Canoe trip through the mangroves

With all that lovely beach (did I mention they provided hammocks?) and pina coladas to drink (fresh juice from the coconuts above our heads!), you'd think we'd just kick back and enjoy the sun.

We did that -- but that's not all we did. We also took an early-morning ride in a dugout canoe through through the mangroves on the nearby Ezile river.

Jason and I and Sophie, a Belgian woman who was also staying at the Green Turtle, walked to Akwidaa to meet our guide at 6:30. Along the way, we were joined by a Ghanaian named Sylvester -- I think he met Sophie in the village the previous day, although I'm not sure why he came with us.

We rolled up our pants and climbed into the dugout canoe in a little fishing harbour, and then we set out down the river. Here you can see Sylvester and Sophie sitting in front of me in the canoe:



It was amazing. The river was so still, and it was totally quiet, except for the raucous calls of birds and the sploosh of our paddles in the river.



Mangroves are different than I imagined. I thought they'd be sort of like vines, hanging into the water. Instead they were like trees, with leaves sort of like those umbrella trees Canadians keep as houseplants, and they seem to have big trunks that grow up and regular tree branches as well as branch-type growths that head back down into the water, sort of like stalactites.



Here's one minute of video of our trip. I'm sorry to say it appears my camera does not have an option to record sound -- otherwise you could hear how quiet it was. At the end you can see Jason's arm as he paddles. Sylvester started off paddling, but then had Jason do the work for some of the trip. Sophie and I were exempt!



Little crabs crawled all over the tree trunks. They were vibrantly coloured: red, yellow, blue. I tried to take a picture of one as we floated past, but all I got was this rather arty shot:



The canoe trip in one direction was about an hour. We paddled past a tiny village and one other man in another dugout canoe paddled past in the other direction. We also passed several sunken canoes, but the better said about that, the better! ("They were no good," our guide explained when I asked why they had sunk.)

At one point, we turned off the main river and headed down narrower and narrower trails in the mangrove until we came to a point where we all had to duck to get around the trees.



Then we turned around and headed back up the river a bit more before heading back for home. We could tell we were close to the seaside again when palm trees appeared above the mangroves:



Here's the harbour at Akwidaa, full of fishing boats, as we returned.



Tomorrow's installment: surfing! with more video! stay tuned!