Travel by dhow to Zanzibar: the full moon…

For: Juan Ramon Morales (text and photos)
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Una luna llena grande, amarilla, se levanta sobre las aguas del Índico.

En la playa los pescadores comienzan a alimentar enormes hogueras junto a los jahazi, las grandes embarcaciones de vela latina que nosotros solemos llamar, genéricamente, dhows. En esta noche de Luna, con la marea creciente, preparan los barcos para la travesía, a través del estrecho de Zanzíbar, desde Bagamoyo, en la costa tanzana, hasta Stone Town, en la isla.

Los demás casi han desaparecido por el empuje de la navegación moderna, por los piratas (aunque siempre han existido piratas en esta aguas ), la falta de negocio, la situación politica…..

Hay dhows pequeños, los más habituales en el recuerdo del viajero, mashua, en Swahili. Una pequeña vela, dos flotadores y un navegante. Others ... have almost disappeared by the thrust of modern navigation, por los piratas (aunque siempre han existido piratas en esta aguas ), la falta de negocio, the political situation is very difficult ....., not impossible, find offshore shaped silhouette shark fin, flush with horizon, of the great old dhows. Leveraging the monsoons connecting the banks of the Indian, India and Arabia to the Red Sea Straits, Zanzibar, the Comoros .... The advent of steamships that traffic canceled forever. Or not .....

Bagamoyo Beach extends in front of the little "lodge" that occupied. Only a small raffia huts seafront. Some wandering huckster boring and penetrating odor nearby fish market with several collapsed buildings. One of them nothing less than the ancient customs office population, the same building where Burton, Livingstone and who knows how many explorers, entered the continent en route to Interior. Four narrow walls, saved today by the Tanzanian official heir of the old Arab slave traders.

The same building where Burton, Livingstone and who knows how many explorers, entered the continent en route to Interior

Patrick, obese, round, with scowl or perhaps eternal boredom. It makes me fill page after page of forms, some handwritten. I give up my possessions left behind, renounce claim what I paid him to investigate them captains, the nakhoda, making the crossing to Zanzibar, who would be willing to bring a mzungu on his boat. I give up my life for a vague dream awakened in pages read in volumes of youthful adventures, travel books, Navigation trials. And now just wait for the moon and tides make it possible to lift the hulls of 10 meters of Jahazi, beached on the sand of Africa, without rigging or covered, as abandoned tortoise shells.

You can only safely navigate the oceanic tides caused by the full moon. The Jahazi are clumsy upwind and always need extra help to make their anchorages. Therefore, after endless warnings, jokes, better or worse jokes like about the taste of white meat for sharks that infest the Straits, after songs sung in the same situation by Arab sailors for centuries, the tide begins to lift the hull yet our boat mast. Like ants begin to go down to the beach, silhouetted against the firelight, more passengers with the incredible burden that we carry. Three goats, a woman in a very advanced state of pregnancy, rope barrels full of dried fish whose smell we stay stuck to clothes for days and a huge closet, with two large mirrors on the doors and the carved erotic figures on the mirrors. About this closet behoove me to make the crossing as the Jahazi not covered. Everything is stored inside the hull, like a floating nutshell it were.

Like ants begin to go down to the beach, silhouetted against the firelight, more passengers with the incredible burden that we carry

Once loaded the boat, placed between all the huge mast, inclined toward the bow, and gradually, tide as we launched the Ocean, the lateen sail of a dhow own rose silhouetted against the African sky.

Looking to the East, where in one hour was dawn, the breeze filled the sail and began to chatter nakhoda, to sing amid the laughter of the other passengers. He points out a couple of times and everyone laughs. And I also, why not. As in a dream it seems that the ship does not advance, my back starts complaining about how tight my postuta on the cabinet and am slowly yielding to sleep, rocking on the sea. And it's not long before a pungent odor, above the load barrels, we get along with the sunrise.

Now my soul has been locked in the mirror, tell me, and the memory of his boat did not leave me never

It smells of spices, to nail, to turmeric. And, background, Unguja's profile, the main island of Zanzibar, silhouetted against the sky. Sailing along the mangrove islands invaded by, cruzándonos with other ships in the opposite direction we greet, docked in a small anchorage, full of dhows, away from the large harbor where ferries arrive modern.

When we go to download, after that we received a matron shouted swahili, I think not so friendly, and leave with the mother, I realize that the two mirrors have been split cabinet, one, Insurance, under my weight. The nakhoda looks at me angrily and suddenly bursts out laughing. Now my soul has been locked in the mirror, tell me, and the memory of his boat did not leave me never. Something, I attest, that is totally true. Since it is a night that many times I think it was a dream, reaching Zanzibar as we all should get to certain sites (Istanbul or Venice are other), by sea to the rhythm of the tide and the wind.

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Comments (4)

  • ricardo Coarasa

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    Fantastic Juanra. Reading your amazing arrival in Zanzibar from Bagamoyo has invaded me nostalgia. And belief that, although the target is the same, no two journeys equals. Abz and congratulations on the story

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  • Ann

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    Juanra, missed you in VaP.… I've transported there again. Thanks!!!!! I want to go and want to return in Dhow.

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  • Lydia

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    What a nice story! We can imagine stepping the whole process and feel.

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