Shuab

It was an early start today, waking up at 0600. Instead of the usual of hitting the road by 4WD, we hit the water this morning. Well, not quite true. We had to take a short drive from the campsite to Qalansiyah village around 0700 to take a boat to Shuab.

In the clear turquoise water, we saw playful dolphins alongside our boat. We also swam and snorkelled while the captain caught us some lobsters for tonight’s dinner.

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: Our camp at Qalansiyah in the morning.

: Packing up at our camp at Qalansiyah in the morning.

: Going to Shuab.

: Going to Shuab.

: Dolphins.

: Going to Shuab.

: Water doesn’t get better than this.

: Captain catching lobster.

: Captain catching lobster.

: Part of tonight’s dinner.

: Water doesn’t get better than this.

At Shuab, we beached the boat on the white sand. We continued to enjoy the paradise for another hour as it was our last full day on Socotra.

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: At Shuab.

: At Shuab.

: At Shuab.

: At Shuab.

On the boat ride back to Qalansiyah, we looked out for some local bird life. Back on land, we returned to yesterdays’ wadi for lunch. Since Omar had been to Shuab with us, someone else had prepared our lunch.

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: Water doesn’t get better than this.

: Heading back to Qalansiyah.

: On the way back to Qalansiyah.

: Heading back to Qalansiyah.

: Lou at lunch.

: Our last picnic meal.

: Our last picnic meal.

: Lovely picnic lunch spot.

: Cigarette after lunch.

: Packing up after our last picnic meal.

: At Qalansiyah.

: At Qalansiyah.

: Birds at Qalansiyah.

We continued to a lovely palm forest that was sadly littered with pepsi cans! We sat with a local woman for tea with goat’s milk. It had a strong flavour.

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: Local kids.

: At the palm forest.

: At the palm forest.

: Ben loves Socotra.

Back in Hadiboh, the others wanted to do a bit of shopping. I wanted to go back to the hotel for a wee. Once back at Hotel Summerland, I was was happy to have that long-awaited shower and shave.

For dinner, we had our lobster, chips and salad. Mohammad, Omar and an Austrian woman (another customer) joined us. It was delicious and was perfectly finished off with a cream caramel.

Lobster for dinner.

We packed after dinner for our morning departure. As I had been the only one with luggage, I took Kristina’s goat hide rug and a packet for Lou. The latter turned out to be stones, sand and shells which are not allowed to be taken off the island.