Ghana: Relatively turd free.

We were warned Ghana might be a hard way to end our time in Africa. After South Africa’s western lifestyle and Namibia’s vast unspoiled open spaces, Ghana’s open sewers, trash piles and mayhem on the road would be a shocking transition. The warnings were right. We stepped out of the airport at Accra and were assailed by heat, humidity, pushy cab drivers and new odors that were somewhat less than appealing. Ghana typically has three smells; turd, burning, and burning turd. We had the good fortune of staying with friends in their comfortable home in the nice part of town. We got a good night of sleep and were ready to explore.
On our first full day in a month back on the north side of the equator, I was still recovering from some lower GI issues from our last day in Namibia. I think some undercooked breakfast meats got the best of me. We decided to take a short walk through some of the neighborhoods, then head down to the shore and stop by the craft markets. We walked over broken sidewalks, dodged speeding taxis and jumped the sewers that were deep enough to swallow a fully grown man, and undoubtedly have on many occasions. We walked past roadside fruit vendors, women carrying glass sided boxes of meat pies on their heads, and random farm animals. The shops were emblazoned with names like the Holy Christian Air Conditioning Repair and Blessed Jesus Auto Shop, reflections of the strong, yet sometimes superficial Christianity that is prevalent in the county.
There was an odd feeling of bustle in the air yet most people had nowhere to be. There were only a very few white faced tourists, most with their noses shoved into their guidebooks (something we try never to do in public). We left them behind when we turned in to one of Accra’s more typical neighborhoods.
The homes made of block and tin were small and tightly packed. Some had been brightly painted while others showed naked cement. All had the gnash of a city without the luxury of environmental or health standards. Looking off the main road, you could only see ten meters before the twisting paths between the structures filled with chickens, car parts, roofing material and drying clothing. People sat in the shade of their neighbors’ homes cleaning clothes, playing with their children, or preparing food. The aroma of their cooking fires and frying plantains was a welcome change. Despite the clutter, the streets were clean and showed a sense of pride among the merger surrounding.
We were the only tourists in this place. Our pasty skin stood out yet there was no tension, no feeling of being in the wrong part of town. Other than the occasional call “obruni, obruni!” the Ghanaian word for white folk, there was little attention paid to us. Sometimes it would be sung to us “buy buy obruni buy buy”. We felt a comfort in this neighborhood that we often miss in DC.
When we finally found the market, we discovered we were in the wrong place. We had wandered into the general bazaar where the locals shopped. Amongst the sea of brightly colored umbrellas there were blue jeans hanging from trees, fly swatters, snack food and hundreds of business suits. We speculated that a shipping container from some eastern industrial hub had washed up on shore spilling blue blazers, slacks, and sports jackets all over the beach. There were also shoes, or at least one shoe of each type in an effort to thwart would-be thieves. We didn’t see a single chain store in the entire country. Why would you need them with everything you could imagine in this one place? Take that Wal-Mart!
On our first evening in Ghana, we were treated to one the many football games that were being held in Accra as part of the African Cup of Nations. Ivory Coast bested Mali three to nothing. The stadium was raucous and loud despite only being half full. Later in the week Ghana would play Nigeria to a fully packed stadium. Many of the US expats feared potential violence and aggressive fans and watched from home or their neighborhood bar.

