Silver Wind is heading 260 degrees, paralleling the coast of Cote D'Ivoire at 16 knots about 20 miles out to sea. Big searchlights have appeared on the bridge wings for this stretch abeam the Ivory Coast, Liberia, Sierra Leone, and the various Guineas, no doubt to allow us to enjoy any impromptu nighttime shows by passing locals in small boats. There's Silversea again, getting the best guest entertainment available for our enjoyment.
Yesterday's visit to Takoradi, Ghana
Speaking of, we enjoyed our brief stop to Ghana's new deep water port town yesterday. The two ship's offered tours, an all day visit to a number of slave forts and a short "panoramic" (which means bus ride) tour of downtown Takoradi and the nearby fishing village, were very costly--don't ask--because of the need to import the buses and drivers from the capital, Accra, some 200 miles away. So instead, Barbara and I opted to take the complimentary half hourly ship's shuttle bus into town and wonder around the extensive downtown market area.
One important lesson to be learned when traveling the world and making brief visits to countries one knows little about is to fight off the strong pre-conceived notions of what one will find in each new place. Yes, there were hoards of well dressed officials waiting on the pier for their share of the ship's stores and an underutilized (good new) security guard watching the port and taking a picture as souvenir. And we did take the usual precautions of leaving all but a few dollar and our wallets in the cabin's safe when going ashore. But we found the market area--actually what seemed like a couple of square miles of actual and impromptu shops and stalls as well as guy selling stuff out of their car trunks and women selling stuff from pallets on their heads--quite clean. The people very friendly, and most of all there were no pushy salesmen trying to escort us to their taxis or other commitments to unwanted purchase or activities. The Ghanaians we discovered are educated, speak the King's English, smile easily, and had a nice dignity when encountering a bunch of somewhat overwhelmed distinctly lighter hued senior seniors from a rarely seen big white ship. Taxi tours were available--mostly to the nearby fishing village or an apparently named park called, "Monkey Hill", for $10 US per hour for up to 4 people. Having been in parks with monkeys in the trees before (they, the monkeys not the trees, are known for throwing stuff of their own making at visitors--if you know what I mean), we just walked around the market for a mile or so and chatted with a number of the vendors. It was really fun and we felt safe. We then came back to the ship and enjoyed the pool and then watching the activities in the little but busy port.
Now for some salient features of our brief visit to this out of the way Ghanaian port and city:
1. A number of gas and oil towers are immediately off shore. They are serviced by US flagged tenders, the first US merchant vessels I've ever seen, perhaps the last of a dying breed.
2. The Christian missionaries have gotten to Western Ghana big time. Passing fishing boats had names like, "Christ Saves", stalls in the market had a line or two of Psalms or just the number of a bible verse quoted on their signs, and it looked like the dock workers had religious services when they ended their shifts (although what I saw might have been a bunch of guys sitting around a TV set). We heard of a local car with the inscription, "God's Vehicle". Make of that what you will. It was amusing, however, that our ship's dock area was protected by the placement of ZIM Line containers. ZIM is a large Israeli shipping country. I suppose the port authorities figure that even Israeli boxes provide excellent security.
3. There seems to be an industriousness trait of the Ghana people. One salesman was fabricating UHF TV antennas and selling them on the spot. I guess, no middle men for him. It was fun to chat with him, and he was willing to do so. He was also selling bananas, I guess as a backup if the TV accessory busy got slow.
4. In port we enjoyed watching the long honored sport of table fishing, apparently a very popular activity as there were a great number of participants, and the sailing of Silver Wind was delayed so that we could observe the also enjoyable display of bow line knotting. The captain didn't enjoy this nearly as much as we did, probably because he had seen better performances elsewhere, and shared his review of the performance freely with the local harbor pilot.
We are now embarked on a three day transit to the formally English country of The Gambia (apparently since there are more than one "Gambiums") where Banjul has been substituted for possibly rioting Dakar in formerly French Senegal. Tiny Banjul is on the mouth of the Gambia River and is the capital of the country that is completely enclosed within Senegal. However, its dictatorship provides political stability in contrast to its neighbor's messy democracy.
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