From Kiwayu along the Lamu Archipelago
20 May 09
Easter 2009
A dhow trip along the Lamu Archipelago
An opulent Kiwayu picnic had been arranged. Waite ensured we had chilled Pinot Grigio for our eventual lunch on some sparkling tidal beach somewhere to the North. Any number of activities were anticipated; snorkelling, fly fishing, cameras, kayaks, and we even went as far as having a back up canoe with Ali trawling for some snapper, or should I say heading off the possibility of hitting the doldrums? Eeerrhem!
Dhows tend to set sail with such pomp and ceremony~ when the canvas sail unravels, bulging with the breeze, amid ropes, shouting, muscles, balance ~ then comes gliding silence. What a pleasure to be propelled across water without the whine of an engine.
Our little bay has become quite a refuge for young Green Turtle: it’s not unusual to see 5, 10, 15 at one time, popping up for air or swimming beneath the boat.The exit to the open sea gives a rush of liberation. One can not help but be wooed by the clichés of sailing, musings on centuries of exploration and wildly long voyages: what on earth did they see and think when pulling into a coastline such as this, imagine what wilderness…..A pod of Bottlenose Dolphin eye-balled us from a safe distance, birds fed in a frenzy of boiling water heaving with white-bait and the occasional flying fish sliced through meandering, languid day dreams.It wasn’t until our second tack, (or was it a jibe?) that we realized we’d already been sailing for two hours and hadn’t even reached half way!… I was already thinking of raiding the cool box….Thank the Lord we’d had the sense to ask Ali to come with the canoe, we were after all sailing into the North East monsoon; surely the form was to wait out the trade wind in Lamu or Zanzibar? It is no accident however, that the Swahili have adopted their reputable demeanor, what is the hurry anyway? However we did abandon ship, there was after all the tide to consider and much snorkelling to be done before lunch!
Simumbaya’s network of coral-rag islands and mangrove channels are always awe-inspiring. Hot and dry this time of year, shimmering with March’s turquoise waters. We ate lunch in a sheltered cove on Rubu Island: Chilled avocado soup and fresh ciabatta, tonno tonnato with cold potato salad, and obviously, that mandatory chilly glass of vino.
Now all we needed to do was to wait for the dhow to arrive. While the boys wore off their lunch fly fishing, (inspired by the pro who caught and released 80 fish in four days!) I decided to observe the minutiae of island life from the cool of our picnic sight. Symphonies of fiddler crab, pripping sand pipers, and that haunting cry of African Fish Eagles lulled me into a daze.
Within the hour the tide was lapping at the cool box by which time the boys had drifted down current. A few meters of my beach remained and soon I would have to scale the razor-like coral… no sign of the fishermen…!
I waded out in the hope of catching sight of their canoe, deliberating my next move, when our beautiful Dhow, the very one we had impatiently abandoned two hours ago, loomed large and majestic above the mangroves.
Saved like Olive Oyl, by the dhow and not the boys!
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