallows picking up all the plastic bags we could find (lots of them!) and dragging them in to shore. Eventually the staff decided they’d better help out and they took over dragging the bags (and jellyfish) from the water. Frankie & I then spent an entertaining few minutes drifting up to the water’s edge trying to ambush the crabs again. They still saw us coming, but let us get much closer before scuttling for cover.

After lunch, we just did a bit more slobbing about whilst we let the wetsuits & gear dry out for packing later. Halid then fulfilled an earlier promise and took me, Ruth, Martin, Frankie & Phil out for a drive in one of the Zodiac craft, letting each of us steer for a while. Unfortunately I had to go first, so I had to drive into the prevailing waves meaning I couldn’t rip the throttle open and do a few wild turns, as I so desperately wanted to. I’d have ended up flipping the front of the boat over on a wave and making us do a backflip! Phil took over as we turned with the waves and was able to open the throttle a bit more. Frankie then had her go and, aside from a lack of steering (two problems: a) she couldn’t see over the front of the boat to see where we were heading and b) her arm wasn’t long enough to be able to steer that well!) she drove very nicely. The maniac formerly known as Martin then took over and even managed to make the unflappable Halid grit his teeth for a minute as he performed a quick high-speed 360-degree circle. After a few encouraging words and threats of clips around the ear from most on the boat, he settled down into some highs-speed-but-straight driving, which suited us all. I was quite happy for him to carry on with the mad driving, to be honest… after all; the worst case scenario was that we’d have got wet!

Once we got back into the bay, we spent half an hour cruising around picking up more plastic bags. The whole zodiac craft was swamped ankle-deep by the time we’d finished,
but at least the bay looked a bit tidier again. The views down over the reef were phenomenal. I reckon that the ecolodge should arrange night trips around the bay with torches to shine down through the water to see all the fish – it would be fantastic!

Maja arrived back from her trip to the dolphin reef and confirmed what Mahmoud & Julian had suspected – hardly any dolphins seen all day, unfortunately. That afternoon, me, Frankie & Sharon headed over to the far edge of the bay, where the rising tide had cut off the crabs from their burrows. This led to some interesting excursions into the shallows to try and catch the swift-moving little rascals, before I realised the best method was to stand on one before grabbing it from behind, where it couldn’t nip me with its claws. Unfortunately the crabs in this neck of the woods, whilst spectacularly coloured in orange & turquoise, are contortionists and I was painfully nipped several times by our first captive! Fortunately the other one we caught was a bit more sedate (or it may have been the stick Frankie gave it to chew on whilst I was holding it) and it happily posed for pictures without too much aggro!

And then it was all over… it was time to pack and the mini-bus arrived at about 5pm to take us to the airport. Ruth accompanied us as far as Marsa Shagra, where she got out to await the arrival of the next batch of “dolphin swimmers” and the rest of us carried on to the airport. It’s not the biggest of airports and it was hard work to get hold of some food, but eventually we were onto the plane and on our way.

We arrived back into Gatwick at about 1:30 am and, after picking up our luggage, said our goodbyes to each other. The Reed family were driving back up North straight away (mad fools!), James was planning on staying in the airport until 5am or thereabouts before heading for Victoria and the train home, Sharon was heading for London and a reunion with her boyfriend, whilst Val and I had a two minute walk to the Hilton Hotel in the South Terminal for a leisurely overnight stay before catching the train home the next day. Unfortunately for us, the Hilton had run out of standard rooms, so we had to slum it in an executive room overnight… shame!

I can’t recommend “Wild & Free” highly enough. If you have a chance, go for it before the whole area becomes too spoiled and over-commercialised (new hotels are being built right now). I won’t over-egg the pudding and say it was a “deeply spiritual” experience swimming with the dolphins or anything new-age and odd like that, but it was a fantastic and somewhat humbling experience to even briefly share the same few cubic metres of water as these beautiful and graceful creatures (I am talking about the dolphins here, not the female members of our party!). When combined with the Dugong & turtle experience, the camel ride, getting lost in the desert and the day-to-day life around the camp, it was as experience neither Val nor I will ever forget. To get to share our trip with as conscientious an organiser as Ruth and the new friends we made: Maja, Sharon, James, Phil. Linda, Martin & Frankie just put the cream on top of the big, gooey cake!

Carl Edwards, April 2004
(Find out more at http://www.dolphinswims.co.uk)

Go Back : Day seven - Scuba diving lesson and Sharon gets the tummy bug

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