Back to the day job

The weather has been dreadful down here, very strong gale force winds have mean that there has been little opportunity for fishing, but at least that means I get nice dinners !
The weather has to be checked several days in advance to allow for travelling out to the fishing ground and the time the nets will be in the water and again for getting back out to collect them. The website XCWeather is one of those used also the Met Office website.
The weather finally settled this week and nets were put out on Monday for collecting on Friday,

nets being 'shot'

So it was an early start on Friday and expectations for monkfish were met 

Monkfish,

usually they are dead when the nets are hauled this one was alive but not after he had had his head chopped off and his tail wrapped in Parma ham and roasted for 20 minutes !

There was also about 100kg of Spider crabs which can be fiddly to extract from the nets, the legs are very delicate and break easy so it took a while to finish.

so the kettle went on for a brew (looks like the cooker needs a bit of clean)

The red dot is the marker indicating where the nets are.  The bay is full of those big tankers and they are causing a problem for the inshore fleet, one fisherman has lost over £1000.00 of pots because they go over the markers dragging it with them.

Saturday was not such an early start but it was a bit misty

St Michael's Mount

Does what it says on the tin and very useful in misty weather, the autopilot, you type in your course and it takes you there - you do still have to watch out for other vessels !

There were a few rays in the nets too, the one one the left is a spotted ray and the other one is a blonde ray, can you see the difference? 

Nets cleaned time for a bit of photography, 

back end of the boat, also known as the stern, the front pointy bit is the bow (I think!)

This looks like it is Lizard way - it's that damned Lizard again Peter !

While Ken was being a fisherman I was being a cleaner, I posted the following on my Facebook Page

I was up at 7.30, bathroom cleaned, fridge cleaned, windows cleaned, the bedrooms cleaned, all downstairs cleaned, all floors washed, you name it I cleaned/washed it, shopping done and fridge re stocked, he comes home from fishing and asks "what have you done today, sat in the garden?" Good thing I'd not got anything sharp in my hand!!

Now back to those rays - could you see the difference? the spotted ray is the one on the left and has two more prominent spots either side of it's body and the other spots don't go to the very edge of it's body as they do on the blonde ray - the fishermen have a saying to differentiate between them "blondes go all the way!!"

Enough for now, and there's still more Gambia ramblings to "look forward to" 

A bit more birding

I promise this will be the last post about birdwatching but please be advised the fishing blog is still under construction so you are not out of the woods just yet.

Chronologically we are still in the first week of our holiday and have not yet been to Georgetown but the timing isn't really relevant. Our next trip out with Famara and Pax (the taxi driver) was to Tanji and the surrounding area. Tanji is another fishing village south of Gambia which you can smell as you approach,

the smell of smoking fish at 0730am in the morning combined with the decaying rubbish in roadsides is something quite indescribable !

The beach at Tanji, photo from Trip Advisor.

This was our first birdwatching trip to Tanji since our 2nd visit to Gambia back in 2002 and I was looking forward it it because it is by the sea so cooler and I like wading birds. First stop was Tujereng, a village a bit further down from Tanji we had a good walk round the reserve as the sun was coming up and had quite an impressive list to tick off, we've been walking round in the sun for a couple of hours now so we decided to head back on to the main road and stop at a bar for a cold drink before going down to Tanjji reserve.  So it was 4 Sprites - it is usual that the guide and driver are included in drink stops, and if we were to have lunch they would be asked to accompany us too but for that they would decline and eat the staff food which would be given to them free as a gift for bringing paying customers to the restaurant - the exception to this was when Buba was with us at Stala - while he would quite happily have eaten the staff food we specifically asked him to join us.

We were sitting happily watching an approaching donkey and cart slowing ambling along the road, we then heard a rather loud scraping/banging noise and realised that the young boy guiding the donkey had become preoccupied and the donkey and walked into Pax's car ! !

We paid and headed back to Tanji, and began the walk through the reserve, we had not gone far when it became apparent that there were not many birds to be seen and it was extremely hot (by now it is about 12midday) I mentioned walking on the beach and was told that wasn't really an option nowadays (they suffer with coastal erosion so the beach had probably gone) we decided it was far too hot and went on to the next and final stop of the day Brufut wood, another place we had visited previously but with it being a forest you have shelter from the sun.  We picked up the official guide (every Forest/wood seems to have one!) and set off.  Gambia does not have the infrastructure of modern countries and the photo below shows that they don't have regular refuse collections.

