Qualla: Turtle Islands https://qualla.com/turtle-islands-sierra-leone en-us © 2026 Bendyline Wed, 08 Jul 2026 02:40:09 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_res/siteimages/rsslogo.png Qualla: Turtle Islands https://qualla.com/turtle-islands-sierra-leone Turtle Islands: Introduction https://qualla.com/turtle-islands-sierra-leone/ There is an island here called Hoong that no visitor may set foot on, and no woman at all. It is reserved for initiated men, kept apart for rites of passage older than any map of this coast. Hoong is one of eight islands strung across shallow turquoise water and white sandbanks off the southern coast of Sierra Leone - the Turtle Islands, a place so remote that reaching it means a three-hour boat ride from Freetown and a willingness to travel without guarantees. Seven of the eight are inhabited. All of them belong, in spirit, to the Sherbro people, who have fished these waters and sung over them for generations.

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]]> Sun, 14 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/e/9/q/e/turtle-islands-sierra-leone-wp/e9qe-turtle-islands-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Turtle Islands: Eight Names on the Water https://qualla.com/turtle-islands-sierra-leone/ The archipelago scatters across roughly eight miles of shallows: Yele, Bakie, Bumpetuk, Chepo, Hoong, Mut, Nyangai, and Sei. They lie west of Sherbro Island in the Bonthe District, low slips of sand and palm barely lifted above the Atlantic. There is almost no tourist infrastruct...

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]]> Sun, 14 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/e/9/q/e/turtle-islands-sierra-leone-wp/e9qe-turtle-islands-eight-names-on-the-water.mp3 0:06 2 full Turtle Islands: Evenings of Bravery and Romance https://qualla.com/turtle-islands-sierra-leone/ The Sherbro are, by every account, deeply social people, and the islands' evenings belong to community. When the day's fishing is done, people gather in groups to drink and sing - traditional songs whose themes run to bravery and romance, the two great subjects of seafaring cultu...

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]]> Sun, 14 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/e/9/q/e/turtle-islands-sierra-leone-wp/e9qe-turtle-islands-evenings-of-bravery-and-romance.mp3 0:06 3 full Turtle Islands: The Ground Gives Way https://qualla.com/turtle-islands-sierra-leone/ But the islands are losing their fight with the sea. On Nyangai, the largest of the eight, erosion has eaten steadily into the shoreline, shrinking the land and forcing the population to contract along with it. The community tried planting mangroves to hold the soil, the classic ...

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]]> Sun, 14 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/e/9/q/e/turtle-islands-sierra-leone-wp/e9qe-turtle-islands-the-ground-gives-way.mp3 0:06 4 full Turtle Islands: A Country With an Expiration Date https://qualla.com/turtle-islands-sierra-leone/ The numbers are bleak. Rising sea levels have already reduced Nyangai's surface area and, with it, the number of people who can live there, and the environmental expert Joseph Rahall has estimated that the Turtle Islands could be entirely submerged by 2040 - within the lifetime o...

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]]> Sun, 14 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/e/9/q/e/turtle-islands-sierra-leone-wp/e9qe-turtle-islands-a-country-with-an-expiration-date.mp3 0:06 5 full