They say there is no word for “back” in the Turkic languages. And “forward” is “algA”... There’s a joke about this: An Altai army is galloping through a mountain valley. A glorious khan is leading it into battle. As he leads them, he raises their fighting spirit: “Follow me, my brave warriors! We shall fight gloriously. Retreat is unknown to us! We know only the word ‘forward’!” “Alga!” “AlgAAA!” the fearsome army echoes. “Sabres drAWrygyny!” (here the storyteller imitates an Altai accent) The great khan climbed a hill and saw the enemy army: “Ooooh... Bloody hell!... Just look how many of them there are....” The khan turned to his army: “Sabres putAWrygyny! And now we turn around and—ALGA!!!” ............ Great heat and a great drought. The yacht lies aground by a lifeless shore
We woke up aground in the morning. The depth sounder reads 0. “Excellent,” said the captain. “At least the current didn’t sweep us into the fairway.” Yesterday we discussed what we’d do if yesterday’s behemoth decided to come back: we’d have to flee under sail, because the starter wasn’t working. It is very hot. Despite the complete lack of wind, everything in the boat becomes coated in reddish dust fairly quickly. When there is wind, it happens even faster. We spend half the day repairing the starter while aground. Ten degrees of heel. It’s funny when you’re swimming to stand beside the boat with the water only up to your waist ))). Cleaning up the starter and the related jobs went well; now we have to get our bottom—and our legs—out of here. We try to get off the shoal and throttle up. It’s low tide, but we try anyway. We’re off. There are 5 miles left to Kaolack, the final destination on our Senegal itinerary under Plan B. To hell with Kaolack! They say it’s dirty and all industrial estates. Without even discussing it, the crew decided to head back towards the ocean.
A sweltering sunset on the Saloum River
Pretend you’re a buoy and keep a low profile (from the Rules for Avoiding Collisions on African Rivers)
A tug appeared around a bend in the river, towing a huge barge alongside. We switched on the radio. Subjectively, the distance between the yacht and the buoy looked to be exactly three-quarters of the combined barge-and-tug configuration. The remaining quarter would neatly sweep away our solar panels. We edged another metre and a half towards the bank, as far as we could go. On seeing Lady Mary lying coquettishly on her side, the pusher tug gave a long blast of its horn. The fairway was perfectly clear from the tug: a red buoy on one side, and us on the other, standing in for the green one. As it approached the yacht, the tug sounded its horn again. “So, perhaps we should have got under way and fled?” “Where to?” the captain enquired. Indeed, where? The tug was faster. If we fled in either direction, it would either run the yacht down or push us towards the ocean along with the barge. We wait. Just in case, I get ready to get under way.
The barge will pass between the buoy and our yacht. The bank is astern of the yacht. We are aground in 1 metre of water. The finger in the photo is for scale )
Hoorayyy! The barge passed without doing any damage. For the first time in my life, I’m jubilant that my eye for distance was wrong! The pilot turned out to be European. It was clear that he and his entire Black crew were hugely relieved they hadn’t had to take Lady Mary by boarding. They waved to us so happily. And we waved back. Well then, now we turn around and ALGA! Towards the ocean.
We safely passed the barge and set off after it towards the Atlantic Ocean
The continuation is here >>