 We had realised by  now that Famara had been looking at the 'ticks' in our book and was trying to fill in the blanks, while this was very thoughtful of him it did mean that we spent a fair bit of time staring at particular trees because that was where his target bird liked to roost, personally I would have been happier wandering round the forest finding any birds, it doesn't bother me too much how many times we see each species. The target species on this trip was night jars and I'll be honest when we found it I was a little underwhelmed, I was only a couple of feet away from the bird but I still couldn't make out what I was looking at and even now when I know what it is it still looks like a san ache to me - if you were paying attention to a previous blog you will know what I mean by san ache! 

Long tailed night jar,  

We carried on round the forest and spotted many birds but didn't take too many photos. We saw another Verreaux Eagle owl and many other species mainly consisting of LBJ's or Little Brown Jobs which is how small plain birds are known locally!

Then it was time to go and thankfully there was a bar area where we could get a cold drink and wait for the taxi drive to wake up !

 The guides had put a bit of a feeding/watering station round here so many birds were coming down for drinks like us, the following photos weren't taken here but show the species that we watched while enjoying a bottle of Sprite and they were taken by me at some point during one of our holidays.

 Common Bulbul 

  

 Weaver birds

Yellow crowned Gonolek

Birding adventures

I know that you have all been waiting in anticipation of the next instalment (my tongue is very firmly in cheek!)  so sit back and enjoy a wander through the forests and reserves of Gambia.

A couple of days before our 2^nd trip to Gambia back in 2002 I came home from work and Ken excitedly told me he had bought me something ‘brilliant’ for the holiday – I stupidly thought it may be a pair of sunglasses or sandals or the like, but no, it was a book entitled  A Field Guide to Birds of The Gambia and Senegal by Clive Barlow at the time I was somewhat underwhelmed, however over the years this book has proved invaluable in identifying the species we see (and yes we do tick them off in the book!) it is generally regarded as the definitive guide – mine is doubly valuable because after a day out several years ago we stopped at a bar (as you do) and were looking through the book and ticking off when a man approached me and asked if I wanted him to write in my book I very nearly told him to do one but then he introduced himself as the one and only Mr Clive Barlow so I allowed him to write a dedication to me and since then all the local guides we have are very jealous when we show them the book, anyway back to the current trip.

As mentioned in a previous post we had hooked up with Famara as our bird guide and we had booked a couple of trips out with him and for reasons of not boring people with endless posts on the same subject I'm going to amalgamate the trips we made into one posting.  His fee was £70.00 and this included the hire of a car and driver but Ken is always very generous and they can expect a  tip at the end of each day out (usually about £3-£5

The days out started at 0700 the first destination was Mandina Ba so loaded up with binoculars, telescope, camera, bottle of water, mossie cream and goodness knows what else we headed south arriving at the reserve at about an hour later.  Mandina is a scrub land area we had a good hours walk round the reserve and notable birds included Short Toed Eagle, Lanner Falcon – raptors are mostly too far away to get photos – although Ken has mentioned buying another lens for the camera so maybe pictures next time!  Starting early means being able to pack more into the day and so after Mandina we headed off to the next reserve  Brikama woods and we are looking for Owls.  The guys who look after the reserve know which trees the birds like to roost in so it was almost a bit of a route march to the relevant trees, just a case of following a well trodden path,  but of course when you find the tree you then have to find the owl in it and generally they choose trees with the same markings as themselves just to make it even harder for us – naughty birds J

We found (with the help of the guides) African wood owl and Verreaux’s Eagle owl. (more pictures at the end - ha ha you have to read to the rubbish before you get the pics - unless you scroll of course - I won't be offended)

