One of my passions was sailing and during my service in the BSAPolice I was lucky enough to have been posted to Kariba during its construction and later as the member in Charge for 3 years. When I saw the size of the lake I vowed that one day I would build a yacht and sail the full length and breadth of the lake with my family. I retired from the police in 1977 and built my first yacht, Aquarius, which was launched in 1978. In 1980 I built my second from the same set of plans. We named her Scorpio. In 2012/2013 I wrote my memoirs in a book called WERE NOT AFRAID OF LIONS, which is available from Amazon and Kindle. In it is a chapter on our last sailing trip on the lake which I repeat here. For those of you who know Kariba, I hope this brings back some memories. For those of you who dont, look what you are missing. (Regrettably I cant put the photos where I want them. They are at the end.) SAILING ON KARIBA By Chris Carver This is a chapter from my autobiography ‘We’re not Afraid of Lions,’ aimed mainly at readers who are not familiar with Rhodesia. This is a true account. Synopsis: In the mid 50’s I was temporarily stationed at Kariba whilst the dam was being built and in 1966 was stationed there as Member i/c for three years. I love sailing and fell in love with the Lake. I was determined that when I retired I would built a yacht and sail the full length of the Lake. I retired in 1977 and built my first yacht, named Aquarius, a Matilda modified for Kariba conditions, and in 1980 I built a second one from the same set of plans. We named her Scorpio. A TRIP ON THE LAKE IN SCORPIO. Once a year we used to travel to Kariba for a sailing holiday on the lake, that is Moira and two of our children, Michael and Nicola, (Susan was away at university in South Africa) and 1984 was no different. We usually went in April or May when the rainy season had ended, the winds were normally fair and it wasn’t too hot or too cold. We went with two other families who also had small sailing cruisers thus making a little flotilla of three boats. They were fellow members of the yacht club we belonged to in Bulawayo. This was useful not only for the company but also if any of us got into trouble the others could help. One of them had bought the first boat I built, Aquarius, which was practically the same as Scorpio, so we had a ‘sister ship’. We launched at Msuna. This is a little lagoon at the very top of the lake where the Zambezi River runs into it. It is a popular fishing spot and there is a slipway available. Msuna is 250 miles from where we lived in Bulawayo so we arranged to meet early in the morning and travel in convoy arriving at about 3.30 p.m. We then rigged the masts and ran the boats into the water. That took the rest of the afternoon. We parked the cars and trailers and arranged to spend the night there after checking over the boats for the long trip ahead. When everything was ready I moored Scorpio against a grass covered bank. I drove some spikes into the grass and tied her to the spikes fore and aft. The arrangement was that Moira and I slept in the fore cabin and Michael and Nicola slept in the cockpit under the stars. We all had our jobs. Moira was chief cook (the most important job); Michael liked to drive so he was chief helmsman; Nicola was his assistant and I was main sail setter and tuner. We had had a long journey so we were all tired and slept soundly. It was a quiet moonless night with a clear sky and stars shining bright. In the morning, following our usual routine, we rose, had coffee and then breakfast of bacon and eggs sitting at our table in the cockpit. When all was cleaned and stowed away we prepared to start our journey. The other two boats were ready so I jumped ashore to untie Scorpio. Suddenly I noticed a very large footprint in the mud right next to the hull of the boat. It was very fresh, still had water in it and certainly had not been there the night before when I had moored the boat. It was too big and obvious to miss. We had had a visitor in the night – a hippo – and we had not heard thing. It was so close that had Nicola put her arm over the cockpit coaming I am sure she could have touched it. Such is Africa. For the first part of our journey we had to travel through Devil’s Gorge. This is a narrow gorge made by the Zambezi cutting through the bedrock over many centuries. It is twenty miles long, about a hundred yards wide with the sides rising up sheer for about one hundred feet on either side. It was too narrow to sail and the winds were flukey so we motored all the way. We had a little Stewart Turner inboard motor which I had found in an old motor boat in a car sales yard. It was very old, made in 1953, but surprisingly worked perfectly as soon as I started it up. It was a two stroke with a large fly wheel and was started by swinging a handle. I fitted it in its own locker