Last Banda Trip?
Decay Lost Supervisor
 

Sailing start at night. Ruther covered with dragonflies just escaped from their larvae skin ^[picture], waiting for the morning to heat them and fly

At the end of the party, three o'clock night, we swept the remaining guests in the dhow and left the harbour to profit from the night's North wind. We planned to drop the guests at the start of the 25 km long bay leading South from Kampala to the open lake, on the last tip of mainland, and then continue our journey to the Sese Islands. We thought reaching that last tip would take two days, but happy winds took us half way before guests even woke up to feel their hangovers, and we arrived well before sunset the same day.
Philemon was not among the crew. Recently endowed with his brand new Dar es Salaam captain's degree 5 certificate, he was asked to immediately sail a ship from Mwanza, Tanzania to Kisumu, Kenya. But he came to bring his old friend and sailing teacher Charles and ... Mashabala. Could he really find nobody or should I adhere to my earlier suspicion that Philemon has a secretive loyalty to Mashabala overruling my clear preference for someone else ^[details]? [later note: to my total surprise, I found later that already he had decided this would be his last ever visit to me and he would disappear, and keep connections dead in order to avoid having to repay the advance I gave him (apart from donations, higher, to do the captains course) of roughly $800].

JP Cuttings plant nursery manager Piet's birthday present was a huge tray of cherry tomatoes.
Guests joining the first lap made a delicious soup of them at the goodbye beach.

"How could you do this to us?". The cats remained under the steering deck, under the crew bed,
visible with one eye only when you would put your head on the boat floor endowed with a torch.

Later they came out sporting their charming play faces again

The cats were first intimidated by the rapid change of the environment of their nest. Their eyes in the pitch dark under of the crew bed gave a clear message "how can you do this to us...". Next day they were better and, seeing Nasty preparing for her blind jump over port on the gang plank and then on the harbour grass, I had to grab her quickly and lift her to show there was no plank at the moment, let alone an attractive grass field. After stealing a big fish cooked by the crew, they assumed again their playfaces. Nasty however kept refusing to come on the steering deck sawdust box for her long calls and insisted to shit on the crew bed.

Our new outboard...here in the harbour on the canoe, but...

Left: our 100 kilo rudder easily holds a (captain's custom design) outboard transom. Right: brand new 15hp Mercury outboard bought from Roland at half price. It had been stolen from the shop and returned (Roland knows how to set police sharp) after the thief had removed all brand features and engraved his name on it.  After saving me $2500/=  this Mr Beddya Ekatosi is now rotting in Luzira prison, a treatment many do not survive. His name, however, will stay honoured as long as we use this outboard. No painting!

An 18 m dhow going, with a 15 hp at low throttle, 7 km/hour with freshening headwind starting 8 km before Banda. Beddya Ekatosi would be proud of us. We made it before lunch time, where our prayers went of course to him and his unfortunate state in Luzira prison.

Banda Island. You see the new beach house, on the place of the "Treasury" that so unhappily burnt out ^[details]. Alex agreed to finishing it while Dom was out, and does so now posthumously in accordance with the wishes of Dom's sister Theo and brother Matthew.

A solumn moment in memory of Dom, carefully observing the dress code. Dom would have killed me for using real beer. I poor lake water, later photoshopped to resemble beer.