Category Archives: fishing

Our First Visitor…Ariana Visits Gabon…Trip to Loango National Park

20151029-IMGP7648At the end of October we were very happy to have our first visitor to Gabon, my best friend Ariana! After spending a few days in Paris to celebrate her 35th birthday we flew altogether back to Gabon. We eased her into her first African experience by spending the first few days doing a bit of relaxing, visiting the beaches nearby our house, 20151029-IMGP7653watching the elephants coming through camp to eat all the ripe mangos, and kayaking around the lake.

 

 

20151030-IMGP7691 But over the weekend we took a boat and headed up north through the lagoon to Sette Cama where we stayed in the Shell Hut and arranged for a guide to take us for a couple of hikes into the amazing 20151030-IMGP7708Loango National Park. Before arriving at the hut we of course had to stop at the newly semi-improved BBC Treehouse. I was really impressed that Ariana, who is extremely scared of heights, actually climbed all 20151030-IMGP7712the way to the top and even crossed the rope bridge! That night we enjoyed some drinks on the beach, just steps behind the hut, while watching the sunset.

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all smiles at the start of the hike

The next day we picked up our guide in Sette Cama at 6:30 for an early morning walk in Loanga. We decided to start with an easy 2 hours hike that takes you through the forest and 3 separate savannas. We came across several groups of monkeys (mostly red capped mangabeys), a massive snail, and some fairly 20151031-IMGP7736impressive spiders. I found walking through the forest was really magical; Ariana, who lets just say isn’t the most outdoorsy person, may have found the experience slightly less magical. 20151031-IMGP7749Or at least that the impression I had as she asked every 10 minutes if we were almost back to the boat yet and continuously tried to in vain to swat invisible insects away from her face. This probably wasn’t helped when at one point, after our guide pointed out a large spider web and then demonstrated where to walk around it, Ariana then walked through the side of it 🙂

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Giant snail, it was bigger than my hand!

 

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We all survived the hike and to our surprise Ariana even raved about how much fun she had! After a bit of relaxation at the hut, we dropped the boys (two of our 20151031-IMGP7823friends arrived that morning) off on the beach near the lagoon mouth and we went in search of hippos in a little river off of the north side of the lagoon. 20151031-IMGP7802It was a successful search and we spent about a half an hour watching a fairly relaxed group of hippos bob up and down in the water checking us out. We also spotted some rosy bee eaters, pelicans, and a red capped mangabey monkey hanging out in the mangroves.

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After meandering up and down the river for a couple of hours we headed back to the beach to see what the boys had caught (unfortunately nothing this time) and then all headed back to the hut for a (fishless) dinner

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The next day we had another early wakeup call and tried to mentally prepare ourselves for what was to come….a 6 hour hike through the heart of the Loango National Park!

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Getting from the boat onto dryish land
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more spiders
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giant monitor lizard
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our guide Kasa
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lovely scenery
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massive trees, small people
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yet more beautiful trees
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We finally made it out of the forest an onto the beach
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Herd of buffalo on the savannah next to the beach
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Herd of buffalo on the savannah next to the beach
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Cute!
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Pure Beauty! The only thing we’re missing is a surfing hippo…

We were all pretty exhausted after the long, hot hike, but everyone agreed that it was an amazing experience.

Part 2 of Ariana’s visit to come in the next blog post

Whale Watching off the Southern coast of Gabon

The sea is teeming with life off the coast of Gabon. Dolphins frolic close to shore, sea turtles lay their eggs on the beaches from December to March, and humpback whales give birth and mate off the coast from June to September. The last weekend in August we had the immense pleasure to be invited to be go whale watching with Daniel on his boat.

Teun left on Saturday morning with Daniel and few others to try their luck at fishing and then camping on the beach. Unsure of how my body was going to take to the potentially very choppy water, I decided to not go for the full two days on the boat, but instead left on Sunday morning with a few other to meet them.

Apparently Teun and the rest of the first group spent the whole afternoon on Saturday trolling to no avail (saw loads of whales though, from what I heard it was actually pretty comical how many whales there were, like oh look another whale…), so unfortunately after landing on the beach they set up camp and went to bed without a fish feast that evening. 20150830-IMGP6652whales However, the next morning on their way back to pick us up Teun and Angus both got bites on their lines in quick succession. And after the battle to end all battles (I believe there was blood, sweat and tears shed) Teun pulled in a massive rouge! (African red snapper I believe). As you can imagine, when Teun came onto shore to meet us he was beaming with pride as he displayed his mighty catch.

 

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After a change of crew we set off for the open seas. We had a nice ride down the river for about 15 minutes as Daniel joyfully explained the dangers of exiting the river mouth and how to navigate through the breaking surf to get out to the ocean without capsizing the boat and potentially drowning us all. As we neared the breaking waves we were instructed to hold on and we all braced ourselves for some serious rocking, but hopefully not rolling. 20150830-IMGP6683whalesHe navigated out into the calmer waters with ease and we began our search for whales.It didn’t take too long before a splash in the water was spotted and soon we were within meters of a small pod of humpback whales! It was really amazing being so close to such huge and majestic animals. 20150830-IMGP6665whalesOne was particularly curious about us and popped up what seemed like right next to the boat and twisted its massive body around on the surface to get a good look at us. 20150830-IMGP6671whales

For the next couple of hours we enjoyed the peaceful surrounding of the sea and the gentle lull of the waves as we searched and found several more whales. We were also joined by a group of dolphins for a bit, they had fun swimming in our wake and we clicked away trying to get decent photos of them.

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For the most part the whales were pretty lazy, just popping up to get some air, with a little bit of tail action here and there, but then we came across one that treated us to a little acrobatics leaping out of the water and landing with a huge splash. It. Was. Awesome!20150830-IMGP6778whales 20150830-IMGP6792whales

But all good things must come to an end. We said our good byes and headed back to shore. 20150830-IMGP6773whales