Spot the birdie - Verreaux's Eagle Owl

 Kawsu the bird guide at Pirang Forest

We woke up our driver (apparently  he likes to go dancing late into the night/morning) and set off however before we arrived at our next port of call we stopped at Famara’s  home compound, and he kindly invited us into his ‘house’ to meet his father.  Gambian men can marry up to 5 wives and all live in (I suppose) harmony in the same compound.  White people in non tourist areas are always a interesting spectacle for the local children and our visit was no exception soon we were surrounded by a mound of village children all asking for mints (their word for sweets), Ken gave them 25Dalasi and sent them over to the shop – this is about 50p he expected them to have a bag of sweets which he had appointed the eldest looking girl to share out but the shopkeeper had other ideas and each child was given one sweet each, they seemed happy enough.  We had a cold drink and then it was on to the Shrimp farm at Pirang a place we had visited previously with much birding success. However we were less successful on this occasion as the farm had been drained so no water means no birds – well very little anyway, last time we had seen hundreds of pelicans and flamingos amongst others. 
It was very hot by now and the backs of my legs were starting to burn and with not many birds to see it was getting a bit boring, so we called it a day and headed back to the hotel area for a shower and rest before heading out for some dinner - I'm going to bore you with a post about food and drinks later. 

Gambian compund, they vary in size and 'opulence' depending on the wealth of the family, this one was typical of the type Famara's family live in. Most have electric but not running water - this is fetched (usually by the children) from a communal well - photo from Trip Advisor,

The white bird is a cattle egret, the brown bird (on the hind leg of the animal) is an oxpecker, so that makes the animal a  . . . . . . . COW !

On our previous holiday I took the following photo of a male beautiful sunbird, which people have said is a good photo.

This year Ken was determined to get a better picture, below is his offering - you decide which is better !

Senegal Coucal

One (very) large child and several smaller ones

a lot of time birdwatching is spent looking up at trees !

the black & white ones are pied crows, the larger ones are eating a dead captain fish and are hooded vultures

red billed firefinch, a bit like our finches but redder !

we're not sure what this one is, so if in doubt they are usually Dark Chanting Goshwaks,

it's not just birds we see, these are red colobus monkeys the one at the back has a baby,

this is bee nest

Senegal Thicknee

this colourful chap is a bearded barbet

That'll do for now, more to follow later ! ! 

San Aches

During our last visit to Gambia in 2011 we asked our regular taxi driver (we keep in touch with him via email) if he knew of any other places we should visit - having been holidaying in Gambia since 2001 we were running out of new places ! he replied asking had we visited the San Ache farm? we were a bit puzzled  and asked him to explain, after a bit of charades and him trying to think of the correct word he explained  that San Aches "are like lizards but with no legs" we realised he meant snakes, from then on we always refer to snakes as San Aches.  Anyway we decided on this visit that we would visit the snake farm, my question was why the hell would anyone want to farm snakes???

The snake farm (or to give it it's proper name The Gambia Reptile Farm, is almost at the bottom of Gambia and was a good hours drive from our hotel in Cape Point, we had booked Buba (not the one in the red shirt in earlier photos) for the day and we arrived at the farm at about 9am - we do like our early starts!  It's not so much a farm as a rescue centre, there are indigenous snakes in Gambia and the locals are mostly afraid of them (me too!) so they tend to kill them, the centre is trying to re-educate the local population and to that end entry is free for Gambians Ken and I had to pay 200Dalasi (about £4.00 each)

The young man (1st photo) who took us round was very knowledgeable on his subject and was very keen in some instances that we should handle the snakes - Ken was far braver than me and Buba was clearly terrified.

The picture below is a rock python, Ken was fearless and went straight in although he was at the tail end not the hissing end! Buba and I went into the enclosure a bit more reluctantly, Buba saying that the last time he had been there they couldn't see the snake and the guide told them to "look up" and the snake was looking down on them from the roof of the enclosure - you can see from the picture the roofs are not very high so I can imagine Buba's fright, I said that I would stroke the snake if Buba would & Ken obliged with the camera

They also have some tortoises,  terrapins and crocodiles, some of which they are trying to breed

As we were leaving a couple of local children came into the centre and held out a carrier bag to the man who had been showing us round - he explained that the children will be paid if they bring any mice etc as these are used for food for the reptiles !

 

Ken had about read about a riverside camp type of place in Kartong so we headed that way, this is just about the furthest south you can go in Gambia (in fact at one point we were closer to Senegal) as the road literally stops at the mouth of the river. Buba referred to going to Kartong as "going to the seaside" it was certainly far quieter than the tourist areas.

