Today is just an ordinary day of drifting outside the port of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Everything around is calm and silent. The visibility can reach 24 miles. The city lies 15 miles ahead and I can figure out the shapes of its skyline. With the binoculars the image is even clearer. A few miles astern I can see the island of Zanzibar, a tropical paradise for those in search of pristine white beaches, palm trees and underwater marine life. I wouldn’t mind spending a few days ashore on this amazing strip of sand, but today I feel like I have everything I need right here and I am absolutely happy.

I started my day early in the morning with my usual walk around the vessel, always going anti-clockwise – from starboardside to portside.

The water was crystal clear and I could see its beautiful blue colour more than 30m down. The sun was sending its rays deep down and I felt like I could count them by jumping over each and every one. With air temperature rising up to 35˚, breathing became more and more difficult to handle and the desire to jump for a swim more and more acute. But, as I am always complying with the company’s rules and regulations about staying safety on board, I give up my first instinct and decide to postpone my swim for a more adequate environment.

For the next 2 hours I continued my walk around the vessel, but this time I was not alone. A family of beautiful dorada fish – Golden Dorada – decided to join me and started to swim around the vessel at a certain distance. Their swim was not following any pre-established plan, it was just a careless- go- with- the- flow- kind of swim, coming close to the surface then going deeper and deeper until disappearing from sight only to reappear a few seconds later, a few meters away. Their blue fins were sparkling through water like lights and their elegant tails were moving like in a dance. I kept on following them for a while, trying to see the differences between them, but all I could notice was that one was definitely bigger – looking like ‘the father’ – and the others were smaller and always keeping themselves closer to each other as if they were afraid to get lost. Probably they were just practicing ‘surviving ‘on their own, catching smaller fish and staying out of troubles.

I could spend my whole day watching these beautiful creatures, but soon I discovered the nature prepared another kind of show around me. The weather was slowly changing, more and more clouds were forming close to the land and the scenery became more and more interesting. Here and there I could spot rains pouring over land and amazing ‘tower’ like clouds growing bigger and bigger.

‘When the clouds look like rocks and towers, the earth will be shaken by frequent showers’

I have always enjoyed watching the clouds – especially on a hot summer day and in a tropical area – and I have always tried to imagine that the different shapes could resemble some animals or other creatures. Today, my imagination went wild and I had to put an end to it after a while for fear my camera will melt in the sun.

Today was supposed to be just an ordinary day of drifting, but what an amazing day it was! No day is ordinary if we have eyes to see the beauty that surrounds us, anywhere we might be. Today we just happened to be in front of the port of Dar es Salaam …but tomorrow?

I am looking forward to my tomorrow and to all my days to follow …