Our first beach day of the year

After weeks of waiting, finally this past Saturday the AUB beach was reopened. Since Saturday is our oh-so-busy day of the week, we had to wait until the second opening day to go. We did go down to sneak a peek however, between activities. All the ladders were being put out, the sun chairs, the sun roofs, and the baby pool had been repainted. The boys were so excited.

When Sunday came and we finally had found all our snorkeling sets, water shoes, and swimwear, we almost ran over and hopped into the water. It wasn’t hot like in the Red Sea, but it wasn’t really cold either. I would estimate it somewhere between 20°-24°C, or between 70°-75°F. Abraham was very cautious at first. Last year he was a great baby swimmer, but because children under six years of age are not allowed into the indoor AUB pool, Abraham hasn’t been in one since last fall. He had obviously forgotten how to swim. He waded around holding my hand, commenting on what the older boys were doing. They too were a little cautious at first, but were soon snorkeling around the more shallow part closer to the shore.

There’s no real coral like around the coast of Sinai of course, but still a lot of life around the AUB beach: different types of fish, crabs, hermit crabs, some really funky sea slugs, etc. William enjoyed picking them all up and putting them into Abraham’s bucket to show him and other curious children on the beach. Then Abraham sat on the dock with August while William and I snorkeled around the pier. It was great! (In fact, it was so great, I didn't manage to take one single picture, because amidst all the fun, I totally forgot!)

After a couple of hours we went home; satisfied, tired and very happy. It had been such a great afternoon. As we entered our house and everyone took their clothes off to hit the showers, I realized that in all our joy, I had missed something very essential: sun-block. Everybody's backs were lobster red! What a bad-mama mistake!

Won’t happen again...