Monday, January 13, 2014

Lake Kariba House Boat!

What a spoil, and what a treasured experience we had. My sister and her family, Jenny and Derek Zartmann, with Michael and Kyra, spoilt us with 5 nights all together on a house boat in Kariba. We travelled up through the Beit Bridge border (only one hour to clear through both sides!) on the 2nd of January. We spent one night with them on their KweKwe farm, and then we all travelled up to Kariba on the 4th of January. We had lots of rain, and a few storms... but it was such an incredible and memorable time for us all. The kids did loads of fishing, and I even tried my hand at it a little! I have to proudly boast that I caught the very first TWO tiger fish..... yes they were little, but they qualified as TIGER!!!!
ZIMBABWE - This picture we saw over and over again...
 The Men were all getting the fishing tackle ready... serious stuff! This was the down stairs portion of Djoya. Our floating "Caravan" had two full bathrooms :) The kids slept down here when the rain was too much upstairs!  For the rest of the time, we all slept on the upstairs deck.
 JohnD "chilling"... looking forward to getting his fishing rod in the water!
 My beloved sister Jenny! I don't know how you do it all Jen. You are truly WONDERWOMAN!
And her Kyra ... so grown up now.
YES! That's a "Fishing for a Mission" Shirt!   Ken had warned me he was not going to shave until he had caught a fish, so we were ALL relieved when he reeled this little one in! 
 Even Scallywags caught!
 This must be what heaven is like!  MINUS THE MOZZIES! ;)
The heavy rain made fishing challenging, as the water was quite dirty in places... but there was no lack of enthusiasm.
 This was a GOOD day! Nyummy !!!
 Our Treasures!
 
 Cooling off at the back of the boat.... we certainly couldn't dive in to cool off... too many crocs!
Our dearest one and only Derek Zartmann... THE MAN - who made it all happen for us! Thank you so much! Treasured memories for a lifetime. xxx
Michael and JohnD ... such great buddies. Both of these young men start their High School Career this week. Good Luck Mr Mike Man! He will be going to Peter House, in Zimbabwe... also boarding.
YES! This was the VERY FIRST TIGER caught in the five days! I sure let them ALL know I caught the first one!  I'm way too competitive not to maximise whatever I can  ;) 
Our "Floating Caravan" as Micaela called it!  The Djoya. Can take a maximum of 12, and really quite a cleverly designed monohul.
JohnD was the only one to catch a "bottle nose", quite an interesting fish!  He also "won" for getting the biggest tiger and bream!  Michael won for the biggest Cat Fish! AND the MOST FISH TOTAL!  He is a fishing monster... reeling them in one after the other. Just has the touch.
JohnD and Michael with Stanley, the Captain.  He certainly was amazing in his patience with us all, helping bait our hooks, unhook our fish, and continually coming up with plans to catch more FISH! 
Well, we are "nose to the grindstone" now, in preparation for our annual Feb USA marketing trip. We drop the children both at Merensky tomorrow morning, and thus begins a new era in our lives.
I hope to convince JohnD to put his uniform on ... so that I can get a picture for you all!

1 comment:

  1. Hello Joanne. My name is Brian Townsend and I saw the picture and post including Derek Zartmann and am wondering how to contact him. I went to High School here in the US (Derek was a foreign exchange student) at Moline High School in Moline IL, USA. He was a great friend in HS but then had to return home to Zimbabwe in 1984. I’d like to get in touch with him again if possible as it has been 35 years! Does he have a web site for his business or a website? Let me know. Thank you!

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