Heathrow to JFK to Cincinnati
30 June 2009- Tuesday
posted by DT at 8:15 PM
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Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Flight to Johannesburg and Heathrow
29 June 2009- Monday
My 78th Birthday
My 78th Birthday
posted by DT at 8:13 PM
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Caprivi- Munduma National Park
20 June 2009- Saturday
HIPPO ATTACK !!
Had an excellent buffet lunch served next to swimming pool at Lianshulu Main Lodge where I was able to get 40 winks in after our game drive this morning. We had bought the cooks from the tented camp with us this morning and they prepared the meal while we were out on our drive. Two of the kitchen staff was in the back of our speedboat on the ride back to the tented camp. The other occupants of our boat were Ponicio our guide/driver, Mark Rosenberg, Barbara his wife, Aaron his 26? year old son- math teacher, Lauren his 24? year old daughter- epidemiologist with CDC, Don and Brenda…. retired couple from York, PA who had done all the 50 states and now were out to see the world. So there were 7 quests and 3 crew in this 15-20 foot speedboat. The weather was the usually balmy 70 in the afternoon, but sometimes racing down part of the river it got cooler so I was wearing my long-sleeved fleece containing my Mag-lite flashlight and extra camera battery and room key. I usually carried my Sony Cyber Shot camera around my neck and was using my Panasonic Video Camera with a 43X optical zoom for close-ups. We’d make the usual stops for wildlife and were lucky to find some hippo out of the water as they usually do their feeding at night and just float around in the day time.
(Actually, hippos don’t swim, but walk on the bottom of their pools and rivers) They are camera shy and when we got close to shore a couple immediately dove into the water. In fact that is the last pictures on the memory stick of my Cyber Shot.
At about 2 pm, we came across a large hippo on land and Ponisio cut the motor and drifted in toward shore. We were heading south and the hippo was heading north and as we got closer (I was filming with the video camera from my seat on the right side of the boat) the hippo went behind some tall reeds. In order to get some more pictures, Ponisio restarted the outboard and we started to slowly back up to see if we could see the hippo from the other side of the reeds. Unbeknownst to us the hippo had entered the river and we backed into him with our propeller. There was a huge thump and someone said we must have hit a rock- others said hippo. About that time the boat lurched severely with the left rear lifted out of the water which caused me to slide off my seat over the gunwale which was even with the seat and I wound up in the water with my legs still in the boat. Panic ensued as I yelled to Don to catch my camera still on my right hand, Ponisio yelling “pull him into the boat” ( to save me from the injured hippo?) and Mark yelling “let Bob go” as the boat was being swamped- my last sight was to see the back of the boat filling up before I went under the water.
It became very quiet and as I looked up through the green water at the blazing African sun a number of thoughts ran through my mind in rapid succession- 1) so is this how my life is going to end? 2) I wonder what my obituary is going to say because I can’t even remember the name of the river I’m drowning in? 3) oh, I hope the other people in the boat aren’t going through the same situation I am going through. And about that time Ponisio pulled me back to the surface. He had me across the back and under my left arm. I realized my camera, soaked-through fleece and hiking boots were dragging me down. I had already dropped my video camera and when Barbara swam over with a life jacket she couldn’t get it on because Ponisio’s arm was in the way, but I managed to get the fleece off and let it sink. I saw Barbara and Lauren in the water ahead of me and, according to Brenda, Lauren yelled “Thanks for the swimming lessons, Mom.” We were all being swept along by the river. I kept asking Ponisio if he could get us over to the reeds but the current was too swift. I then had a sinking thought that Ponisio was going to get eaten by a river crocodile and I would wind up drowning again. I was able to get my legs up into a float position and Ponisio was pushing me along until we came to a bend in the river and got into shore.
