Afternoon Crossing to Ngor, Senegal

Fanta here.

The pirogue leaves from the small beach in Ngor village, wood painted blue and peeling at the edges. The crossing takes only a few minutes, but the air shifts. Dakar softens behind us. The engine hums. Salt settles on my forearms.

Ngor Island sits just off the tip of the Cap Vert peninsula, small and self contained. No cars. Sandy lanes. Low houses in faded pink and cream. In 1940, during the Second World War, French colonial forces and Allied ships clashed with Vichy troops just offshore in what became known as the Battle of Dakar. The island watched quietly, as islands do, holding its shape while history moved across the water.

Today it feels domestic. In the seventies, surfers began coming here for the break on the western side, reading the waves long before surf shops appeared in Dakar.

I sit near the shore and listen to the tide folding in and out. Someone is frying fish nearby. The scent drifts through the narrow path and mixes with sea air. Nothing announces itself. The island does not perform. It simply lives, a few minutes from the mainland, older than the stories we tell about it.