Beaches

Zanzibar is an island of beaches.  Whether you want to just layout on a beach, go diving and snorkeling (like a couple of colleagues did) or even go swimming with wild dolphins (like an other colleague did), there’s a beach for you in Zanzibar.  So it shouldn’t surprise you that along a good portion of Stone Town is a beach.

It’s interesting how folks just tie their boat up to some form of anchor on the beach and leave the boat there.  Then again, once you do that, you have to get out to it.

Other boats come right up to shore to pick people up to go visit the islands that you can see in the distance.  One of them, Prison Island, has hundreds of sea turtles for people to see.  Other islands are great for snorkeling or just relaxing.

As I mentioned in the lunch posting, further up on shore are boats under repair.  Some look like they’ve been there for quite some time, others look like they’re ready to put back at sea.

I took a walk along the beach for a change of pace.  I wasn’t sure I was going to see anything of interest - what was I thinking?  While some of the newer hotels are beach-front, there are plenty of older buildings that have interesting detailing.

And when I turned around, there was a dhow not that far off shore!

As it moved towards the sun I realized I may have a nice silhouette shot coming up.

Now this photographs looks easy enough, but a dhow moves much more quickly than one would think and I missed it the first time.  So I ran down the beach to shoot it as it passed between me and the sun again and, unsatisfied with the results, ran along the beach even further.  Folks must have thought I was crazy!  The things one does for a decent photo.