Canaries to The Gambia

The wind freshens from the north west and I sit on the coach roof of my boat, just a distance away from the fishermans jetty, wearing just a pair of shorts, my skin is tanning quickly at sea and is starting to glow in the dwindling sun. A long narrow wooden canoe motors by, fishermen, young men mostly, out working for the night. A make shift shelter of a blue plastic tarp stretched between the gunnels a guy standing tall on the stern with the tiller, the other guys chatting and joking, one guy kneeling with legs crossed to pray to Mecca. Africa.

A voyage is a strange transition. I left la Palma somewhat heavy of heart and felt utterly despondent when the wind died after the first few hours and the motor had to come on. Once I had cleared the Canaries, the sea became big and the wind consistent with sunshine everyday. The water assumed a deep blue hue, the nights became warmer and I started spotting flying fish as they launched themselves between the waves. I began to get acquainted with Astro navigation, trying to take sights daily from the cockpit, whilst lurching in the swell. I saw what I believe to be was my first pirate off Mauritania, in which case I put myself 200 miles off shore.

How can a voyage be catalogued? A beginning, a middle, an end? My middle was a train of sunshine, reading, sleeping, cooking and getting bored with my food, and the relentless movement, swells and waves of the ocean, creating never ending noise especially amplified below decks. Ticking, creaking, rolling, tapping, scraping, twanging, bashing, knocking, crashing, a sailor would know. Dawns and sunsets, the moon rising and setting, cloudless skies and clear starry nights.

The last stretch of the voyage was the most challenging. In order to arrive to anchor in the daytime it was necessary to time my approach. Common sense told me that the last 25 miles to the port needed to be done in daylight. I had a sixth sense that there could be "lobster pot" type issues and I imagined small unlit boats and unregistered wrecks. To arrive at the 25 miles off point at dawn meant deliberately slowing things down. It was cruel irony that it was a glorious day for sailing which I spent muted, mostly just under reefed jib to make 3 kts.

Sometime yesterday afternoon as we crawled along, my eye caught something coming alongside about 20 metres away. It didn't take long to realise I was looking at the corpse of a white adult. Coloured orangey yellow, distended and mostly submerged, body parts plopping in the swell. I knew beyond doubt that I should refrain from taking a closer look. I went below decks and waited for it to pass. It had shooken me up for sure. Somehow it took away, for a moment, the magic and purity of the ocean. I wondered if there was anywhere that I could go on planet earth that is sacred? I tried not to dwell but the experience coloured my mood.

A couple of hours later, the opposite. Dolphins came to my boat, this is not a new phenomenon but with them they bought their plankton luminescent trails which was breath taking. In an almost supernatural sense they could be seen approaching from the distance, luminous green tracks weaving through the darkness and extending some 10 or 15 metres behind. Then to the bows winding and diving in an out, five of them together. Intermingled and woven together then splitting apart and veering off, each leaving a green streak in its wake. I was captivated and stood for an age to watch the show, what an absolute privilege.

The night went on and more lights came and more vessels appeared. I prepared myself for a sleepless stretch as to slumber in such conditions would be foolhardy. The wind increased and this coincided with the ocean floor ascending from 3000m to 50m which made for a choppy sea with much spray. In 35 degrees heat being wet is a little more tolerable but plugging and beating to windward is never much fun. As the dawn came so did the local fishing crews in there long slender wooden canoes, and a multitude of lines with flagged markers. On top of an intense night without sleep this was not much fun but reinforced my original decision to arrive in daylight.

Arriving to the port I was struck by just how quiet it was. I was expecting a hubbub of activity with a city and tall rise buildings but was met with low level infrastructure and a few container ships, some alongside and some at anchor.

Dropping anchor in just 4m of water, I radioed in to the port control, I had arrived.

How do I describe, how do I condense, the events of the last 24 hours? I'm no stranger to "the developing world". It seems the same wherever I have been. And it feels good to be back. I watched a man this morning, squatted in his haunches, his hands wet with fish innards. He put the blade of his knife over the root of the fish tail and thwacked it with a blunt piece of wood. Then he split the fish's head open down the middle and forced the two halves apart revealing the backsides of the eye balls and a dark reddish mass which I guess was the brain. He discarded parts in their allotted piles and then reached for the next. A companion bought over another bucket of de filleted cadavers and sloshed them onto the heap. This is what some people do to live here.

There are buckets and pails and barrels of fish, there are spreads of the flesh lying out on makeshift screens, covered in salt and flies, drying in the hot sun. A golden coloured dog sniffs, it's head erect in a shaded area, whilst nearby a group of young guys sit on wooden crates under a dusty tree.

I walk through a market, mostly covered. There is the usual tat, phone cases, cheap watches and flip flops, then those garish pale skinned manikins with too small heads and jutting breasts adorned with bleached jeans or sparkly blue dresses. I come across a guy making furniture, he labours his blunt saw through mahogany and teak, rough sawn, hewn, cut and nailed together to make chairs, tables and cupboards. Children sit at foot operated treadle sewing machines attacking the brightly coloured cloth with their mechanised needles, spinning out garments that sit on hangers waiting to be bought.

