GONE WITH THE WIND

A new dhow turned liveaboard offers slow immersion into the Swahili culture, mangroves, and creeks of Lamu archipelago off the north coast of Kenya. Words and photographs by Chris Schalkx

- Chris Schalkx

When a conversation lulls in upcountry Kenya, it will inevitably flow to the subject of rain. The lifegiving masika monsoons of spring or the punishing droughts of the past few years, when there were no downpours for over 1,000 days. In Lamu, though, it's the wind that steers the chitchatand lateen sails-in fresh directions.

It's a sticky afternoon on southeastern Kenya's Lamu channel, the sky white-hot, and I'm resting on the pillow-strewn aft deck of NaiSabah, a 75-foot Omani dhow turned liveaboard that made its maiden voyage around the archipelago in 2023.

A breeze carries the scent of donkey dung and frangipanis from Shela village, Lamu's upscale honeypot for resident foreigners, which gleams on the horizon. "Swahili people have lived by these trade winds for centuries," says the ship's owner, Jeremy Bastard.

Bastard, a fourth-generation British Kenyan conservationist, grew up among the Samburu people in Kenya's mountainous north. He took over the reins of his parents' eco-minded Sarara Camp in 2010, and has since kept busy with elephant conservation projects and education programmes for nomadic people in the north.

Unenticed by the idea of holidaying abroad ("Kenya is so wildly diverse, why would I?"), he'd spend breaks with his family sailing Lamu on a rented dhow, poking around mangroves and sleeping on bedrolls under the stars.

It sparked the idea for NaiSabah, a way for guests to explore the region beyond its white-plastered villas.

Guided by the monsoon winds and equipped with a motorised tender for extra nimbleness, the boat reaches little-visited corners in the direction of Kiwayu, near the Somali border-rich in marine habitats and centuries' worth of folktales carried by Indian, Persian, and Arab traders.