Cocobeach Oyster Bay

The Indian Ocean from Cocobeach. The tiny dots on the horizon are huge ships that seem to be anchored out at sea.

Cacti, I had to change in a small nook, surrounded by all these spiky cactus fans, protected from intrusive stares but scared I was going to lose my balance and have to spend the rest of the day picking spikes out of my skin.

White sand and palm trees - I'm so happy!

Had to cool off, dry off and re-hydrate at the beach bar. The sun is so powerful here, the light quality so intense that this window was like a mirror. You can see reflected the other cafe clients and the beach in the sweeping away in the background.

Cocobeach is in Oyster Bay, a nice and up-market part of Dar-es-Salaam. Many expats live in this area, the roads all have tarmac, some old colonial bungalows remain and the rest of the houses are like palaces. It's also home to St Peter's Cathedral which the previous Pope visited once.

The water was so incredibly warm, a little bit stirred up because the bay is quite exposed, it opens out to the Indian Ocean with little protection from headlands. I splashed about for a bit and then walked along the shore-line looking for shells. As a child, on holiday with my cousins and other family members we have always combed through the sand and pebbles for washed up, discarded shells and sea debris. We have found all sorts of things over the years. I found a large worn down and disk-like piece of curved bone. It's extraordinary, I can't for the life of me imagine what kind of animal it used to belong to, or how big the creature was.

Cocobeach is a relaxed place, some guys were marinading meat and fish for a big beach lunch. They were making coal fires to cook over in old metal car wheels. They invited me to join but I politely declined. I didn't much feel like an afternoon for hand signals for communication between English and Swahili and fighting off advances from each of them in turn.