Day 312, Year 5 Cleaning and Computer Repair

September 3rd, 2010

Day 312, Year 5 Cleaning and Computer Repair
Date: Friday, September 3, 2010
Weather: Beautiful Day
Location: Nosy Sakatia, NW Madagascar

Mark left at 7:15 am this morning and returned at 5 pm. The computer shop in Hell-ville worked all day to solve our problems and they downloaded and installed every possible fix and anti-virus program that many of you have sent to us as suggestions. But we won’t know for at least 24 hours whether or not everything they have done has really gotten to the root of the problem. And since we are leaving here tomorrow morning and heading north where we will not have cell service, we might not know until we return to this area in a week or so whether or not the problem is solved. But we think we are making progress and we thank our son Justin, our friend Alan Kanegsberg in New Hampshire, and our friends Neil and Ley on Crystal Blues currently in Singapore for all their advice and suggestions. Hopefully something will work!

I spent my day getting into storage areas and reorganizing and cleaning out any food that looked suspicious. I also went through my clothes and took out anything that I want to give away. It was not exciting, but it is a good feeling to clean out and get rid of those things that are no longer good or useful. This evening we went up to Sakatia Towers and had a great evening on the deck with Constance, Dream Catcher, Muneera, Irene, and John’s special guests, Dr. John and Pam. John and Pam were good friends of John’s parents in South Africa and this was their last night in Madagascar. So a good time was had by all.

Tomorrow morning we leave at 6 am headed north to Nosy Mitsio with Bruce, Nadine, and their daughter Tristen on Pioneer. We are not sure what the winds will be like as we head north, so we will just start our trek and see how things go. Every day is an adventure here, so tomorrow will be no exception. And while on the subject of winds, we are certainly thinking of daughter Heather and her family on Cape Cod. This morning I heard from my sister that lives on the border between North Carolina and South Carolina and she felt like they were being skirted by Earl and would have no serious effects. Our daughter Heather on Cape Cod also wrote and said they were expecting to feel the effects of Earl tonight (Friday). So we will wait and see what happens. We surely hope this hurricane decides to head out to sea before reaching Cape Cod.

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Day 311, Year 5 Quiet Sakatia Day

September 2nd, 2010

Day 311, Year 5 Quiet Sakatia Day
Date: Thursday, September 2, 2010
Weather: Partly Cloudy Morning, Clear & Windy Afternoon
Location: Nosy Sakatia, NW Madagascar

Finally, a quiet day. We have been having too much fun the past few days and it was time for a rest. I re-wrote all of the emails I lost yesterday and that took all morning. Mark went up to Sakatia Towers to see John and to make arrangements to go to town with him tomorrow. John called the Hell-ville computer guru for Mark and made an appointment for 8 am. Mark spent much of the remainder of the day trying to find out what is infecting the files on his computer, but he was unsuccessful. This computer virus is quite tricky, but hopefully tomorrow’s trip to town will finally solve the problem. But even with all the problems, we were able to get online this morning, albeit briefly, and get an update on Hurricane Earl. What we read this morning indicated that it is picking up steam and heading north along the east coast of the US. Our daughter wrote and said they are expecting Earl to hit Cape Cod on Friday night. I sure hope something happens to send this guy out to sea before it gets that far north.

We spent much of our afternoon underwater. Low tide was mid-afternoon and it wasn’t as clear as usual, but we still enjoyed the sights. I saw a new wrasse today with the most beautiful turquoise and pink coloring. And I was able to finally get a photo of the juvenile phase of the Blunthead Platax. The adult Blunthead is commonly called a batfish, a type of spadefish, that loves to live around anchored yachts in Chagos and eat all the garbage thrown overboard. They are a flat fish as big as a dinner plate. The juvenile is all head with a very long fin going up and a another very long fin going down and then two smaller fins extending downward from just under its mouth. I had the underwater camera today and was practicing, so my photos of this fish are not as good as they would have been had Mark been doing the photography, but at least I now have a picture of it. We also saw the beautiful juvenile phase of the Imperor Angelfish today, so it was a successful snorkel. And just as we got in the dinghy to return to Windbird, we saw hump-backed dolphins in the anchorage. So it was a good day.