I stood up in knee deep water with my left leg a foot higher than my right, but I was not about to move. Ponisio took his radio from his back pocket and removed the battery cover and water ran out of the useless radio. I could see Aaron on shore along with Brenda and Barbara and Lauren were right with me. Lauren had a life vest she tried to put on me, but it was too small, so she traded her’s and zipped mine up. (all the life vests were zipped up on the backs of the chairs in the boat before the accident, but someone had presence of mind to toss them off the boat as we were sinking.) I immediately felt safer and a lot warmer. We were in the water about 20 minutes and on shore about another 10 when we finally heard an outboard motor. It was the canopied pontoon boat that the others had been riding in, but now it had only the rescue party and Mark. (Mark had stayed with the boat when it went down- it had actually flipped over onto him and he was thinking of staying under the boat in an air bubble, but came out instead. He was the second person to be noted by the guests and crew of the 2nd boat. The first person they noticed was Don standing on the shore. Don had used mine and Aaron’s back packs as flotation devices to get to the shore as his wife, Brenda, was swept downstream. It didn’t take the crew of the second boat to figure out that we had sunk and there were people out there to be rescued- albeit a half hour late. They pulled into shore dumped the tourists and rescued Mark. Then they came down the river and found the rest of us. Two people got in the water and did a “fireman’s carry” to toss me int o the boat. I was quickly followed by Barbara and Lauren- the anguish on Mark’s face was pitiful as he hugged his wife and daughter. Brenda was next followed by Aaron- and Mark went through his same emotional reunion with his son. We then went back to the landing site and on the way found one of the cooks standing in the reeds. The other cook had made it to shore also. We pulled in to shore and reunited with the other passengers and we were thankful everyone was accounted for. Don was laughing and at the same time complaining that he couldn't quit shaking while Brenda was joking about him letting her be swept down the river. Aaron had gone into a full blown asthma attack and fortunately his inhaler was in the backpack Don had rescued so he was treated on the spot. That’s when I realized my back pack had been saved. The nylon windbreaker inside would be my only outer wear for the rest of the trip and my antimalarial pills were soup. Fortunately I had left my wallet, passport and money pouch in the safe at the lodge. I saw Ponisio down by the shore with the other drivers and thanked him for saving my life.
Shortly thereafter another boat arrived from the main lodge- it had Robyn the lodge manager on board (it was her second day on the job.) Robyn is a 3rd generation Zimbabwean who’s farm was confiscated and sold to a Libyan. She said we were most fortunate in that the land we were standing on was the only solid ground for about 10 miles in each direction – the rest being marsh and swamp during the wet season. She also said the trip by boat was usually 40 minutes from the main lodge but they had made it in 15. When everything was sorted out the seven of us who were in the water took the first boat to the lodge along with Robyn. She arranged for our clothes to be washed immediately so I went and took a hot shower and put on my only other set of clothes and would wear Teevos for the nest 2 days while my hiking boots dried out(remember we were limited to 26lbs of luggage because of the light aircraft.)
Mark came over to get some Cipro since he had swallowed a lot of river water as did his family and he was going to put them on meds. I had Levaquin also but didn’t plan on using it unless I developed symptoms. He asked me how I was doing and I said fine-but did choke up when I wise-cracked "for someone who almost drowned". So we went over to the main lodge together where Robyn told us they had beached the sunken boat and noted the propellers were all bent and there was a gash the size of a hand in the left side of the boat.
HIPPO ATTACK !!