in front of the doorway into the cabin with the fuel tank at the rear of the boat under the poop deck which was filled through a filler cap in the deck. That way there was no chance of spilling fuel into the boat and creating a fire hazard. I liked the inboard engine there because the weight was in the centre. Aquarius had an outboard motor on the transom which put extra weight on the rear which I did not like. We set off down the gorge. Our two companions had gone on ahead. I was at the tiller keeping the nose pointing down the river and listening to the throb throb throb of the engine with the noise bouncing back off the sides of the cliffs on either side. The sun was shining, the sky was blue and it was not too hot. All we wanted was a nice wind when we reached the lake for everything to be perfect. Moira, Michael and Nicola passed the time playing “Oh Hell” a card game which caused them much merriment. Suddenly half way down the Gorge we came upon a crocodile, about five feet long, lying on a floating log. I nearly missed it because it was so well camouflaged. I steered towards it but it seemed oblivious to our presence because we had to almost touch it before it slipped off into the water. After three and a half hours of motoring, the Gorge opened out into the top of the lake. We were at Mlibizi. Mlibizi is a small holiday resort with chalets to rent. It is popular with fishermen and is well known for its crocodile population. A very tragic incident occurred there when a family arrived at Mlibizi for a fishing holiday. Their twelve year old son stood on a small pontoon moored to the bank and started fishing. The pontoon was made out of 44 gallon drums with a wooden platform strapped to the top. Suddenly a large crocodile reared up and flipped the boy off the pontoon with its tail, grabbed him in its mouth and swam off. Luckily a game ranger was nearby. He jumped into a boat with his rifle, motored up the lake and found the crocodile, with the body of the boy still in its mouth, and shot it. He recovered the body but unfortunately the boy was dead. This all happened in front of his parents who were on the shoreline. They were devastated. This just goes to show, never under-estimate or be complacent about African big game. The top part of the lake is, in fact, a long narrow lagoon. It is twelve miles long and three miles wide. The international boundary line runs up the middle so half the water area belonged to Zambia – as Northern Rhodesia had now become. We stopped the engine and raised the sails. The peace and silence after the constant noise of the engine was wonderful. We had five sails in our locker, a main, two genoas (large foresails), a jib and a spinnaker. Our normal combination was the main and No. 2 genoa. I found that this gave us the best overall balance. If the weather got rough we only had to take in one reef on the main and we were still fairly well balanced. If the wind got really rough we could take in two reefs on the main and change the genoa for a smaller jib. Over the years we have been through some pretty rough weather but have never had to resort to that rig, but it was nice to know that we had it available if we ever had to use it. The wind was fair and coming straight up the lake towards us. This meant we had to beat into it (zig-zag) to make our way down the lake. There was not much room to tack as we could not go too near the shore on account of trees but eventually we reached the end. There we made a sharp left turn to port and went through a cutting in a narrow neck of land and into the lake proper. Here we met the swell. The wind was still fair but steady and the swell about two feet. Our destination was the entrance to Binga back harbour, a long narrow inlet off the main lake about twenty miles away. We had a lot of tacking to do. We had much more water to move in now and so could take longer tacks. I was watching the performance of the boat and was not happy. She seemed sluggish. I told Michael to try pointing up a little higher (point more into the wind) but this just made us go slower. The shoreline on the Zimbabwe side (as Southern Rhodesia had now become) was straight and covered in baobab trees. When we tacked away from the shore I took a mark on a large baobab tree on the shore. We went out about a mile and then turned and tacked back. When we reached the shoreline again we had made about two hundred yards progress up the shore. We were going nowhere fast. The other two boats had gone on and were now a long way ahead of us. A yacht can normally beat at an angle of forty five degrees into the wind quite comfortably, tighter for a dinghy, but for a fully laden cabin cruiser I felt forty five degrees was good enough. We were not doing anything like that yet the sails looked set fine. The theory of a sailing boat with genoa is that the genoa overlaps the