What happened in the next 5 hours could so easily have put an end to our expedition. In short, the double kayak became so waterlogged that it was impossible to keep upright for more than 10 seconds and to make matters worse we were about 4km from shore. Luckily a fisherman in a dugout canoe came to the rescue. I was ordered to hop in with him along with some luggage. The rest of the team had to go straight to shore as the double was literally about to sink. The dugout was heading straight across the bay in the opposite direction. I soon realized, after much debate in broken Swahili, that the dugout would have sunk if he had gone straight to shore because of the big surf. Needless to say my new found paddling friend and I made it to shore in one piece but I was still not sure about the rest of the team.
I later learned that the 2 singles landed in usual fashion but Caiden, along with the double, rolled into shore which we learned is actually croc infested. After emptying the double's luggage into the singles, Caiden paddled the double across the bay, alone. I don’t know how he managed through that wind and swell but he did. Marc and Guy could not launch at this point as their boats were too heavy to get through the large surf. So now, Caiden and I were stuck without the rest of the team and we actually were not aware that they couldn’t get out at that point.
We landed up meeting a fellow South African named Theo who works on the coal-mines in the area, and he helped us out. It was probably a 10km walk along the beach before we found Marc and Guy. We were finally back together. It was a very long day and we were so thankful that everyone was safe.
Scenery: The scenery is very similar to what Caiden described in his previous blog. The mountains are immense and they unfold higher and higher into the sky until their peaks are lost in the clouds. Dense forests cover these steep slopes, and very few are ‘tainted’ with cassava crops which show sign of human life. Around every corner waterfalls appear from unseen sources, and they make their way down through these dense forests, cascading in and out of sight before falling into the lake.
We have come to the conclusion that spear- fishing is the way to catch fish in Lake Malawi. Although we have caught a couple of fish with rods, spear fishing has definitely supplied the majority of our meals along this stretch and we have all contributed to the table with some very tasty fish. For those of you who asked and may be interested, the fishing is very good and is worth the trip to come and ‘work the structure’ as the hardened fisherman may say. I think it was by pure fluke that I landed a 3kg Bream whilst trawling with a Rapala a couple of days ago and Guy shot a 2.5kg ‘Ngumbe’ fish whilst diving on some remote beach, so there is definitely sign of some decent size fish around. We have been living off the land as our rice stocks have been diminishing, so luckily the fishing has been good.