The night was so calm the plop of a fish snatching an insect shocked the silence. Out on the lake the lights of kapenta rigs glowed like a string of pearls and the water around us was so still it completed the curve of the Milky Way.

Lying on deck, I held off sleep watching satellites and meteors stitching the tapestry of the 100 billion stars overhead. In the hour before dawn the bay in which Lady Jacqueline had anchored seemed to be holding its breath. Then a tear of light separated the mopane-ridged hill from the sky and leaked opal across the water. The glow gradually yellowed to old gold, painting soft pink a scattering of clouds in the west.

I became aware of a sound – soft white noise. A breeze shifted my mosquito net and the hiss revealed itself as small ripples lapping the side of the boat. Guineafowl chatter alerted a fish eagle who woke a greenspotted dove and night was relegated to memory. Albert arrived with coffee and rusks.