front of the main’sl and the wind rushing off the genoa through the space between the genoa and the main (known as ‘the slot’) gathers speed creating more vacuum and thereby greater lift. This obviously wasn’t happening. The sheet (rope) controlling the genoa passed through a block on a slide attached to the gun’el before passing back to a cleat in the cockpit. This slide gave me some adjustment on the size of the ‘slot’. I slid the block forward one notch, about two inches, which opened up the ‘slot’ a fraction. This made an immediate improvement in the boat’s performance, so much so that we not only caught up with our co-sailors but overtook them. It is amazing how such a small adjustment can make such a huge difference in performance; but that is sailing for you and why it is so fascinating. We reached our planned destination as dusk was falling. We had decided on this position as we would be protected from the prevailing wind. We found a suitable tree to tie to and started making ready for the night. When stopping for the night we always tied to a tree by the bow line only. This meant that if the wind got up in the night, or changed direction, the boat swung around the tree and the nose was always kept pointing into the wind. We had to ensure that the tree allowed the boat to swing around it with no branches to catch the rigging and no stumps beneath the surface to puncture the hull. We discovered that if we kept about fifty yards from shore we were not plagued by midges. Our normal routine was all three boats would tie up side by side to start with when we would break out the drinks for a ‘sundowner’ or two, or three. My favourite drink was ‘brandy and kariba’ – kariba being the water out of the lake. At supper time the three wives, who were the cooks, would decide on the menu and share the cooking between the three galleys whilst we all shared our experiences of the day’s sailing. These were wonderful get-togethers after a hard day’s work in the sun. After our meal and washing up we split up to tie to our own tree for the night. We were well set up for comfort in Scorpio. We had comfortable bunks and strip lighting which worked off a twelve volt battery. There was another strip light over the galley. Michael and Nicola made the cockpit seats into beds and we all had sleeping bags. There was a cover for the cockpit which could be slung over the boom but it was never used – far nicer to sleep under the stars. The ice box was a huge asset, as we could keep fresh milk and meat on board and, of course, keep our drinks cool. A huge block of ice lasted for one week. The loo was a chemical ‘porta-potty’ which worked very well. It had a cover and was also used as a seat in the cabin. Privacy was ensured by a curtain being pulled around when in use accompanied by loud singing by the occupant. The height of the cabin roof was only four feet above the floor so one could not stand in it. To compensate for this I made a very large sliding hatch in the roof so that when it was pushed forward we could stand on the floor with our head poking out of the top and it would be just below the boom. I loved our little cabin. It was cosy and like living in a Wendy House. We even had a painting on the wall, a water colour of a Kariba sunset painted especially for us by a local artist. We had to wash and bath in the lake. We sailed to somewhere in the middle of the lake well away from crocodiles and fixed a swimming ladder over the side. It was then a matter of diving in to get wet and getting back on board again to soap ourselves on the foredeck and then dive in again to rinse off. Of course we didn’t have to dive in, we could use a bucket but we used to love our swims because they were so refreshing in the Kariba heat. I used to swim under the hull to check that the keel and rudder were clear of weed or debris and admire the under-water shape – silly, really but the water was crystal clear and it just gave me a satisfying sensation. We always dropped the mooring lines over the side in a case a puff of wind got up and blew Scorpio away. The following morning I woke early to put the kettle on for tea. Michael and Nicola were still fast asleep. I looked out of the door and there on the opposite bank was a huge herd of elephants. They were at the bottom of a very steep and rocky slope. I was surprised that they could negotiate such a steep slope but negotiate it they did. I woke the others but when the elephant saw us moving around they immediately scrambled up the slope, even the tiny babies. This was the first game we had seen so far, apart from the small crocodile in Devil’s Gorge. After breakfast we made ready to leave. We always motored out into the lake from our night mooring place because of the trees and stumps. Another reason was more practical. We had no means of making hot water apart from boiling a kettle. With