Riding the waves

Kalinda and I had been humming and hawing about going to Prune Island. It is a small island with one inhabitant (lighthouse man) that can been seen from the ship. Several new crew have arrived in the past few weeks. One of them wanted to organize a trip. Six of us agreed to go: two from Canada, one from Holland, one from UK, one from Australia, and one from US.

Margo and I gathered borrowed snorkel gear from fellow crew on the ship. It is rainy season and cyclone season now. This means you just prepare for rain but go about your normal business. Sunday morning when we awoke, it was pouring outside. We all agreed to proceed with the plans since we were going to get wet snorkeling anyway. We figured that if it needed to be canceled, the travel agent would cancel.

After waiting for the boat driver to arrive and prepare the boat, we were thoroughly drench. We all piled in the wooden boat and gladly donned our life jackets. As we headed toward the island, no land could be seen due to the torrential downpour. We were all very thankful for the life jackets. We prayed and laughed as we rode the 2-3 meter waves. The boat driver was excellent. He was an experience fisherman.

Upon arriving to the island, the rain had stopped. We hung our clothes to dry and went for a snorkel. We had heard from a group that went the day before the current was strong. We wisely decided to use the current for our favor. We walked up the beach a ways prior to getting in the water. The Indian Ocean here is so salty that you float simply by lifting your legs. So by lifting your legs and moving with the current, we were able to enjoy the fish without much physical work. When the current became too strong we would walk to shore. We would walk up the beach again and repeat.

Note half is grey and raining and half the sky is beautiful

After a few snorkeling "runs", we walked to the tallest lighthouse in Africa and second tallest in the world. It was 66 meters. The tallest is in France. Both were built by the French. The attention to detail was amazing. The view from the top was neat as well.

On top.

After a nice picnic lunch, some napped on the beach. Others walked; others snorkeled more.  We gathered our things, donned the life vests and pile back into the boat. We were expecting the ride back to the ship to be choppy as the afternoon waters are often choppy. The rough boat ride in the morning prepared us for the ride in the afternoon. It was choppy, but it was sunny. So being wet from the waves did not bother us. One of the boat drivers actually caught a 4kg fish. It was only then that it was disclosed that they too were nervous about the morning boat trip.

Monday mornings we attend community meetings to hear important information for the coming week on the ship. We heard that a cyclone was off the coast a good ways but was causing higher waves than normal which was causing the ship to rock more. Well, another adventure for the books with a happy ending.