We arrived in Dakar, Senegal in the middle of the night, us leading the way with Ruffian following about 2 miles behind as they gently nursed their torn sails on the final leg of our long journey together. Nearly 900 miles sailed in six days and we arrived on another continent within half an hour of each other, having experienced some great sailing, some no wind, big 5m seas and strong 30-40knot winds! In addition to that, we had sailed to Africa! I kept repeating this over and over in my head – we’ve sailed from England to Africa! A continent neither of us had ever visited before and I, for one, had wanted to for as long as I could remember – and we had sailed there in our own boat. To say I was excited and proud of what we had achieved, was an understatement – even though I was sleep deprived I was bursting with energy and wide-eyed wonder!
We wove our way through boats anchored outside the busy port and dropped the anchor in shallow water at the northern end of the bay at 4am with the sound of the call for prayer from the many mosques on the waterfront. It was a relief to hear the anchor drop and allow myself to relax a little. As Steve indicated the anchor was down I put the boat into reverse to bed the anchor into the sandy bottom…… except there was no reverse. We tried again with the same result and checked all the cables were still in place. Feeling tired we decided to let the wind, which was still blowing at 20 knots, carry us back and hopefully secure the anchor. We put the anchor alarm on and went to bed after alerting Ruffian of our predicament and ensuring they didn’t anchor too close behind us, just in case our anchor dragged.
In the morning we woke to find several fishing boats around us, casting their nets from small colourful shallow boats. They heaved the large nets over the side and then teams of men pulled them back on board as birds of prey circled overhead. Bird life was intense, with the skies full of birds of different varieties – stalks, herons, geese, birds of prey (Black Kites), crow-like birds. I was in awe of the variety in a short amount of time and then, when going ashore, the noise from birdsong was quite overpowering. The beach we were anchored in front of was bordered by low level buildings that looked derelict and the sounds and smells coming from the nearby houses gave us no doubt we were going to have a bit of a culture shock!
Before we could start exploring or doing the necessary paperwork to check-in, Steve jumped overboard to have a look at the propellor. What a guy! As he turned the propellor by hand, it loosened up and when we tested the reverse, it worked. I repeat – What a guy! He appeared to have dislodged whatever we had caught in the propellor and now we were free to move again.
Ruffian had already motored over to another part of the bay which was closer to the Yacht Club and found a lovely community of visiting French sailors. We joined them and had to move quickly to catch a water taxi to shore so we could start our check-in process. This procedure varies from country to country and in the more remote places, you can expect it to take a full day to find, wait and move between the different locations to make sure all the paperwork is in order. We were lucky as we met a beautiful French family who helped guide us through the process and even organised and negotiated a taxi driver to drive us to the various destinations once we had first checked in at the Yacht Club. We then proceeded to the bank, police station, customs and to buy a SIM card, all for 10,000CFA = 15 euros shared between the four of us. The taxi drive alone was one none of us will forget. We dodged horse drawn traps to goats, a large turkey, people, scooters piled high with items (even eggs!) and cars as we sped down busy, narrow roads which was incredible in itself, but mix in the colour of the clothing the women wore, mothers carrying young babies strapped to their backs, people carrying heavy loads on their head, the street stalls selling huge watermelons and coconuts, young guys jumping on and off moving pick-up trucks as they negotiated narrow streets seemingly collecting passengers along the way, the dusty potholed roads, men dressed in brown uniforms directing traffic in the middle of the road with nothing more than a whistle and white gloves to protect them as people sped past with no central lines or apparent road rules. We were driven at high speeds, squeezing through impossibly narrow gaps and it was a truly incredible introduction to a West African city. We felt like we were on a movie set sometimes as the street scenes unfolded in front of us and we started to get familiar with the noises and smells.
Checking into the Yacht Club cost us 5000CFA = Euro7.50 per day. This gave us permission to anchor, access to the showers and toilets (not something we were keen to try), free wifi in the Yacht Club bar and, even more important than that, free water taxis from the boat to shore so we did not have to worry about the security of our dinghy while we were off the boat. Sajio, the water taxis driver, came by at a pre-scheduled time each morning to see if we wanted to go ashore. Return trip times were displayed on the Yacht Club bar door and Sajio was always there with a warm smile and eager to help, testing my high school French as I tried to make conversation!
The words “Yacht Club” may conjure up the image of colonial Britain with people in blazers sipping G&T’s from a terraced bar over a pristine beach. This may be the case in some places, but in Dakar you need to adjust your thinking! The reality is a concrete shack located off the dirtiest white sandy beach I have ever seen. The beach is so littered with rubbish, fishing gear, rotting fish and carcases of old boats, I’m not sure where anyone would start in tidying it up. It broke my heart every time we went ashore and got dropped off at the broken wooden jetty to walk across the smelly beach, through the maze of old fishing boats and stray dogs.
