#flathal #flatstanley #dakar #senegal
Dakar is a large city! The city proper is home to over a million people, and the surrounding metropolitan area pushes the population closer to four million. The city seemed to stretch as far as the eye could see — with a vast cargo port.
Interestingly, our captain mentioned the water was relatively shallow so we were very careful sailing in and out. Often, when shallow water is a problem engineers will come in with special equipment to find a solution.
In Dakar, Flat Hal and Flat Stanley saw a new kind of ship just after we left the protected area of the cargo port.
Imagine the land at the bottom of the ocean as dirt, like you see on a playground. Now imagine you want a track on which you can run sprints, but the dirt is rough, and hilly. It’s hard to run fast with the terrain creating obstacles. Equipment could be brought in to level the dirt… a dredger is equipment that moves dirt! Dredgers are brought to places where the dirt underwater is too high, and uneven. The dredger moves the dirt, lowering the level, and flattening it to make a level, deeper channel, in this case for ships to sail through.