There’s a breeze. We’re sitting on the back of the pick-up in the dry heat. The road is winding along the coast, sandy mountains to our left, a glittering Red Sea to our right. The weather app claims it’s 49 Celsius, I believe it. The wind draft isn’t cooling. I never felt anything like it. Dessert winds. It reminds me of when I’ve been baking, or roasting potatoes, they are ready and I’m hungry and quite eager and I open the oven to take them out. Only, I put my head infront of the glas and when I open the hatch a wall of hot air hits my face and makes me take a step back. Or maybe like when I’re drying my hair in a rush on the hottest setting. That’s what it feels like. Hot air streams against our faces. Dessert winds.
The Red sea holds an amazing underwater scenery that stands in stark contrast to the sand coloured sinai dessert surrounding it. Luckily the water is cooler than the air. The life under the surface is so vibrant and…alive. Pastel coloured corals, lion fish, turtles, dancing eels, and all sorts of submarine life.
Alongside food, freediving is another passion of mine and this memory comes from the months I spent in Dahab, Egypt training to become a Freedive instructor, a six or so years ago. Dahab is a beautiful little sleepy village right on the border to the Red Sea.
Every day the other instructor students and I would jump in the back of the pickup, along with our bouy, line and gear, and drive to the blue hole. Across the water I could see Saudi Arabia like a hazy silhouette and behind me the sinai mountains grew and became the dessert. The blue hole is roughly 100m meters deep and surrounded by a limestone wall, there’s a 26m opening to the sea where both water and wildlife can enter. Across the hole freedivers have mounted a line, making the set-up (bouy and line) extremely easy. The access is a breeze, it only takes a few minutes to swim out to the line from the shore.
We would start and finish the dive sessions at the same place ever day; Aqua Marina. Aqua Marina is a two story restaurant, perfect for freedivers to warm up at before diving and for everyone to enjoy a meal and thirst quenching drinks after.
We’d order the food before swimming out to set up the bouy and by the time we were done training and got out of the water Mouhammad and his brother who runs the restaurant, would make sure the meals were ready to be served. The food was great but my strongest memory from this time was the tea. I still sometimes wake up craving it.
There was two delicious creations on the menu. Vitamin C and Special Tea. I’d have one before the dive while warming up and the other one after. So good! Luckily the creators (same Mohammad and his brother who owns Aqua Marina) of these drinks were kind enough to share the recipe with me, and now also with you.
Vitamin C is fresh squeezed orange juice, mint, peeled and grated ginger and a squeeze of lemon. It’s citrus season here in Mallorca so I’ve naturally used local bouthy. In this photo I used red oranges, not quite blood oranges but almost, delicious either way!
When you make special tea you use the same ingredients as for Vitamin C but you warm the orange juice and ginger together , the mint and lemon are added in the mug before you pour over the warm juice. Remember to smash the mint before so it releases as much flavour as possible. I know that warm juice might sound strange but, try it before you write it off. It is addictive.
xx Ida
