On Sunday night 28th August, we had some enormous winds from the south. This was most unusual for our area which usually receives winds from the north. Our tent felt like a huge sail and pulled against its gee-ropes while our outside chairs were blown over and a huge branch was pulled off the tree over our kitchen area, landing half a meter from our tent entrance. Our animals were all terrified and we had both cats on the bed with us and the dogs under our bed.
Just after day break the askaris came to ask us to please try to help them. They had been wrestling since 2am with our boats moored in the bay. When we arrived down at the bay we found the small wooden boat that we usually use to travel between Kipili and Lupita had a fist sized hole in the prow from where it had been dashed against some rocks and so was half filled with water. During the night this boat had also pushed back into the bay so that the motor’s propeller had dug down into the sand. Luckily the askaris had managed to lift the boat up and dislodge the motor from the sand as well as pull the small fishing boat to safety.
We also found a third boat in the bay and upon closer inspection realized that this was one of the boats that had been moored in Kipili, 3.8km away from the island. Somehow it had broken its anchor rope and had miraculously landed up in the bay at
The back of the boat had been badly broken by the rocks just off the bay and the askaris were struggling to keep the boat from being broken up further. Sadly there was very little that we could do and so we were forced to leave the boat to the mercy of the 4-foot waves and the rocks.
The wind blew all that day, making the lake too rough for the guys to come across to do any work, so we found ourselves stranded on the island with no way of getting to the mainland and no way of anyone coming to us. The following day, once the lake had calmed down, the “Tumbo” was able to come over to Lupita and we had the hole fixed in our boat.
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