21/12/2010

6.30am rise to begin work. We spent the day cleaning the empty pool, scrubbing the walls, cleaning the floor, unblocking the pipe and just tidying up the area in time for the Christmas custom. French eggy bread with golden syrup was delicious for our breakfast and they then provided us with chicken burger and chips for lunch! A local woman we learnt, had made cashew juice and being a big fan of the nut (but having never tried the fruit) I gave it a go. Jack immediately became a fan but I couldn't stomach it. A nutty drink? I don't think so….

All we had to pay for was our drinks and these were even sold to us at cost price, so 18p soft drinks wasn't bad at all. The onlybummer is that they are so refreshing you end up getting through four or five a day!

On the subject of drinks, back in Nampula we had raspberry Spar-letta. It's a tasty South African drink owned by the Coca-cola company but very addictive.

In the afternoon, we sand-papered the wood and coated most of the toilet doors in linseed oil before running out of the stuff. We then filled up the pool and left it running as it was going to take a while to fill to the brim!

Another evening snorkel was well-deserved and very enjoyable. We saw moray eels, poisonous lionfish, coral, different types of jellyfish, striped eel catfish and dozens of other colourful fish species. Pilot fish (tiny, yellow and black striped fish) literally attached themselves to me as I swam because I'm so big. They normally accompany big fish and sharks! You couldn't touch them but they would stick with you especially if I put my hands forward they would follow my wrists! Then the sunset was a picture….

Other fish included peppered moray eel, white-edged soldierfish, common lionfish, blue and yellow grouper, red mouth grouper, blue stripe snapper, blackpatch emperor, schooling bannerfish and a dead painted spiny lobster to name some.

Met Ian and PJ's(the owners) Indian friend Bash and his friend and young daughter and had pesto pasta complimented by my new favourite dessert, the peachoffee. Layers of crumbled biscuit, caramel, peach and ice cream with a mint leaf to make it aesthetically pleasing!