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Day 310, Year 5 One Fish, Two Fish, Big Fish, Little Fish

September 1st, 2010

Day 310, Year 5 One Fish, Two Fish, Big Fish, Little Fish
Date: Wednesday, September 1, 2010
Weather: Partly Cloudy, Clearing in the Afternoon
Location: Nosy Sakatia, NW Madagascar

At 6:15 am Mark, Ed from Constance, and Nick from Muneera left on Dream Catcher with Barry and his two eldest sons, Michael and Bradley for a day of fishing. While the fishermen were out and about, Tina and her daughter Candice and son Devon of Dream Catcher, and Andrea and her daughters Millie and Ella of Muneera hung out on the beach. I spent the four morning hours writing long overdue emails, and when I put them on a memory stick and put that in Mark’s computer to send them, they somehow lost their formatting and became digital gibberish. I do this every day and just can’t figure out how this could have happened. I could have cried, but instead I went to the beach and joined the crew there and just enjoyed the afternoon.

Mid-afternoon the fishermen returned with one huge Trevally, two big Spanish Mackerels. They caught a few small fish, and one huge Sailfin (like a Marlin) that was so big that it got away after making a show by skipping over the water on it’s tail. The fishermen also saw at least seven whales, three pairs and a single. So it was a good day out on the water.

We went to Pioneer to have dinner with Bruce, Nadine, and their seven year-old daughter Tristen. Bruce put some of the fish from the marathon fishing event on the grill and we ate and made plans for our trip north in the next couple of days. Tomorrow we will either stay here and prepare to leave on Friday or Saturday or we will head to Hell-ville in the boat to have the computer scanned for problems one more time and then we will head north. In either case, we should be in Nosy Mitsio by Saturday or Sunday.

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Day 309, Year 5 Baksheesh!

August 31st, 2010

Day 309, Year 5 Baksheesh!
Date: Tuesday, August 31, 2010
Weather: Overcast with Occasional Drizzle
Location: Nosy Sakatia, NW Madagascar

The September edition of Cruising World has an article in it by Fatty Goodlander. It is called “Baksheesh!” and is all about our good friends Robert and Tina of Shirena. Baksheesh is the term for the under the table “gifts” you have to give officials in Egypt and other parts of that part of the world. If you can get a copy of the September Cruising World you can read the article to find out how the whole experience got to be just a little too much for Fatty. If you have been following this log, you probably remember that Robert had a heart attack in Egypt. Robert is Zbyszek Wasilewicz but always introduces himself as Robert. His reasoning is that Zbyszek is just too difficult for people to remember. We spent Christmas and New Year’s with Robert and Tina in Thailand this year and when we had a farewell dinner on New Year’s Day I gave Robert a bottle of wine called Robert’s Rock. I told him if he made it through the Gulf of Aden he was to drink the wine and that we would start calling him by his real name. Shirena made it, so we now call him Zbyszek. But in the article Fatty calls him Robert so I will continue to call him that here. On January 2, Shirena sailed out of Patong Beach and headed for Uligan in the Maldives and then for Salalah in Oman. At that time, none of us would ever have dreamed that Robert would have a serious heart attack in just a few months. As Fatty describes the situation in Egypt in the Cruising World article we relived the whole horrible time again. Fatty and Carolyn Goodlander on Wildcard and Tom and Nicolette Samson on Katanne were ahead of Robert and Tina and were already in Israel. After Robert’s heart attack Fatty and Tom flew back to Egypt to sail Shirena to Israel, but the trouble they had with officials in Egypt is what the article is all about. At this time, Shirena is still in Israel and Robert and Tina are back home in Australia. They do hope to be back cruising next season, but I know they won’t be returning to Egypt. The picture Fatty paints of Egypt’s officials is not a pretty one. Reading the article made me even happier about our decision to come south.

