Indian Ocean
As a child I wandered Kenya’s north shore beaches. On coral reefs I hunted rare cowries. The Bajunis in their outrigger canoes taught me how to fish. I knew my nudibranchs from my trepangs. Inland it was still mostly wild forest, teeming with birds and elephants that amazingly came down to swim in the ocean. I remember windswept blue ocean and white sands scattered with nautilus shells, whale bones and ambergris.
I often say how, in 1977, my father took us to the island of Lamu up near Somalia. He wanted to make a home away from the development of the coast farther south. The flying doctor Anne Spoerry had a house at Shela. A couple of elderly British gays lived in Lamu town. And Dad shook his head and lamented, ‘We’re too late.
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