one day i found myself on the island of zanzibar with two very lovely french ladies marian and flora. we were just living in a hut on the indian ocean, eating coconuts and fresh fish with rice. there were some rasta folk around so weed was always present and reggae was always somewhere. most of the time it was just sleeping, swimming and relaxing, nothing much else drove us. we enjoyed chatting about our lives and books and i found myself as close to paradise as possible. there were no other tourists around but occasionally strangers would turn up for an afternoon, usually to visit the owner of the place a finish lady who was always stoned. the girls had heard rumours about a bar in the north, it was on the beach and would take about a days hike to reach if we followed the coastline. 

i dunno, the idea of a big trek to a bar didn't really motivate me but the girls had persuasive ways, and obviously i capitulated.

so after a breakfast of fresh ginger coffee with cardamon we set off, cameras, money and sarongs. 

you know walking along beaches in the tropics, warm clear turquoise water lapping at our feet, the pleasure in the air radiating like a soft sensual dream, it was all perfect. i would tell the girls stories and they would talk about their lives back in europa, we all loved reading so books featured heavily and occasionally when we came to a nice little bay and private beach we would just stop and have a lay down.

there were no other people in sight at all, just the occasional fishing boat would float by.

we would have to swim around each little inlet to get to the next beach but the water was at low tide so it was easy, but gradually after about six hours the tide began to rise, and quickly. now this surprised me, i'd seen tides come in but never this fast, one moment we were up to our waists, the next shoulders and we had to move with our hands raised to carry all our stuff.

at one point i took the cameras, passports money and spare clothing from the girls wrapped them up in my sarong and raised my hands wading along while they swam, hoping the next beach would lay around the corner of the black forbidding volcanic rock. i was wearing a wide brimmed hat which floated away as the water rose, and eventually i had to store the stuff inside a little  up high in the rock wall, and soon we were all swimming.

at first we were laughing, but as time progressed fear took hold and the girls began to show signs of anxiety and stress, tears and outright sobbing. i on the other hand was formulating the inevitable, we would all die here together. but what a perfect death for me, washed up on some weird tropical island with two beautiful french girls. there was no less a perfect way to die and thus i smiled. in retrospect i probably felt quite please with my choice of death and company, it was perfect. but as always the moment you accept the inevitable, circumstances change.

at some point a boat came around the corner from up ahead, it was a long black canoe with a tall black native holding a huge long pole, he stood upright looking at us seriously. i waved, hoping he would pull us aboard but instead he raised his free hand, the other held the pole and he pointed ahead. 

onwards we swam, the silent sentinel watching us as he drifted passed us, i almost read his mind, 'stupid tourists.'

as we rounded the rock face we could see a small inlet, a perfect white sanded beach and i yelled to the openly sobbing girls to make their way in. i reached the beach and pulled them out of the water, we all collapsed and lay down in the hot sand. breathing, absorbing the sunlight,  silently overcoming trauma. then we laughed. may hat had floated in. 

we decided to stay put until the tide went out again, and in this remote landscape of eden the simplest of pleasures were embraced because lust is life, that prehistoric impulse, the basic coding of dna. 

as we lay exhausted on the beach and somewhat dehydrated, stupidly we had forgotten to bring water, from out of the sand i noticed something disturbing as though a very tiny earthquake was making the sand move, but looking closer there appeared thousands of translucent crabs surfacing and heading towards the water. and we were in-between to exhausted to move. they seemed to part and millions of them just circumnavigated our bodies and disappeared into the ocean.

if i'm honest this frightened me more than drowning, i'm not great with anything insect like and this was a horde that would never be deterred by three bipedal creatures with soft flesh.

after the crabs had left we continued our trek, the tide receding and although more cuatious and aware of the environmental dangers by dusk we reached the bar.

it was at the northern point of the island, at the end of a very long stretch of beach. large candles illuminated the area and sofas and comfy chairs seemed randomly placed near the bar, but there was also many hammocks attached to palm trees and posts, and that's where i headed while the girls sat at the bar flirting with a small group of people gathered drinking cocktails. a. ghetto blaster was blasting, bob marly and in the pastel drenched pinks, light blues and greens, the sunset over the horizon, and we all were in awe of it's beauty and simplicity. 

i don't know how many hours passed but i was awoken by the girls who suggested it was time to head back, it was dark and stars were out in full, the gentle lap of the dark water in lieu of bob marly. the bar was empty save for the rasta barman who waved goodbye as we set off, he had said if we kept moving south we would miss the tide.

at one point we splashed about in the water and noticed the bioluminescence, it was like being surrounded by thousands of fireflies,  mind blowing. very romantic and other worldly. we were all mesmerised by its wonder.

returning back to base we shambled up the beach towards the hut, exhausted and feeling mission accomplished. the whole day was perfect, and we were alive.

as it happens flora said she took a photograph just before the water rose. she sent it to me, and it's off marion wading as the tide began to come in. over the years i thought it was lost and lay in digital heaven but yesterday i found it, although it was an old file extension and required some technical expertise to bring it to life. i am pretty sure there's another one somewhere, one of me before my hat floated away, but it may take a few years to find that one.