In the dusty pot holed ridden street, chickens and goats intermingle with the human flow. A taxi cab bounces by, it's boot lifting and shutting with each undulating motion. Another man slaps his wet rag over the windscreen of a car in the lot, probably the car belonged to an official, they can afford to pay for such things.

Buxom ladies with portly posteriores look glorious with their shimmering attire and braided hair. Full faced and vibrant, glowing gracefully in the street, oblivious to the squalor of heaped rubbish and low level stinking black water filled conduits. I am on the street in Africa, noisy, dusty, colourful and alive, under a beating hot sun.

When I came ashore I needed to clear in. It meant a visit to customs and immigration. And I have to say that it was a bit of a marathon, a fascinating one at that.

I was fortunate to have been befriended by the 28 year old guy from the visitors jetty office. Together we did the rounds. I cannot give the experience any linear perspective. It was all a bit of a blur and I was very tired. Each office that we visited seemed to share the similar characteristic of appearing to look busy but upon closer scrutiny a certain aura of relaxed indifference and boredom prevailed. We went from one to the next. A train of stairways, corridors, different buildings, different departments, photo copy rooms, accounts rooms, cashiers rooms, back out onto the street to get more photo copies, more security checks, passport please, blaring TVs with CNN, old computers, hot offices, offices with AC, with windows, without windows, desks piled with files and paper work, phones ringing, phones being ignored, grumpy personal, please wait outside under the concrete staircase where they make the tea on a pot filled with charcoal and a little kettle. Men in t shirts, men in fatigues, men in hi viz, men in shiny shoes, men in flip flops, dirt, dust, dimness, sitting about, slouching, looking at smartphones.

The law says my boat has to be boarded and inspected. So naturally we sit in yet another office, waiting, and waiting. The official has his phone on my file. He keeps looking. Says he likes my water bottle, looks again at the phone. Asks me how many bedrooms my boat has? Do I carry guns...or wine? I say I carry tools, that I am a carpenter. We agree I will build him a boat in the next 28 days. And still we wait. The text comes through. He fills out the form, and we are done. No one has boarded or inspected the boat, he said I was too tired, they didn't want to put me to the trouble, but the form was completed, our little secret.

If the quality of the environment reflected the importance level of the officials, we had literally climbed 5 flights of stairs to the upper echelons, to the port Gods. The office was clean-ish, they had AC, a fridge and a plant on the balcony outside. The guys wore white shirts with epilets denoting their rank. They each had one desk and they looked, kind of busy...and official, in that relaxed African way...

We had come to get the final stamp, from the harbour master himself, who was absent. More waiting. Before the final hurdle, a payment off $22 had to be made, in local currency. Back down 5 flights of stairs, out through security, back out into the street to buy some Dalassi, the local buck. And then into reverse, but wait! It's too late, the cashier closes at 16.00, it's five minutes after. We cannot conclude the business of the day. I must return the next morning. Another two hours spent in the office this morning and finally done, and I got to meet the harbour master, who certainly carried the air of a man who was able and accustomed to his job, in this case it seems, processing snd facilitating the loading and unloading of container ships, 800 containers per day in fact. And my 5 hour marathon was like a speck of dust that is quickly brushed off.

I am so grateful to my companion, I pay him a tip and give him coffee and some candy for his children, he seemed genuinely touched. The other payment I made was to the Beach Master halfway down a flight of stairs on the way out in the last instance. There is always that ever so tender awkwardness that precedes backshee, and I never know how much to give, and it seems unwise to ask!

There is a road to the port. It is the road of trucks. I have never seen so many articulated lorries and never seen such a collection of battered vehicles before. They thread their way in to the port entrance through quite heavy security, namely port officials and police in dark sunglasses with whistles shouting and gesticulating the whole time, it is organised chaos, as pedestrians and cars run the gauntlet to squeeze through, the whole road is filled with dust and exhaust fumes as these ancient monsters spit and crunch slowly along. Tires down to the metal, ominous looking patches of either oil or brake fluid, cables and wires and fittings hanging off, dragging along the dusty tarmac. Smashed windscreens, dented panels, indicators held on with pieces of twine, garishly painted symbols on the cab, decorations and flourishes. These behemoths driven by young guys who barely look 16, thin arms wielding horizontal steering wheels, heads set squarely ahead and foot pressed to hard on the accelerator. And either side of the road, like abandoned wrecks, bereaved of their cargo, lorries lie empty, waiting for the next pick up. The drivers sitting in groups in the shade, or in their cabs, or fixing stuff that is broken.

It's been a whirlwind 24 hours arrival time on top of a long voyage and now to rest for a few days. I'm at anchor in a quiet spot that has a breeze that takes the edge off the 35 degrees of heat. The local fishing crews moor here at night, chattering and singing making fire in their canoes. There is singing coming from a church or mosque across the bay well into the evening.