Latest Canoeing Hazard: Hippos
15 Dec
To the list of canoeing hazards like rocks, low-head dams, sweepers, and strainers we should apparently add hippos, at least when paddling in Africa.
Three British scout leaders, who were undertaking a 2,500 mile paddle down the Niger River in a dugout canoe, had their boat overturned by an unseen hippopotamus submerged in the water.
“It burst on us like a submarine-launched missile,” paddler Brian Sheen told the BBC in THIS story.
The paddlers, who lost their canoe in the incident, ditched most of their gear and hiked for five days back to a village they passed earlier in the trip.
As THIS earlier BBC story reports, the group intended to retrace the route of John and Richard Lander who paddled the Niger in the mid 19th century.