The next day we took a cab to the craft market. I was still feeling under the weather and grumpy when the highly aggressive salesmen and women greeted us. There are hundreds of stalls full of carving, bad t-shirts, woven and printed cloth, baskets and all sorts of tribal masks. We had come to add to our collection of ceremonial masks. Round after round of vendors came to us trying to pry free a few of our tourist dollars. Sara was nice and declined each one of them. I was cranky and ignored their onslaught. Their opening lines were fairly scripted. Something like “Good price for you” or “I’ll make you a special deal”. We felt honored that all of these people thought so much of us that they were going to help us save our hard earned money. Then there was a different approach from what we initially thought was a roving vendor. A young guy came up and started to walk with us. He asked us where we were from. Sara announced, “Washington DC.” “Ha Ha! Taxation without representation!” he blurted out with a jovial laugh that shook his whole body. Then he walked on. We stood looking at each other slack jawed. Guess the Ghanaians know more about US domestic politics than most Americans do!
With four days left in Africa we decided to hit the road again. Driving in Ghana can be a bit hairy and we’d spent the past month driving thousands of kilometers on the wrong side of the road. We decided to hire a local cab driver for an overnight trip to Cape Coast. For about the price of a standard car rental in the US, we have a clean car with a great local driver who seems to know everyone we pass. As we pull out of Accra, I notice the gas gage reads empty, very empty. On we drive. After a couple of hours of driving we stop for “gas”. Either this cab gets fantastic mileage, the fuel gauge is broken, or it’s powered by a flux capacitor. I was wrong on all three options. We pull into one of Ghana’s many natural gas stations. Our cab has been modified to run on gasoline or compressed LP gas. Much like cell phones eliminating the need for clear-cutting forest for telephone poles, natural gas in cars is helping Ghana leapfrog technologies of the modern world (pictured is one of Ghana’s more typical petrol stations and its proud owner).
Cape Coast is the site of one of the few remaining forts once used in the slave trade. Hundreds of thousands of Africans were taken from their homeland through these holding facilities, never to return to their native soil. The captives endured walks as long as three months from the interior to the coast chained together at the neck. They were housed in brutal conditions in the forts, forced to live in dark, hot packed group cells and fight for food. Large numbers died before leaving on the slave ships, even more died at sea. Roughly 85% of the slaves would perish before reaching their final destination. Being in these buildings was a haunting experience.

Today the slave forts attract thousands of tourists a year; many are African-Americans tying to get in touch with their roots. While the inside of the fort conveys a sense of doom, outside is a flurry of activity. Men sit mending nets in the shade of the high walls, while brightly painted fishing boats line the shore by the hundreds. The hulls of the boat are hewn out of large trees much like the dugout canoes of Botswana and the Caprivi. The gunnels are raised with one or two large planks above the waterline. Many have outboard motors rigged to the sides, while others are propelled by sails made of any scrap of fabric at hand. Some of the craft reach sixty feet in length. This construction makes for a very stable large volume boat that is extremely heavy. Large groups of men labor with thick rope to pull these hulks from the water, rolling them over logs or pieces of pipe.
In the evening we found our beachfront lodge at the end of a long potholed road. We sat down to dinner in a structure with no walls and fully open to the beautiful white sandy beach. As it turns out this was one of Ghana’s “relatively turd free” beaches. Our guide book ranked the beaches as “turd free” ”relatively turd free” and…”don’t go there!” In the morning we found the beach to be avoided.

At 5 am I was on the beach collecting sand dollars by the dozen. For several weeks around the New Year, a condition called Harmatan season occurs in West Africa. Sands from the Sahara blow south and nearly block out the sun. An eerie haze hangs in the air, and the sun waits until late in the morning to reveal itself. Half a mile up the beach through the laden air, I saw boats setting nets in the calm morning ocean.

The town of Anomabu is a short walk along the shore. Ghost crabs skitter along the beach and hide in their holes. We can see the men on the beach starting to pull in the nets, the sounds of their work songs soft above the tumble of the waves.
As we stray from the grounds of our lodge, the beach develops a more pocked texture. From a distance it looks like the heavy footprints of the men hauling nets or pulling boats from the water. As we get closer to the town it becomes apparent that we are standing in the middle of a beachfront loo. As we move forward, the occasional droppings turn into a minefield of poo. The high tide line is marked with a winding trail of excrement that follows the undulating line of the breaking waves. Then it stops. The beach becomes relatively clean. At this point the beach has turned from toilet to a hive of activity. The nets set earlier in the day are being pulled in. Hundreds of meters out in the sea a small float with a bush tied to the top of it as a marker inches towards shore as the men and boys heave and draw. Inches at a time they sing, pull, sing, pull, in a slow rhythm that goes on for hours. In contrast to the beach we leave behind, the town of Anomabu is as spotlessly clean as any beach town we’ve ever seen. Ghana is blessed with hard working people that take a great deal of pride in their appearance and that of their homes and communities. Unfortunately there is virtually no infrastructure, no trash collection, no public sewer system, and little in the way of public health programs. Despite the lack of government help the Ghanaians are doing quite well by West African standards. The beachfront bathroom is the best place for them to take care of business. It may be unsightly to western eyes, but it is concentrated into an area that is cleaned by the sea and doesn’t spoil their fresh water sources.

