The Kingdom of Crocodiles and... Flamingos. Sailing the Gambia River

The Kingdom of Crocodiles and... Flamingos What instructions children are given in the mangrove wilds, what a crocodile had for breakfast, and why Gambian fishermen visit yachts at two in the morning. Lady Mary is living among white herons and pink flamingos deep inside mainland Africa’s smallest country. Mum, Dad, look, quick! The beginning of our journey up the river — James Island. Sailing the Gambia River The Kingdom of Crocodiles. A Reptile’s Breakfast The crack of branches and the screeching of monkeys burst into a morning filled with birdsong. Fifty metres from the yacht, the branches of the mangroves are thrashing about. I spot a python swimming away (aren’t constrictors supposed to hunt silently?). The shrieking suddenly stops, and the true culprit crawls out onto the muddy bank, dragging the heavy club of its tail behind it. A crocodile, girls, a crocodile! A shadow slips into the reeds. Mum, where did Dad sail off to? my daughter asks timidly, bringing me to my senses. Half an hour ago, the captain disappeared in the dinghy up a channel not far from the crocodile’s breakfast spot. Be careful, there’s a crocodile there! our chorus echoes through the tall mangroves. All right! Dad calls back from beyond the reeds. We breathe a sigh of relief. And the captain disappeared into the mangroves... Thus began the sixth day of our journey up the Gambia River, sailing deep into the African continent and the kingdom of crocodiles. From then on, even Andrei preferred dousing himself on deck to going for a swim. The children and I had already cracked the day before, when fishermen came to sell us their catch—a small shark and a ray, along with freshwater(!?) catfish. Er... um... the first mate mumbled, staring wide-eyed at the shark tied together with the catfish. Do you have crocodiles here? We do, the fishermen replied, looking at us with amused but kindly expressions. Sharks and crocodiles, all in one package.... The water is neither fresh nor salt, and suits both. Well, well. Are they dangerous? I feel like an idiot, but I have to find out! They are. The young Gambian’s grin reminded me of the ladies who come to the Altai and anxiously ask, “Do you have ticks here?” “We do.” “A lot?” “A lot,” we readily reply, watching their consternation with the same amusement: “What are we supposed to do, oh my God!?” Fish delivered straight to the yacht. The Gambia The Kingdom of Crocodiles and... Flamingos. Climate Change 🙂 The wind lets us sail upriver with the current behind us (!?). Lady Mary sometimes gets up to almost 9 knots. The current depends on the tides. Even 300 km upriver, it changes direction every six hours. This is our second discovery about the Gambia (after finding sharks living a hundred kilometres from the sea). The water grows fresher by the day. Studying the flocks of birds, Andrei hands me the binoculars: Here, Marinochka, have a look—maybe you’ll spot something interesting. ... A pink neck with a large hooked beak curves diagonally across the eyepiece. Flamingos!!! We anchored at once and spent ages watching this marvel through the binoculars. But the shoals kept us from getting any closer to the flamingos. For the hundredth time regretting that we had never acquired a proper lens, we cobbled together a telephoto lens using one half of the binoculars and Nastya’s leg as a tripod. 🙂 A highly awkward and laborious way to get a few blurry shots. Like these: This is the best photo ))) A Midsummer Night’s Dream It is now impossible to find any coolness inside the yacht, so the crew have moved onto the coachroof to sleep. During the day, the mattress and mosquito net remain on the roof. We sail under the jib; the bed prevents us from hoisting the mainsail. We probably look like a Gypsy caravan with a sail. A river journey really is very different from a sea voyage in terms of comfort. For the better. (Sleeping on a sea passage is described here — Children. Sleep. And a Sailing Yacht ) These nights in the channel of the Gambia are enough to make you write poetry. How else can you convey the feeling of floating, when the bed seems like a tiny island suspended above the mirror of the water? The stars surround the boat above and below in a shimmering sphere. The air, the banks, the thickets—everything spills over with trills and chimes. At the darkest hour, it suddenly falls silent, but by four in the morning the unseen multitude is already singing in the dawn. Morning in