Akwidaa, the Atlantic, not waving but drowning
on Michael Cashman (Ghana), 19/Apr/2010 21:01, 34 days ago
Off ToAkwidaafor three days of get-way-from-it-all at the Safari Beach Lodge. No internet , no phone signal (except, as we later discover, for one littlehotspotnear the generator)So, in case you want to know, the room looks a bit like this, and the view outwards looks like this:See that little rock? Don't even think about getting there. The waves don't look too bad in any of these photos, but for me they count as good waves because you can stand in 'no water' and have a wave break over your head if it's one of the bigger ones. I check - when a few yards from shore - that I can still get back. (It's that area where the increase in depth after the wave takes you out of your depth, but if you just stay in the same place you're in your depth again.) Now I notice I am a little further away from Charlotte and Laura (see previous blog entry) than before, but I'm no more than a third of the way towards that rock in the picture.Try to swim in.  I'm swimming forward but the distance to shore is increasing. Feeling pretty silly now, I can't get in on my own, I'm going to have to ask for help. Shout "Help". No effect. (We later check, and against the noise of the waves you're lucky to hear anything beyond 10 metres). I wave - get a wave back from Charlotte, but how do you signal "I'm being swept out further away from you"? Looks like I'm going to sink or swim on my own. Decide to save my energy for swimming. But it's not working, and I seem further away.Apparently what I should have done, to circumvent the rip current I must have been in, was to swim along and then in. Charlotte says this is in fact what I did. I have no sense of doing anything except trying to swim straight towards shore. No life flashing before my eyes or anything like that, it's just a case of putting everything into swimming as strongly as I can. Eventually I find my depth and stagger onto the beach. It is less than five minutes from start to finish. I feel like I've just run a 4-minute mile; I think in these circumstances warnings about not overdoing the exercise tend to be forgotten.Anyway, there's a peaceful sunset to look at , and a turtle warning. We find Sarah, or rather she finds us - on holiday from volunteering at a church in Accra.The bar/restaurant, and the view ofAkwidaalife from it. The food is (generally) very good, which is just as well given the prices.We also bump into Merilyn, (beside me in photo) aVSOvolunteer fromNandomwho is a big fan of Organisational Development (ok, Merilyn, I have taken you off the OD group email list) and her Mali-geologist-gold-prospecting friend  Nicole. Sadly we lose the Ashes at Scrabble to Merilyn and Nicole.We leave Akwidaa- see the shot ofDixcovewhich is the nearest place - and head through verdant Southern Ghana towards the Ghanaian  Lake District (well, one lake anyway).