From Anomabu we travel inland to Kakum National Park, home of Africa’s only treetop canopy walk. Funded by USAID with help from Canada, this six hundred meter trail of steel cable, netting, and aluminum winds its way through the rainforest at heights up to thirty meters off the forest floor. In the morning monkeys can be seen using the walkway on their travels through the forest canopy. Above the lofty trail, the trees continue skyward to reach heights of one hundred meters or more. This is an old forest.
Back in the car to Accra for a night of sleep, then we set off to the east to the small town of Ada where a riverfront villa can be yours for the night for a mere $5. On our way we do a little shopping at a fish market where the assertive saleswomen work with their children strapped to their backs. It was a bit unsettling to watch them cut the heads from the fish with large knives they beat violently with long pieces of pipe, but the fish is very fresh.
Our home for the night in Ada is a simple two roomed bungalow with a beautiful covered dock jutting out into the Volta River. The world goes by on the river. Locals bathe, while others fish and carry goods to and from the market, just downstream. It’s a relaxing place to sit and watch the world go by.
Eventually we pry ourselves out of our chairs for a walk in the beach front village of Ada. The ocean has been eating away at the village’s beach and there are many abandoned structures on the empty shore. Locals speak of structures they were born in being reclaimed by the sea. We find a graveyard cut in half, the south side gone, washed away with headstones and vaults strewn on the beach. Miles of coastline stand empty without being protected by parklands or overbuilt with hotels or beach front bars. Most of the inhabited structures close to the beach are built from local materials, thatch and wood, easily relocated or replaced.
On the edge of the village local women dry sardines in the sun. Occasionally, sneaky goats munch the crunchy fish left unattended. Much like other villages we’ve encountered in Ghana, Ada is spotless with well kept homes, clean dirt streets and friendly people.
Finally we’ve run out of time and head back to the city for our evening flight off the continent. The Ghana-Nigeria soccer game is on and the streets are empty. We arrive at the airport during halftime. Everyone who can is clustered around large TVs hung from the ceilings on bars and at the ticket counters. Security is patchy at best. We check in and find a bar to watch the second half of the game in. Ghana remains solidly in the lead for most of the second half and the cheers go up when the clock ticks to zero. Local fans and travelers alike jump, yell and hug in a post victory frenzy as we head for our gate. It was the most fitting end to our trip. Ghana turned out to be a magnificent land of proud people doing quite well for themselves despite their challenges. From many hands pulling fishing nets from the sea, to cheering on their national team Ghana seems like a country united. There will always be political discontent and levels of strife but when compared to the recent events in Kenya and the ongoing crisis in Darfur, Ghana stands out as a country on the right track, successful, progressive and proud. Go see for yourself.

Namibia part 2 – Truckin’ Through the Rains

For the next 15 days, we were on our own. We said goodbye to our friends in Windhoek and picked up a diesel truck with a rooftop tent for a Sara and Dave 4x4 campin’ rough ridin’ honeymoon. That tent was the most cushy camping we’ve ever done. Why don’t they have them in the States? Why? So much better (and cheaper) than gigantic motor homes. You just fold it out, climb up the ladder, and –instant, comfy, critter-free sleep! First stop was the apricot sand dunes of the west. That place, around Sossusvlei, was one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been on earth. You drive to the base of the dunes on a sandy track, and can hike off into them. It’s absolutely quiet, and no one was there. Amazingly, ostriches and springbok seem to get on just fine, but we didn’t see a drop of water anywhere. Depressions known as vleis hold white, cracked areas of mud and 500 year old dead trees. It’s a very spiritual place, no matter what your belief. On our last night there, we climbed to the top of a dune (not as easy as it looks!) and saw an incredible sunset over the dunes and mountains. All around were dry river courses cut into the dry plains below. The Namib is one of the world’s oldest deserts, and it certainly looks it.

