The Lost Coast of Gabon - Western equitorial Africa
February 2004

Team: Jon Bowermaster • Sofia Etouck • Pete McBride • Michael Fay • Aime Jessy
Photos: Peter McBride

My friend and colleague at the National Geographic Society Mike Fay and I had been talking for many years about combining our twin interests - conservation and exploration - to see a part of Gabon he did not yet know. While he had walked the breadth of the Congo - famously, during his 1999-2000 Megatransect, which took one-and-a-half years, 2,000 miles through the densest of jungles - there were still parts of the country accessible only by water, which we went to investigate.

Accompanied by photographer Peter McBride and two Gabonese eco-guides, we made an exhausting and exhilarating circumnavigation of Gabon's jewel of a national park, Loango. Bordered by the Atlantic Ocean and stretching 40 miles into the jungled-interior, we kayaked and portaged more than 200 miles around the park's perimeter, seeing this wild country from a new and different perspective. Along the way we encountered river-swimming elephants, manatees, tarpon, surfing hippos, gorillas and more. By trip's end it was hard to decide which was the most beautiful, and the most difficult, parts of the expedition. But it was eye opening, for us all.'

Photo Gallery

Gabon Slideshow

Gabon is among the least populated African countries, with just over 1 million inhabitants. This scene on the coast near the capital city of Libreville, at the end of a Sunday afternoon, is typically calm. With an abundance of oil and forests, Gabon's economy has long been strong. But a new environmental awareness has reached the country recently, addressing concerns that those resources won't last forever and that the existing forests and coastline must be protected against overdevelopment.

Our exploration took us up rivers, across lagoons and lakes, and onto the Atlantic Ocean, as we explored the boundaries of the new national park, Loango. Here, Aime inspects a mangrove forest from the perspective of a calm river.

To move from lagoon-to-lagoon we were forced to pull the kayaks overland through the jungle, along an abandoned path. Though just 18 kilometers long, the crossing took us the better part of three days, in part thanks to the many trees knocked across the path by browsing elephants.

Paddling upriver one night as dark approached we found ourselves far from solid land to put up camp. So . . . pulling into a flooded forest we tied the kayaks off to the base of trees, set our tents on top of the kayaks and in most cases had a pretty good nights sleep. (Pete McBride's kayak, unfortunately, filled with water during the night, making for a more-than-restless night.) The torrential downpour that began as we set up our tents worried us; if the river rose, our gear would be swept away, boats overturned.

What made this expedition different from my other OCEANS 8 adventures was primarily the big animals we saw . . . everywhere. Here an elephant gives us a curious eye through the forest. He was not alone - we saw elephants swimming across the river in front of us, browsing in oceanfront forests and foraging nonchalantly for baobob fruits on the beach 12 feet from where we cooked dinner.

The jungle portage took its toll on even the toughest of tires. Long, narrow, hard-to-see spikes meant that within the first day we had 10 - out of 10 - flats, requiring hours of repair. We had little choice but to fix the tires as best we could; once we were into the middle of the forest, pulling the kayaks ahead to the other side was our only option.

The occasional swamp also presented logistical difficulties. Trying not to get sucked in, fall down, lose your balance (or your Tevas!) and swim in the muck was a real challenge.

One night, camped on a beautiful oceanside beach, the night sky was lighted by an hours-long thunderstorm.

At dusk on the Louri Lagoon, paralleling the ocean, a family of elephants crossed the shallow waterway just in front of us. Parents with trunks on the tails of the infants, they were oblivious to us. A great advantage of traveling by kayak was that their quiet approach allowed us to get close to a variety of big animals, from buffalo, hippos and monkeys, as well a wide variety of elephants.

At day's end, following a 30-kilometer upriver paddle, all looks calm. And it was.

Fishing is the main economy of the locals we met along the way. Here a small boy parallels a net being dried and repaired, near a small village, population 10. It is a difficult way to make a living, in part because markets for the fish are more than a day away. One result is that many locals are finding employment with the new national park.

Mike Fay, in a solitary moment near trip's end. His efforts in Gabon, blessed by the country's president, have helped create 13 new national parks. Two months after our expedition, he would depart on a nine-month long flyover of the entire African continent, trying to identify - and ultimately preserve - more wild places.

At the end of our expedition - a difficult adventure thanks to the never-ceasing heat and humidity, long days of paddling and portaging - we came away with a far better understanding of what it will take to help preserve this jewel in Gabon's park system.

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