I am a water baby. I would rather be submerged in a clear body of water than anywhere else on almost any given day. Pool, ocean, lake, sea, whatever. According to my mom, I have been like this ever since I was very little. Possibly before I could walk.
It was very handy, then, that we grew up on a compound with strategically placed rec centers that had swimming pools where we could go swimming all day up until 9:00 at night, sometimes even 10:00 p.m. It was a great way for us to be entertained and wear our butts out so my mom could get a little rest in the evenings.
I’m pretty sure this was the kiddie pool. My mom couldn’t swim when we were little so she would go and sit in the kiddie pool with us while we splashed around. She wouldn’t let us swim in the big pool until we figured out how to swim on our own. Once we could swim in the big pool, she decided she needed to learn how to swim.
It also didn’t hurt that we lived on the Red Sea. We had a cabin that we shared with several other families on the Red Sea. It was part of a private beach with a gated entrance. There was a really long pier that went out to deep water where boats could pull up, and all along this pier, there were cabins attached with short walkways to the pier and also a ladder that went straight down to the shallow water. Before my sister and I got into playing sports and ballet (Naomi), we spent most of our weekends at the cabin. There was more often than not, a decent sized group at the cabin. Though sometimes it would just be our family and then whatever friends my parents would let us bring with us. We had a lot of good times at the cabin.
Carmen and Arisa. I miss them.
Mom grilling burgers & dogs.
Naomi holding Carmen & Arisa’s dad’s hand and Mom on the pier. Once again wearing those kick ass shoes.
This is my dad’s SunFish. (That’s not my dad. That’s Mr. Quinn and his oldest daughter, who’s name escapes me at the moment. You would think I would remember her name. She taught me how to swim properly. ETA: Teresa! Her name was Teresa. Thanks Naoms.) The SunFish was his pride and joy until that one time he took my mom and me out in it. It was really windy and there were a lot of motor boats out and the water was incredibly choppy. We capsized, of course. It also didn’t help that there had been great whites (sharks) sighted that day, my mom was a poor swimmer, and her nose started bleeding. I started to panic a little, when my mom’s nose started bleeding. (I think I was in 5th grade at the time.) I made her swim with me to a rock that was part of the Corniche next to the main road (and clear on the other side of where the cabins were). We waited there until my dad could come pick us up in the Blazer. My mom made him sell the boat after that because she lost her sunglasses. You’ve got to have your priorities, I guess.
If you look behind me in this picture, you can see a white fuzzy line. That would be where my mom and I were sitting waiting for my dad to pick us up.
Sometimes we would just go out on the beach and kind of set up camp and play all day and occasionally even spend the night on the beach. I don’t remember if we didn’t have the cabin at the time or if it was just something we did anyway. Camping on the beach was my favorite because we’d always have a giant bonfire and we could throw just about anything into it. That was awesome. So was laying in the sand at night and seeing all the stars. I’ve never been anywhere else in the world where you could see so many stars at night. There were no lights other than our bonfire on the beach. We’d sleep in the back of the car and there’s be 3 or 4 of us laid out and talking and giggling until we passed out. It was awesome.
That would be my butt sticking up behind the chair. Typical.
One of our favorite things to do was to build racetracks in the sand and then collect all the hermit crabs we could find on the beach and put them inside the racetrack. The racetrack would always have walls that we thought the hermit crabs wouldn’t be able to climb. We’d drop the hermit crabs on the “starting line” and then wait for them to come out of their shells. We’d get bored waiting on them before they’d come out, find something else to do, and leave them alone for hours. When we’d remember to check on our “racing” hermit crabs, we were always surprised to find them gone.
The other thing about the Red Sea in Jeddah is that the Saudis built the Corniche. It is a man-made waterfront promenade that the main road runs by. There are walkways, beaches, playgrounds, gazebos, sculptures, etc. It was a place where you could spend time by the water, but not get in it. Getting in the water on the Corniche would be haram because it was in public and that was considered indecent and/or immoral because of the nature of bathing suits. Swimming was done on the private beaches only. By private beach, I mean a stretch of beach that would be literally surrounded by walls up to the water. All the major hotels had private beaches, and so did the place where our cabin was. There were several different places like that, too. I don’t know of anywhere else in the world where they do that.
Me on the Corniche doing my Fantasia impression.