We left the dunes behind to go to the Skeleton Coast area and Damaraland, via Swakopmund, a coastal town that looks like a little bit of Germany plopped down in Africa (for those of you unfamiliar with Namibia’s history, it was a German colony for a while, though taken away after WWI and then annexed by South Africa, only gaining independence in 1989. The people also suffered apartheid-style restrictions during those years.). On the inhospitable coast, yearly rainfall is measured in millimeters, if at all, and large, dun-colored desert dunes meet the sea. But the sea life is abundant, and we saw dolphins and seals galore, including an even smellier seal colony than the one in South Africa. I actually had to tie a bandana over my nose to not breathe the stink in through my mouth! But boy those seal babies were cute…

In Damaraland, we saw 6000-year old rock paintings, beautiful animal images of penguins, lions, ostriches and others, painted by the ancestors of the Damara and San people that proved they ranged from the sea to the rainy river areas. We also managed to see the desert elephants! They are notoriously elusive, but we actually saw them from a gravel road. We had picked up two village girls and were giving them a ride to the next town, and they saw them first and pointed them out. The elephants were hanging out in a dry riverbed, after having knocked down all the fences in the vicinity (I don’t think there’s a single fence in Africa that can truly defeat a full grown elephant). We were very excited, but the girls had a different reaction: “Those are stupid elephants! Very naughty!” They might be destructive, but we were excited to see them, since it had just started to rain in the area, and the elephants would soon vanish into the bush, becoming almost impossible to spot until the dry season.

Once we left the dry desert and the desolate coast, the rains really arrived. We were on our way to the Caprivi region, which receives most of Namibia’s rainfall, and is inhabited by people who have more in common culturally with the people of Zambia, Angola, and Botswana. Cross the veterinary control line into the north of the country, and suddenly there are thatched villages and sustenance farms everywhere. It is also much poorer, though the culture seems more traditional and vibrant. We stayed at a camp where we ditched the tent for a night and slept in a treehouse, where we could hear people singing along the Okavango River, and hippos bellowing at dusk. The place had a toilet called “the throne” which looked out over the riverbed. Imagine doing your business, then a hippo surfaces near you – that pretty much captures the area.

We headed south into Botswana, which was a very easy border crossing, for a quick glimpse of the Okavango Delta, which dries up in the sands of the Kalahari desert rather than emptying to the sea. It’s famed for its wildlife, and maze of waterways filled with lilies, crocodiles, and fish. It definitely lives up to the pictures. We got to our lodge after 12 km of sandy track where Dave dodged cows while trying not to get stuck. It was on a gorgeous lagoon, where crocs cruised in the evening, and a tremendous rainstorm had knocked out the phones. The only way into the delights of the Delta is by boat or by plane, so we definitely took advantage of the water transport option. We even went fishing, catching wild tilapia…and throwing them back again. Our second day there we went out on the water all day, with our guide, Alec, who also took us in a makoro, a dugout canoe which is propelled by a standing poler. It was amazing, seeing the delta waters from a low vantage point, with no motor, so quiet you can hear the lily pads squeaking on the hull as we pass. We saw the rare sitatunga antelope, and got quite close, though thankfully had no canoe encounters with a hippo! We also walked around some of the islands and saw evidence of elephant and civet cats. Just wish we could have stayed longer.

Our last days in Namibia were no less filled with wildlife encounters though. On our way back through the Caprivi and down to Windhoek, we spent two nights on the Kwando River, which eventually flows into the Zambezi. The place is filled with hippos, they’re around every corner. Having one charge your boat really gives you an appreciation for the fact that these animals really are that big, and that dangerous – even their footprints seem dino-sized. One hippo blew a huge warning bubble directly under our boat that actually made me scream like a little girl. Even Dave admits to being more than a little scared.

Our last two nights before flying to West Africa gave us a new appreciation for the people that live in the bush. We went with a tracker in search of leopard on one game farm, and he found leopard prints that had been drenched with hours of torrential rain, barely discernable in the red mud. How? He looked for the impressions made by the huge cats’ claws. He also found tiny paw marks – a cub. He even picked up long hairs, which thorny bushes had plucked from the leopard’s tail. But…no spotted cats were seen. Still we were in awe of his skill, that is until we all got stuck in the mud, ending the exciting tracking part of the game drive. We also were able to spend a night interacting with a San family, an ethnic group more commonly known as the Bushmen. These people have been pushed into remote areas of the Kalahari, in the eastern part of Namibia. They can no longer hunt, and live in extreme poverty. We stayed at a camp where the San had been hired to come and show tourists how they survive in the bush. That night, we hung out with them by the fire and shared cigars and songs and played with the kids. We were the only people staying there, so it was really nice to just enjoy their company. In the morning, we went for a walk with them, and learned about various foods and plants, and how they use their environment. Dave was also very impressed with their portable pipe, which doubles as a handle for an axe. I loved just listening to their language, which is one of the planet’s oldest tongues, with different clicks I found almost impossible to pronounce correctly. It was a great way to end our time here, this too-quick look at a culture that may be under threat, but still struggling to co-exist with all the groups that make up modern-day Namibia. It’s just one more enticement to come back someday.

