Summer is Coming
This past week the President of Mozambique announced that the beaches will be open again (along with Casinos, sports, restaurants and bars until 10 pm)! It's been over a year since all these amenities have been closed in Mozambique because of COVID . For the country's population, most of whom are coastal dwelling, and especially those whose livelihoods rely on the sea, the closure has had a serious social as well as economic impacts. For example, the country relies on seafood as a protein staple, tourism has all but dried up, import and export supply chains that come by sea have been slowed down, and the cost of trade goods with South Africa rose significantly. Plus, people of Mozambique just love to party, been seen and see by the sea (a la Friday Night on University Ave in Palo Alto and made famous in American Graffiti). For all these reasons, and more, the announcement by the Prez. was greeted with enthusiasm.
Knowing the beaches near Maputo would be crowded - think New York beaches in the summer - we made plans with one of Sierra's friends to go on an excursion to a beach about an hour away from the city. They bailed at the last minute and we took the two neighbour kids with us and rushed to catch a ride at 9:00 a.m. on what was called a Dhou but really was an old rusting motor boat.
The first of the photos is of the three kids in the boat with masks. Although amenities are open, masks are required and most people wear them (fines are possible) even if they wear them over their chins or on their heads. However, this doesn't necessarily apply to Ex Pats, and you can see the others in the boat are young French, Spanish, Portuguese professionals who work in Maputo, have been vaccinated, not wearing masks and think they are invincible.
We looked back at the city and passed the fishing boats moored by the village where we caught our ride and headed out to sea.
It's a good thing there isn't a video of me hauling myself over the side of the boat; it was not a pretty sight.
It felt great to be on the sea. It was a hot morning and the wind has come up and we could see the city fade into the distance. There was a sense of adventure. We had no real idea of what we were getting into, (even with Google Maps), what the beach would be like and what we might expect.
If you look on the map below, our route was from Maputo heading north, past the long thin island, which is not much more than sand bar at which point we scooted over to the long thin peninsula that extends out into the ocean and is called Punta Macaneta. Its basically a giant sand bar that offers great swimming in a shallow sandy shelf, both on the ocean side and the Bay side.
As we disembarked we were met by this very eccentric Portuguese lady (wearing an outfit that looked like it came from the costume box in the attic). She told us she is from a third generation Mozambique family and must speak about five languages. Her name is Christina and she is the first older person I have met here in the country (we are about the same age as I found out later). Even more interestingly she has created this welcoming but ramshackle beach scene built out of drift wood and whale bones that looks like the set of Gilligan's Island. I wish I had taken more photos but the ones below will give a feel of what the scene was like.
The photo to the right marked the path to the main cabana trough the mangrove forest. It is easy to get lost in one of the small trails through the mangrove scrub that seem to lead everywhere so these bleached whale bones helped keep us on the path to and from the two beaches.Oh, the island is mostly sand as so much seems to be on the coast of Mozambique. Scrub is in the middle only. I think the photo of the whale vertebrae below is from a Humpback. It is reported that they are frequent visitors to the area much of the year.
We trudged up the path carrying beach toys and clothes to the central cabana (also made out of driftwood with a palm roof) for a second breakfast of pancakes, eggs, fruit, cereal, sweet potatoes, yogurt, granola and great coffee. The kids ate almost all of the fruit and pancakes and immediately ran out to start building sand castles. We soon followed.
The photo below is what happened when they hit the sand.
The cool part is that there was no wind, the waves were small, and the sea was shallow til past the waves. It felt like paradise found! And the best part is that we were essentially the only ones on the beach for the better part of the day and the beach stretched for miles in both directions, or so it seemed.
Here is an example of the Gilligan's Island style construction - not very sturdy, but welcome shade.
At one point I went for a walk to what I thought might be the end of the island but only to find out that the sand bar extends out into the Indian Ocean for at least another klm . From where I stood it felt like one can see almost to Perth Australia. And, ohh, the shallow water was so warm and welcoming until I put my feet in the water at the point and wow was the ocean cold.
As I walked I noticed there were dozens of Moon Jelly Fish that had washed up from the sea. They were the size of a flat soccer ball (see the photo below) and I sure wouldn't want to encounter them when swimming. Fortunately we didn't see any as we surfed the waves further down the island. And, I found several dead Portuguese Man of War that had also washed up which I did not touch unlike the butter clam I found ( see photo below).
I remember reading that global populations of jellyfish species have skyrocketed in the past several years. I know on Saturna we have seen swarms of them (jellyfish blooms) in August and I think these blooms have become common worldwide. Interestingly (I guess) is that while other plants and animals are becoming extinct because of human activity, jellyfish are thriving. It seems jellyfish absorb the excess heat from greenhouse gases and thrive in warmer water with less oxygen. Well, let me tell you there were lots of them and it was creepy.
About 2:00 PM we had enough sun, sand and sea and trundled back to the central cabana for a lunch of clams, shrimp, rice, coconut shima (something like grits), fish curry, banana leaf mush of some kind which was actually tasty and salad. I had a beer and prawns; I was just too hot to eat!
Ultimately what cemented the feeling of having landed on a magical island is that mid way through lunch (after seating a lovely Japanese couple at the end of the table we were sitting at), Christina sat down and started eating with us, passing food from our end of the table to the Japanese couple and visa versa while chatting all the time as if we were old friends at her dinner table. COVID be damned and certainly the usual safety precautions we all are now accustomed to were not a factor in how she entertained her guests. Oh, I should mention that all the food platters were out of old drift wood of some kind and our plates were old china that must have come from her family. It felt like a movie set.
The kids had no time for adult conversation and soon left to play more in the sand on the Bay side of the island (see photo below) and we continued to chat with the Japanese couple and Christina. The Japanese woman had just arrived in Mozambique after having served as Gender Consultant for the 2021 Olympics following the demise of the Japanese Head of the Olympics who had to step down after putting one foot and then the other in his mouth about women. I can't begin to describe what an unusual experience it was sitting at this out of the way place, feeling as if we had been transported to another time in another world and yet here we were talking about current affairs. Ahh, ain't life grand.
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