Congo River

The last few blips were covering at least a couple of million tons of industrial steel. This one is a little bit more fragile. We are at anchor on Cabinda Anchorage, waiting to depart with the Ayang II. This anchorage is a couple of miles offshore and very close to the influence of the Congo River Estuary. The Congo River is the second-longest river in Africa (after the Nile), rising near the border of Zambia and the Democratic Republic of Congo and flowing 4,500 km to the Atlantic Ocean, running in a great curve that crosses the Equator twice, and discharging a volume of water second only to the Amazon River. The Congo is the only African river with a true estuary, the bottom being a great canyon extending 160 km out to sea and reaching in some places a depth of 1,219 m below the normal sea level. And that is where the high current rates are coming from on location. Miles and miles offshore you'll see small islands of grass, sometimes even with small trees on it. Some of them are up to 10 meters wide. With still a lot of insects living on and in it. The outflow of the river attracts a lot of fish and the fish attracts a lot of birds like these two Sandwich Terns (?) fighting for a place to rest on our anchor light in the foremast.