There were but a few white clouds
in an otherwise blue sky.
Our canoes drifted quietly down the slow flowing
Zambezi river. Now and then a lazy stroke with
a paddle to keep the bow pointing down river.
Hippos wallowed in the shallows near the shore.
Their quiet, content grunting once in a while
interupting the silence of High Noon
Kelvin estimated the temperature to be about
40 C. in the shade. Now and then I filled my Tilley
hat with water and put it back on my head
allowing the cooling water to run down my body.
Crocodiles of varying sizes populated the shore line,
wide gaping jaws catching what little breeze there was.
My camera shutter-release finger was working overtime
as we drifted closer and closer
to one of the sleeping crocs.
A little closer...
... now another foot closer.
The Croc awoke, or maybe it had not been asleep at all,
and with one gigantic leap into the river, it cleared
our boat, just feet in front of our bow.
In retrospect it was clearly a desparate attempt
to get away from us
at the time, however, when I saw its
yellow-greenish underbelly
it looked very much like an attack.
It made my heart skip a beat or two.
Soon we were back on the gently flowing river
and from then on
we stayed well away from snoozing Crocs.
***********
P.S. sorry about the "out of focus" shot of the
airborne Croc. It all happened so fast
that not even the auto focus could keep up with it.
1 comment:
Very cool
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