During our trip to Zanzibar, we took a sunset snorkel cruise on a traditional dhow. The snorkeling part wasn’t so great. The captain dropped us off in about 45 feet of water, which was probably awesome for SCUBA diving, but not so much for snorkeling (at least when you’re pregnant and not able to freedive more than a few feet). We really couldn’t see anything but a cloudy vision of the reef far below us so we cut that part of our trip short. We decided to just hang out on the roof portion of the dhow and cruise along the shore soaking up what was left of the sun. I was surprised to learn that one of the boat boys was fluent in Spanish. We chatted for a while and he told me he learned it on the beach because of all the Spanish tourists. He was a little shy about it, but I kept assuring him that his Spanish was pretty much perfect. I guess it helps that the sounds of Swahili are similar to Spanish ones. I was happy to be able to practice for a bit in the first time in a while. It was also the first time in too long that I’ve been able to watch the sunset. Growing up in Texas, watching the sunset over the Laguna Madre was pretty much a nightly ritual. When I moved to Hawaii I lived on the East Side of the island where, aside from the beautiful colors, sunsets weren’t all that great. But when I happened to be up on North Shore or down in Waikiki I never missed a chance to watch it. I’ve only ever watched a handful of sunsets in Tanzania, the first was because our boat broke down in the middle of the Indian Ocean and we had no other choice, haha. You can also see it from the Yacht Club, but it’s not that spectacular. It doesn’t set over the ocean and the city haze seems the dull the potential colors. Maybe Texas and Hawaii have turned me into a sunset snob. But this sunset was beautiful, reminding me of how lucky I am to have spent another day on this Earth.
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