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a hippo cow's tail but finding it a poor grip, he cut two parallel lines through its hide to give
him a handle to hang onto, then getting it to a bank where his bushmen entourage helped him
hold it. He then tied it to a tree and fetched a gun to shoot it. It must have been a youngster. Our
nightly visitor did not take to that action of stamping out fires but we were sure to stay well
clear of the hippo and didn't shine any flashlights into his eyes. Yet such an undisturbed
relationship with wildlife has not always been the case.
In my early teens, my friends Grant and Raymond and I would be dropped off to erect a tent
under a Natal mahogany tree, surrounded by elephant grass, and on the banks of a large
reservoir on the Lomati River that our neighboring farmer had built. Early in the mornings we
would go up stream in our trusty 5hp Seagull propelled boat. We also had sails for the boat
and occasionally sailed it, but worried about capsizing among the crocodiles and hippos. Even
now, when sailing, I have a subconscious lookout for “monsters” of the deep. And they occur.
Jurgen, the previous owner of my trimarans, hit a right whale with the boat and snapped off the
17 foot dagger board. We later lengthened it to a total of 21 feet. In the Marblehead to Halifax
race we sailed through a pod of some 20 right whales with trepidation.
Right Whales Fishing in New England
Hippos and Crocodiles at Sunset Dam, Kruger Park
After motoring upstream, either through the head waters of the Lomati or the Hlabanyati,
both of which had many crocodiles, we would turn around and drift down the narrower
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