the engine running the cooling water was ejected out of a pipe in the side of the hull. This was always nice and hot so we held a jug under it and filled a bucket for doing the breakfast washing up. Once the washing up was done we hoisted sail and turned the engine off. We never had the sails up whilst there was cutlery and crockery lying about in the cockpit because you never knew when you might have to move quickly, especially if the wind was blowing, and having objects lying loose in the cockpit is a recipe for accidents. Our route to-day was past Binga, up and through Chete Gorge to a bay at the mouth of the Mawenda River, about fifty miles. Binga is the district administrative centre with a hotel, hospital, Police camp as well as the District Commissioner’s office. There is a natural hot spring and swimming pool where we had a smelly, sulphurous swim when we had a night stop on a previous trip. There is no safe mooring on the lake side and when the wind got up we had a very uncomfortable and sleepless night. This time we passed Binga and with the wind again on our nose, had another day of beating. Chete Island is actually in Zambia and always has elephants on it. They swim over from the mainland. Looking through binoculars I saw the biggest bull elephant I have ever seen in my life. He was huge with massive tusks. I wondered just how long he would last before poachers got him. My favourite place on these journeys was always in the fore cabin. Michael and Nicola were in the cockpit, sharing the helming; Moira used to like sun bathing on the fore deck and I went to the fore cabin once all the chores were complete. I piled the sleeping bags and pillows against the bulkhead and propped myself up so I could look through the front windscreen. I opened the forehatch a crack to let in a little breeze and, of course, was in the shade so I was cool and comfortable. There was no noise apart from the swish swish of the water passing the hull on the outside. I could look through the windscreen at the bow bobbing up and down over the swell and every now and then a little spray would fly up and hit the screen. Through the windscreen I watched the bottom of the genoa doing its job and felt amazed at just how simple it all was – just a bit of cloth. It was thoroughly therapeutic, restful and peaceful. I often fell asleep. We had a tradition on board. No matter what the weather conditions, we always had tea at ten and gin and tonic at 12 noon. Moira did not approve when the weather was rough and the boat was heeling over but gamely and always obliged. We had a tape recorder on which we played our favourite music, Abba and Chris de Burgh singing Patricia the Stripper amongst other things. We all sang at the tops of our voices. Who cares? There was no-one to hear us! As we reached the Mawenda River the wind had dropped to a flat calm, the sun was setting and we were treated to one of Kariba’s magnificent sunsets. The sun seems to sit right on the horizon, disappearing down into the water as it sets. The whole sky turns orange and then slowly darkens. It is a wonderful sight especially so as there is absolutely no habitation or human activity to spoil it. We selected our trees for the night and went through our nightly routine. The nights were almost as spectacular as the days. The sky was always clear and with no light pollution the stars shone brightly. It was lovely lying back in the cockpit and staring into the heavens and wondering just what went on all those millions of miles away. We picked out the Southern Cross which was very clear and moved across the sky as the night passed and seemed to turn on its side as it moved. We checked with the boat’s compass as to whether it did point to the South and it did, no matter where it was in the sky. We had a powerful torch which we used to shine across the water to see if we could pick out any eyes looking at us and sure enough there were little pairs of lights on the surface, proving to us that there were plenty of crocs around, some very large; but we didn’t mind, we were safe in our little boat even though I was conscious that we only had 9mm of ply between us and the water outside with all that was in it. The next day we set off again after breakfast. This time our destination was Honeymoon Bay in the Narrows, about thirty five miles as the crow flies but a lot further because we had to head out to the middle of the lake to sail around a large petrified forest. We always gave it a wide berth because you never knew how many trees had broken off at water level and could not be seen. The wind had got up in the night and the swell was larger than normal, two to three feet with the odd bigger wave coming along, which we were beating into. We were now heading into the Sengwe Basin which is known for its rough weather and large swell. This is caused by the wind