Had an excellent buffet lunch served next to swimming pool at Lianshulu Main Lodge where I was able to get 40 winks in after our game drive this morning. We had bought the cooks from the tented camp with us this morning and they prepared the meal while we were out on our drive. Two of the kitchen staff was in the back of our speedboat on the ride back to the tented camp. The other occupants of our boat were Ponicio our guide/driver, Mark Rosenberg, Barbara his wife, Aaron his 26? year old son- math teacher, Lauren his 24? year old daughter- epidemiologist with CDC, Don and Brenda…. retired couple from York, PA who had done all the 50 states and now were out to see the world. So there were 7 quests and 3 crew in this 15-20 foot speedboat. The weather was the usually balmy 70 in the afternoon, but sometimes racing down part of the river it got cooler so I was wearing my long-sleeved fleece containing my Mag-lite flashlight and extra camera battery and room key. I usually carried my Sony Cyber Shot camera around my neck and was using my Panasonic Video Camera with a 43X optical zoom for close-ups. We’d make the usual stops for wildlife and were lucky to find some hippo out of the water as they usually do their feeding at night and just float around in the day time.
(Actually, hippos don’t swim, but walk on the bottom of their pools and rivers) They are camera shy and when we got close to shore a couple immediately dove into the water. In fact that is the last pictures on the memory stick of my Cyber Shot.
At about 2 pm, we came across a large hippo on land and Ponisio cut the motor and drifted in toward shore. We were heading south and the hippo was heading north and as we got closer (I was filming with the video camera from my seat on the right side of the boat) the hippo went behind some tall reeds. In order to get some more pictures, Ponisio restarted the outboard and we started to slowly back up to see if we could see the hippo from the other side of the reeds. Unbeknownst to us the hippo had entered the river and we backed into him with our propeller. There was a huge thump and someone said we must have hit a rock- others said hippo. About that time the boat lurched severely with the left rear lifted out of the water which caused me to slide off my seat over the gunwale which was even with the seat and I wound up in the water with my legs still in the boat. Panic ensued as I yelled to Don to catch my camera still on my right hand, Ponisio yelling “pull him into the boat” ( to save me from the injured hippo?) and Mark yelling “let Bob go” as the boat was being swamped- my last sight was to see the back of the boat filling up before I went under the water.
It became very quiet and as I looked up through the green water at the blazing African sun a number of thoughts ran through my mind in rapid succession- 1) so is this how my life is going to end? 2) I wonder what my obituary is going to say because I can’t even remember the name of the river I’m drowning in? 3) oh, I hope the other people in the boat aren’t going through the same situation I am going through. And about that time Ponisio pulled me back to the surface. He had me across the back and under my left arm. I realized my camera, soaked-through fleece and hiking boots were dragging me down. I had already dropped my video camera and when Barbara swam over with a life jacket she couldn’t get it on because Ponisio’s arm was in the way, but I managed to get the fleece off and let it sink. I saw Barbara and Lauren in the water ahead of me and, according to Brenda, Lauren yelled “Thanks for the swimming lessons, Mom.” We were all being swept along by the river. I kept asking Ponisio if he could get us over to the reeds but the current was too swift. I then had a sinking thought that Ponisio was going to get eaten by a river crocodile and I would wind up drowning again. I was able to get my legs up into a float position and Ponisio was pushing me along until we came to a bend in the river and got into shore.