the mangrove forest The Kingdom of Crocodiles and Flamingos. Mosquito Attacks We shoot in and out from beneath the net like torpedoes, trying not to open it a centimetre more than necessary. The bloodthirsty mosquitoes have already ravaged our flesh until we look as though we have been quarantined with chickenpox. Ladushka is the tastiest, all soft and tender. There is simply no avoiding the bites, despite the smoking coils, liberal applications of repellent, and our flight beneath the net at the first hint of dusk. Luckily, during the dry season there is no particular need to fear malaria. Whatever the mosquitoes leave of our bodies is devoured by tiny black midges known in the Gambia as “sand flies.” Their size allows them to ignore mosquito netting—through the tiniest hole they fly three abreast, holding hands and never touching a thread of the net. The children’s deck bed and a junior crew member the mosquitoes haven’t quite finished eating 🙂 Achtung, Achtung! Deep into the Mangroves The mangrove bushes become tall trees, standing firmly on the crests of their roots. Here and there in the dense wall, fairly wide channels can be seen vanishing into the gloom—straight out of Indiana Jones. One day we ventured into one of them. An entire world of a mangrove river, hidden beneath the high canopy of the trees, began peering at us. Somewhere in the branches a monkey rustles; somewhere else branches crack—it sounds as though something large is forcing its way through the wilds. We row down the lofty tunnel, quiet as mice; even Lada has fallen silent and is trying with all her might not to make a sound. Sometimes we stop completely, and then, after a couple of minutes, the birds’ voices begin to come alive again. The little river bends as though it wants to emerge through another channel back into the great Gambia, but has not yet made up its mind. A submerged log, then another, looking very much like a crocodile’s eyes protruding above the water. That day the water was still brackish (we taste it every day), so there should not have been any crocodiles. Although... there is no guarantee the crocodiles knew that. Beyond the hidden entrance to the channel, a lost tropical world opens up The children are given instructions: at the word “crocodile,” silently drop to the bottom of the dinghy and do not move. Even the parents get chills from giving an order like that.... Company, Rise and Shine! We dropped anchor beside an orange hill. Green and quiet. Several people at its foot are bathing horses, furtively glancing at only the third yacht of the entire season. The donkeys are less fortunate—unwashed, they wait patiently for their loads, which they will carry somewhere over the hill, probably to a village. There is no sign of any habitation within sight. But at two in the morning, the local population could no longer endure the information vacuum and sent spies our way, disguised as fishermen and a pirogue. The morning fishermen-spies 🙂 Shining a torch directly onto the coachroof (read: straight into the eyes of the half-naked crew), the scouts began shouting “Hello” and offering us fish (at two in the morning, mind you). We don’t need any fish, thank you. What do you mean, you don’t? Why not? We’ve got some, we say. You’ve got fish? Oh, come on!? For another ten minutes, the cheerful spy kept shouting something, refusing to heed our frank confession that we had no presents, cigarettes, or T-shirts bearing Che Guevara’s image for them. Only fish. 🙂 Just to make sure, the lads came back at half past six in the morning as well. And once again they were amazed that during the night we had somehow failed to eat the very fish we had used to fend them off the day before. And the following day, our long-awaited encounter with a hippopotamus finally took place. More photos: Fishing village Shark. A catch a hundred kilometres from the ocean Captain of the Gypsy caravan A collective farm on the hill, a state farm below it 🙂 Sunset on the Gambia River “Are you going in with the crocodiles?” “Nooo!” 🙂 Preparing the young sailor for a “swim” River catch Here the trees stand on tiptoe in the water ) Venturing into the channel. A smile from the vault of heaven During the day, an awning-roof appears over the bed and the coachroof; at night we take it down so we can see the stars Following in Indiana Jones’s footsteps A fisherman checks his nets We have a separate post about the plant and animal life — The Flora and Fauna of the Gambia. People, Animals and Fallen Baobabs