Here on Windbird, the oven has been on nonstop since 10 am and because of the drizzle we have had to keep the all the hatches closed. So its about 89 degrees F in here-not as hot as it was the whole time we were in India, but hotter than we have been used to recently. I baked two loaves of banana bread, two loaves of wheat bread, baked two chickens we bought in town yesterday, and then baked the potatoes, onions, and carrots to go with the chicken. Unfortunately the largest baking pan I have will hold two chickens but nothing else, so the chickens have to bake and then the veggies go in. This makes the cooking a long, drawn out process but the smells are scrumptious. Mark has spent the day working on this computer. It is not fixed so it is another long, drawn out process. We have been able to get mail and get online, sort of, but with online searches we get text only and no pictures, and sometimes we get nothing. Also, his Excel Spreadsheet program will not open. So he will continue to try and figure out what is going on. At some point, we will have to return to Hell-ville and stay there until the problem is fixed. In the meantime, our connection to the internet is tenuous at best, and needless to say, Mark is a bit frustrated.

This afternoon Bruce and Nadine of Pioneer returned to the anchorage and a boat we haven’t met before, Muneera, arrived. Nick and Andrea are the young couple on Muneera and they have two little girls. We talked to Bruce and Nadine on Pioneer briefly and they proposed that we head north with them in the next couple of days. We will talk to them again tomorrow about this but are seriously considering the proposal. We went to Dream Catcher for sundowners tonight with Barry and Tina and Nick and Andrea of Muneera. We had a fabulous evening sharing sailing experiences. Tomorrow Barry is taking the ‘boys’ out for a fishing expedition. At 6 am I will take our dinghy and Mark and pick up Ed on Constance and Nick on Muneera and deliver them to Dream Catcher. Since Tina and her daughter Candice will not be going on Dream Catcher, they are headed to Constance for early morning coffee. Then we will decide if the ‘girls’ will have an organized day of play as well. I like Tina’s idea of taking a book, a beach umbrella, and snorkeling gear to the beach. We can then read and snorkel our way through the day.

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Day 308, Year 5 Weather & Shop ’til You Drop.Again

August 30th, 2010

Day 308, Year 5 Weather & Shop ’til You Drop.Again
Date: Monday, August 30, 2010
Weather: Rain Early Morning and Late Afternoon
Location: Nosy Sakatia, NW Madagascar

What is going on with the weather? This is the dry season in Madagascar and we should never be getting rain during the day according to the locals. But we are. The dry season was supposed to be cooler than it has been, but it was not and already they say it is getting warmer. I have no proof of that as I am always hot, so I’ll just take their word for it. Nandipo is a restaurant in Hell-ville that is the meeting place of expats and sailors in this area. We were there today and they were saying that the northerlies are coming in already, a couple of months too soon. I don’t know if any of this will have any impact on our trip to South Africa, but it is a familiar tune. When we crossed the Pacific in the summer of 2006 we did not have the southeast trade winds that we were supposed to have. In fact, we have not had typical weather during any of the five years of our circumnavigation, so we have just decided that there is really no such thing as typical weather. But then maybe global warming has something to do with this. Something that is expected is hurricanes in the Atlantic at this time of year and we hear that Hurricane Earl could go north parallel to the East Coast of the US. We just hope that it doesn’t pick up steam and that if it does go north that it is far off-shore.

We went to Hell-ville today to take Mark’s computer in to try and get rid of the virus that has been with us for the past month and to do some shopping. We went in with John of Sakatia Towers and between us we had ten HEAVY cases of Three Horses Beer bottles to return. These bottles hold the equivalent of two normal beers, but the glass is super thick and the plastic cases are even thicker. John also had two bottles of propane to be refilled and we had two five gallon fuel jugs, so getting all of this into Anatole’s (John’s driver) small car was almost comical. But we made it. We dropped off our empty beer cases and our food orders at Ah-Kam Oliver’s and headed on into town. Oliver’s is a little Chinese shop that does an incredible business. Prices are better than at the SuperMarche in town so it is always overrun with people. By leaving the order, Oliver can then gather the things when he has a breather and has the goods and the bill ready when we return a couple of hours later. We then went on into town. Mark went to the computer shop and John and I went to the bank. Then John and I split up but before long, we all ended up at Nandipo. The computer shop had taken Mark’s hard drive out and was scanning it for virus problems and that was going to take most of the day. So we had to decide whether to leave the computer and return tomorrow or stay until late afternoon. We opted for the latter, but we had to figure out what to do with the huge load of groceries we had ordered at Oliver’s. John had an even bigger order, so I went with Anatole to pay for our order and we put everything in the back of a truck and sent it out to Chanty Beach to be carted over to Sakatia Towers. I couldn’t believe it, but between John’s order and ours plus our fuel cans and his propane tanks we filled the entire back of a small truck. That done, I returned to Nandipo. I had seen Peter and Carla of Odulphus walking on the street when I was with Anatole, so we sent them a text message to see if we could get together for lunch. We didn’t hear back from them right away, so we wandered up the street to find a restaurant John had recommended. We found the sign and were on the street looking at it when we heard Peter and Carla yell at us from the second floor. They were just in the process of sending a text message back when they saw us on the street. This, plus the fact that we knew four of the other five customers in the restaurant illustrates that Hell-ville is really a small town and we have been here long enough to know more people than we should.

