Port Police Escort

My friend, Craig, and I had been talking about trying to get a ride in one of the multitude of fishing pirogues that move about the waters along the coast of West Africa since we were in Liberia last year. Well, Craig made a connection with a local fisherman during the course of his work here. The man actually offered a trip on board his canoe and so Craig invited me along. We went to the fishing village with our two young sons in the harbor here on Saturday morning to meet the fisherman there. There were a few maintenance problems with the canoe so we got some net mending lessons from an older fellow there to kill time while we waited to see if things were going to work out for the ride. After a while, we realized we would have to come back another day, so it was decided that we would return this past Monday morning and try again. So Monday morning early we headed over there without the boys this time and watched as one of the fisherman's adult sons carried a boat motor across the slick, algae-covered landing to mount it on the boat. The motor slipped and fell into the water, but was quickly recovered and mounted onto the canoe. It wasn't long before we were invited aboard and headed out into the harbor next to one of the half-sunken boats here. There one son cast the anchor and while the other son helped the fisherman work on the motor to get it running. After a little while we were off and headed out past our ship toward the mouth of the harbor. It was really quite odd to see our ship and everything else around from the water level. We waited at the mouth of the harbor while one of the enormous automobile carrier ships passed in front of us to find its berth in the port. I felt a bit like a small fish at that point riding in a canoe next to one of those giant ships. Soon we headed out to sea and began paralleling the coastline headed east. We were gone not more than five minutes when a Beninese port police boat came screaming toward us. The boat carrying three uniformed men pulled alongside us and ordered us to return to the port. The boat followed as we headed back. As we arrived back at the mouth of the harbor, our motor stopped working again. The men on the police boat ordered us to throw a rope so we could be towed back into port. So we again passed by the Africa Mercy, but this time it was clear to all watching that we had been busted! Some of the deck crew were watching and waving to us from the ship to our humiliation. We were more concerned, however, about any consequences that may result for our hosts who had so graciously offered to give us a ride. Soon we arrived alongside one of the small gray naval vessels on the dock opposite our ship's berth and were ushered out of the canoe, across the deck of the vessel and onto the dock to the station there. (The gray vessels can be seen in the photo below taken earlier - we don't have any photos after we were confronted by the police boat as it would have been inappropriate to have our cameras out during that time.)Surrounded by uniformed men we were questioned mostly in French about what we had been doing. Craig, who has a very much better understanding of French than I, explained that we worked with Mercy Ships and had just been out for a spin around in a fishing canoe. Once they knew we worked with Mercy Ships and were apparently not involved in illegal activities (eg. smuggling, illegal immigration, piracy, etc.) the mood became much lighter. I guess we did look a little suspicious because it is very unusual to see a "yovo" (the fon word for white person) riding around in an African fishing canoe - at least in the not at all touristy port area. One of the officers there had trouble with his knee and so Craig, being a physician, examined his knee and gave him some advice concerning it, which the man was grateful for. We were then offered a ride in the police boat, which we graciously declined, and given permission to freely continue our voyage in the fishing canoe. Both Craig and I felt we had done all we needed to so we got back into the canoe with the fisherman and motored the short distance back to the landing. We were assured that there would be no further problems for our hosts, thanked them and returned to our ship home. Craig returned later in the day to follow up and to take photos we had taken of the trip to our fisherman friends. They were delighted and we had a great story to tell about being arrested in the port a stone's throw from the ship!

John