 

Stala (the name of the camp) is on the riverside and has a bar area and a boat for trips on the river for birdwatching or fishing, we booked to take the next boat for birdwatching not fishing this time! Buba said that he had never been on a boat so we persuaded him to come with us.  While waiting for the boat to be ready (fuel) we had a cold drink and decided that we would have lunch here after returning from the boat trip.

We headed out up the river and many birds were spotted, a few pictures below.

Pelicans !

Osprey

Gulls and terns,

The trees are mangrove oysters and are in Senegal, that's how close we were to Senegal while on the boat.

 

 

We arrived back at the bar area and within a few minutes our lunch was served, there was no choice you have whatever is being cooked that day, today it was fish yassa with rice and some fried vegetables, and was perfectly fine.

 

Unfortunately we were not the only ones here, we had been joined by an UncleKnobHead (apologies to Peter Kay for nicking his phrase) who had brought 3 others with him one of which also turned out to be an UKH. They both  had to speak in the loudest voice possible and were trying to outdo each other with bird spotting, they were to take the same boat trip we  had taken and we were relieved when they headed down to the pontoon to the boat, our relief however was short lived as the boat had broken down and they returned to the bar and took their lunch while waiting for the boat to be fixed. So we had to put up with their loud and pompous conversation throughout our lunch.  At one point I asked Buba if his lunch was ok, prompting one of the UKH's to exclaim "why are they all called Buba?" I was very quick to point out how rude he was being, it was his use of THEY that annoyed me as Buba was sitting right next to the bloke, sadly it didn't shut him up.

 

About this time a 2nd boat drew up to the pontoon and disgorged a party of tourists (not English, perhaps Swedish) and rather worryingly we saw a group of local ladies in colourful costumes also entering the camp, these were to be the entertainment for the tourist group, the ladies proceeded to bang wooden bars together,  blow whistles, chant and dance at the same time. We listened for a few minutes but by now we were ready to leave anyway so tried to make a quick exit as we knew what would happen at the end of the dancing, but we weren't quick enough - one of the ladies followed us to Buba's car and held out the hat - we have no problem whatsoever in tipping people, Ken is very generous with all the people we encounter - bird guides/taxi drivers/boat drivers etc will all receive a good tip, but on this occasion we felt that it should really have been the group who paid, we gave them 50 Dalalsi anyway.

 

This camp had some rooms that they let out, and we have decided that if (when!) we go back we will spend a night or two there, all the rooms look out over the river and have a little patio to enjoy a Julbrew and wine - to avoid the problems encountered in the past we will take our own beer & wine !!

Picture is from their website.

 

 

 

Next time . . Birds and Fish

Donkeys/Circles/Wishes & a Ferry

We pack up settle the bill (dinners and drinks only) breakfast is same as yesterday this time by candle light instead of torch light! 

The rain has cleared and the day promises to be a very good one weather wise, First obstacle is the local ferry off the island on to the North side (the south side has a bridge over) 

The ferry,

We head off making a couple of stops on the way down, one of the towns we drive through is having their equivalent of a Sunday morning car boot sale the difference being that the car boots are donkey pulled carts, they seem to be packed with all sort of lovely things and I would rather look round the market than do the birding but the blokes don’t seem to share my enthusiasm so birdwatching it is. 

I didn't take either of the above photos, this isn't the actual market but is shows similar.

The second stop is at the town of Wassu to see the stone circles, these are believed to be the burial sites of kings and courtiers and is a bit like our Stonehenge without the druids and with sun !

The small stones on the top of the pillars are put there by visitors and the idea is you place a stone and make a wish, I noticed our guide Famara placed a stone perhaps he wished for more birding clients, Ken too placed a stone I bet his wish was fish related, mine? well it won’t come true if I tell will it??!!

We carried on with a few more birding stops then it was time for lunch, I wasn’t particularly bothered as the time plan was for us to be back in the hotel about 1800hrs and we would eat in the hotel restaurant (but later I will be glad we did have something to eat at lunchtime), however the guys wanted to eat and took us to a local restaurant where Ken and I ordered steak sandwich I wish I’d taken a picture!  If we’d have known we would have ordered one to share it was a full length French stick filled with pieces of steak! ! I shared mine with Famara,  Buba had the Gambia staple of omelette and chips, we had to wait quite a while for the cold drinks probably because they had to go to another shop to get them, but you get used to waiting (although the main wait was yet to come!!)

