Correspondent's Diary - Lagos, Day 1

We arrived in Lagos at 22.15 local time last night. The flight had been delayed for almost two hours at Heathrow after a group of passengers had decided that they weren't going to show up, despite having checked in. One of the British Airways stewards was overheard saying that she suspected they had gone into London for a spot of shopping, and lost track of time. In any event, their bags needed to be removed from the hold before we could leave, which meant taking everything off and finding them.

On a 747, that's a lot of bags.

That little hitch aside, the rest of the journey was fairly smooth. A touch of banter and a cheeky smile or two with the steward in our section ensured that my brother and I were well looked after, with enough drinks to keep us suitably lubricated. A few in-flight movies later, and we had touched down in the sweltering heat of Lagos.

We were met by a young Nigerian who guided us through immigration and customs. Dad was waiting with his driver, Chris and our 'mopol', an armed police escort. It was explained to us that a mopol is pretty standard for trips to the airport, especially late at night. As Chris drove us back to the compound, we passed armed police checkpoints, dodging and weaving around trucks and other cars. There seemed to be little hurry, our pace was far from rushed but neither was it sedate, and Chris had no intention of stopping if he could avoid it. Assertive was very much the watchword.

As I write, we are preparing to head out to the Yacht Club on the Lagoon to take out the Tarpon for a little spin. The sun has started to break through the thick haze, and this will be our first opportunity to catch the city in daylight.

Should be fun...

UPDATE:

Chris, our driver, took us down to the Yacht club on Lagos Island. We met with a number of other expats, these all employees of Shell stationed out in Nigeria. One, Jim, had the foresight to suggest a few Bloody Marys, which on a Sunday morning seemed entirely appropriate to me.

Every club, in my mind, should do a Bloody Mary. And every club, in my mind, should have a little special something about theirs. A secret ingredient, a little zhuzhy something that gives it that little je ne sais quoi . The Lagos Yacht Club certainly has that part sorted. It is a simple variation of the classic drink, lacking port, horseradish, celery salt, but with one addition that makes all the difference. A bottle of what was once Smirnoff Blue was tucked behind the bar, filled to the very brim with osmosis-filled chilli seeds and pods. Out of this bottle, barely two drops were added to the vodka, lime, tomato juice and salt that would have made for a fairly ordinary airline quality drink. With those two drops, a magnificent riot of flavour waged war upon your tongue.

Definitely set me up for the sail to come.

My brother and I helped my Dad rig his Tarpon, a wooden sailing boat based on the Lightning, and a boat that was in fact older than him. The Shell boys headed off in their Lightning, while we finished getting the Tarpon into the water, and set out to tack down towards Tarkwa beach. My brother had never sailed before, and once he learned that on a boat, normal civil courtesies or a detailed instruction sometimes take too long to say when you have a dredger bearing down on you in the middle of a shipping channel, he did rather well.

For my part, steering the Tarpon took a little more getting used to than a nice 49 foot cruising yacht. The tiny adjustments resulting in far more movement than you expect to begin with.

Arriving at the beach after around an hour and a half sailing, we were ready for a little lunch at the beach hut. Jim and I took a walk along and around the beach to a stretch of sand that eventually would lead you to Benin if you kept going. It is home to a magnificently tragic sight, somehow majestic for all that. As far as the eye could see there were ships, anchored off the shore. These were cargo vessels from all over the world waiting to get in to port at Lagos. Some, Jim told me, had been there for literally years. Some had run aground.

A cargo vessel jutted out of the beach as if caught on a wave in a storm. Its prow jutted powerfully out of the sand, buried from about half way down the hull. All that was visible of the stern was the tip of the bridge and two funnels – a sight I had mistaken at first for some kind of beach emplacement.

We returned to the club a few hours later, the final vestiges of the day’s sea breeze enough to carry us home on a broad reach. Appropriately enough, we returned to the apartment after a few drinks at the club to watch Master and Commander – big ships to our small boats.