The sail down to Banjul from the Saloum was uneventful. The wind died in the afternoon and we motored to our anchorage at Half Die, described by Annie in more detail. After dark two guys from the Gambian Marines came across and engaged us in conversation. We told them to go away, thinking it a scam, but they convinced us they were genuine and just wanted us to move out of the deeper channel to a different anchorage. Of course if we asked for one of them in the morning he would take us through all the immigration formalities in less time than if we were on our own. In the morning they were waiting for us but couldn’t take us into town because the Army General was visiting. They had kindly lined up a security man from the port who would take us around. This he did, via his daughters school, where we were asked by the head and deputy head teachers what we would do for them. They were very keen to twin with a school in England and Annie and I will take this up when we get the opportunity back in the UK.

Banjul, the capital, is like a poor market town compared with Dakar and the economy seems to be almost totally reliant upon tourism and the export of peanuts and peanut oil - but even these are in decline. Senegal was full of economic contrasts, this place is just desperately poor and run by a seemingly bonkers president (no offence intended if this is intercepted but it might be unwise to expand this point - a Google search is all that is required). When you are arrive here you are soon reminded by the people you meet of their colonial past under their British “masters”. White tourists are seen as more than just ripe for exacting a bit of foreign currency - people you engage with want you to meet their families and provide financial support, particularly if you have just rolled up in a rather expensive looking yacht and are British into the bargain. Having “sponsored” a Senegalese girl for the past 10 years through World Vision Annie and I are familiar with the theme. There is an emphasis placed upon education here, for younger children anyway and both sexes notwithstanding it is a Moslem country. It was said to us that this is a legacy from the British, along with their official language, borders and institutions. If we can help the families of one or two of the people we have met here then we will do so.

Our clearance of immigration formalities was a long and painfully hot experience involving several requests for “presents”, one outright scam, one generous tip and a feeling that the whole thing is a scam from anchoring onwards. Poverty breeds scams or at least an opportunistic approach and we are constantly struggling to balance a feeling of being ripped off against the fact that by our standards most of these people have very little. At the risk of labouring a point my view is that the world needs a lot less religion, a lot more education, better politics and much greater wealth redistribution. Not much I can do about it but if some educational support is possible then I think it incumbent to do what I can.

Our second night was at a place called Lamin Lodge in he mangroves outside Banjul and better placed for the airport where we met Alex onThursday. He has joined us for the trip up the river. Lamin Lodge is what its name suggests and is a three story wooden structure built some years ago by a German ex yachtie and his wife. Peter is still there running a restaurant with calor gas but no electricity and providing bird watching trips for tourists. You are chaperoned through your meal by Umi who wields her stick to stop the monkeys darting in and pinching your food. We had 300 litres of water delivered by donkey cart from a nearby village standpipe and ferried out to the boat in 15 litre containers by general helper and factotum Buba. Trips to the market in Serekunda and the airport involved taxi rides along the dirt track to the main road, passing through settlements where the children run after the taxi shouting and laughing and begging cash and, for some reason, plastic bottles. Having spent all our cash in the market and at the very expensive supermarket our bank cards were rejected by two separate ATM’s. This was concerning but acutely embarrassing as we didn’t have enough money to pay our taxi fare, our driver/guide being fully aware of how much, in his terms, we had spent. We engaged him to take us to the airport the following day and added some extra to the fare for the day before. The best bit about Lamin Lodge was coming across the garden water spray that I bought for spraying the decks with cleaning solution and realising that it would be perfect for washing the salt and dust out of the pulleys and off the coachroof and metalwork. It worked a treat, being more effective and using less water than a bucket and sponge.

There is a pattern to the wind here that means it is consistently from the north east, blows overnight and into the morning before dying away in the afternoon. In Senegal the night and morning wind was 15 to 20 knots, here in the Gambia it is much lighter and the more so as we head up the river. This means that the mornings are cool, by lunch time it is hot and by sunset at 1800 it is very hazy with oppressive sultry heat. Sitting up in the cockpit after dark is not an option. We made this mistake yesterday and the light attracted so many insects to the boat we were alive with them. The mosquito coils seem to be effective against, well, mosquitos but little else. This morning there wasn’t a nook or cranny that wasn’t teeming with little black beetles that prefer to scurry for cover than fly. Annie went over the whole boat, inside and out, with a dustpan and brush to sweep up all the insect debris. So we have to barricade ourselves down below with mosquito nets over the hatches, a coil burning and wait for the air to cool down in the early hours before dawn.

Friday night we anchored in Bintang Bolon, a tributary on the southern side. The sounds of the birds and animals in the mangrove were amazing. There is one bird call that sounds like a sudden high pitched blip of sonar immediately followed by a deeper more resonant note that echoes loudly all around and penetrates throughout the boat. This was followed by very weird loud “voices” like hunters signalling to each other that sounded more monkey than bird. After we went to bed there was drumming in the distance until after midnight. Annie was spooked - all too resonant of the book Heart of Darkness that she is reading at the moment.

A praying mantis hitched a lift with us today in the cockpit.

ps I cannot open the editing suite in Photoshop to convert my RAW photo images into JPEGs for compression and adding to this blog so I cannot upload any photos. If I can find a way to do it without Photoshop I will, otherwise you will need to wait for Annie’s next upload when we get wifi - which may be a while……………………….