We ate and talked and waited for the shops to re-open at 3 pm. Mark then returned to the computer shop, I did the super market and fresh market shopping, and we hooked up with Ann Christine, the woman who started the school on Nosy Sakatia, and we hired a taxi together to take us back to Chanty Beach. From there, John’s motor boat met us laden with our purchases from Oliver’s and we returned to Windbird. We now have most things put away and are getting ready to eat a late dinner. It was a busy day, but a good one. We have much of the shopping done for our trek to South Africa and we seem to have a computer that works and allows us to get on the internet. So once again, life is good. Tomorrow we will stay close to home, bake bread, do some cooking, and visit with Dream Catcher and Constance to discuss plans for our trip south.

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Day 307, Year 5 Sunday Lunch at Sakatia Towers

August 29th, 2010

Day 307, Year 5 Sunday Lunch at Sakatia Towers
Date: Sunday, August 29, 2010
Weather: Another Beautiful Day with Light Winds
Location: Nosy Sakatia, NW Madagascar

Today was a free and easy Sunday. We went snorkeling in search of nudibranchs. We found none but we had a great snorkel, catching the tide at just the right time to have good clarity. The big find for today was a juvenile Semicircle Angelfish. We saw an adult in the Bay of Islands in Fiji but have never seen another. The adult is large with blue, green, and yellow coloration and is not particularly spectacular. But the juvenile is dark blue with white lines that begin at the nose as vertical lines and then begin to curve until they are crescent-shaped near the tail. I saw a larger juvenile while snorkeling here a couple of weeks ago but we didn’t have the camera with us. Today we were able to get a photo of this beautiful little fish.

We had lunch on the Sakatia Towers deck with seven of John’s guests, Ed and Lynne of Constance, Claude, Aileen, and John (a visitor) of Koukouri and John, and Bruce and Bierget of Irene from South Africa and a couple visiting them from South Africa. Two of John’s guests are Australians that are leaving here and heading to Africa to climb Kilimanjaro, another young woman traveling alone from Switzerland, a couple I didn’t meet, and then an older couple that just arrived from South Africa who were very good friends of John’s parents and have known John for many years. So it was a wonderful mix of people with great food.

Tomorrow we go to Hell-ville by taxi to take Mark’s computer in to try and get rid of the virus that has been a problem for weeks now. We’ll do a little shopping and then return. At some point tomorrow, we hope to make a decision on what we are doing with the last three weeks we have here in Madagascar. One thing is for sure. We need a couple of days of down time as we have been partying nonstop since Friday. It’s a tough life but somebody’s got to do it!

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Day 306, Year 5 Proud Parents

August 28th, 2010

Day 306, Year 5 Proud Parents
Date: Saturday, August 28, 2010
Weather: Beautiful Day; SE Winds Light, PM Sea Breeze Strong
Location: Nosy Sakatia, NW Madagascar