being forced through the Narrows where the lake goes from twenty miles wide to three miles between high ground. Sure enough when we got there the wind was blowing about Force 6 (30 mph) and the swell was running at four to five feet. It was strong enough for me to have to take in one reef in the mains’l, reducing the size by about 10%, but I kept the fores’l, No. 2 genoa, up. This gave us much better balance and less strain on the rudder. We were close hauled (sails pulled in tight). The bows were cutting through the waves throwing the water out on each side with spray flying back over the cabin. The boat was heeled over some twenty five to thirty degrees but we felt quite safe as we had a 90 lb. weight at the bottom of the keel to act as a counter. Every now and again we would hit a larger wave and water would break over the bows, lash against the cabin and be deflected by the deflectors on the roof. This is what I called sailing - so much more exciting than the ‘powder-puff’ stuff we had experienced until now. It is so satisfying to see that something that I had created from scratch was performing so well in these conditions. The sun was shining and the weather perfect. Scorpio was performing beautifully. The pull on the tiller was slight which meant that the rig was well balanced and so it should have been because Michael and I spent hours tuning her at our yacht club back home before this trip. I looked across the bay at the other two boats and they were ploughing through the waves as we were. Everything was fine. (You may think these statistics are rather tame compared to what happens on an ocean-going yacht but remember we were in comparatively very small boats with only just over two feet of freeboard (height of the deck above the waterline) on a huge expanse of water in a very remote part of the country and with no means of assistance if anything went wrong, so for us they were quite tough conditions.) At midday it was gin and tonic time. Moira was in charge of that side of things. She prefers powder-puff sailing and was clinging to the side of the cockpit coaming with both hands. When I called for a gin and tonic the only response I got was, “You fool, you fool”. “That’s mutiny” I cried “They hang mutineers from the yard arm”. Eventually I got my gin and tonic and Michael got a beer. Poor Moira, she has to put up with a lot from me from time to time but we have been married for 53 years (2013) so I must have got something right. Before leaving on any of these trips I always made a point of thoroughly checking over everything on the boat to ensure there would be no breakages. Then on one previous trip I did not do this check. I just gave a cursory glance at things. I had never found anything wrong before so why should there be anything wrong now. Everything was fine until we hit the Sengwe Basin. We were half way across when the mains’l suddenly fell down the mast into the cockpit. It was quite rough and the boat would not move on just the genoa. We were bobbing around unable to move. We couldn’t get up the mast to fix it (it is twenty three feet high) and anyway it was swaying from side to side violently. We tried the motor but it was unable to push the boat against the swell. Eventually by taking in two reefs on the mains’l, I was able to get it half way up the mast by attaching it to the spinnaker halyard. By carefully manipulating some of the lines I managed to get a bit of shape into it, enough to get us moving again. We slowly bobbed our way forward and made it into the Narrows where we found a sandy beach in a sheltered inlet. We pulled up the keel and ran the boat up the beach. We carefully undid the stays and dropped the mast. All that had happened was that a simple knot had come undone. One simple knot had caused so much trouble. It was a lesson well learnt. Honeymoon Bay is a lovely place. It is a small island in the middle of the Narrows, with a natural harbour. There is one small entrance, otherwise it is completely surrounded by high ground giving absolute shelter from any wind. We went through our usual nightly routine. The only bad thing about Honeymoon Bay is that because it is so popular with boatmen the water is not clean. Luckily we carried fresh water on board for just such an eventuality. This is a favourite haunt for fish eagles and in the morning we were woken up by their plaintive calls. What more could you ask for. We had enjoyed a restful and peaceful night and after breakfast we were on our way again. We had been sailing now for three days and had covered just over one hundred miles up the lake with a further seventy or so to go. We had probably covered more than three times that distance, though, because of all the tacking to beat into the wind. The prevailing wind is from the dam wall up the lake, roughly NE to SW and we had had it on the nose all the way. From