Socotra, Part II

We arrived at around 11 am and checked into the Hafej Hotel. Our rooms were far from fancy, but at $8 per person the price was right. We met with our contact here and banged out an itinerary for the week. After eating lunch with him and his crew we settled in and toured the capital city of Hadibo which took all of 10 minutes. Hadibo has one paved road (Main Street, of course), a small market and ummm....that's it.
When we left they'd run out of petrol and hadn't had propane to cook with since June. Everything is flown in and selection in the shops is VERY limited; it makes Mukalla's stores seem extensive, and that's a stretch. Anyway, we ate at a local restaurant that night where they had their menu painted on the wall. There were three pictures: a fish, a chicken, and a chunk of goat. But we came for the sights not the food.,and Tuesday we sure got our fill! We were driven down the coast where we went swimming in a very remote cove. There were two dead sharks and a dead seagull on shore so at first we were a little wary of this beach of death tbut as soon as we entered the water all doubts left our minds.
The water was the clearest I've ever seen. We could see fish swimming around our feet and even in the tops of the waves that came crashing in on us.
After enjoying the crystal waters of the Indian Ocean we relaxed on the white sand beach until a fishing boat came in to picked us up to go fishing. Climbing into the boat was tricky as the water was so rough, I was one of the last to get in and gave Sean quite a scare because I got knocked over by a wave and disappeared from view for a few seconds, but eventually I made it in safely and we were under way toward calmer water.
Unfortunately, Tanya got seasick and had quite a hard time out there. She did manage to catch a fish however, as did Nic, Sean and myself. At first I thought I might have snagged a small shark (a few were seen off the bow a few minutes earlier); it wasn't (thankfully) but we don't have a clue what it was! We're accepting guesses by the way. The guides thought it was pretty funny that I almost dropped my catch out of fear when I first hauled it into the boat.
We returned to shore where Tanya was more comfortable and rested on a coral-strewn beach while the fish were divied up. We took Nic's and my fish to fry that night over our campfire and continued down the coast. We made it all the way to the southern tip and passed villages along the way filled with laughing children who were excited to see "ferenghi" (socotri word for foreigner).

This is an example of an older Socotri house that would've probably been used during the summer. In the summertime they experience 90 km/hr winds day and night. The locals suffer through this period in their regular houses or they move to caves where the shelter is better. Definitely not tourist season.

That night we lounged around a campfire next to a huge sand dune (see earlier mention of wind) in a small green area. Socotra is definitely greener than mainland Yemen and they get rain here more frequently. You can see a little bit of the mist covering the mountain - it will remain there for the next six weeks. There was a beautiful spring running through that supplies all the nearby villages. We ate our fried fish and enjoyed the babbling stream behind us and the crashing waves in front.















Paradise.