My Carolina Skiff D series 24 was the perfect boat for my diamond mining expedition to Africa. I did several months of planning and quite a bit of research for a boat with a very shallow draft and a very large cargo capacity, and I settled on the Carolina Skiff. Our team bought the boat used from an owner in South Carolina and it came with a 90 hp Evinrude engine. I needed a shallow draft boat to use as a working platform in the Sewa River in Sierra Leone, West Africa. As the principal project manager for a mining project, I needed a dredge tender for a Keene 8040 Diamond and Gold Dredge. You could actually load the boat up to the gills with gear and it would perform beautifully. Before I sent the boat over in a 48-foot container, I did have the chance to do a couple of practice runs to a couple of local lakes here in Georgia: Lake Lanier and Lake West Point. The boat would plane very quickly and, for a flat-bottomed boat, was quite fast and dry.
The beauty of the Carolina Skiff 24 in Africa was the shallow draft. African rivers during the dry season resulted in shallow areas that were infested with rocks and boulders. I was able to navigate those areas with ease with a spotter on the bow of the D24. With a width of 91 inches, it just barely squeezed into the container’s 92-inch width. We made the trailer into a cradle for the container, which consisted of specially welded slots for heavy-duty casters that held the trailer on the floor of the container without the tires on the trailer, but allowed the trailer and boat to be rolled in and out of the container. We used a rubber tired frontloader to ease the boat into the container. After a four-week voyage across the Atlantic, the “Sewa Queen” was unloaded at our campsite along the Sewa River.
I had several utility plans for the “Sewa Queen.” I had four extra six-gallon fuel tanks and two 12-gallon tanks just in case I had to evacuate by river to the sea. Our campsite was only 50 miles away from the Liberian border and there was intense fighting between rebel and government forces in 2003. So every day the UN helicopter gunships would fly over, heading for the border to make sure that the fighting didn’t cross over into Sierra Leone. If things got too hot, I had plans to evacuate and try and make a run for the Atlantic Ocean via the river.
Once on site, we had problems finding equipment to unload the boat from the container. Being several hundred miles in the interior of the country, heavy equipment was rare. One of my workmen suggested that we could carry the boat to the river. The villagers of Waima actually lifted the boat up and carried it a 100 yards to the river … It took about 30 to 40 people to lift the boat! At the river and after only a couple of minutes of connecting the gas tank, the engine fired up and I was cruising on the Sewa River in Africa feeling like I was Humphrey Bogart aboard the African Queen! I should note that the D 24 was probably the largest boat on the Sewa River.
On one of my first trips up river, I had the mining warden with me and we happened upon several illegal miners on our lease. The warden promptly instructed me to navigate over to them where upon he confiscated their diving and mining equipment. This presented a big problem for me, as I didn’t wish to be perceived as an ally of the government, which could have prompted some armed reprisals against me and my mining operation, Sierra Geo Resources. Later, I was able to distance myself from the situation by claiming I was ordered by the mining warden to help him with his enforcement task. I loved traveling up the river as most people along the banks I encountered had the look of amazement as they had never seen a boat of that size before, much less moving at the speed I would sometimes attain.
On the day of the project invocation ceremony, I took several of the village elders and chief on a short ride up the river. The “Sewa Queen” was also given a blessing from the women of the village for safe journeys, and to protect it from the river demons. I was later to find out that the river demon would scare off my security detail from the boat as it was guarded at night to prevent any theft or vandalism. Although I never encountered the “River Demon,” I came to believe it was a either a large snake or a fresh water crocodile, though no one had actually seen it.
One night a very loud splash was heard near the boat and the security detail fled in fear for their lives, screaming it was the “River Demon.” Upon hearing this, I promptly got my Mossberg 12 gauge riot marine shotgun and announced that I was going down to the river to kick the “River Demon’s” butt, which awed and amazed my crew. I said loudly that I have “River Demons” for lunch. But the reality was that, with a shotgun in my hands, I wasn’t “skeered” of much of anything! After searching the area with a handheld spotlight, I didn’t see anything at the river that night.
At the mining site we had a six-day a week work schedule. On Fridays when half of my crew observed the Sabbath, I would take the boat down river to fish and relax. I never had any problems with the boat other than a broken prop which I cracked hitting a rock one day. I later installed a rock guard for the prop.
I wished I was able to have shipped the D 24 back to America after our project, though it was too cost prohibitive. I am hoping that it will be put to good use in Africa, working, fishing or saving lives. Periodic floods there wash out the roads and the river is the only way to move from place to place. The Carolina Skiff was one of the best boats I have ever had and even though I don’t own a boat now, I have resigned myself to hoping for a new JVX 18 or 20 center console, as soon as I can afford one! I will name it the either the “Little Queen” or the “Sewa Princess,” as I am sure it will remind me of my days in Africa with the Carolina Skiff D24 aptly named the “Sewa Queen!”
About the Author:
J.L. “Jai” Powell is a native of Atlanta, GA and, as his story indicates, was the onsite Project Manager for Sierra Geo-Resources, LLC in 2003. As the Expedition and Project Planner, he had total project planning responsibility and directed the diamond and gold mining operations in the Bo region of Sierra Leone, West Africa. In America, he hunts gold, gemstones, fossils and coins for fun. He is presently planning a National Geographic-sponsored underwater archeological expedition to the site of three suspected Spanish slave ships in the Bermuda Archipelago. Jai is a principal of Powell & Associates, a corporate behavioral services firm specializing in program management for violence prevention in the workplace.
Personally, Powell is an avid outdoorsman whose hobbies include, skydiving, hiking, camping, fishing, hunting, rifle and skeet shooting, mountain biking, kayaking, and nature and underwater photography. He has training or experience levels in intermediate mountaineering, rock climbing, expert backpack, camping and distance hiking, backpacking, winter camping, skiing, mountain biking, kayaking, sailing, motorcycling, bow & gun hunting, skeet & trap target shooting, freshwater and saltwater fishing, spear fishing, skydiving, and interests in underwater archeology, wildlife and fisheries conservation, and astronomy.
Powell is a PADI-certified Dive Master with the Atlanta Underwater Explorers Club and is PADI-, NAUI-, and NSS CDS Cavern-Certified SCUBA diver with over seven certifications for underwater specialties and advanced training. He has dived in the Peacock Springs Cavern System in northern Florida and numerous locations in the Caribbean and Central America. He is a former aerial video photographer, and did a photo expedition of seven southwest U.S. national parks in 2005.
