The Ferry

As we’ve alluded to in previous posts, Diani is on the south coast of Kenya and is connected to Mombasa by a ferry that transports passengers and vehicles. While it’s nice to take a boat ride now and again, this is generally not a leisure cruise.

Mombasa is a fairly modern city as far as Kenyan cities go, and has a great deal of vehicular and pedestrian traffic. Nearly all supplies to the various towns on the coast, save locally-grown produce, comes from Mombasa, so it’s a very important hub. Mombasa is connected to the mainland to the north by a causeway bridge. Why not build a bridge to the south, one might ask? Apparently, this is one of those questions that has been asked for the past 30 or so years. Cargo ships come and go, so a bridge would have to be high enough for them to pass. Given the relatively narrow span of water, this would be a challenge, no doubt, but I bet it’s doable. In this picture, you can see that the other side is very close.



Usually about two or three ferries are running to keep things moving. Once it docks, all of the cars, motorcycles, bikes, and handcarts unload, and then all of the pedestrians. The waiting vehicles then load on, followed by the literal and figurative crush of pedestrians. People wait to board on either side in corrals, where hundreds, perhaps thousands of people wait for their opportunity to cross.

The south side corral is a little scary, as it is narrow and has high concrete walls. When we went to Mombasa to catch our bus to Lamu, we were walking through the corral as people began to board, and some people towards the back who realized that they weren’t going to get on that ferry began running forward and pushing, starting a stampede. We were luckily along the wall, so we were able to avoid the brunt of it, we were pretty concerned for E and Indu, who were pinned between us and the crush of men. There’s a separate corral for women and wary wazungu, which we’ll be using from now on. The boarding process.



It’s quite a sight seeing the mass of humanity board the ferry. When you think the ferry is full, they squeeze a few hundred more people on. The ride should only last a few minutes, but quarters can get pretty close. Here we are blending right in.



One of the more amazing sights is the fully-loaded pushcarts filled with produce being pushed and pulled up the steep ramps. People head into Mombasa every morning at like 3 am to hit the wholesale produce market before heading back to their stores or kiosks to hawk their goods. I don’t think we have a good picture of one, but picture an overloaded pick-up truck bed, and that is what these men are moving. There are some men who hang out at the unloading zones and are paid a small amount to help push the carts up the steep section before the main road. A good two-a-days substitute for offensive linemen.

The ferry is a well-known hotspot for pickpockets, so we’re hyper aware whenever we take it (i.e. wear backpacks on front, don’t bring anything valuable, etc.). We’ve had good luck so far, knock on wood.

Now the major ferry downside: Delays. Remember when I said the ride should only last a few minutes? Yeah, well, sometimes it doesn’t.

At first we didn’t quite understand the big deal about heading to Mombasa. When we were originally picked up from the airport, we waited about 15 minutes, boarded, and were on our way. A few weeks later, we went into Mombasa with mzee to drop off a computer at a repair shop. We figured we’d be back shortly after lunch. On the way there, we waited about an hour to board. A little long, but manageable. On the way home, we waited fully three hours to board. The other day, mzee waited four hours. Apparently several of the ferries were in for maintenance, which seems to be a daily occurrence. There are five ferries to mitigate this issue, but I’ve never seen more than three running.

Because of the probable nightmare of crossing in a car, we prefer now to just be dropped off and cross on foot, as typically one never has to wait for more than 15 or so minutes. Except for that time you have to wait 2 hours since nothing is a given in Kenya, it’s just slightly better odds that you won’t be delayed. A few times, there have even been delays for the foot passengers like when a Tanzanian lorry somehow missed the ramp and drove right into the water. This delayed the whole ferry system all day. Or when the Kenyan navy bus got stuck on the wet ferry dock prompting all the sailors to have to disembark their bus to push it onto the ferry. Or when delays caused by fuel trucks caused a build-up of passengers to rush the ferry as soon as it docked, prompting the ferry driver to back away and refuse to dock for over 90 minutes.

In the US or a European country, people would literally move mountains to figure out how to solve this problem. A bridge would be built. Here, people simply accept that the ferry is another one of those things that’s out of their control, and in general, have exceptional patience, as there’s not much one can do if he’s two hours late to a meeting because of the ferry. Pole pole [slowly slowly] as the saying goes.