East African sailing trip – log 37

SAILING LOG37

September 21, 2004

An early start has us heading for the Port of Lindi, where we drop anchor at 3:00pm and give in to the desire for an afternoon siesta.

We drink our afternoon tea and chat to Denise on the radio. The old town and jetty across the bay is a hive of activity, so the decision is made to move farther in to the bay towards the mangrove trees.

 Here Karibu lifts and dips gently to the movement of the tide our balance finely tuned to her constant changing motion – 2 catamarans alone in the massive bay which forms this harbour.

We watch with interest as Rhett approaches a group of young boys between the ages of 10 – 13 yrs who are playing on the nearby beach.

He calls to them and to our surprise we see them getting into duck Manatee and zooting off at high speed for a jaunt around the bay, screaming and shouting in glee (…or fear, we can’t make out which).

As we savour our sun-downers in the still of the oncoming evening we spot a flock of green love-birds chirping in the tree-tops across the bay. Denise tries to identify them and we settle on the ‘grey headed love-bird’.

Lovebirds, a species of the parrot, are highly sociable and affectionate and do not grow very big they have become popular pets and several colour-mutations have been selectively bred for the pet-trade. All species are native to Africa.

Septermber 22, 2004

After a peaceful sleep and a hearty breakfast we decide to watch each other’s boats and take turns going ashore; our main mission is to find an internet café and to buy a plastic seive.

Lindi is an attractive and lively port town with an old colonial feel due to the many buildings still in good repair. We are surprised to see so many internet cafes at really reasonable rates. The streets are busy but clean and most of the residents speak a little English.

Wolf finds a cobbler who repairs his dock-siders (shoes) in record time. He buys a pair of cheap blue flip-flops to wear while we wait for his others to be fixed.

Having bought a few groceries and some fresh produce we headed back to the long wide beach and radio for duck manatee. Denise and Rhett stay ashore, and we head back to Karibu.

We remember our son, Wolfgang’s special day. “Happy Birthday Gango, we wish you were here with us”. Our biggest regret is not having our kids onboard to experience all the amazing places and sight we are enjoying on this trip.

Back onboard, I catch up on my baking, and then my journaling, while the skipper attempts more maintenance and other boat chores.

Rhett buys 4½ Kgs of fresh prawns straight from the fishing boats, which takes all of 3 hours for him to prepare in readiness of our “Prawn-feast” on Manatee.

In our eyes, he is the “KING of Prawns” from this day forward – The best prawn chef ever… We have never tasted any prawns quite as delicious up to now.

Rhett cleans and butterflies each prawn and then covers them in his secret marinade. My mouth waters just thinking of them.

Manatee sailing into Linde Bay.

Sailing into the sunset