Little ferries

Thought you might appreciate this photo taken from the Africa Mercy's bridge, showing the little ferries moored by our bow. The one on the left and the one of the right carry hundreds of passengers and tons of cargo between Benin and Gabon, on the west coast of central Africa. I doubt either of them are seaworthy by our standards (certainly their sewage systems aren't, for this is where most of the raw sewage in the port comes from!) The ship in the middle is mostly abandoned with only a handful of unpaid Nigerian seamen keeping watch. All the passengers must climb from one ship to the other to get ashore, and only last week a passenger fell between the ships and died. Click on photo to enlarge. Olly