We have just had breakfast at ten. The entire party is shepherded to the island town by Shaka, who would introduce us to Mbarak for a talk on the history of centuries-old Lamu. We would later be conducted on a guided tour of the island’s famous landmarks and cultural artefacts.

However, Joan, Eddie, Mark, Karis, Kotut, Benja, Issa and Loketo join me for a parallel tour that we brand “misguided”. It is aimless but, well, we are calling the shots. We pop in at Hapa Hapa Restaurant for a tantalising taste of natural, ice cold juice. We then trod the narrow streets, popping in and out of this and that restaurant or mall with the pomp and confidence of a cowboy gang raiding desolate towns in the wild American west.

We walk everywhere, occasionally stopping to take snaps against a backdrop of the museum or of some other picturesque monument. The only sections of the town we skirt are those that we feel are Lamu's equivalent of Nairobi’s Nyamakima.

We wind up the day at Manda beach on Manda Island, where we engage in a crowded, unisex soccer match as the rest frolic in the waters. When ladies of one of the teams are asked to “skin” (play bosom-bare) and they offer to do just that, men folk who were swimming desert the ocean’s waters and stampede to join in. The stripping is however thwarted by fear of hostile reaction by the island’s ultra-conservative Muslims.

The soccer match gets underway and the said ladies are exempted. Many land bruises and knocks. Almost everyone has a sore this or sore that and I am not talking throat here. The turf on which the game is played, being on the seaside, is sodden. It actually feels like playing soccer on wheat dough.

Feeling that I have had enough of the match, I decide to cool myself with a swim as the clock ticks towards sunset. On shallower waters, meanwhile, Anastasia is getting tough on a bunch of helplessly subdued students who just won't master how to swim. I am trying hard to be a gentleman by familiarising Annette with floating tricks when Anastasia wades along and perhaps decides I am wasting my apprentice's time.

She storms into my “class” and hijacks it without so much of a “it's a beautiful evening, isn't it?”

Within ten minutes, however, Annette and Kate Mumbi have, thanks to the trained counsellor, learnt the fundamental bit of any swimming lesson: how to float. Given the impatience and abrasiveness of their (newly acquired) teacher, they had no choice but to master the lessons fast.

At dusk the transfer boat docks at Manda to transfer us to Dodo's. The boat is like a hospital's casualty department. Everyone, especially those who were playing soccer, seems hurt somewhere.

After dinner of fish and biriani, I take Forez, her sis Nduta, Jose, Annette, Antony, Veronica plus a host of others to the Administration Police canteen for pints and pool till early morning. I reckon that since we arrived in Lamu, I have so far accumulated sleep debt of over twelve hours. Some guys I know have hardly slept at all. A couple of guys later join us at the AP canteen, where Forez, Chelan and I engage in pool shooting till just after 2am when we sleepwalk by the sea to Dodo's, our otherwise indiscernibly dark path generously illuminated by the moon's rays.

Tomorrow will be more eventful; snorkelling, swimming, sightseeing. The more reason why I need to sleep good.

Day 3>>

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