The Last Dhow to Zanzibar (May 2009)
Commissioned by the Guardian newspaper photographer Harry Hall travels across continents to capture images of a dying tradition. Below is an insight into his amazing journey.
As the wind filled the great triangular sail, the bow lifted and the sea began to gurgle along the planks of the great dhow as it began to move. Dhows have set sail from ports in the Persian Gulf, East Africa and India for over 3,000 years on a triangular route around the Indian Ocean carrying timber, spices cloth and passengers. The advent of steam and later motor vessels brought about the demise of the trading dhow. By the millennium only around 20 dhows still plied the route; in 2008 this number had dropped to only 7.
Having photographed stories about the demise of traditional ways of life, this was a project Harry felt he had to pursue. An earlier documentary project was short listed for Joan Wakelin Documentary Photography Awards run jointly by the Royal Photographic Society & the Guardian newspaper. From this the Guardians’ picture editor offered photographer Harry a commission for the newspaper. “What would you like me to photograph” Harry asked. “I don’t mind – you suggest a story” he replied. Now Harry had secured some funding, it was possible to get the dhow project under way.
The Art Evolution photographer started at Lamu Island, Kenya’s most northerly port; his plan was to talk his way onto a dhow from the Persian Gulf sailing down the African coast to Zanzibar and document its journey. Days went by but no dhows arrived. A port official confirmed a rumour, that the Kenyan Navy had closed the sea boarder with Somalia in response to the problems of pirates operating from its coast. Any dhows sailing southward would be turned back. He reflected that as only 7 large Arabian Dhows had entered Kenyan waters last year, the blockade was probably the death knell of the ocean going dhows in Africa.
A Plan B was needed and urgently! As smaller inshore dhows are used between coastal towns, Harry thought surely he could still make the journey by hitching from port to port on these smaller vessels until he reached Zanzibar. So it was that he travelled with 20 tons of rice, fish, mangrove poles, a shipment of fishing nets, chickens and a load of sand and cement. It did occur to Harry that this latter cargo could have been interesting to unload had it got wet!
Sailing a dhow is refreshingly uncomplicated; the only mechanical device on board is a pulley block on the mast for raising the sail. One night while travelling across open water, Harry noticed that the captain had no navigation instruments – not even a compass. He asked him how he knew where to steer. Pointing to two stars in the sky and he told Harry he was heading for one of them and that when the second was level with it, we would reach port. For the next six hours Harry monitored the progress across the celestial chart, as the two stars aliened the lights of our destination came into view, as it had for hundreds of voyages before.
May 7, 2009 7:46pm
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