Well, we meant to update this every week or so, but that would involve…actually having internet access. Namibia has a lot of cell towers and some internet, but getting access to people who are wired is tough, especially as there are really only three towns of significant size in the entire country, which is twice the size of California. Plus the internet cafes don’t like you to use jump drives or memory sticks due to viruses and fraud. SO, long story short…we finally can tell you about our time in Namibia…after arriving back in the States!

This huge, stark desert country has less than two million people, with one of the lowest population densities on earth. In some places, you can drive across a flat desert road for five hours without seeing another car or person, and not a single drop of water. When we arrived, the rains were a month late, and the north and west of the country hadn’t seen a raindrop in over a year. 2007 was a year of drought, and people here have desperate hopes for this rainy season, for if it doesn’t go well, they will have to start bringing water by tanker truck into the capital. Never mind oil - Namibia has a water pipeline, a foreboding image of future days to come elsewhere in the world.

We got off the plane and met our friends David and Jillian, who were also on holiday in Southern Africa, and by harmonic convergence, we could meet up with them, and then later fly to Ghana to visit before going home (more on that later!). We jumped straight into the car and drove the 400 plus kilometers up to Etosha National Park, a paltry driving distance in Namibia. Etosha is one of the region’s most amazing parks, typically very arid, but home to large populations of zebra, giraffe, elephant, lion, black and white rhino, leopard, cheetah, and hordes of various antelope, not to mention other smaller creatures from martial eagles to banded mongoose. Due to the late rains, the park was bone dry – little clouds of dust rose with every animal footstep – which meant we could see quite a lot around the waterholes, except for those pesky leopards and cheetahs. We went on a night drive where the guide took a red light to light up animal eyes, and almost immediately saw a black rhino and baby standing quite close. Really amazing. This was our first time being, er, “on safari”, and it was a strange experience. In Etosha, due to the large populations of animals possessing big claws, teeth, horns, or tusks, you have to stay in your vehicle at all times when driving through the park. The advantage? Unlike many of the parks in East Africa where you need an armed guide or tour group, you can drive your own car to wherever you want to go on the large network of gravel and dirt roads through most of the park. Most days we were out from dawn till dusk. The disadvantage? Being in the car all day can be a bit of a drag, though when that big male lion yawned, stretched himself, and proceeded to amble over to within 5 meters of us and eyeball Dave’s big camera lens before settling down for his afternoon nap, we were pretty glad of our tinny Toyota’s protective layers of glass and steel. The other strange thing about an Etosha safari is that the Namibian government is trying to take advantage of the country’s premiere tourist attraction and turn its gated utilitarian rest camps into something more like a luxury resort. This has resulted in very high prices (60 dollar campsites! 150 dollar huts!) and a weird Palm Springs-like oasis where you are fenced in and surrounded by wild animals. We didn’t expect to end up in Namibia with our tent and stove, and instead have drinks by the pool and then wander over to the waterhole observation area to check out the elephants. That said, the design has been done well, the huts are thatched and look pretty organic, and why shouldn’t the government try to capture the almighty tourist dollar. It just didn’t feel very…wild. But none of that matters when you go out to look at the floodlit waterhole at midnight and see no fewer than FIVE black rhinos and one white rhino hanging out there, and then having a scuffle right in front of you. Or when you pull into Halali, the camp in the middle of the park, for lunch (we don’t recommend the buffet), and end up spending two hours watching a herd of 30+ elephant eat, spray water and play right in front of you before disappearing into the surrounding bush.

Etosha is set on a gigantic dry pan, which during the dry seaso

n, is snowy white, crackled, and blazing hot. In one place, you can drive the car onto the pan and watch the mirages move around in the distance and look for panting animals trudging across its broad expanse in search of water. At night, many of the prey animals huddle on the pan since there’s nowhere for predators to hide. We human prey got out of the car (shh, don’t tell!) and just reveled in the nothingness. No sound. No cover. Just distant dust devils and animal specks in the distance. THAT would be the place to camp at night, as long as an elephant didn’t come along and squish your tent.

