Posted by: pamthenomad in life
This morning mom and I went to the yacht club to ‘do laps’ in the ocean. Earlier this week the water was so murky that visibility was one or two meters tops. This morning the ocean was calm and the visibility was fantastic. The best gift of it all was the three eels, one of which swam in the open for quite some time. It was a beautiful morning.
Tags: ocean, swimming, tanzania
Posted by: pamthenomad in life
The tide changes approximately every six hours. I say approximately, because if it was exactly six hours, high tide and low tide would be at the same time every day. But they are not. The changing tide is impacted by the position of the sun, the moon, the earth’s rotation, and the shape of the sea floor. You can read more about this on Wikipedia’s tide article if you want.
Here in Dar es Salaam, the timing of the tide changes by 45 min (± 15 min) daily, and height of a high tide can differ by a meter. Thankfully modern science enables the production of tide charts (specific to location); I reference them daily here as at low tide I can walk through the tide pools exactly where I swim during high tide as the sea floor does not drop off at any great rate. Last night this meant that I swam as the sun was low in the sky and I watched the final bit of the sunset as I dried off on the beach. I also saw a jellyfish an arm’s length away, but that is a story for another day.
Tags: ocean, swimming, tanzania
Posted by: pamthenomad in life
I am a regular at the gym here several times a week. I come with my ipod shuffle and listen to my music when I am in the weight section or on the mats. I plug my headphones in while on one of the stair steppers or ellipticals so that I can listen to one of the four TVs while I become increasingly sweaty. It is a time for me to relax and enter my own little world; I come away refreshed. I say all of this not because I think you wanted to know my gym routine, but so that you can put my next statement in context.
If you ever see me at the gym or otherwise working out with a cell phone attached to my head, please take it from me, turn it off, and tell me to get a life. Better yet, smack some sense into my head. Twice in the past seven days I have seen a girl (not the same one) on an elliptical talking on the phone. Not a quick response or simply to take or give a message, but for an extended period of time. It is not as if I use my time at the gym as social hour or even a time to engage with acquaintances, but can we please, please, engage with the place that we are at when we are there?
Maybe this is the hidden beauty of swimming—you are forced to engage with the water.
Tags: gym, swimming