Resorts, beers and new team mate!

22 to 24 August 2005
Turtle Bay welcomes returning paddlers

There was little over 15km between our classroom stop and Kenya’s number one all inclusive holiday resort, Turtle Bay. We left early as the sun rose over the water, to get to our destination as early as possible allowing us enough time to relax and put our feet up! (And in time for the buffet breakfast which is served until 11am!) The water was pretty flat and we could paddle inside the reef for most of the way. The water was the bluest and clearest that we had seen up to that point and could see all the way to the bottom despite being about 2 kms from the beach at times. We had to leave the safety of the reef just before Watamu due to it narrowing and joining with a couple of kms of cliff. Our decision was confirmed as being the correct one moments later when Shayne, who was already at the resort, sent us an sms which read something along the lines of “Cliffs at the point seem quite dangerous so maybe stick east of the reef and come in afterwards.” We had no problem getting out through the breaking waves and before long we were within site of Turtle Bay. 3 km to go was the information supplied to me by my Garmin GPS. I relayed this information on to Shayne and told him to notify Sabine (marketing manager at Turtle Bay Beach Club) that we were about to arrive. Only one obstacle lay between us and the luxury of the resort – the reef. We now knew what was dangerous! We didn’t have any other option but to go in through the huge waves that were breaking over the reef. We watched for a while and then chose our line. I went in first but had got it wrong! A massive wave had snuck up on me (Richard somehow managed to escape it) and was determined to give me a much closer view of the reef than I was comfortable with. I braced hard to my left and somehow managed to ride the wave in sideways (not very graceful but it did the trick). The next wave was a lot smaller but was at least expected so I did not have any hassles riding it in. I looked back to see Richard upside down in the middle of some big breaking waves. He had escaped the first big wave (that had got hold of me) and managed to ride its larger brother in until he tried one move too many at which point he was toppled into the water and tumbled only inches above the sharp reef. Oh, did I mention the sheer cliffs that were waiting not too far away?! We had discussed this situation at length before and had come to the conclusion that if somebody fell out in the waves, the others were not to go in to try and help as this would undoubtedly end up in that boat also getting dumped by the waves and thus doubling the original problem. BUT at this stage I was certain that a large group had gathered to welcome us in and were no doubt watching the drama unfold from the shore, so I really didn’t have any option but to go back into the waves to try and help Richard. Besides that, I was sure that Shayne would be filming and that if I was also to fall in it would make really good TV! I got close to Rich who informed me that he was fine (this was only seconds before he stood on a sea urchin and was no longer quite that fine!). Needless to say, seconds later I was also in the water, trying to avoid the squadron of attacking urchins! It took us the best part of 10 minutes to get back onto our boats, compose ourselves and to start the embarrassing paddle to the beach where the crowds had gathered. “Beep-Beep! Beep-Beep!” went the phone. It was Shayne- wanting to know where we were! They could still not see us and had not seen a thing of the drama! Once we were on the beach we were greeted by Sabine (Marketing Manager of Turtle Bay) and a whole army of her staff who were singing and dancing to welcome us. A fair number of the guests were also there and were very concerned about the large waves on the reef and wanted to know how we had possibly got through them. With straight faces we told them that after 2 weeks in the water those waves were nothing and that we had no problems at all.

Mlevi feels neglected

Mlevi the Land Rover had been waiting for us at Turtle Bay for about 2 weeks while we headed up to Lamu and back. She was obviously feeling neglected and decided to teach us a lesson by acting like a typical Land Rover. First she decided not to start. We thought that it was just the battery and drove her around a bit, after pushing all 4 tons of her to get her to start, to try and charge it but it didn’t make a difference. The battery was clearly not the problem so we called in Paulo, the local mechanic. He arrived with 3 spanners and a screwdriver and the 3 of us looked at him very sceptically but thought that we would give him a chance. We didn’t really have any other option, especially now that Aaron was gone, 4 tons is big ask to push and then jump in to start when you are alone and parked in beach sand! Paulo, with the help of Patrick, the local ambulance driver, had solved the problem within minutes. It was just a loose wire which had obviously taken a beating in the Serengeti and had been finished off by the local roads, or lack thereof! Impressed by his work, we got Paulo to look at some other problems. The radiator had sprung a leak, the accelerator was sticking (not ideal when you want to slow down for a series of potholes), the front suspension was rattling in quite an alarming manner and it was probably time for an oils change and a bit of a minor service. Paulo agreed to have a look at it and took the car to his “workshop” in his backyard. Hakuna matata! He could fix it but it would take some time. The suspension was broken, again largely due to the roads in the Serengeti and finished off by the local roads. This he had to weld but had apparently done this hundreds of times before (I have no doubt considering the state of the roads), the radiator had to be taken out and sent to a friend who could fix it, the accelerator was no problem and the service would be done along with fitting new filters and replacing the oil. The following afternoon it was all done. Like new! How much would this cost you in SA? R4 000 or R5 000? Take it to Kenya guys, and only pay the equivalent of R650!

