Snorkelling to Mombassa

Not a very impressive start to our snorkelling trip out to Malindi National Marine Park: everybody (including boat crew) up-too-early, and Rosa a bit sick feeling. The reef looks like anywhere else from above, but fish start coming as soon as we arrive, and a little bread sends them into a frenzy.

Soon we're swimming amongst them: Melissa's nervous at first, but her confidence builds. Rebecca stays in the boat for a while, the gets in in using the life-saver ring from the boat, with lots of encouragement from the crew, and from us. She uses a face mask, but doesn't like the snorkel: in the end she floats on the end of a rope for a good while, looking at the fish and the reef a little, feeling the bouyancy of her legs and the rest of her body in the sea, and moving herself around with her legs - a good first swimming lesson!

By now, Melissa's quite confident, so she and Rosa swim over with me to 'Finding Nemo'-land: loads of fish (zebra fish, six-bar wrasse, a sting-ray - lots more) and a whole world to watch. Would love to do more/scuba: we'll have to count our pennies in Thailand!

Rosa feeling quite seasick by now, so back to base, to pack and shower. The others (H, Naomy and Anne) have been to a Snake Farm, where they held tortoises, and Naomy was very scared of snakes. They saw two cobras with hoods out, baby crocs and monitor lizards.

We sat and chatted some more with Shabina Aslam, Diversity Director of BBC Radio, about the media, racism, travel ... Then it's goodbye and back on the road, via an apparently English supermarket for familiar snacks. Very hot driving, till we found a wonderfully cool, almost first world, shopping mall - bookshop, cafe, fastish cybercafe (the one inaccessible bit, sadly for Naomy), disabled parking, wheelchair loan - Heaven.

Driving around Mombassa's easier than we expected, and when our first choice of hotel from the guidebook turned out to have closed we didn't mind too much going round in circles till we found the next one. A rest, then out for dinner to the "best tandoori and nan on the coast" - not terrible, but not impressed with the guidebook today. Rosa and Melissa very tired, and very grumpy while we ate, but cheered up a bit as we ended our day with a drive to Fort Jesus and through the twisty thin roads of the old town. Fun.

- Mark