I spent my xmas and new year in Djibouti on a sailing trip. Everyone moaned at me saying where is that and when I explained to them they said why are you going there? What about the pirates and you know the usual isn’t Spain good enough for you remarks. Well there were no pirates anywhere, a little disappointing. I spent the whole time in the sun, snorkelling, eating, sleeping, snorkelling some more and eating some more. The highlight of the trip was swimming with whale sharks. Now when you hear this you think where I’m swimming there’s a whale shark further ahead type of thing. But no this was actually swimming with loads of whale sharks, actually being surrounded by them, actually screaming into my snorkel as one came towards me and my flippers was in it’s mouth. I have never been so scared, but it was a good scary feeling. I have never been so close to nature before and in an unfamiliar environment. I’m not very good at swimming but I like snorkelling as most of the time you are just floating. The flippers are great as it allowed me to stay in the water much longer and also I’d rather my flippers be in the whale sharks mouth than my feet. The water wasn’t too bad but it was definitely choppy and I swallowed a lot of sea water and got stung by whatever that’s in the plankton they eat but it was worth it. We did this over 2 days on and off and I got to see and practically touch the whale sharks. Not on purpose, I know the rules – keep 3 feet away from them but nobody told them that. I still do my thing where I close my eyes tight when I get scared as if nothing happens if I can’t see it. A few times when I had my eyes closed when I haven’t been able to get out of the way I have felt them, usually on my back. One time they knocked the camera from my hands. It was so cool. Even cooler ware the Foreign Legion on the beach doing combat and weapons practise. So while swimming with whale sharks we could see and hear the French Foreign Legion shooting their guns onto the side of a cliff and the odd helicopters flying over our heads. Absolutely bizarre. Imagine if there was a stray bullet coming our way…spent shells all over the beach. Obviously this part of the beach is restricted to tourists but not the wide open sea and as whale sharks swim close to the shore that’s where we had to be. They even waved to us when we got quite close…the soldiers not the whale sharks.
We also did snorkelling off the boat and I saw the best coral so far and it’s been my best experience snorkelling even better than the Galapagos. I saw the most beautiful and colourful fishes and the most bizarre looking things that were not fish. I took as many photos as I could with my cheap underwater camera. The photos are not too bad…not as clear as it was when I was in the sea but you can see the fishes.
The crew were fabulous and the captain was an absolute hilarious prankster…well with me anyway. He would constantly scare the pants off me while snorkelling. He would come up from behind and under me while snorkelling where I would be expecting fishes but got a faceful of a Frenchman instead. He did it every time and I jumped (as much as you can in seawater) every time. He found it very amusing. Another time me and my fellow passenger were doing that Kate Winslet and Leonardo Dicaprio bit on Titanic – while I was on the edge (of the pointy bit of the ship) doing my “king of the world” bit when the captain jumped on and tried to push me off. This was while the ship was at full steam so it was quite scary. Then he wanted a photo done and the other guy was taking a photo, unfortunately the captain was wearing a sarong and when the wind blew we all saw that he was going commando. Shame the guy didn’t manage to capture it on film, would have been good to add it to my collection of naked/exposed body parts photos. He got a little embarrassed…serves him right.
It was a very relaxing trip but also very exciting because of trying to dodge bullets and whale sharks. The whale sharks definitely made the trip for me. They were beautiful.