Clinic visit

On one of our days at Turtle Bay we visited the Timboni Village Health Community Dispensary to do some filming for our documentary. The clinic has been running for a couple of years and was recently relocated and upgraded thanks to the donations from some of the regular guests at Turtle Bay. The resort is actively involved with the clinic and is trying to make it sustainable. They act as a type of middle man between the guests, being the donors, and the clinic and are there to help the committee of the clinic as and when their assistance or guidance is needed. The resort has a manager who they call the community projects manager, Chris, who took us to the clinic and the school. It was alarming to see how little the clinic had in the way of drugs and equipment and they still manage to take care of a large number people on a daily basis. The main illnesses that they deal with regularly are cholera, malaria, dehydration and typhoid. Mainly water related illnesses which is due to the very low quality of the water that is available in the community. They gave us a list of the equipment that they need most (see the picture – retyped list will be posted on our site soon). We are in the process of making another website where we are going to focus on the communities and projects that we have visited and where we will give the details of how you can help them if you want to. It is amazing how little these people have and how any small donations makes a huge difference.

Sonneti Academy visit

Following the visit to the clinic we stopped at the Sonneti Academy. This is a school that was started by a former employee of Turtle Bay Resort, Mr Mongly. The school’s motto is: “Discipline is the foundation to success”. The children were definitely living it! Every classroom we entered the children would stand up, greet us and at the top of their high voices, while pointing to the sky scream their motto!

At the end of our tour we donated 5 BDO (http://www.bdo.co.za/) sponsored soccer balls to the 450 strong school, it was a spectacle to behold! The director of the school took the 5 balls and threw them out into the smiling surrounding children – total hyphen erupted, screaming youngsters flew around the small enclosed area kicking the balls as hard as they could! The chaos lasted about 10min, we all thought it was going to end in tears but these kids were hard and a flying ball crashing into them was far better than it not!


25 August 2005
“It's Tusker Time!”

The official end of our first leg was in the small town of Kilifi. It a 32km paddle from Turtle Bay which took us no time at all, the whole stretch was inside the reef. We were fortunate to have a contact there with Jackie Evans who is the aunt of Mark Cowley, one of the paddlers joining us later in the trip. We phoned her up and she said that she had some South African guests who would be keen to meet us. Shayne the driver for the day was sent ahead to find the place and to send the GPS coordinates to us on the boats.

Upon arrival he found out just how welcome we were and the tone for our stay was set without a doubt by the cold Tusker that was shoved into his hand even before he had turned the car off! He was ushered inside, shown to our rooms (yes rooms, complete with showers, hot water and clean soft beds!) and promptly escorted off to the beach with the 3 families (Richard and Bridgette Firth, Richard and Petal Wainwright and Phil and Lucinda Durnford and all the kids) to do some snorkelling. We arrived later and were greeted by a never ending wave of people emerging from the sea, Shayne somewhere amongst them. Seconds later it was “Tusker Time” and we were sitting on the edge of the pool enjoying the local brew, and a couple of delicious sandwiches which were very kindly made for the 2 hungry paddlers. It was great being around some South Africans again and they were really so good to us.

Tusker Time, as we found out, was pretty much anytime and went on for quite a while with one beer being replaced by the next before you had even noticed that the first one was finished. That evening a feast had been prepared and we stuffed ourselves full of prawns, rock cod, vegetables and a whole array of other interesting food which we washed down with Tusker. Then it was time to go crab hunting and we charged around the beach for an hour or so trying to catch ghost crabs. The technique, obviously mastered over many nights by the girls, was to chase after a crab and then when it was just within a pincer length of your toes to let out an eardrum bursting scream! This technique did not seem to work too well and I was much more impressed by that adopted by the dog which would chase the crab, catch it in his mouth, crushing it slightly, and then move on to the next one. Neither was appealing enough for me to try! Later that night Phil, Richard, Richard, Richard and I stayed up until 2am to try and solve all of Africa’s problems. Phil and the 2 older Richards were the brains behind this operation with “Little” Richard and me contributing only slightly to the master plan. We could both see that these guys knew what they were talking about! Each problem got simpler and the solution certainly more obvious with every glass of Johnny Walker Black Label and Kenyan Cane and Coke that we drank, and, after about a bottle of each, all Africa’s problems had been solved!

