Jellyfish Soup

When you’re loading camels up with scuba tanks, you know you’re off on an adventure.

Enough of an adventure, in fact, to overcome my longstanding aversion to camels, first developed in the Mauritanian Sahara where their Chewbacca howls and the Satanic buzzing of the pestilence of flies that follow in their stinking, growling, flatulent woke me, without fail, at dawn.

One of my few complete Arabic sentences, in fact, is “No thank you. I do not want a camel.”

The boy, who learned to ride Bedouin style in Petra, has no such aversion to conquer… Particularly not with two other kids to show off to.

Ras Abou Galoum is a beautiful spot, there’s no denying it.

But what are three modern kids to do on a deserted beach for two whole days with no computers?

Z’s used to time offline, but that tends to be when we’re actively doing stuff (riding horses, climbing mountains, trekking…)

Would the digital detox kill all three of them?

Well, the digital detox didn’t quite go as planned, it has to be said.

Our dive guide had not two but FOUR mobile phones, one an iPhone complete with episodes of Achmed the Dead Terrorist which he, as an Egyptian, finds a) hilarious and b) excellent training material in English idiom.

And L had somehow managed to smuggle a Nintendo DS aboard his camel.

Still, they snorkelled over an absolutely lovely coral lagoon, as bright and fresh and colourful as I remember the Blue Hole being ten years ago, and, but for a stonefish lurking at 5 metres, quite ridiculously safe.

In Ras Abou Galoum, there are blue triggerfish that don’t attack, even when they’re nesting. Even the clownfish, usually quite hilariously assertive over their anemone nests, don’t feint at you.

And the purple jellyfish that bloom all over the national park at this time of year? Stingless.

Diving, I caught one in the water. It felt, well, rubbery. Surprisingly solid. And not in the least bit slimy, more like a pencil eraser than anything aquatic.

The eels in the eel garden were smooth and firm, and a long, green sea cucumber felt like fun fur.

Late in the afternoon the Bedouin who provides tea, food and mats and carpets set up a campfire, and the kids sprang into life, fetching flammables and tending the fire.

The reason for a fire in temperatures way over 40?

To keep the tea warm and fend off the flies.

Or, of course, if you’re a child, to cook jellyfish on, using a tin can you found on the shore.

Up and down the beach the three of them prowled, collecting jellyfish after jellyfish, and transporting them in shells to their fiery doom.

Chuck in a parrot fish beak and some seaweed. Roll in sand. Place on a board that is destined to burn.

And you have a scent as if someone burned the ocean. Amazing.

Sitting in the twilight, with the mountains of Saudi Arabia glowing pink across the Red Sea, I thought, “I like this life of ours.”

And lying under the moonlit, desert sky with only a gellabiya between us and the shooting stars above, falling quietly asleep in utter safety, I realised that even modern children, like these three, can make their own entertainment out of absolutely nothing.

Just like we used to, back in the day before computers ruled our world.