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Voyage experience with Captain Johnson Gariba on Dodi Princess
He can simply be described as the veteran and commander who has been cruising smoothly on the Volta Lake for the past 48 years without any form of accident on the lake. Even after hitting the official age of retirement at 60 in 2014, he was given a contract to continue to do what he knows best.
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He played a vital role in evacuating materials for the building of major bridges around the Volta Lake.
Captain Gariba is the mastermind behind all the exciting cruises on the Dodi Princess II in Akosombo in the Eastern Region. Once you decide to go and have fun at Dodi World, Ghana’s foremost cruising destination which offers a unique package of adventure, entertainment, history and education on the beautiful banks of the Volta River, then you can definitely not miss the captain on board.
Looking smart in an all-white uniform with a cap to match, Captain Gariba offers a memorable voyage experience on board the 150-capacity pleasure boat, the famous MV Dodi Princess II, to Dodi Island, an 84-hectare island located five kilometres off the shore of the Lake Volta. It provides tourists and holidaymakers with an opportunity to experience nature, as well as enjoy the daring thrills on varied water sports equipment.
On Mother’s Day, The Mirror team took some mothers from Accra to Akosombo for a fun-filled voyage with Captain Gariba and his team and the experience left multifold excitement on the minds of the guests on board.
As a result, The Mirror decided to share in the cruising exploits of the sexagenarian who is the leader of the entire vessel, whose expertise includes navigation, operation of the ship's equipment and monitoring of duties performed by all crew members.
Cruise ideologies
For Captain Gariba who has worked with almost all the boats on the Volta Lake, the duties on the ship go far beyond the scope of a management position as the ship captain must be proficient in every aspect of running a ship, from ship operation to maintenance, and in the instance of touring ships, playing host to the passengers.
The entire success of a ship's voyage lies on the captain's shoulders and how well he or she manages the crew.
“Every ship is like a woman, so always polish it like a woman. Although it may sound strange to refer to an inanimate object as ‘she’, this tradition relates to the idea of a female figure such as a mother or goddess guiding and protecting a ship and crew. That is why we give them names of women such as Queen Elizabeth, MV Dodi Princess, Auntie Dede among others,” he said.
Inspiration for navigation
Touching on the motivation behind him becoming a captain of a ship, Captain Gariba disclosed to The Mirror that he wanted to become a professional teacher.
“As a pupil teacher, one day I left Tamale in the Northern Region to Atebubu, which is now in the Bono East Region, for an interview for admission to the teacher’s training college. When I joined the ferry at Yeji, I saw how the captain was steering the vessel so I became thrilled and decided to talk to the superintendent and enquired if I could also learn to steer the ferry,” he recounted.
According to him, the superintendent asked if he wanted to be trained and he answered in the affirmative. “As a result of this, I went for an interview and I was picked as a coxswain trainee. The master I was to serve was from Ada in the Greater Accra Region. He wasn’t educated but was very excellent at his work. I studied about the deck, engine and captain’s bride for three years,” he stated.
After three years of training, he was sent to then Ghana Nautical College, now known as the Regional Maritime University, based in Accra in 1976. “There, I met people from various countries such as Liberia, Cameroun and Nigeria and I studied for a one-year programme and went back to Yeji after completion and worked with the Ghana Highways,” he said.
Captain Gariba said in 1984, there was a merger of Ghana Highways and Volta Lake Transport; therefore, he stayed in Yeji until 1986 and moved to Akosombo to date.
He recalled his involvement in Operation Team 85 which had the Ghana Navy and Ghana Army with their counterparts from Nigeria, Burkina Faso and Togo who he had to ferry for a month to Dwarf Island within the Afram Plains where they were having a military exercise.
“The late President J.J Rawlings and late President Thomas Sankara of Burkina Faso were all part of that operation, so I had the opportunity to work with them at close range by picking them from Akosombo to Dwarf Island for a month. I have also been on the ‘Onipa Nua’ boat,” he said.
“The VRA used to run hospitals in Accra, Akosombo and Aboadze equipped with excellent facilities and provided free specialist and general medical care to communities along the Volta Lake accessible only by boat, through its medical boat christened MV Onipa Nua. I was on the Onipa Nua as well from 1995 to 2016,” he said.
Night tales on the Volta Lake
Although the veteran captain has an unblemished record of accidents, he was quick to say sometimes there were challenges with windstorms and heavy rains. “Therefore, if you don’t know the lake so well, you might end up hitting rocks or tree stumps,” he said.
When asked about some of the tales about spirits and other scary things on the lake at night, he said it was true.
“There are times you find strange fireballs coming towards you in the middle of the lake at night and they finally go to land on a tree. However, I’m not scared because I believe in the Most High God. Sometimes you’ll be surprised to see a long pole in the middle of the lake or some heaviness at some sections of the lake and instantly I feel it, but we always sail through successfully by his grace,” he intimated.
He recounted a sad situation when he lost his second in command. “We were coming from Kete Krachi and Victor went to fetch water whilst on board. Unfortunately, he went overboard. I put on my searchlight and stayed on the river for about three hours to look for him but it proved futile. Another time, I was coming from Buipe, the capital of Central Gonja District in the Savannah Region with some white men and one of them went down. However, he dived and was saved. But my ship or boat being involved in an accident, that has never happened to me.
I sometimes meet other smaller boats which have capsized and I have to give a helping hand on the Volta Lake many times,” he recounted.
Captain Gariba, who was born in 1954, hails from Bunkpurugu, the capital of Bunkpurugu-Yunyoo District in the North East Region, adjacent to the border with Togo. He is a devout Muslim with four daughters and two sons who are all Christians.
“I believe in religious tolerance so I don’t interfere in their religion and that of my wife Comfort,” the captain, who is also an Alhaji, indicated.