Whoever Fears the Sea by Justin Fox (english novels to improve english txt) 📕

his preserve. Getting the correctly shaped branches and tree trunks needed a practised eye. The fundi had a few simple tools to help with the measuring and fitting: a ball of string, a pointed stick and a pot of blue paint. Saw and adze were all that was needed to fashion the wood into a basic shape.

For Paul’s benefit, Badru kept up a running commentary about what he was doing and the materials being used. The ribs of the vessel as well as its mast were of mangrove wood, he explained, while the hull planking was mahogany. The stem, sternpost and ribs were scarfed securely to the keel — the utako — which comprised one long, heavy tree trunk. Badru showed Paul how to use the kekee bow drill for making holes, the tindo chisel for shaping and the randa plane to smooth the wood. He demonstrated how the coconut-fibre kamba rope was woven and prepared for the rigging. Paul took notes and photographed. This place would make an ideal location for the movie.

Jeremy told him of the festivities that accompanied the launching of a new dhow. ‘The whole village comes together and a goat is sacrificed for a feast,’ he said. ‘In ancient times, human sacrifice may have taken place. There’s a famous story from Mafia Island about the ruler of Kisimani who captured an Arab boy from a neighbouring kingdom. He was tied up and put on the rollers of the slipway. When the dhow was launched, it crushed the child to death.’

Jeremy and Paul continued walking and ended up on the far side of the village where an unfinished mashua appeared to have been abandoned midway through construction. The keel was laid and the ribs were in place, but grass was growing up around it and the makuti shelter had collapsed. ‘The owner ran out of money,’ said Jeremy. ‘When he gets some more, building will start again.’

‘How much does a dhow like this cost?’ Paul asked. He had a vague vision of sailing one from Lamu to Durban and having it trucked up from the coast to Lake Deneys Yacht Club. What a curious sight it would make, plying the brown waters of the Vaal Dam on summer Sundays.

‘Between two and four thousand dollars, depending on size. I can get you a good price. My cousin —’

‘No thanks, Jeremy, I mustn’t even start thinking about it.’

Back at the jetty, Paul boarded Angalia and the men cast off, setting sail for home. The dhow hugged the mangroves on the left of the channel to avoid the meat of the tide, her flanks sometimes scraping branches. Passing a narrow creek he hadn’t noticed earlier, Paul spotted a half-submerged motor dhow grounded in the shallows. The hull was blackened from fire and the line of scars along her starboard side looked suspiciously like bullet holes.

That evening, the Dutch stayed on in Shela after a day on the beach and Paul dined alone at The Mangrove. After the meal, he was standing at the counter watching a game of pool when a thick-set young man came and sat on a stool next to him.

The traveller was from Durban. They chatted for a while, but Paul didn’t warm to his fellow countryman. After half a year on the road, Doug reckoned he knew all about Africa and was prepared to share his opinions with everyone within earshot. Zim was stuffed, the Malawians were nice but lazy, Tanzanians were rip-off artists. He’d travelled with Richard for a bit, but Richard had got pissed off with him back in Malawi. Richard was a fuck-up. ‘Dicky didn’t dig dope, dude,’ he chuckled. It appeared Doug had got himself waylaid by marijuana on the Lake of Stars and Richard had hitchhiked back to South Africa.

Doug was short and stocky with a goatee and shaved head, which he adorned with a bandana in the colours of the South African flag. He wore veldskoens and sometimes replaced the bandana with a sweat-stained Sharks rugby cap. His backpack carried only the bare essentials, ‘plus a mozzie net, box of condoms and Imodium for the shits — that’s all you need in Africa, bru,’ confided Doug.

Paul got trapped in an unwanted conversation and couldn’t find a way to extricate himself. His drinking companion was dogged and slow to come to the point. Paul could almost hear the machinery of his brain, see the idea sluggishly forming, like a wobbly thought bubble. Truisms were spoken with a first-timer’s conviction. ‘If only we could teach them proper agriculture, give them seed. East Africa would be a bloody bread basket. Teach a man to fish … know what I mean?

‘But why can’t they sort out the time thing, hey? What’s with these okes? Always late with everything.’ Although patronising, at least Doug ‘got his rocks off on Africa’ and his covert racism was couched in a semblance of passion, pronounced ‘peshin’. A good old-fashioned mugging might change all that, Paul reckoned.

Doug switched to pontificating about Islam. Lamu was too Muslim for his taste. You had to struggle to get a beer, everyone wore their dressing gowns in the street, the women were cold fish. Doug was talking too loudly; Paul grew uncomfortable.

‘And what about Somalia, hey, just a hundred kays that-away?’ said Doug, pointing vaguely out the front door. ‘A failed Islamic state, breeding ground for terrs.’

‘Yes, no one wants to touch Somalia,’ said Paul softly, hoping Doug would get the hint and lower his voice.

‘The Americans tried, back in the 90s. They got fucked up one time. Did you see the movie Black Hawk Down? Brilliant.’

‘Ja, one of my favourites,’ Paul had to concede.

‘Fucking A!’ Doug’s eyes lit up. They were on familiar territory.

‘Apache helicopters is what we want.’ Doug was putting on a fake American accent. ‘Got all the firepower a man needs. Zap ’em from the air. We don’t even