Sad News and Bad News from the Nile

Very sad news yesterday, as we were returned from our day trip down to Itunda, we were told one of the French paddlers had swum on the standard 'hump' line (the holes are quite sticky at these low levels). He was swimming towards the eddy and then disappeared into the seamline between the water flowing from ribcage and the water coming out from the hump (not a major eddyline by any means), he did not resurface. It is thought he had a foot entrapment. Our thoughts are with his family who received the news last night, and with his friends - particularly those who were with him and were helpless to do anything to help. Some of our group later went to see if they could see him in one of the eddy's, there was nothing else we could do to help. Some of his kit was found but sadly his body has not yet been recovered. It seems it was a very unlucky accident (the first of this kind on the Nile) and is a very sobering event, although the Nile River is generally friendly it is still a serious piece of water and needs to be treated with respect.

The water level situation seems very trivial after what happened yesterday, but the water level of the lake is now so low that they are releasing 40% less water out of the dam. This means that all of the traditional playspots will no longer exist, although there may perhaps be some others that turn up. This again seems trivial as we are not the ones that are really affected by this, as all of the businesses and residential areas in the Kampala/Jinja area have to exist with very little electricity - it is switched off for 12 hours every other day. Very few people can afford to buy/run a fuel-run generator. Everyone is hoping the rainy season will kick off soon.