It is very humid here [at Gwabi] - sweating at 6am. The flies are terrible. [I'm] very angry!
Out onto the water and we get about 0.5km before stopping as we've lost two canoes. It turns out those two Canadian girls flipped their canoe almost as soon as they started -- it was quite choppy -- and so they've decided to quit and will see us for the speedboat ride back.
It's hard going [now out on the Zambezi] especially with Helen determined that we should be within a metre of the lead boat's path (it's hard to steer in a strong breeze). We stop for a break where we use the [adjacent] school's toilets - a white brick affair with a hole hacked into a concrete base. Further up the river to a lunch break and a two hour kip. We pass quite a few hippos (occasionally [we were] in the required single file [for passing hippos in water]).
Finally we get to our island 30km up the river and [just] as we're coming close to land we have a herd of elephants join us at the water. A classic image. We set camp and the elephants appear again so we go off to track them and get some good shots.
There appear to be some new biting creatures here. 
Paul bet that nobody would be up after 8.30pm -- we quit at 8pm, knackered.
Elephant Bone Island S15.85606 E29.10839 Elev. 364m.
Copyright 2002 Ian Fitchet. All rights reserved.