here onwards, though, there is sometimes a wind change. On the Zimbabwe side of the Narrows are a string of large islands running down to Bumi, a small settlement, but boasting a smart hotel, perched on a hill overlooking the lake. Holiday makers either arrive there by boat, fly in and land on the hotel airstrip, or if very intrepid, by road. There is always plenty of game on the islands and on the mainland opposite. The channel between them is clear of trees and we decided to take this route. It is known as Sibilobilo. We sailed through the gap at the top of the channel and as I had hoped met a wind change. The wind came from the South, about force 3, exactly what we wanted. That meant we could reach (wind from the side) with spinnaker up. Our destination was Fothergill Island about fifty miles away so with a bit of luck if this wind held we would have a nice peaceful day. I took up my favourite spot in the fore cabin with Michael on the helm, Moira and Nicola in the cockpit with binoculars. Sure enough the islands did not disappoint - elephant, waterbuck and impala and on the mainland on the other side elephant, warthog, waterbuck, zebra and sable. Zebra and sable are often found together. A game ranger told me that they do this for protection against predators with zebra having very good eyesight and sable very good hearing so the two together protect each other. The game in this part of the country is very tame. I remember once in my Police days driving up to Bumi Hills Hotel in a Land Rover when I came across a herd of sable standing in the road. I stopped and hooted but they took no notice. I banged on the door, again nothing. I then got out and with a stick had to actually hit one of them on the bottom to get them to move to the side of the road which they reluctantly did. Sable antelopes are about the size of a donkey and they have long horns that curve over their backs. They are Royal Game and cannot be hunted. As we approached Bumi Hills there was an elephant standing in the water. We were in the middle of the Channel at least a quarter of a mile away when it suddenly turned and charged out of the water into the trees. We had done nothing and I couldn’t understand why he had taken such fright because he must have seen hundreds of boats in his time. Then I realised, we were a yacht under full sail with a large red and white spinnaker ballooning out in front of us. To an elephant we must have looked like some gigantic strange monster bearing down on him so no wonder he was frightened. We sailed on past the Hotel on the hill and past the mouth of the Bumi River. This is a very large expanse of water, more like an estuary than a river mouth and on the other side is the Matusadona Game Reserve. As we were crossing the estuary I suddenly heard a very loud swoosh noise, like a heavy gust of wind. Looking through the windscreen I saw a flock of queila birds fly across heading towards the game reserve. Shortly after there was another swoosh, louder, and another flock flew over, this time a huge one, I estimate at least two thousand birds. They swooped about in the sky making all sorts of weird and wonderful formations and then suddenly swooped down to the ground and vanished. A queila is a very small bird, smaller than a sparrow. They fly around in huge flocks and eat grain. If they land on a crop they will strip it bare in no time. To farmers they are vermin. We sailed on. Matusadona is famous for its buffalo and sure enough, under the trees about fifty yards in from the shore there was a huge herd, most lying down in the shade. They looked like a great black shadow under the trees. There are also lions in Matusadona but we neither saw nor heard any. We were now approaching Fothergill Island. From a distance it appears to be a rather bleak flat island on the corner of the reserve where a motel has been built for holiday makers and fishermen. It was named after Rupert Fothergill who organised Operation Noah that rescued the game when the lake filled up. It is a very picturesque place with unique buildings built entirely of eucalyptus tree poles, known as gum poles, with thatched roofs. We normally stopped there to get a shower and have a meal. The shower facilities were pretty primitive, a bucket with a shower rose fitted to the bottom operated by a piece of string, the whole enclosed by a grass wall, no roof. Fill the bucket up and pull it up on a pulley. Stand under it and pull the string. Simple. We tied up to the jetty and then went ashore for a shower, a drink in the bar and a good meal, giving the cooks a night off. We slept the night on board. Fothergill Island used to have a resident hippo the last time we visited. It had been named Esmarelda. We were on our own on that occasion. We motored in at about 5.00 p.m. and tied up to the jetty. A small crowd of fishermen had obviously arrived