In the morning we were greeted with a breakfast like none other, and prepared for the day ahead - a 20km paddle to Vipingo. Shayne had taken over from me due to the severe sunburn that I had suffered on my hands over the past couple of weeks thanks largely to my malaria tablets, which can cause extra sensitivity to the sun in only 5% of users! (Unlucky I guess!) Everybody went down to the beach to see us off, and probably to make sure that we had actually gone! I left after narrowly avoiding Tusker Time and the second leg was underway! Little did they know that that was not the last time that they would see us!

Thanks again to all of you for your very kind hospitality and for really making us feel at home. We would have loved to stay longer but unfortunately the trip had to go on……...!

26 to 27 August 2005
Cliffs of death

Graham went ahead to find us a spot for the evening, Vipingo was our expected destination, 20km further down the coast. An average to easy days paddle on paper, but as we have learnt and many before us the sea doesn’t always behave!

Shayne and I headed off with the waving gathering seeing us disappear very slowing down the beach. Like a walking race, unlike the 100m, watching us leave isn’t the most exciting thing, especially if there aren’t too many crashing waves to negotiate! Anyway on we went, not doing too badly, passing Kilifi’s creek mouth was interesting and after passing an outside reef all was well and we thought we had only flat calm waters ahead!

Well how wrong we were, cliffs we waiting for us! Being high tide, huge open ocean swells were rolling in from the deap open and crashing up against the jagged 20 m high cliffs! It was quite spectacular watching the water being shot another 20m up into the air! But not that spectacular watching our little boats trying to keep a straight line in what soon became a very rough angry ocean! The rolling swells were met by the outward bound refracting waves causing absolute nightmare for us two paddlers!

Shayne usually a happy smiley, very excitable kind of guy had gone very quiet and looked very unhappy with the whole situation, there was no out! We had to go on, I contemplated the possibility of towing him, but this would really be ideal in the heavy swell! Pole pole (slowly slowly) were only words of inspiration I could come up with! What felt like eternity was 4hours, it was definitely the slowest 12km we have paddled!

Vipingo and Supersport!

I arrived at Bill and Angela Morris’s house and was immediately greeted by Bill and a beer! We sat on the balcony awaiting Shayne and Richard and Bill kept disappearing to check the “score”. I soon found out that he had DStv and the Springboks were playing the next day (and had been winning for a change)! Time for a break guys, tomorrow there will be no paddling! As the anthems started our luck ran out along with the electricity! It was a cruel twist! Bill had the solution though and before long we were dodging potholes in his 4x4 heading back to Kilifi to catch the rest of the game. Then it was off to the Boatyard!

Boatyard and the South Africans again

Bill was determined to rub the Springboks' loss in and took us straight to the Boatyard which is the local hangout in Kilifi on a Saturday. As we drove in we saw a Matatu (local taxi) leaving and knew that there would only be one lot of people who would be going to the Boatyard in a Matatu, the South Africans. It was good to see them again although we had to explain ourselves as we were meant to be 60km down the coast by that stage and not drinking in the pub! Bill had to drag us away in the end and thank goodness for that because it was heading for another ‘big one’ with all the alcohol that was being sent our way, not that we are complaining though! That night Angela had cooked us a great meal and we stayed up until late watching the news on the long forgotten magical box.

28 August 2005
Valuable contacts gained in Mtwapa

Bill and Angela had phoned Sue and Curley McPherson in Mtwapa, which was our next stop, and had arranged for us to camp in their garden. After chatting to Curley for a couple of minutes about our trip while we waited for Richard and Shayne to arrive, Curley got out his list of contacts and started giving me names and numbers of people that he knew along the remainder of the Kenyan coastline. It was a long list and there was no reason for us to be sleeping on anymore beaches in Kenya! This was to come in really handy over the next couple of days and (as I sit in Tanzania writing this) we only had one night where we had to find a place to stay on our own! Curley has also been very good in following up and phoning us to find out how we are getting along – sorry my phone keeps cutting out Curley!

Fame at last!

Thanks to Turtle Bay and their marketing department K2K has become a household name in Kenya, well, not quite but we did make it into the newspaper! It is amazing how people are willing to help you when you produce a newspaper article with your picture in it. Fame is great! We have managed to elude the Paparatsi so far but are sure that they will find us soon!





