Shipwreck

To justify a holiday away from a beautiful place like West Ardnamurchan requires something totally different.  We've spent the last couple of weeks in Tanzania, both on its mainland coast and on the island of Zanzibar.  Everywhere we went, we found this boat, a jahazi, a small version of the ocean-going Arab dhow.  While a jahazi can be up to 20m long, most are much smaller.  With its triangular lateen sail, shallow draught and flat bottom, it can access the beaches, creeks and mudflats of the Tanzania coast, carrying cargo and passengers.

In many ways, the jahazi is like the birlinn, the boat that used to ply Scotland's west coast and islands during the Middle Ages.  It too was a clinker-built workhorse which could be used both for trade and battle.  But, while the sturdy birlinn was suited to highly changeable weather, jahazis ply brisk trade wind seas.

Relaxing on a white sand beach one day, with the temperature in the high 20s and a good lunch in prospect, we were watching a fully-laden jahazi approach the local port, an old slaving centre called Bagamoyo.  With the wind behind her she was coming in fast - and then she disappeared.

The jahazi had struck one of the notorious sandbanks that fringe the Bagamoyo coast.  It may be that the captain hadn't allowed for an exceptionally low spring tide, had been used to coming in across the sandbank and had misjudged the depth.  With a heavy surf crashing over her, she soon began to break up.

We watched in helpless horror as the incident unfolded.  Here in Kilchoan we'd have run up to the hotel and dialled 999 but, to the best of our knowledge, there was no Coastguard team in Bagamoyo that could have hoped to reached the stricken vessel in time to be of any use.

Fortunately, within minutes other jahazis were moving to assist her, a difficult manouevre since they had to approach from downwind.  As they came up, the crew and passengers, a half dozen or so of them, began to abandon the wreckage.

By the time four jahaziis had arrived, the stranded jahazi was in pieces.  One man, possibly her captain or owner, remained clinging to the last broken timbers, finally letting go and allowing the sea to carry him down to the waiting boats.

The whole thing was over in minutes, but it momentarily transported us back to Ardnamurchan and the incidents we have witnessed in its far more treacherous waters.