Monday, September 18, 2006
Eli´s Annerversario (i.e. b-day!)
Eli turned 23 yesterday (I can no longer say, ´I`m older, Eli, I know better´) and I think the last three days were some of our best yet in Mozambique. For starters, on Friday morning (the 15th) we were picked up at our house by our missionary friends, who took us out to a private house on the beach; which they were house-sitting for South African missionaries. The weather has been great, as it`s just starting to get warm (by which I mean HOT), but comfortably so. Our friends have their own boat; which they built, and which we had the pleasure of going out on. We cruised around the bay a bit, to check out the sites, then went to ¨Paradise¨, a coral reef on the other side of the bay- to do some snorkeling.
It was amazing. The water is not that deep; we had great views of all the tropical fish and corals- big groups of black and white and yellow and blue fish everywhere. We saw a few larger fish too, like kingfish. On our return trip across the bay we spotted two Humpback whales (a mother and a calf) swimming not too far from our boat. Talk about huge! We only saw their backs as they swam and blew water out their blow-holes, but they were gigantic. We got closer to them- about 50 yards- and followed for a ways. We got a really good view of them! Later, we spoke to someone who saw us from the shore who thought we were too close- but they didn´t seem to notice us when we were out there.
That night we had a fish barbeque, with kingfish fillets that had been caught that morning.
On Saturday I gave Eli her birthday present; we were picked up at 9am by Bay Diving, the tourist resort in Nacala. We spent all of Saturday and most of Sunday there. We stayed in a nice A-frame chalet that, when you open the windows or doors, looks directly out over the bay. They also have their own beach, and the two days we were there the beach was probably the nicest I´ve ever seen it. It seriously looked like something you usually only see in advertisements- crystal clear water and a dozen shades of blue. We spent most of our time just sitting on the beach and reading.
The food at Bay Diving is also very good (especially the dessert!) and for Eli`s birthday they made us Macaroni and Cheese with ham. They surprised us by serving dinner in a little cabana away from the main restaurant with candles and flowers- it was pretty fancy.
We are kind of disappointed to come back and have to teach J The only bad thing is that when we came back, we found the cat had been locked all weekend in our bedroom! (I think maybe the wind slammed the door while he was sleeping- otherwise Rosa got so sick of his meowing that she locked him in and forgot to let him out!) Anyways, only a few weeks of classes left, punctuated by a couple of holidays. We´re thinking of coming home from mid November to mid December, and having Christmas and New Years here in Mozambique.
It was amazing. The water is not that deep; we had great views of all the tropical fish and corals- big groups of black and white and yellow and blue fish everywhere. We saw a few larger fish too, like kingfish. On our return trip across the bay we spotted two Humpback whales (a mother and a calf) swimming not too far from our boat. Talk about huge! We only saw their backs as they swam and blew water out their blow-holes, but they were gigantic. We got closer to them- about 50 yards- and followed for a ways. We got a really good view of them! Later, we spoke to someone who saw us from the shore who thought we were too close- but they didn´t seem to notice us when we were out there.
That night we had a fish barbeque, with kingfish fillets that had been caught that morning.
On Saturday I gave Eli her birthday present; we were picked up at 9am by Bay Diving, the tourist resort in Nacala. We spent all of Saturday and most of Sunday there. We stayed in a nice A-frame chalet that, when you open the windows or doors, looks directly out over the bay. They also have their own beach, and the two days we were there the beach was probably the nicest I´ve ever seen it. It seriously looked like something you usually only see in advertisements- crystal clear water and a dozen shades of blue. We spent most of our time just sitting on the beach and reading.
The food at Bay Diving is also very good (especially the dessert!) and for Eli`s birthday they made us Macaroni and Cheese with ham. They surprised us by serving dinner in a little cabana away from the main restaurant with candles and flowers- it was pretty fancy.
We are kind of disappointed to come back and have to teach J The only bad thing is that when we came back, we found the cat had been locked all weekend in our bedroom! (I think maybe the wind slammed the door while he was sleeping- otherwise Rosa got so sick of his meowing that she locked him in and forgot to let him out!) Anyways, only a few weeks of classes left, punctuated by a couple of holidays. We´re thinking of coming home from mid November to mid December, and having Christmas and New Years here in Mozambique.
# posted by Paul and Eli @ 5:43 AM 