29 August 2005
Lucky strike in Tiwi Beach

We paddled the short stretch from Mtwapa to Mombasa and then had to find a place to stay. This was the one place that we had not been given a contact but were sure that if we knocked on enough doors we would eventually get a place to stay. We loaded the boats onto Mlevi so that we could all go and look (not too keen to leave one person on their own in Mombasa of all places!). After driving around for a couple of hours with little success with some of the hotels on Tiwi Beach, we decided to try some private houses. We were in luck with the very first one, but it did take some smooth talking and we managed to score ourselves a piece of lawn on which to camp. We set up our tents and after doing this Gra and Rich headed back to Mombasa town to pick up our newest team member ‘Mark’. That nights weather was one of the worst in K2K’s history. The rain bucketed down for over 5 hours without any sign of stopping.

29 – 31 August
Mark’s blog so far..

I arrived in Mombasa after a days’ travel leaving Cape Town early (06h20) on Monday. Everything went well but I was worried about clearing all the baggage clearances as mine was 7kgs over the limit. My other travelling companion, soon to join the trip later in the week, had spoken to Kenya Airways and subsequently said that if I said that ‘Hillary’ (operations manager for K.A.) said it was fine, well, it was fine. To cut a long story short, I owe a big thanks to her for getting those heavy bags of backup travel food for the team up Africa. There were moments when I got a frown and a vacant stare with ‘No, no, no, no.’ But this was always alleviated by the saving grace of President Hillary. Your must be an important and generally very good person! Anyway, I arrived in Mombasa and it was an eye opener. Taxis sprayed with funkadelic designs with disco interior lighting that really made our dilapidated taxis back home look road worthy! Anyway, they were all over the place hooting and not indicating at all really. For them there was no such thing as ‘right of way’. It was a rumour that I was glad to see Rich (who had picked me up very kindly) also ignoring behind the wheel of the intimidating Landy (Mlevi). It really was great to see them (Rich and Graham) arrive at the airport in such a foreign place. Really really. I was filled in on the latest happenings as well as given the finer details of some of the stories that had come to pass. We arrived at someone’s house on the shoreline where the guys had set up camp for the night. Apparently Shayne had pressed the doorbell and charmed the pants off the house-sitter who had eventually allowed them all to set up the tents. I was very chuffed to have my first night in Kenya under the stars – I had prepared myself to rough it after all. I was also pretty excited about the paddle the next day. Unfortunately it decided to blow up a bit of a storm.. for the night and well into the next day as well. Wednesday would eventually be the day when I would set off for my paddle and first experience of what had been so carefully planned out by the K2K team. I would like to say it didn’t disappoint, and, in truth it didn’t. But, to put all niceties aside, it was a very hard day of paddling and I was given a bit of an awakening as to what I could expect for the next 2 or so weeks. To better paint the picture, I must let you know whom I paddled with. ‘Richie T’ a.k.a ‘the-human-blade’ – so named for his uncanny ability to morph with his paddling boat and create some ‘thing’ able enough to cut through water like it wasn’t there. He completely mocked me. Let me break it down; the first 3kms we walked with the boats in tow because the tide was too low. All fine so far. In fact, nice chats generally. We eventually found some deeper water and finally got on our way and for the following 6kms were given the luxury of paddling inside the reef. Still all good, but noticing signs of the pace picking up a bit and my arms feeling a little achy. Also noticing the back of Ricahrd’s (yes, no longer ‘Ritchie’) boat more and more. Did I mention that a head wind picks up everyday around 10am? Well it did. I brought it up when I managed to catch up (only because he had stopped to check his navigational handheld computer) and was hoping to find support for the going becoming a little tougher but was met with “Nah, it’s been much worse than this trust me.” Ok, no support maybe I am just battling a bit. After breaking for lunch, we continued for another 9 kms and I felt every metre of it pretty much. I even tried meditating whilst I paddled but it was no use. The lead I was feeling taking over the blood that was running to my arms was too overwhelming. So there you are, I felt sorry for myself, it was windy and overcast, we had by this point paddled out past the reef and were in the open sea with all its lovely currents, and all I could see was the back of Rich’s boat at least 100metres ahead of me. I brought this all up with Rich later as I felt it would create a barrier to our friendship if it ever happened again. Happy to say that we are now friends again. That was my first paddle that seemed to last more than the 5 hours it took us to finish it, and I must admit that I was a lot less fit than I had initially expected.. When I arrived at the beach and met one of the other team members – Shayne (the Ozzie) – the first thing I said was; “So (pant, pant) you (pant) doing this for another (pant) 4 months?” Shayne: “Yeah mate.” Me: “You’re crazy..”. I did have a much better paddle today though.