Working for a living has a number of downsides, not least of which is the amount of time it takes up when you could be doing something interesting instead. With this in mind we set out this weekend to make up for lost time, and take on what we are going to believe was the first ever crossing from Mtwara to Mikindani by inflatable kayak. I shall now recount the saga of this epic voyage, a journey which even Homer would have found inspirational, I am sure.
Firstly, about our craft. Suze was piloting the trusty Stearns Yukatat, while I rode a similar sized boat, the Sevylor Pointer. On paper, the Stearns has more features to support the long distance paddler, including smooth neoprene padding to avoid scuffed knuckles, a removable dagger board and more accessible pockets for your drinks and snacks. However, in practice the Sevylor is a far easier and quicker boat to set up. My ride was looking straight and seaworthy far sooner, plus it came with a matching spray-skirt which was to prove valuable over the next few hours. So, once both inflatables were looking literally shipshape, we took the Escudo back to our house and put to sea in mild surf, just deep enough to avoid damaging boats on the coral.
I would pretend that we sang a sea shanty as we paddled off together but in truth, paddling small inflatables through breakers it was basically every man for himself, trying to find a way beyond the surf to flatter water. Those of you with Google earth will notice the route is a long shore-side slog, followed by an estuary crossing, then a short cut over 1-2km of open water, then round the headland on your port side and into Mikindani bay. Which is all well and good on a map. In real life we quickly found that kayaking over distance is slow work. We were certainly travelling a shorter distance than if we were to drive or cycle to Mikindani, about 5km rather than 12km on the road, but we were covering that distance much slower as well. We managed to make life a little easier by heading into the waves and eventually past them to paddle in flatter water. But still, the watch showed we had been going an hour (more than enough to cycle the longer route on land) and we hadn’t travelled more than about 2km. We had timed our launch for about an hour before high tide, giving us good clearance over the jagged coral of the shore line and avoiding currents that would wash us backwards, so delaying longer after high tide would make our work even harder.
Arms became sore and sorer, and the splashing of waves or dripping of paddles gradually washed the factor 25 off our arms. Luckily it was a hazy, overcast day, avoiding some of the heat and sun exposure, but the gentle wind was against us so it wasn’t possible to stop paddling without losing ground. Now and then a bigger wave came through to us, including one which we saw very late but managed to steer into just enough to get soaked but stay upright. Across the open water the bay looked tiny and distant, but we hoped that entering it would make life much easier. It began to get closer and we began to believe that we would finish this maiden crossing, without bailing out on any sandy shore we could find. But, as they say in prison, short time is the hardest time, and the closer we got to the mouth of the bay, the slower we seemed to approach it. And now the wind became worse, pushing obliquely against us, not only slowing progress but shoving us towards low coral cliffs which would have put an end to our inflatable kayaks and put a lot of scratches on us. Clearly we should have fought further into the wind earlier, but that’s easier said than done. I decided to get it out of the way, if I could, and put my back into paddling hard for 5-10 minutes. My legs and stomach were sore from holding position, but by this stage my arms were hardly feeling it, almost numb. Eventually I reached the headland, and grabbed hold of a mangrove branch to sit and encourage Suze in catching up. She made it, looking pretty tired and sore, and I suggested we pull up on a visible stretch of sand to rest muscles and take on an energy gel for the final stretch. Even holding the boat in place, in wind and swell, was continuing to tire my arms and thorax. Fortunately her memory of the coastline was better than mine, and she suggested pulling on for another few minutes to a better beach, not yet visible. This we did and it was an ideal spot. We ran up onto soft sand and tumbled onto the beach, legs too stiff after 2 hours crammed motionless in the boat. Briefly it was a deserted paradise-island type beach of palms, mangroves and untrodden sand, then we were joined by a local fisherman in his dugout, who set about repairing a fish trap of woven reeds.
After plenty of water and some Powerbar energy sludge we boarded again and set off into the bay. Now it felt easy, the end was visible and arms had been able to recover a little. Locals floated past and waved at us. It was difficult to know, at distance, whether they were waving their home made paddles to encourage us, or to say “You think you’re tired? Try doing this every day with the lid of a paint pot nailed to a stick!” Fair point, I guess. It was about a km across the bay, but having turned the corner both waves and wind were roughly behind us. Steering was still hard work as the swell could push the stern of your kayak suddenly one way or the other, but we kept the distinctive white tower of the old German boma in sight and paddled mechanically onwards.
We planned to land together but fatigue meant we each had to do what we could. Suze was taking a break to rest arms every 100 strokes, but despite the pain I felt I had to go on; if I stopped I might never reclaim that momentum. So I hauled up first, surrounded by the classic sights of an Indian ocean shoreline – dugout canoes and mangroves, a black kite swooping for scraps and dead fish – as well as some less traditional decorations, e.g. the head gasket of a straight-six truck engine. Suze soon arrived, labouring along with nothing left in her arms, barely even gripping the paddle, but we had both made it. Two hours 45 isn’t a long duration to be at sea, but for novice paddlers it was more than enough.
Unfortunately before we could celebrate, we had to carry the 2 boats up off the beach, and then one of us catch the dala dala (see a previous post) to collect the car. So a slight delay to and stretch aching arms and back while local children stared and gabbered at the bizarre, colourful and not-wooden kayaks, before remembering to trot out their ubiquitous English phrases: “What is my name!” [sic, I believe they mean “what is your name”, but pronouns are always tricky] and “Give me money!”. Suze returned quite quickly with the wheels, and once we had deflated and rolled up the boats we were sure we’d done enough to justify coffee and a cooked brunch in 10 degrees restaurant.
