Discovering Maputo

Well, as detailed in my last post, it hasn't been a great start to the Maputo experience, but things are getting a bit better, and we are beginning to achieve things.

Our purpose here is two-fold: to teach a Day Skipper course for some local sailors, and to survey the Bay of Maputo for suitability as an RYA training area. (I hope to be the first beneficiary.)

Objective One ran aground (literally) on Saturday (although the theoretical classroom-based component is going well). However, we hope to get sailing again tomorrow as we get closer to spring tides. Hopefully there will be an extra half metre of water in the harbour at High Water, which will float our boat. If not, we are in trouble. The only remaining techniques available to us involve steel cable, slings and Chinook helicopters.

We began on Objective Two yesterday, and yet again things started inauspiciously. The plan has always been to scoot around the bay in a motor boat taking bearings, checking depths and generally assessing potential anchorages. We had reserved a small boat for the purpose, courtesy of one of the many helpful souls at the Clube Naval. However, half a mile outside the marina, the engine started to labour and we found that a valve in the fuel line was faulty. Back to base.

We were rescued by the club president, Miguel, who is one of those people who just exudes a kind of tireless "can-do" energy. He provided us with the use of his large ski-boat which he uses for fishing. To my sailing mentality, there is something just rude about skimming across the water on an airless day at 30 knots. But there is no denying it gets you around. We achieved much, surveying the perimeter of Xefina Island (which bears no relation to the image on the most recent chart). Today we zipped around the paradise island of Inhaca, spotting frigate birds and cranes along huge, perfct beaches.

Apart from that, I have just been getting the feel of this place. It is really easy to write bad stuff about Mozambique. It is very poor (it was once the poorest in the world), it had a horrific civil war in the 1980s that killed a million people and it's vital statistics are still fairly chilling. Here's one: the average life expectancy is 37 years. I'm an old man here.

If you want to know more, click on the Oxfam link on the left. They have all the news on the country, plus what they are doing about it.

So bad stuff aplenty. Maputo bears the marks of a poor Third World country - rubbish, squalor, poorly maintained buildings and infrastructure. But as so often, it is side-by-side with signs of prosperity and luxury. Near where we are berthed, a roadside advertisment for Mont Blanc pens looks down on an open sewer.

Part of me wants to believe that these are signs that things will improve for everyone. After all, it is impossible to expect the whole population to start increasing their standards of living at the same rate. But that life expectancy number needs a lot of work before Mont Blanc pens become accessible to the bulk of the population.

Having said that, the visitor sees little evidence of out-and-out misery. People are friendly. I feel pretty safe here (much more so than in the Philippines, for example). The markets thrive. The colours are vibrant. The music has that pleasant mixture of Latin and African also found in Brazil. Out on the bay, lateen-rigged dhows sail up and down carrying fishermen who work the bay as their forebears will have done for centuries. There is plenty to please the senses.

The only real problem for us has been the infestation of mosquitos. We came prepared, with insect repellent and coils to burn inside the boat. The Moz mozzies laugh in the face of such measures. Come sundown, they zoom into the boat, inhale the aroma appreciatively and chow down. I think what is marketed as mosquito repellent in South Africa is actually akin to Chanel No19 for these buggers, judging by how utterly unfazed they were by it. Neil is a flinty-eyed veteran of numerous African hellholes and has never seen anything like it. We have upped our anti-bug arsenal to include the mozzie equivalent of cluster-bombs, napalm and sarin nerve gas but still they come. Last night we zapped the boat with so much insecticide it set off the gas alarm. It did us more harm than it did them.

None of this is particularly pleasant in a malaria zone.

We are offshore as of tomorrow hopefully, so maybe it will be better then.

I hope.

No, I pray.