I grew a beard since our last post. No special reason other than laziness I suppose. While I was in Mombasa finding us a place to live and visiting the Maulidi celebrations there I somehow stopped shaving and never went back (until sometime last Thursday). The only consequence of the beard seems to be that more people just assume I'm a Muslim (beards are common here among the respectable folk) or that I look like a demon, according to Patience's friend Nazra. In any case, at least I'm fulfilling the cliche about bearded African historians (seriously, most of the historians I meet studying Africa have a beard, or used to). Anyway, after a long packed week of attending and filming and recording as much of the various activities associated with the Grand Maulidi in Lamu two weeks ago, Patience and I welcomed our friends Siddhartha and Kim Herdegen to Lamu and began showing them around the Island. First, lunch at Whispers Cafe, then a day at Shela beach, and on Saturday (once I finished my other committments) a full day snorkeling expedition to the reef between Manda Toto and Pate island. The kanga wrapped around my head is for the sun, not because that's how they wear it around here.
After a leisurely ride out to the reef, during which we caught up on sleep from our 6 am awakening to meet the tide, we jumped right in and started snorkeling. The water was beautiful and warm, just a little silty, but visibility was wonderful. Unfortunately we don't have an underwater camera, but our captain (and expert fish spearer) grabbed these off the bottom of the ocean floor with his bare hands (no joke, Patience and I watched him wrestle that lobster from a crevice). Otherwise we saw several types of coral, anemone, fish (lion, parrot, zebra, and skinny little flourescent ones in abundance). We moved to two places along the reef and Patience and I each salvaged partial sea urchin skeletons from the ocean floor, only to find a perfectly intact one on the beach after the others had broken into smithereens. Patience also found a sea biscuit on the sea floor. After a couple swims we were ready for lunch and they took us to Manda Toto to rest. To our chagrine the captain sold the lobster to someone from another boat! But we had a great feast of Parrot Fish curry, rice, octopus (a little chewy), salad and something else that I forget. Then it was time to head back to Lamu.
View of our sail on the return trip.
First sight of Lamu on the return trip.
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