I stood up in knee deep water with my left leg a foot higher than my right, but I was not about to move. Ponisio took his radio from his back pocket and removed the battery cover and water ran out of the useless radio. I could see Aaron on shore along with Brenda and Barbara and Lauren were right with me. Lauren had a life vest she tried to put on me, but it was too small, so she traded her’s and zipped mine up. (all the life vests were zipped up on the backs of the chairs in the boat before the accident, but someone had presence of mind to toss them off the boat as we were sinking.) I immediately felt safer and a lot warmer. We were in the water about 20 minutes and on shore about another 10 when we finally heard an outboard motor. It was the canopied pontoon boat that the others had been riding in, but now it had only the rescue party and Mark. (Mark had stayed with the boat when it went down- it had actually flipped over onto him and he was thinking of staying under the boat in an air bubble, but came out instead. He was the second person to be noted by the guests and crew of the 2nd boat. The first person they noticed was Don standing on the shore. Don had used mine and Aaron’s back packs as flotation devices to get to the shore as his wife, Brenda, was swept downstream. It didn’t take the crew of the second boat to figure out that we had sunk and there were people out there to be rescued- albeit a half hour late. They pulled into shore dumped the tourists and rescued Mark. Then they came down the river and found the rest of us. Two people got in the water and did a “fireman’s carry” to toss me int o the boat. I was quickly followed by Barbara and Lauren- the anguish on Mark’s face was pitiful as he hugged his wife and daughter. Brenda was next followed by Aaron- and Mark went through his same emotional reunion with his son. We then went back to the landing site and on the way found one of the cooks standing in the reeds. The other cook had made it to shore also. We pulled in to shore and reunited with the other passengers and we were thankful everyone was accounted for. Don was laughing and at the same time complaining that he couldn't quit shaking while Brenda was joking about him letting her be swept down the river. Aaron had gone into a full blown asthma attack and fortunately his inhaler was in the backpack Don had rescued so he was treated on the spot. That’s when I realized my back pack had been saved. The nylon windbreaker inside would be my only outer wear for the rest of the trip and my antimalarial pills were soup. Fortunately I had left my wallet, passport and money pouch in the safe at the lodge. I saw Ponisio down by the shore with the other drivers and thanked him for saving my life.
Shortly thereafter another boat arrived from the main lodge- it had Robyn the lodge manager on board (it was her second day on the job.) Robyn is a 3rd generation Zimbabwean who’s farm was confiscated and sold to a Libyan. She said we were most fortunate in that the land we were standing on was the only solid ground for about 10 miles in each direction – the rest being marsh and swamp during the wet season. She also said the trip by boat was usually 40 minutes from the main lodge but they had made it in 15. When everything was sorted out the seven of us who were in the water took the first boat to the lodge along with Robyn. She arranged for our clothes to be washed immediately so I went and took a hot shower and put on my only other set of clothes and would wear Teevos for the nest 2 days while my hiking boots dried out(remember we were limited to 26lbs of luggage because of the light aircraft.)
Mark came over to get some Cipro since he had swallowed a lot of river water as did his family and he was going to put them on meds. I had Levaquin also but didn’t plan on using it unless I developed symptoms. He asked me how I was doing and I said fine-but did choke up when I wise-cracked "for someone who almost drowned". So we went over to the main lodge together where Robyn told us they had beached the sunken boat and noted the propellers were all bent and there was a gash the size of a hand in the left side of the boat.
posted by DT at 8:01 PM
0 comments
Chobe National Park and Chobe River Cruise
17 June 2009- Wednesday
posted by DT at 7:57 PM
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Johannesburg to Victoria Falls to Chobe national Pk
15 June 2009- Monday
posted by DT at 7:54 PM
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Bierut to Damascus
6 May 2009- Wednesday
By way of Beiteddine and Baalbeck in the Bekaa Valley (more Hezbollah)
By way of Beiteddine and Baalbeck in the Bekaa Valley (more Hezbollah)
posted by DT at 7:37 PM
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Bierut to Sidon and Tyre and return
4 May 2009
Entering Hezbollah country-
Entering Hezbollah country-
posted by DT at 7:00 PM
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Osler Society & Assoc History of Medicine
Cleveland< Ohio
20- 25 April 2009
20- 25 April 2009
posted by DT at 6:54 PM
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Assoc. of Surgical Education, Salt Lake City, NV
30 March- 4 April 2009
posted by DT at 6:52 PM
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Links
Previous Posts
- OAT to Colombia and La Paz, Bolivia
- Day in Dakar and early morning flight to USA
- Banjul and the River Gambia
- Kuntaur and Kuar, The Gambia
- Kuntaur, The Gambia
- Tendaba, The Gambia
- Banjul (Bathurst), The Gambia/ Kuna Kinteh Island
- Saloun Delta/ Djifer/ Joal-Fadiouth/ Banjul
- Dakar, Senegal
- Flight Cincinnati to Dakar
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