The four of us wanted our next stop to be animal oriented, but cheaper than Etosha. So we called up a game lodge in the central part of the country which is a bit greener and has good grazing. When we showed up, we were in for a surprise. It was a hunting lodge. Trophy hunting is big business in Namibia, and you may be able to guess where the hunters are flying in from. Yep, that would be Texas. Apparently Houston airport has quite a few import issues with CITES-listed game when the hunters bring in their heads and skins. It’s not only Americans of course. We talked with quite a few hunting guides during our time in Namibia, and apparently trophy hunting has become quite popular amongst Russians and Hungarians. It was a bit creepy to walk into the lodge’s bar area and see an entire wall of dead animal and triumphant guy with gun photos. Many of them were big antelope, and considering we had been eating various kudu, oryx, and springbok meals all over the country…well, no meat goes to waste in Africa. But as Dave said, staring at the wall, “who the hell would want to kill a giraffe?”

Hunting does play a role in conservation here – game farms have repopulated large areas of land with native animals rather than cattle, and of course local people still hunt for food. But the trophy aspect of it was grim. Hunting guides have told us crazy stories about rich guys blowing animals away from the back of a Land Rover, which doesn’t seem very sporting. Sooooo…not our thing. But we were stuck there, and the people running the lodge were really interesting to talk to. They were also the polar opposite of Etosha. Want to walk? Sure, just keep your eyes open. They gave Dave the keys to the Land Rover, threw some beers in a cooler and told us to have at it. He was in heaven. Plus that place had possibly the most beautiful rainbow we’ve ever seen.

Hi – Dave’s wife Sara here, guest blogger for our time in Africa. We’ve been here in Cape Town just five days so far, and have enjoyed every minute.

It wasn’t the shortest journey from the States, at nearly twenty hours of flying - an overnight flight from DC to Frankfurt, an eight hour layover, and then another overnight flight from Frankfurt to Cape Town. By the time we arrived, we were exhausted, but still managed to stay up till nightfall. The German sausages helped. We braved the cold to walk around in Frankfurt for a few hours and drink some beer and celebrate the impending New Year before getting back on the airplane for our New Year’s Eve flight on South African Air – where they did hand out some champagne at midnight and the Germans in front of us talked until dawn. Quite a party…

Cape Town is gorgeous, a seaside city set into a natural bowl between Table Mountain and the Atlantic and Indian Oceans. It’s highly developed and ritzy near the seafront, while poverty stricken townships stretch out from the airport as far as the eye can see. We’re here for such a short time that it’s hard to get a handle on the contrast. Plus, the natural beauty of the environment tends to overwhelm everything. And the new year seemed to bring out locals and tourists alike for fun. We managed to catch some of Cape Town’s version of carnival, where crewes of musicians and dancers parade through the downtown area, each with a different tune. Little boys lead the front of each group, they were dancing up a storm and weren’t in the least bit shy despite the huge crowds and gale force breeze.

Summer here brings stiff winds, a phenomenon called the Cape Doctor, since it blows out all the smog and city air. But it’s been particularly strong in our time here, with gusts past 50-70 kph. Turns anyone with hair into Cousin It, or into one of those troll pencils that’s been rolled around a few too many times.

We drove down to the Cape of Good Hope, waved at Antarctica, and endured the gentle breezes there, which can be more than 90 kph! The park is full of baboons that sit in the middle of the road and glare at tourists, and we also saw some ostrich and eland grazing near the shore which didn’t seem to mind the wind a bit.

Neither did the African penguins, aka the Jackass, and that’s exactly what they sound like. There’s a colony of 3000 of them on the way to the Cape, and they don’t seem to mind an entire platform of people staring at them at all hours of the day. They’re sitting on eggs now, and a bunch of downy babies look to emerge very soon.