There was a makeshift camp beside the Yacht Club, where several tents had been pitched around a central gathering space. Old buses, trailers, boats and some more modern house trucks, created a community of colourful people. At night the sound of drumming filled the air and it was lovely to experience the relaxed comradery of the men and women that gathered in the dusty space, sheltered by some raggerty looking trees.
Mamma Bijou ran a clothing stall on the street outside the entrance to the yacht club. She was always cheerful and friendly trying to sell us an assortment of clothing she had made with bright motives on them. We commissioned her to make a couple of courtesy flags for Senegal and Gambia. We agreed a price of 10,000 CFA = 11 Euros – probably expensive but when we heard how Mamma Bijou relies on visiting yachts for her trade and there had been no tourists for the previous 18 months due to Covid, we wanted to support her. The flags were presented to us a few hours later and were beautifully made with good quality material.
Our sprayhood suffered damage while we were on passage due to the boom rubbing against the top of the hood as we had left everything too tight and the heavy seas caused the boom to swing a little, which gradually wore a small hole in the canvas. We wanted to get it repaired and strengthened before the damage got any worse. Iain and Fi also had some more significant repairs to take care of and were recommended a sailmaker name Djago who was based at the Yacht Club. Djago was a tall, quiet, gentle man who had an air of confidence and authority about him which we immediately warmed to. He was making dinghy chaps (covers for an inflatable dinghy to protect the PVC from UV damage, which can destroy a dinghy in the tropics very quickly) when we arrived. His work was excellent and, on seeing the damage to our sprayhood, recommended a solution and said it would be ready later that day costing 20,000CFA (30 Euros), a fraction of what we would pay anywhere else. It felt good supporting people who desperately needed the work. When we collected the sprayhood later that day it was ready for us and we were so impressed with the quality of the work, we decided to commission some dinghy chaps as we knew we would need them in the Caribbean. It had been my intention to make them but Djago quoted us 250 Euros and delivery within four days which, when compared to the cost of a new dinghy or me buying the material and struggling to make the damn things, was a fraction of what it would have cost us in money, time and effort!
For two days the taxi drivers were on strike, so we were not able to leave the area around the Yacht Club. The strike was to protest about the police demanding large payments from the drivers which had increased substantially recently making it almost impossible for taxi drivers to survive on the small amount they earned. Although Dakar is within walking distance, we had already seen some of the neighbouring settlements and did not feel it was wise walking through them without more local knowledge. Instead Steve and I decided to walk to the nearby fish market that we could see each morning taking place on the beach. A constant flow of pirogues (small fishing boats) made their way through our anchorage to the market each day to off load their catch. We had also been told there was a place we could buy fresh baguettes and had been given one by a kind Frenchman on another yacht, the day before. The walk took us along a dusty road, over an open sewer that ran out to the beach, down a wide track and into the market. Men carried large trays of fish from the colourful pirogues that had been driven into the shallow water, and on to waiting trucks or stalls on the beach. They carried the heavy trays on their heads, using a sandbag, tied around their chin to protect their head. The flow was constant with loud chatter. Men were sleeping on tables under the market stall canopies, groups of men were crouched together in huddles smoking and talking, people were scrubbing large, freshly caught fish, women hustled us as we passed, children approached us asking for money and others just stared at us as we walked by. I have to admit that I did not feel particularly safe as we wove our way through the mish mash of stalls. It was obvious we had sailed on boat to their country and compared to their lives, we were billionaires. Most of the men were friendly with beautiful welcoming faces, but there were others that looked at us with distaste and loathing – it was these few that scared me. We left and went in search of bread and we had been given vague directions of where to find a baker. We walked past a couple of men guarding a modern home in the dusty street. The men were eating a baguette so I asked them, in my best school-level-French where we could buy bread. They directed us to keep walking straight on, which led us into a type of market, although it was, in truth, a ramshackle selection of crowded huts. We were directed again to a small, falling down hut made of corrugated iron and sacking. A toothless man was squatting on a mat with his young son sitting beside him. We asked for bread and he threw back a blanket over a wooden bucket to display a bundle of fresh baguettes while swatting at flies in a failed attempt to keep them off the bread.
Life in West Africa, like the fabric worn by the women, is colourful and varied, and we wanted to see more so, together with our fellow musketeers, Iain and Fi, we booked a taxi for the day to see the highlights of what Dakar could offer.