We arrived at the National Park, and walked around a little, and then we found these steps that went down to a boat in the water.
There was a man in a little boat, who seemed to have just let some people off.
So, I asked Mohammed if he thought this man was giving boat rides to random people, and if he did think that would he mind asking if we could be some of the random people he would give a ride to!
So, we ended up asking this stranger who gave us a low price to ride around on his boat.
And get this, Mohammed had NEVER BEEN ON A BOAT BEFORE!
So we took his first boat ride. And he was a little ‘hieff’ [I don’t know how you spell that, but that’s how it sounds (“scared” in Arabic).] He never learned to swim, but the boat driver and I were gonna make sure he was fine if anything went wrong.
And he was like “Are you SURE you know how to swim?” And I’m like “I passed a swim test for scuba diving! I can swim!”
(It’s funny how my confidence changes on the situation, because sometimes I’m like, “oooooh, I’m not a great swimmer.” But somebody had to be confident here, and I know that in real life, I can swim enough!)
So, we went out in the boat and got take around this little area where there’s land that stretches out on the other side of the water.
So we were in this cool little inner area, seeing land most places you looked.
And Mohammed was having the time of his life – slightly hieff, but mostly excited!
Once we got back to land, he raced up the steps, happy to be as on land as on land someone could be, but he said he was happy he went on a boat. And then I sent him a bunch of pictures that he was excited to share with his family.
His brother would check up with me on WhatsApp sometimes to see how the trip was going. I asked Mohammed if I could tell his brother he went on a boat, and he said yes. And it was so funny, because his brother was like “He WHAT?! Mohammed? You must have the wrong guy.”
And we all had a little laugh about how he finally faced his fear in his 40s, and I felt so special I got to be a part of that!
And tomorrow I’ll finish out this leg of the trip.