The circus

This island at times I feel is the world’s biggest circus, all the clowns are here, all we need is a massive big top tent to cover it and away we go. I arrived at the ferry berth at Ankify to catch a ferry to Nosy Be. Arriving was met with chaos, a boiling bundle of hustling buskers trying to get you aboard their boat. All spaced out weird khat addicts, a handful of leaves in the one hand and the other like a conveyer belt feeding this cud of leaves in the left cheek as they frantically chew away on this ball. Shouting shoving they hassle you. The captain crew every one, all ripped spaced out.

Finally we were all hoarded into the boat, overloaded out to sea we went. The wind and swell had now picked up dramatically as we swung out into the open sea. The captain swung the nose out and hit the throttle, letting out a yell, spewing chewed khat leaves and green gob like slurry all over us as the craft lurched forward smashing into the waves. Crashing into the swell, the boat groaning under the pressure on he flew across the bay. Water sprayed everyone sopping wet, but on he went faster and faster until we were skimming the crests and smashing into the troughs, the whole craft shuddering with each blow as passengers are thrown from side to side.

Winding between the troughs up and down we flew, the cud chewing captain feeding the tennis ball of leaves in his cheek. Suddenly every one lurched forward as the boat slowed and nose dived into a big wave, there was a splutter as the engine gave a last cough and died. The captains eyeballs seemed to shoot forward out of his spinning scull, settle and swing back as he looked back at the engine in disbelief, or was it a bad batch of leaves- he slowly stuck 2 fingers in his mouth, rolling the ball of leaves in his cheek, frantically he began to chew gain. Waves were now crashing into us as we drifted side on into the swell and wind. We had run out of fuel.