Backdate: East Africa trip Aug 2015 Day 4 - 13th Aug - Dolphin watching @ Menai Bay + fishing + Spice tour + Steamboat dinner

13/8/15: I rmb we were alrdy late about an hr by the time we headed out, cos the drive to Menai Bay from SS's home took about 2hrs. *SS's mum was saying if we went out at 6am, we would have reached by 8am and see more dolphins cos the weather was cooler in the morning.* Anyway, The big grp of us went out together in a van, and along the way, there were like 2-3 police stops. *I think John took a photo of them, but they were so fierce and commanded him to erase it.* Well, seeing that we were "non-blacks", they were suddenly "hungry for $$$", but aft the local driver talked to them for a while, I think they got nth in the end lol. *This is the part I reckon unsafe for tourists who dunno Zanzibar well. What if your driver was in cahoots with the police?* Finally reached the place at about 10am if I didn't rmb wrongly.
We were split into 2 boats. One was for those that wanted to dive into the waters and try to follow the dolphins or take photos, while the other boat was for those who wanted to stay dry. SF, ST, Pi, YJ, SF's aunt (local tour guide) and I took the latter one of cos. *I can't swim. Don't play play in the middle of Indian Ocean okie?* Alex, John and SS can't wait to go into the waters, esp when John and Alex had diving licences too.

While walking towards our boat, there were lots of seaweeds and sea urchins on the floorbed, under the rather murky waters. *Everyone was reminding each other to be careful~ so nice!*

Pi and SF was sitting in front, while the rest of us sat in the middle... to minimize chances of seawater slamming directing into our faces. *But seriously, I would want to be a lil' wet somewhat... I mean不然怎么证明在印度海洋上兜过了一圈了呢？Haha~*

Once we took off, the breeze started to blow towards us! The weather was calm and cooling, and so was the sea in the morning. *这好像是我第一次留意到海面上的波光粼粼呢！* As we journeyed, we even observed obvious rising tides on one side of the island... beautiful. There were some Dhows and fishermen boats ard, and some fisherman looked like they were juz bobbing in and out of waters lol... I felt worried for them leh! There were one or two scuba divers in the sea too. Soon, we began to go into the open waters, deeper sea, and you realized the waves getting stronger. Our boats literally went up and down, with loud thuds for a number of times. *Sometimes, the huge waves went up quite tall and they looked so scary, like they could "gobble" us up... probably capable of capsizing boats.* Maybe I was too excited about sighting dolphins more than the fact that I can't swim, so I kinda enjoyed the roller-coaster ride more than anything else! *We all took motion sickness pills, so I felt almost perfectly fine, though I did feel uncomfortable if I were to look down when the boat was bobbing.*

We were on the speedboat on sea for about 3hrs... quite a feat? ST's aunt, being a guide, told us history of ZNZ, and how frequent she would bring tourists to Menai Bay. She told us her highest record was seeing 10++ dolphins, but I reckon that was very early in the morning.
Soon, we realized there were many other boats filled with tourists, mostly angmohs. Everyone was there to catch a glimpse of the bottlenose and humpback dolphins. *I rmb one little angmoh girl, the min she thought she saw a dolphin, she dived straight into the waters and tried chasing! And she did that a few times, with no fear at all~ how I wish I was a bit more braver like her haha.*
Once our driver saw another boat speeding towards a certain direction, he would "give chase". We did see quite a few dolphins, but mostly were just their fins showing up a few times, and then down underwaters. Sometimes, we ourselves would spot dolphins, but told the driver not to speed fast cos the engine of the motors more or less scares them away. I think the closest one I caught sight was probably 1m away... could see the whole head. Most of them swim in pairs or threes, once even a grp of them. ST did video recordings of them too. I tried to snap some shots but none came out clear lol. We saw Alex, SS and John jumped into the water to chase the dolphins, but the min SS jumped in, she was carried away by the strong currents, so John had to look aft her. *Alex caught a faint image of the dolphins underwater though, with his Go Pro.*