just before us and were unloading their boats on the beach. They all suddenly stopped what they were doing and stared at us. I thought they were admiring Scorpio because we were the only yacht amongst the motor boats. Suddenly there was a very loud hissing noise right next to the hull and a jet of spray shot into the air. It gave us a huge fright. Esmarelda had surfaced right next to the hull and exhaled, as hippos do. We did not even know that Esmarelda existed and certainly did not expect a hippo so close to habitation. Of course the fishermen knew and saw it coming and had a good laugh at our expense. She wasn’t actually tame, she just was not in the least afraid of humans. Unfortunately she came to a sticky end when she approached someone on a nearby island who did not know her and shot her. What he was doing with a gun on Kariba is not known . We were now on the last leg to Kariba Township. We just had to cross the Sanyati basin, a straight run of about 20 miles. We left after breakfast. It was a calm day and we had a quiet crossing. We arrived at Kariba at about midday. There are plenty of harbours belonging to the various motels or hotels to choose from and there are no harbour charges, but if you use them you are also expected to use the hotel facilities. We stayed about four days visiting friends, re-stocking on stores, especially perishable supplies, a new block of ice for the ice box, and giving Scorpio a thorough check-over to ensure that everything was ship-shape for the return journey. The journey down the lake had taken five days, mostly sailing against the wind. On the return journey we would have the wind behind us most of the way and so could make more use of the spinnaker. The trip back would take only three days if we went direct. However we still had time to spare before our holiday was over so we diverted to visit other sites en route. There is a crocodile farm at Kariba so we paid it a visit. Crocodile farms are interesting places. Believe it or not, the number of crocodiles was in decline. There is a very high mortality rate amongst hatchlings falling prey to birds, fish and other crocs. To counter this crocodile farms were licenced to recover eggs from the sand banks and hatch them in incubators. When the young crocs are hatched, 5% have to be returned back to the lake. This is much higher than the natural survival rate. The remainder are reared on the farms for their skins. They are brought up in large pens with a shallow pool for them to swim in, about knee deep. When they are half grown, eight to ten feet long, they are harvested. Someone has to walk into the pool to catch them by hand. The manager was explaining all this to us and I asked him, “Don’t you ever get bitten?” He said “Yes, sometimes” and then went on “You know what you do when you are bitten by a crocodile, don’t you?” I said “No.” He said “You stick your finger up its bottom and it lets you go.” I just burst out laughing. I imagined the situation, there you were at one end in its teeth with its bottom at the other end six or more feet away. You would need very long arms. I don’t think he saw the funny side of it. After this we set off for the Sanyati Gorge. This is 25 miles across the Sanyati Basin in a southerly direction. There are always Marabou storks to be seen here, usually perched on trees sticking out of the water. They are very large, ugly, cumbersome birds with bare heads and necks, an air sack that hangs down and long thick beaks. I always think of them as being the vulture version of the stork family. Nearby is a Tonga fishing camp where Batonka fishermen fish commercially for tiger fish and bream. The bream are sold fresh but the tiger are gutted, split, salted and laid out on racks to dry in the sun. The Marabou storks eat the offal from these fish. The gorge is formed by the Sanyati River cutting through the Matusadona Mountains creating a fjord with sides that rise up about 500 feet on either side. It is navigable for eight miles where there is a ‘cross roads’ created by two streams that come in from opposite sides. There is good mooring here and this is where we spent the night. No game was seen but there were certainly crocs there and although we did not see them we heard them splashing about in the water. The next morning we set off again, our destination the Sengwe River. We motored back up the gorge to the lake where the conditions were very different. We cut the engine and raised the sails. The wind had got up in the night, blowing about force 4 and the swell was running at about three feet hitting us broadside on the starboard side (right) which meant we were in fact running across the swell rising and falling as we went from crest to trough; not very nice if you are prone to seasickness. Luckily we all had strong stomachs and anyway in a yacht in these conditions there is usually