Today we went down to another area of the coast, Hermanus, along an ocean highway that gives Big Sur and Australia’s Great Ocean Road a serious run for their money. The aim – to dive with Great White Sharks. The reality – to experience the miasma of odor that is 50,000 cape fur seals. Yep, despite the great potential of blubbery seal meat being on the menu, there were no sharks around. A major bummer, considering that they have a 98% sighting rate and there have only been three other days in the past year that the operators haven’t seen any sharks. Just our luck. We have vouchers for a return trip in case anyone wants to send us back here. I am still obsessed with diving with these sharks. After all that time at Discovery Channel writing shark week shows and packaging, I have to do it before I die!

As for the seals, believe us about the smell. They STINK. They are also incredibly playful and a joy to watch, especially the thousands of baby seals yelling for their mothers from shore. Just bring a nose plug.

But no time to return to the sharks as we’re flying to Windhoek, Namibia tomorrow, where apparently there is a seal colony with 200,000 residents. The smell must reach down half the coast…and we can’t wait to see it! We’ll share some tales from one of the driest deserts on earth in our next installment – whenever we find some internet.

James Island,

On a foggy fall morning I start the mile long run out of Slaughter creek as the sun breaks through the pine on the bank of the Little Choptank. The watermen from Taylor’s Island Marina have left about an hour before me on the way to their pots. It’s fall and the cooling water is driving the crabs towards deeper water where they will spend the winter. The work boats have a long ride before the real work starts. My destination isn’t quite as far today. I’m on my way to James Island.

In 1847, the earliest official survey of the Island I can find show a piece of land twenty times larger that the remaining small wisps of terra firma that cling to life today. James Island was home to a Plantation with orchards and livestock that grazed next to the bay. Many buildings and a graveyard dotted the 400 acre patch of land. Today it has been cut through twice by battering surf, erosion, and sea level rise, creating three small battered pieces of land.

As I approach the island(s) from the east I find a beautiful long clean sandy beach that curves like a bow. There is no sign of human life now or ever on the beach except for a single weathered plastic chair facing east waiting for the sunrise. This is one of the most inviting panoramas on the bay.

The beach gives way to a thin layer of underbrush that shields the lee side of the island. A small opening in the viney brush yields a short trail to the center of the island, an open airy big woods of old pine trees. I can hear the waves hitting the windward side of the thin strip of land. The trail leads to a picnic table and a fire ring covered in dry pine needles, a tinderbox waiting for a spark. A few more steps and I’m facing the open bay, several miles across. The gentle breeze on the lee of the island is replaced by a much more forceful wind that whips up the waves which pound the sharp edged coast.

The windward side of the island shows a different face. The land drops straight down into the choppy water. The strong clay soil holds as fast as it can under the relentless pounding. Signs that the dry earth is succumbing to the sea are everywhere. Broken tree trunks stand like canons failing against the invasion from the western shore. Hundreds of trees lie dead in the water. This island is short on time.

James Island isn’t alone. Barren, Hooper’s, Bloodsworth, Holland, and South Marsh Islands to the south as well as the modestly populated Smith and Tangier Islands are all losing ground, quite literally.

Poplar Island stands alone as the only island in the Bay that is actually gaining ground. For the past eight years the Army Corps of Engineers has been sending shipments of dredge spill pulled from the channels that lead into Baltimore Harbor to Poplar Island. A system of rip rap and dikes holds the wet spill until it becomes firm ground. Poplar Island is scheduled to be renewed by 2012. James Island is the next project for the Corps.

On a recent paddle around Poplar Island, I had a close look at the work being done to rebuild this remote patch of land. Heavy equipment thunders down the long wide dirt roads that cross the island. Pink and green survey flags stand in long rows along the new shoreline. The fresh ground rises at least ten feet above the Bay and looks worlds apart from the original remaining tract with its tall pines and marshy edges. When complete, Poplar will be a somewhat visitor friendly wildlife refuge providing much needed

offshore habitat for Chesapeake floral and fauna. Huge rocks will hold their ground against the weather on the windward west side giving the island longevity that the rest of the Bay's coastline can only dream about. This will be the new look of the Bay's shoreline.

Weathered and dwindling, much like the old culture of the Chesapeake, the Bay's islands are being reduced to mere shadows of their glory days. Change is inevitable. As our landscape evolves at speeds that exceed what we know as its natural geological pace, our culture follows in lockstep. James Island and the rest of the Bay's islands must adopt a stony face turned into the wind, or slide beneath the rising tide.