After that, the aunt suggested we go fishing since we did not want to go into the waters. We were given fishing strings and baits (squid bits), but as we were all inexperienced at fishing (my first time), our strings sometimes gt entangled together, if not it would be "I felt the string moved, but dunno if it was due to current or fish bite" kind of feeling LOL... and the "food" could be gone by then.  Pi and ST vomited, so we decided they shld go back to shore first. We found SS's boat and so YJ and I climbed over. *Whoa the boats couldn't stay still on currents, so we had to jump over a bit faster.* The sun was alrdy out in the afternoon, but I was still pretty excited about wanting to "catch" my first fish haha. There were already a few fishes on their boat, and we saw a rather big puffer fish too! Apparently, the "hip hop" worker of SS's dad's was once a fisherman, so he fished like 6 or 7, and even Lody managed 2 or 3. We were about to go back alrdy, cos 5 of us still didn't catch any fish. Then the driver on that boat probably saw the way we threw our strings was too shallow *Why didn't I think of the“放长线，钓大鱼”saying leh?*, so he took mine and just almost literally let the few metres of strings juz "free fall" into the sea!

I guess his method worked, and soon after, I felt a rather obvious shake on my string, so I tried to reel in as fast as I could. Still, it took like 1 min or so to finish reeling it all up... to reveal a fat white fish with yellow fins and tail! I was so excited when I saw the fish, about palm-sized, on my bait out of the waters!
Oh well, at least one of us caught sth haha~ juz before we call it a day.

All of us were back on shore for packed lunch that SS's parents prepared for us. There were burgers, wings, buns and fries. *Fruits to go with under such warm weather was shiok!*

After that, SS's aunt suggested for us to go on a trip to a Spice farm nearby. Lol it was like a sch educational trip for us all again keke.

"Prince John", being born a city kid, don't often see cart-pulling cows often, so he couldn't bother much with the little boy there, but quickly snapped a shot of himself with the cow LOL. *Even "princess SS" also haven't posed for the shot la, but John ignored haha!*

The shioki shiokis there were free for us to pluck, and we had much fun watching SF and Jenny "fight" to pluck the rambutans lol. Oh and I can't rmb what fruit, but the guide showed us how he used "natural lipstick" from the colouring of the fruit.

We came to a point whereby everyone was alrdy tired, and sat down on some benches. One of the staffs suddenly performed climbing up the trees empty-handed... and it was so high up! They started singing Swahili songs all of a sudden, and SS's dad was so happy he sang along too lol!

We collected some fruits and leaves along the way, but didn't buy their soap nor perfume. On the way back, SS's dad saw coconut sellers on the road, and bought many coconuts for us all to share and drink~ so sweet yums!

Upon alighting from the car, we saw the huge fish that SS's parents bought from steamboat that night! *I really don't know how they chopped the fishes haah.*

While they were preparing for dinner at home, SS, John, Alex, YJ, Pi and I headed out to their market in Stone Town, and Lody drove us thr. Pi was the guide again. *Poor him... he had to sit in the car boot haha!* We went looking for cup noodles (I spent 7000TsH on that) for our Safari trip, before heading to hav some drinks at one of the most popular bars, Zanzibar Coffee House, with tourists there. *The veggies by the roadside had such pretty colours!*

That's a nice interior, with Arab and African heritage. I had some banana milkshake... way too sweet lol... nt cheap though.

Walked along the corridors and shops in Stone Town... there is a certain level of "rundown beauty" in the place. We were at the photocopier shop cos John and SS needed to print some documents. Alex went taking Hyperlapse video of the narrow alleys with his iPhone app~ playback was awesome. *YJ's even wearing shorts in the evenings now... "immune" to the fear of female Mozzies alrdy haha~ but we still sprayed DEETS eh. Well, I think I got a few bumps, and my skin itches now and then... dunno if it was due to心理作祟or not.*

The locals gave us the feeling that they have such carefree lifes. We happen to see a bunch of African kids and adults taking turns to jump into the waters at Forodhani Garden.
Lody came to drive us home aft the sunset. Had a sumptuous steamboat dinner at SS's place at night... so much seafood!

*Omg look at my feet~ skin turned so dark when it's only my 4th day in ZNZ!*