so much to do that you have no time to be seasick. We sped along the Matusadona shoreline on a broad reach, round Fothergill Island heading for Bumi and Sibilobilo. The wind was now almost behind us so I was able to fly the spinnaker. We made good speed up Sibilobilo, through the gap at the top and into the Narrows. We were now heading into the Sengwe Basin. The wind had obviously been blowing heavily because the swell was huge, six to seven feet though the wind was dropping. We had about fifteen miles to go to the mouth of the river and I judged that with a dropping wind the swell would slowly die down as we proceeded. The wind and swell were running behind us so I decided to leave the spinnaker up and give it a go. It was absolutely exhilarating. The swell picked us up at the back and we surged along on the top of the wave until it passed beneath us and we dropped into the trough. Then the following wave would pick us up and we would surge forward again. When we were in the bottom of the trough the following wave appeared huge, a mountain of water towering over us before it picked us up and the process was repeated. I have no idea what speed we were travelling at, but it seemed like 100 mph. Scorpio took it all in her stride. Moira was a bit apprehensive, but the rest of us were having a wonderful time enjoying the experience. My big worry was the rudder. I could feel it vibrating as we surged forward on the wave and the tiller was jerking from side to side. If the rudder blade broke the boat would skew sideways and we would be broadside on to the waves and wind. It would have been very uncomfortable to put it mildly, especially with the spinnaker up. However the rudder didn’t break and we were alright. Our two companion boats also had an exhilarating sail judging by the smiles on everybody’s faces as we approached the Sengwe with no mishaps. In fact the whole day had been excellent with good winds all the way from the Sanyati. The conditions had now calmed and the swell got smaller and smaller until when we were off the mouth of the river it was almost flat. It was now about half past five in the afternoon, we had timed it perfectly. We had a favourite mooring spot in the Sengwe River. It was about half a mile up from the mouth but we had to motor because of trees. Nicola was our ‘stump looker-outer’ standing in the bows as we headed slowly up the river. Eventually we came to a sharp bend with a high bank and deep water. There were tall trees on top of the bank with their branches over-hanging the water. This is where we moored. It is a very remote spot with no habitation so there must have been game around but we saw none apart from a school of hippo in the mouth of the river. However there were a lot of water fowl around. It was very peaceful after the excitement of the Sengwe basin and we had a good night’s sleep. We woke up to the sound of water fowl feeding, making a dip-dip-dip sound with their beaks as they grubbed for food in the mud. We had breakfast and set off again. We now had 90 miles to go to Msuna, our starting point, and we did it with two night stops on the way. At midday on the third day we arrived, de-rigged the boats and put them on their trailers. That took about two hours so it was too late to make the long trip back to Bulawayo. Instead we drove to the Gwaai River Hotel, a favourite stopover point, 70 miles en route and spent the night there, sleeping in a proper bed for the first time in two weeks. The next morning after a good breakfast we hit the road in convoy for Bulawayo, 180 miles away. We arrived mid-afternoon, bade farewell to our friends and went home. Our holiday was over. We had had a lovely holiday and Scorpio had performed faultlessly. It was to be our last trip. In December 1984 we left Zimbabwe and returned to the UK. This meant I had to sell Scorpio. I was heartbroken but I could not take her to the UK. She was designed for tropical conditions, especially Kariba, and would be totally unsuitable for UK conditions. She was bought by one of our sailing friends, who had accompanied us on this trip, so I knew she would be in good hands. In December 2010 Moira and I returned to Zimbabwe to visit our daughters for Christmas. Whilst in Bulawayo I heard that Scorpio was being sold at the local auctioneers. I went around to see her and there she was on her trailer looking as good as when I had last seen her, in spite of her age. Her owners, to whom I had sold her, were now well into their 80s, had given up sailing and moved to South Africa. I wasn’t there at the sale but I heard she was bought by an African gentleman who was only interested in the trailer. What has happened to Scorpio? I just don’t know. I don’t think I want to know. I just want to remember the good times.
Posted on: Tue, 06 Jan 2015 11:56:10 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015