We pressed on and visited a couple more birding sites by now we have run out of cold water and I’m getting  very hot so I decide enough is enough and with Ken’s agreement we decide to call it a day and head off down to Barra for the ferry to back to Banjul. 

The word used most to describe the Barra/Banjul ferry is chaos, the world and his mother (and his goats) use it, it is the main route up to Senegal and through to Northern Africa so is used by all the commercial trucks and the tourists coaches etc too. None of the following pictures were taken by me, and did not happen while we were there but they give an idea of what it is like ! 

I did see a man loading goats on to the ferry - they were very well  behaved and probably didn't know they were headed for the meat market the following day.

I don't  think our Health and Safety (or the ELFS as I call them) would be too happy with this !

We arrive at Barra at 16.30 switch off the engine, Famara leaves the car saying “I’m off to talk” at the time we had no idea what he meant by this, Ken goes in search of cold drinks returning with nice cold cans of Fanta, the driver says “now we wait” I replied that in the past we had waited 2 hours for this ferry when returning from Senegal.  I had brought my Kindle so I start reading

Every now and then one of us gets out of the car and goes for a bit of a wander, at one point Ken counts that there are about 20 other vehicles in front of us so we hope we will be able to get the first ferry to arrive.  After about 2 hours Famara returns, the driver starts the car and we hurtle forward and I think 'ok that wasn’t too bad we’ll be back in Banjul by 8ish and I can at last get a proper wash' .

We are herded into a holding area and it became apparent that had we stayed in the previous queue there is no way we would have been on the first ferry, the engine is switched off and we start waiting again, I ask when the ferry will be in and am told ‘about 25-30mins, so we wait, 30 minutes come and go and still no sign of the ferry, by now I am seriously pissed off, I’m filthy, tired, and am waiting in the dark next to what Ken described as the worse toilets in the Gambia and judging by the smell I agree, I ask again and am told again the ferry will be 25-30 minutes, another 30 minutes pass and by now even Ken is getting pissed off.  Famara has again disappeared (probably fed up with my constantly asking what is happening) a  body appears at the car door and dialogue ensues, it turns out that when the ferry turns up Famara, Ken and me will go across as foot passengers and Buba will stay with the car and if he can’t get on the same ferry as us he will stay with the car and get the first ferry the following morning (the last ferry leave Barra at 8pm) I’m not happy with this but see the logic, Ken gives Buba 200 Dalalsi to get some food and drink but anyway the ferry still hasn’t turned up so it may be that we all end up spending the night enjoying the bright lights of Barra.

It is now getting dark and the time the mozzies come alive so we start applying the Jungle Formula and notice that we are both itching we have been bitten all over by flies on the boat trip last night, great, I'm now filthy, tired and itching (and no doubt suffering from wine withdrawal as it has been 3 days since I had a glass!)

At about 8.30pm Famara returns saying that we should head down to the ferry which had finally turned up, we say goodbye to Buba and I feel like we are leaving a comrade in arms on the battlefield.

From our vantage point on the ferry we watch all the vehicles loading but don’t see Buba’s. The ferry eventually leaves and whilst I’m glad to be on the way I feel sad that we’ve left Buba, we are about 2/3 of the way across and Famara shouts that he can see Buba, I feel stupidly pleased to know he had made it (and not because it means we don’t have to take a taxi from Banjul to Cape Point) we make our way over to where Famara saw Buba and when I see just how close to the edge of the ferry Buba’s car is I am nearly poorly -  the tow bar is very nearly overhanging the back of the ferry, I pray that he doesn’t accidentally put the car in reverse when driving off the ferry ! !

10.30pm and  we are back at the hotel I decide it’s too late to shower so we head over to the bar next to the hotel for a restorative Julbrew and glass of wine (or 2 or 3)

I will NEVER EVER use the Barra/BanjulBarra ferry again, any trips in land will be on the South Road from now on.

The next day Ken goes fishing and I spend the day under the shower !