Aidan Hartley Aidan Hartley

Shooting the breeze

Aidan Hartley's Wild Life

issue 27 March 2010

Malindi, Kenya

I’m at Malindi’s Driftwood beach bar, nursing a Tusker beer. I’m gazing at the Indian Ocean. The day was hot: 110 in the shade. Now at dusk, a cool zephyr rises from the sea. The moon climbs. Lateen dhow sails puff towards the fishing grounds. The bar fills with surfers and deep-sea anglers. Soon Robin will arrive for his evening snifter, taking the same place at the bar as he has done every day for decades. The Driftwood bar is my office. I can’t get online at home. No network. On the north coast, technology does not really work. But that’s OK. The voices I hear on my phone from rainy little England have broadband and power. They do not sound happy. In fact, they sound very unhappy.

Yesterday I swam in the ocean with Claire and our children.

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