St Andrew's Ball and Tarkwa Bay

On Saturday, we went to the St Andrew's Ball- a great night. Lots of dancing drinking and good cheer with new friends and what now seems like old friends but really we haven't known anyone longer than 14 weeks!
On our table for 6, were 3 bottles of red wine, 1 bottle of white, 1 bottle of port, 1 bottle of single malt and 1 bottle of Baileys! That didn't include all the glasses of champagne or whiskey when you arrived. 

St Andrew's Ball

I danced all night- traditional Scottish dances and then Carl, and the boot, got up and we danced some salsa numbers together - I must admit he had partaken a lot of the above mentioned drinks by then so felt no pain-it was a different matter at 3:00am when Carl was awoken by huge amounts of pain- it was touch and go whether or not we went to the hospital but luckily painkillers took the edge off.


The next morning - Sunday we were due to go to Tarkwa bay with the Field Society but thought better of it and then a friend phoned and said Carl could just sit on the beach no walking involved so we quickly got supplies together and I drove to the yacht club.
We set off to the bay in a small motor powered lighter, the journey was quite rough but exhilarating
  and when we arrived at the bay, we had to jump out into about 2 feet of water and wade ashore- at least some of us had to! 
It is the greatest regret of this tour so far that I didn't had my camera ready when this huge Nigerian guy waded into the water and physically picked up Carl into his arms and carried him through the water!!! Can you imagine the sight? The guy was huge but then so is Carl...

The barbeque at the beach house

The walk to the beach from the light house

Frog ponds with lillies blooming

WW2 gun emplacements

The beach was lovely but, as with so many places here, the rubbish was everywhere why it isn't cleared no-one can answer. Carl ensconced himself in the beach house with gin, tonic and a book and for some reason I didn't stay with him but went on the cultural trip to look at the lighthouse. We walked for well over two hours in 36c heat!! But the views were spectacular, there were amazing ponds build to entice and breed frogs - a good food crop. We also saw World War 2 heavy gun emplacements - there were a number of sea battles off Lagos, the structures are still there, but are being used as houses!

this was beached in January 2011

This has been on the beach a matter of weeks

The beach walk on the way back was spectacular, the beach front is covered in wrecks!! some huge and new others very very old. Walking along the beach with just 4 other people looking at the birds and the wrecks was amazing, BUT about a half hour out from safety, we heard the menacing sound of automatic gun fire- suddenly realised we were very isolated, but the gun fire was between two ships out in the bay and we never saw the outcome of the battle.
Sounds amazing to be typing that so matter of factly but it is a fact of life here, you do hear gunfire, you do read of pirates and you must be vigilant at all times.


The rest of the week has flown by and I am still not used to hearing Little Donkey and Oh Little town Of Bethlehem being sung whilst I am sweltering in the heat.
On Wednesday we went to the British High Commission to see a marvellous documentary film called the Burma Boys, it was the story of a Lagotian man who fought for the British in World War 2 in Burma- watch it if you can it is being shown on U-Tube and tells a forgotten story of the African troops who signed up to fight for a country they didn't know because the King Called them- very moving and the 86year old star of the story was in the BHC with us and his family.