Easter at Senga Bay…

In order to fit in at the Lake, one has to adopt the correct pose...

On my arrival in Senga Bay, I was warmly greeted by the Kemp’s and their friends, with whom I had spent a similar weekend at the lake, in 2008… It wasn’t very long, before beer in hand, I was swapping news with Carol, Peter, Grant, Charmaine, Asa, Bianca, and new additions to the “group”, Claudio, and Charmaine’s parents, Graham and Elsa.

Weekends at the Lake are all about relaxation, although the efforts which the ladies put in, to ensure great food was served at every meal time, belies this…

The dining area, where we all gathered three times a day....every day !!

The guys also did their fair share of hard work mind you…walking from the pool back to the house to collect more beer, occasionally turning the meat on the braai, preparing the dirt bikes for out-rides, testing the jet-ski (on the off chance that one of the fairer sex MIGHT want to take a spin…!), preparing fishing tackle and the boat, for trips out to the islands, and popping into the lounge from time to time to check on the Super 14 rugby scores…

It’s tougher being a guy than one might think..!!

Boys must have their toys...

"Who the hell has my other sock...?" Grant, Asa and Peter prepare to do battle with the dunes...

The "cottage" by the lake... Set well back from the water's edge, and fronted by rolling lawns dotted with indigenous trees...

But mostly, time spent at the lake is all about “navel contemplation”, and ensuring that the possibility of dehydration remains as remote as possible ! Bianca and Asa, who have two “little ‘uns”, Skyla and Riley, to keep and eye on, were understandably not as often in as horizontal a position as the rest of us… Grant and Charmaine’s daughters, Carmen and Kelsey, had not only grown taller than I remembered, but had become confident young ladies… Watching them interacting with the group and their parents, brought on memories of my own daughters, and I wished they could have been here to enjoy the banter and the great company…

Captain Kemp launches "Impy" for another all important "fishing" expedition...

The days seemed to blend into each other, and the weather remained sunny despite the occasional threat of rain, when clouds blown from across the lake, massed in the skies above… Power outages caused a few mutters, especially when the possibility that our supper would be delayed became a threat…and worse still, the temperature of the beer would drop to below the recommended level !! Fortunately, the cottage has a generator, which took care of the lights… (This allowed us to identify those who were not praying hard enough for the power to come back on…!!)

The Gypsy Biker comes to grips with a steed of another kind...

I had never had the opportunity to ride a jet-ski before, and after a short stint sitting behind Carmen, while she explained the basic “do’s and don’ts”, I was ready to give it a go…

Grant’s Seadoo is 1800 cc’s of pure power, and can get up to speeds of 9o km/h in flat conditions… The wind had whipped the surface of the lake into a choppy mess, but despite this, the jet-ski shot across the surface, clipping the wave tops and only occasionally lurching into a deep trough between sets… I chased after cormorants that flapped lazily over the water, but never managed to get very close to them, before they jinked away, probably aware that I was not able to turn the jet-ski as nimbly as other riders could !!  After a half hour of adrenaline fueled fun, I felt a twinge in my left shoulder, and decided to call it quits for the day… There was no point in aggravating my shoulder joints any further…

There was always something to do… The guys went on a few out-rides on their dirt bikes, to ride the sand dunes to the north and south of the cottage. Although it sounded like great fun, I decided not to join them, as I had just spent the last three days covering over 2000 kms on my own bike, and needed a break from the “arms akimbo” position !! (My right arm didn’t get too much rest though, as it was constantly required to bring the neck of a bottle up to my lips..!!)

Paul didn't let a little water-skiing get in the way of his thirst...

Asa adopts a far more recognisable stance when it comes to water-skiing...

In the late afternoons, we piled into the boat and zoomed across the surface of the lake, to rendezvous with other boats in the fishing grounds surrounding three islands which were part of a national park. With four or five rods in the water, we trawled along the shorelines and in the channels between the islands, catching fish, water-skiing, and all the while ensuring that the cooler box would be a lot lighter when we got back to the cottage, than it had been when we had loaded it onto the boat prior to our departure…

All in all, a very pleasant way to spend an afternoon on Lake Malawi…

On our last fishing trip, we took the boat close in to the shore, where fish eagles watched and waited… Our catch was then thrown out close to the boat, and we stood spellbound as these majestic birds swooped down from their perches, furling their wings at the last moment and then dipping down to snatch the fish from the surface of the lake, their yellow talons a splash of colour against the dark water… I managed to film the eagles as they dived towards us, but it all happens so fast, that getting quality film from inside a rocking boat proved to be difficult… Nevertheless, it was an amazing experience, especially when seen from only a few metres away…

An empty cooler box put a damper on proceedings as Claudio and Peter glumly nurse their last beers on the way back from the islands...

Carmen and Charmaine head out to put the Seadoo through it's paces...

The previous day, while returning from the islands, the guys came across a large crocodile out in the lake, far away from the shoreline where you would expect them to be… A sobering experience, considering that we had all swum in the lake at one time or another, and I had always believed that crocodiles were mostly found in the southern parts of the lake, where it emptied out near Liwonde… Hippo are also encountered in the area around Senga Bay, and one of our party related the story of a young boy who had recently been killed when he inadvertently wandered between a mother and her calf…  A grim reminder that these animals are to be treated with the utmost respect, and are best avoided altogether !

As dusk sets in, sunsets on Lake Malawi can be spectacular, but I was otherwise engaged and did not get too many photos this time around...

All too soon the weekend was over, and the packing up began… Cars were loaded, the bikes and the jet-ski were secured on their trailers and hitched up to the vehicles that had towed them there, the boat had been parked in the garage that Peter and Asa hired for this purpose, and in the mid afternoon, we set out on the 125 km drive back to Lilongwe…

It had once again been a memorable weekend in Africa, spent among friends and their families, enjoying as much of the outdoors that was on offer… What more could you ask for…??

© GBWT 2010