A boat trip on Lake Naivasha

After lunch, Omondi drove us to Lake Naivasha Resort to catch a boat across the lake to the national park on Crescent Island, which is actually a peninsula, not an island 😂.

Omondi introduced us to Rastaman, our boatman, and left us to it. We were kitted out with life jackets and set off on the hour-long boat trip to the island. We were interested to see local fishermen perched on the submerged stumps of dead trees killed when water levels rose a few years ago. In some cases, it looked like they were sitting on the surface of the lake! Rastaman told us they stay out there for hours at a time. Other fishermen were setting Seine nets, just like they do in Tobago. He also pointed out the public beach with sheep being driven along it.

Rastaman proved to be very good at pointing out bird species as we went along. He also threw tilapia to encourage the African fish eagles to swoop down and get them. This was a successful ruse on a couple of occasions, but I wasn’t quick enough to capture it on video. Apart from the eagles, we saw:

• A maribou stork
• Lots of pelicans
• Egyptian geese
• Eurasian coots
• Numerous ducks of various unknown varieties!
• Some great cormorants
• A long-tailed cormorant
• A giant kingfisher
• African jacanas
• A blacksmith plover
• A pied kingfisher
• Several sacred ibis
• African snipe
• An Egyptian egret
• A few African spoonbillsRead more