The 6:45am alarm is back for one final time this holiday, as we are due to be collected at 8am for our adventure to Pungume Sandbank.
We were up, breakfasted and in the reception for 8am excited for what the day had in store for us (well one of us was excited, the other one of us gets seasick)!
We were sat waiting for around 10 minutes as we watched other groups be called and head off to their transfer – we even checked twice yesterday as to what time we had to be ready for.
Then someone checked in on us – and looked very confused when we said Pungume Sandbank. Uh-oh!
We had booked this via our travel agent (as we had done with everything to date) ahead of travelling, how could it not be going ahead? Perhaps a further 10 minutes passed and we were asked what we wanted for lunch – chicken or fish – sounds promising…
By 8:30am we were in a car going somewhere, trying to go with the flow of it all! We were driving for around 30 minutes when we got dropped off to another car which was waiting for us..
The final leg of the journey was around 7 minutes through a small village until we got to the boats! At least there were boats!
We met our guide for the day, Koko, who got us trying on some flippers and then we were headed to a wooden sailing boat!
When we were on our way, we asked ‘oh, are we going to see the dolphins today’, which was when we were told no, we wouldn’t be seeing dolphins today, let alone swimming with them.
Oh – not the excursion we thought we were going on.
Instead, the plan was to head straight for Pungume Sandbank, then onwards to snorkel in multiple locations – one location known for its starfish, and the other known for its coral and fish.
Michael and I booked this excursion for the chance to swim with dolphins, since we booked it – way back in January maybe, we hadn’t seen very positive things about the way ‘swimming with dolphins’ was run. Essentially crowds of boats chasing dolphins, the water becoming full of petrol and possible injuries of trying to swim with so many boats around.
We looked at each other and both were a little bit relieved. I had started to feel quite guilty about booking this excursion, but now with the focus being on snorkelling, rather than chasing dolphins, this suited us much better, with Michael’s primary aim being to not be sick.
It was a good 40 minutes until we reached the sandbank, the journey there we used the engine, spoiler alert, we did not use the engine for the return journeys. It was a pretty choppy boat ride over to the sandbank, but it certainly felt like paradise once we had gotten off the boat.
It was mind blowing that this sandbank disappears at high tide, but at low tide reappears and is just sand!
We enjoyed the bank for about 20 to 30 minutes when more and more boats arrived and it started to get very busy – so we set off to snorkel location number 1.
We jumped in, and starfish were in their plenty, it was incredible to see! So many different sizes and colours and how some of them really blended in!
It was quite choppy, due to the number of boats coming and going, which meant our snorkels kept getting full of water and we had to keep coming up to breathe! But it was incredible to see!
Michael had had his fill and got back onto the boat, he knows his limits, I carried on and then we headed to snorkel location number 2. This time Michael stayed on the boat and I went in with Koko who kept pointing out everything – zebra fish, parrot fish, nemo, dory and loads of others!
I was living my little mermaid dream and must have been down for about 30 minutes, fighting all kinds of currents, feeling absolutely exhausted.
We got back onto the boat and headed to one final location for lunch. We weren’t expecting to actually sail there, but the team deployed the sail and Michael and I endured a long, bumpy and slow journey to lunch.
When we arrived we were both very green. Then a full platter of food was laid in front of us – lobster, octopus, calamari, prawns, tuna steak, chicken, rice and more. Now anyone that knows me knows I love seafood, we took one look at the food and our hard work of not being sick on the boat was nearly over! We just couldn’t stomach it!
We slowly tried to convince ourselves and our bodies that we needed substance, we started with chips and chapatis and slowly upgraded to chicken and prawns but that was all we could muster.
We went for a walk around this island, searching for treasure (shells) before heading back on the sailing boat for the final time. This journey was definitely calmer than the previous one but I wouldn’t say we enjoyed it!
It sounds like we had a terrible day – we didn’t! The sandbank was gorgeous, the snorkelling was incredible; it was just the sailing that made us feel nauseous! We were both glad that we hadn’t spent the day chasing dolphins and did something far more enjoyable for us!
We got back to the hotel, looked in the mirror and gasped at just how red we were! We’ve been wearing factor 50!! Feeling sore and still not overly up for food, we called it an early night and think we might hide in the shade tomorrow!
