A Boat Called Wanda

Hi from Ziguinchor, Casamance.
We ended up staying four weeks in Dakar which was an interesting experience, always exciting and sometimes discouraging. We were anchored in front of the Cercle de Voiles de Dakar at Hann Plage, a lovely little yacht club in the palm trees with a lot to offer yachts including wifi and even a workshop just made for Martin. The beach is unfortunately really polluted but very pretty at a distance (from the anchorage). The people in Hann village are nice and leave you in peace to wander about and do a bit of shopping. Not at all like downtown Dakar! There we were aggressively and mercilessly harassed by the street venders and Martin was even the victim of a pickpocket in front of me and the children. Two guys selling t-shirts were talking to us when suddenly one of them touched Martin’s trousers at the knee with no explanation. It was such a bizarre thing to do and quite invasive that all of us were looking at this and didn’t notice when his mate stole Martin’s wallet from his pocket while he was bent over. We realized five minutes after they had gone. Seems obvious in retrospect, but they were good! However we did love Dakar for its culture, its colours, its crazy side streets, its markets, its greenness, its decorated buses…. And we were especially happy to have our home with us for a break sometimes.

After Dakar, we sailed directly to the south of Senegal to explore the Casamance River. There in a bolong (smaller tributary) we met up with our friends on the yacht Irini, who have two children, friends of Max and Jack. There we all finished the school year – that was a party!

So now we are on holiday on this beautiful river among the mangroves and baobabs. We swim and we fish and we really should try to finish the interior of the boat…At the moment we are in Ziguinchor, the capital of Casamance with 130 000 inhabitants. It’s a nice little city with friendly people and good markets and delicious shrimps, fish and mangos. We are anchored in front of a very posh hotel which is strangely tolerant of yachties – we can tie the dinghy up to their pontoon and use their wifi bar. Tomorrow we are going back to the bolongs where there are small villages with no electricity or internet but each one has a mast for the mobile phone network! So we probably won’t be able to read emails for a while but can be contacted on 00 221 77 309 7096…hopefully.

We have just arrived in Ziguinchor (Casamance region of Senegal) after stopping for a week at a little mangrove creek off the Casamance river to visit some friends on another boat. It was wonderful and the kids had friends there too. Even better, yesterday we finished the school year – three months of freedom! Well, an opportunity to finish the boat maybe? Now in Ziguinchor we have email on board. More to come….

We are now in Dakar, Senegal, but we wanted to tell you about our little adventure in the Sahara.
Dakhla is on a sandy peninsula which extends 40 km from the coast. On one side the Atlantic and on the other side a lagoon, astonishing in its beauty. Unfortunately we couldn’t get permission to enter the lagoon on Wanda; we had to do the 25km by taxi. We were at anchor in the fishing port two or three kilometers from town. We really enjoyed our stay in Dakhla where we met some very nice people and had an excellent time with Erika, Martin’s mother who was visiting us. We made it to the festival Sea and Desert with camel races, Fantasia horse demonstrations, and where Max-Martin was invited to play football in the stadium in front of thousands of people. And his team won second place! The nights were musical – we were lucky enough to see Youssou N’Dour (a sneak preview of Senegal). I even got to see a wedding – and yes, the groom presented the bride’s parents with two camels!

