Into the Unknown: The Boat Ride to Mary Slessor Island

The boat ride to Mary Slessor Island is not for the faint-hearted — and I mean that as the highest compliment. The journey takes you deep into the creek systems around Calabar, the waterways growing narrower and quieter with every bend until the sound of the city is entirely gone and all that remains is the cut of the boat through dark water, the dense wall of mangroves on either side, and the occasional startled bird breaking the silence overhead. It is genuinely suspenseful — in the best, most alive way. The island itself carries the quiet legacy of Mary Slessor, the remarkable Scottish woman who lived among these communities in the 19th century, fought against the killing of twins, and became one of the great human rights figures of her era. To arrive here by water, as she once did, is to feel history close around you like the mangroves themselves.