After our rooftop breakfast overlooking the docks, and listening to the call to prayer roll around the city, we walked along the front into town. Ramadan was in its final days so Bob covered up despite the expected heat and we were soon winding our way through the narrow maze of passages which made up the heart of the old spice town. Intriguing alleyways ended in huge, ornate Persian doors embossed with intricate carvings and opulent ironwork, the most impressive...

We bolted an excited breakfast and headed to the dive centre where we geared up and loaded into a monsterous high speed RHIB whose twin 115hp engines powered us at an incredible speed over the water, inducing an uncontrollable grin in all of the passengers clinging to the footstraps and gripping the safety lines for dear life. The arrival of a 4ft swell barely slowed our progress but it did make several stomachs start to churn and by the time we arrived at the at...

At breakfast the lady from the dive centre managed to track us down with the owner of the sick dog in tow. It was a slightly surreal experience sat in a local house examining a beach mutt and trying desperately to remember lists of exotic canine diseases which might fit the strange list of symptoms in front of me. I finally settled on babesiosis as my most likely differential, left the owners trying to collect a urine sample and returned back to the dive centre t...

We set out early with our new friend Ahmed to board the boat which would take us to the Mnembe Atol snorkelling for the day. Having picked up an assortment of mismatched fins, masks and snorkels we waded out to the wooden dhow, boarded ungracefully, and settled in the bow of the bobbing ship. Our fellow passengers were an interesting pic 'n mix of society and the 90 minute stomach churning passage to the east coast gave us ample opportunity to perform a complete ...

It was not a good night's sleep and Charlie's investigation of rustling in the early hours of the morning was rewarded by a monster rat which joined him on a trip to the bathroom. How he kept this a secret from Hattie I don't know but needless to say it was decided that we were moving on before Moreno announced that we had to pay extra for breakfast. After stealing the nextdoor hotel's wifi to inform the Italian owners of our dissatisfaction and to research wher...