And then we stayed in the desert for two unforgettable days and a night…it all started at my dentist’s with a chance encounter with Sidi, a Saharan who organises trips into the desert from his auberge beside the lagoon. Finally, we’re off in a four-wheel drive more than 200km into the interior with a nice trio acting as guide, chauffeur, cook and hunter…the road is good and sealed at first, and scenic from the start with views onto the lagoon and then desert landscape with camels crossing the road. Our guides also are exotic, we are filled with anticipation…suddenly we are off-roading, it’s fun! The landscape looks very flat but it’s actually quite bumpy up close. We stop for lunch at an ancient acacia forest which isn’t much next to a forest of oaks or kauris but it was perfect to be in the shade for a good meal cooked on a camp fire. We eat, we explore, we relax. Then we’re off, next stop the dunes. So amazing, have a look at the photos! But the problem with dunes is that they move – did you know that? The result is that in the desert there aren’t any stable landmarks so our guides spend the rest of the afternoon looking for our campsite. This means that we spot a tent or two, race towards them, our guides seem to ask directions (obviously we don’t understand anything) and then we keep on going in circles, or so we think. Sometimes we ask a camel-herd who gestures and points and off we go again. Actually it was fun, I’ve been lost in much nastier places…we start to get just a little bit concerned when, just before sundown, we arrive at a little tent perfectly situated between some particularly gorgeous dunes. So we run to play on them before the sun sets – again look at the photos! By the time we get back there is another tent pitched and our friends are preparing the meal. Max and Jack are happy in front of the fire and we watch the meal being prepared – Sahara bread and camel stew. The bread is cooked in a special way – they heat up the sand and place the bread in it, and then it cooks under a lid covered in coals. Then they diligently scrape off all the sand. Then they rip it up and soak it in the stew. It tastes wonderful. We share the meal with three camel herdsmen who arrive at 10pm with their 250 camels! The tent is in fact theirs which they share with our guides and the second tent is for us. Can you imagine the atmosphere during this wonderful meal in front of the campfire under a dome of stars?
In the morning we get up and really see that we are surrounded by camels. It’s astonishing. With breakfast we drink our coffee with camel milk. It’s very good. Then we break camp and explore the desert a bit – we visit historic places and find flint stones that may even have been sharpened into arrow heads, you never know. ..and also some nice fossils. We stop occasionally to drink tea and play dominos with the local nomads (if that makes sense). Some good memories. After another great meal under the acacias we start back towards Dakhla. But the adventure’s not over yet…our guides spot two goats under a tree and we’re after them with the four-wheel-drive, the goats running ahead. Then, to our great surprise, someone jumps out of the moving car and chases after the goats and actually manages to catch the mother by her leg. Then the others help to herd the young one until they catch it too, and then hop – two goats in the back of the car with Max and the hunter. We were very amazed. Then off to find a farm, still in the desert, where they could sell them before taking us back to the port. We return to Wanda tired, sandblasted and happy.

Highlights:
Jack: My favourite time was the evening in front of the camp fire because we had great fun and the meal was delicious.
Max-Martin: The first sand dunes because I had lots of fun running up and down them.
Caro: The camel-shaped silhouette blocking out the stars which seemed to come down to our feet.
Erika: The moment I walked out of the tent that night into the immense sky scattered with stars and the ever so long lasting comet sliding slowly to the horizon. Impressive. An impression to give us an idea how little we are and how lucky we are to experience this.
Martin: Sitting under the acacias eating couscous with camel meat.

We arrived this morning (Tuesday 13 April) in Saint Louis, Senegal after a brilliant six day passage totally under sail. And we saw dolphins, whales, turtles, flying fish and pelicans. We actually took five days but when we arrived we were surprised to find that the channel indicated on our chart to enter the river did not exist. Even though our chart was updated last year! So we sailed around for the night to continue our search in daylight. St Louis is in the Senegal River which is seperated from the sea by a long peninsular. And the channel on the chart was actually a beach. Martin had downloaded a photo of the channel from google earth with gps coordinates which we found the next morning much further north than on the chart and we went in no problem following the little fishing boats.
We now know what happened…St Louis was threatened by floods so they decided to dig a channel 4 metres wide across the peninsular to help the river drain into the sea. But this channel wasn’t stabilised and now it is a mile wide and as a result the old channel has silted up and the mouth of the river has closed to form a lagoon. Dramatic consequences for the wildlife and the population. All this happened in 2005 and still the marine charts are not updated. An adventure for us. If there are other boats who want to visit St Louis we can give you the coordinates.

First impressions…very colourful and lively and very friendly people.

Our phone number in Senegal is 00 212 77 309 7096