Sailing day...

Of course when we arrived at our lovely open air dining room, sharp at 6.30 am, there were no people, let alone breakfast. I made my way towards the kitchen and bumped into Abigail. She clapped her hand to her mouth and turned to run shouting "I will fetch them!' A few moments later she reappeared followed by the whole kitchen contingent and they cooked us the fastest meal ever....eggs and toast, apple juice and coffee. We departed from our beautiful haven soon afterwards heading now towards Akosombo for one night and then returning to the ship the following day.

We travelled on a remarkably smooth road. When I remarked on its good condition William said "This was the government before the last. they were trying so hard to improve things in Ghana. If you want to compare that regime with the last one, look at the parallel road which we took from Tema. Those potholes tell you at once about that government....they were terrible, corrupt through and through." An interesting analogy for the two differing presidents too, one conscientious and one corrupt. William approves of the present President but thinks he needs more 'courage' to clean up the corruption and malaise which has 'infected' the Ghanaian people.

It was on our way to Akosombo that we passed a horrendous bus accident which had taken place a few hours before. The fronts of each bus were destroyed and burnt going back about a third....seats crumpled and blackened. I remarked to Brenda that there must have been loss of life. She picked up a newspaper the next day in which the head line read '22 people killed in bus crash on Kumasi to Accra road'. The driving in Ghana as I mentioned before is chaotic and insane. How there are not many more accidents I cannot tell but what we witnessed filled me with amazement and fear.

We had a very, very early 'lunch' of coffee, snack and washroom break at 10.30 am...the same restaurant we had patronised and waited so long in on our way north. They remembered us and moved minimally more swiftly!


We arrived at the Akosombo Dam in the late afternoon and were shown around by a young man, Fred, who was a Legon university engineering student working his holiday there. We were driven right above the dam, looking down on 6 huge pipes, 6 enormous water gates and the 'embankment' dam. My eventual photos will illustrate this better. Suffice to say that this was our most impressive sight in Ghana. It supplies electricity to 99% of the Ghanaian people, to Togo and Benbin and Bukina Faso and the Cote d'Ivoire, also a small part of Northern Nigeria. Certainly there has been a huge amount of aid from Canada in the form of experts and engineers and the fact that we were Canadian thrilled Fred to bits. I was interested to see on the top of a hill opposie the dam the house which Kwame Nkrumah built for himself...what a view he had of the dam, built partly during his regime.

We spent the night right on the river in a rather pretty little hotel. We sat that night on our balcony, drinking wine and eating supper, and feeling so fortunate to have experienced Ghana as we had. In the morning (after sharing a Queen sized bed...they had no 'twins') we drank our tea and coffee on a gazebo built out into the river right opposite our cottage. We set off for Tema after breakfast at about 8 am.


We arrived back in Tema shortly before noon and bade fond farewell and gave many, many thanks to William for being such a wondeful mentor and guide for Ghana. We realised when we heard other adventures how extraordinarily lucky we had been.

We both heaved a sigh of contentment as we sailed through our on-board security check and walked into our 'home'....welcoming and cool! The gangway was level with the quay on the second deck making our boarding smooth and easy.

It was good to flop down in our cabin, throw all the dirty clothes into the laundry and finally be horizontal on the bed! And it was good to see George again.

Today, on our 25th wedding anniversary I give silent thanks that 47 years after I lived in Ghana I have been able to return, seen new parts and loved every minute.