Today our daughter’s blog went public. Here’s part of the press release that went about this: “We’re proud to announce that WGBH’s Cape Cod affiliate, WCAI, was selected as one of 12 pilot NPR (National Public Radio) stations that will curate and distribute online content about high-interest, specialized subjects. In the case of WCAI, the topic of interest is oceans and global climate change, and the reporter chosen to lead the effort after a nationwide search is WCAI’s own science reporter/editor Heather Goldstone, who has a PhD in marine biology from MIT and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. Goldstone’s task for Argo is to write and curate a daily blog on the WCAI website that will provide original reporting on all matters involving the ocean and climate change – from the very latest on the mammoth BP oil spill to shifting weather patterns to what’s going on miles below the ocean surface. Goldstone is also tasked with creating a one-stop-shopping online resource on global climate change and related topics, and will develop and lead an online community of concerned citizen-readers in discussions related to the issue.” We were able to get online yesterday just long enough to take a look at the blog site and we were very impressed. We know how Heather has struggled to find child care and start working much sooner than she expected to. But this was an opportunity she just couldn’t pass up. We talked to her late this afternoon to tell her how very proud we are of what she has accomplished in the last month to get the site up and running. She has wonderful support from NPR and that has certainly helped. So congratulations, Heather. We are very proud of your accomplishments.

We started our morning with a Sakatia snorkel. We were hoping to see nudibranchs but didn’t. Well, we did, but we didn’t know it until we looked at our pictures from the excursion and saw a pair of black and orange nudibranchs in a photo. So we’ll try again tomorrow morning when the tide is a little lower and look more carefully. We were in a bit of a hurry this morning as we needed to be ready to go with John Sheppard at 11 am to the dedication celebration for the Hotel Loharano (Tsyazo Idriana Ato). The temporary sign on the beach said all of this but we are thinking that Loharano is the name of the hotel and the rest was a greeting. It’s pretty bad when you don’t even know where you have been! We met the owners, Isaletto and Alberto (I hope I have the spelling correct, but please forgive if I do not.) at yesterday’s Rotary meeting and were graciously invited to today’s celebration. We rode in John’s boat across to Nosy Be and because of low tide, once again had to get out and wade for a bit and then walk down the beach to the hotel. It has been open for a couple of months but today was the grand opening. We entered the hotel grounds and immediately saw Joanna and Wendy that we met yesterday. They were wrapped in African-looking cloth and Joanna yelled across to us that we must go to the office to get our wrap. It was all part of the celebration, so the men wore their wraps from the waist down and women wore the material as a sarong with a second piece of material over the shoulder. The hotel has an African feel to it. The bungalows are bright orange with circular thatched roofs. There was a beautiful pool with a slide down the hill to yet another pool. The staff was busy cooking and a band was playing as we walked through the hotel grounds and back out to a knoll overlooking the beach. We sat at a table with many of the Rotary members we met yesterday and we met other hotel owners from Sakatia and the stretch of Nosy Be facing Nosy Sakatia. We ate, drank, and were merry. The whole affair was lovely. When it was time for us to leave I went to say thank you to Isaletta and Alberto. I don’t know if it is the Italian way or the Malagasy way, but my thank you was over-shadowed by Isaletto’s graciousness. She expressed how honored she was that we could be them on this very special occasion. Mark and I walked down the beach to where John’s boat would pick us up and take us back to Windbird feeling like very lucky people. John has introduced us to a wonderful community of people here and we are so much richer for our encounters here.

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Day 305, Year 5 Rotary International in Madagascar

August 27th, 2010

Day 305, Year 5 Rotary International in Madagascar
Date: Friday, August 27, 2010
Weather: Beautiful Day
Location: Nosy Sakatia, NW Madagascar

Where to begin? We left Windbird at 11:15 am this morning and just got home at 5:45 pm. It took fifteen minutes to get to Sakatia Lodge where today’s Rotary meeting was being held and another fifteen minutes to get back, so that means we attended a six hour Rotary meeting. Everything about the day fascinated us as it was so different from a Rotary meeting in Concord, New Hampshire. First, we had to go by boat and wade and walk about a quarter of mile to shore because the tide was so low, as did all of the other members. This means you arrived bare-footed and basically you stay that way. There was no reason to wear shoes. In Concord the members arrive in suits and are certainly not bare-footed! The Concord club has at least fifty members whereas the Nosy Be chapter has fourteen, but only ten were present today. Of the ten members present today, seven were women. As I remember, you can count the number of women members in Concord on one hand. So that was interesting. The Concord meeting is held in a restaurant and so was today’s meeting here, but I’m afraid the Cat ‘n Fiddle in Concord is no match for Sakatia Lodge. This club meets at a different member’s business each week and since most members are associated with the hospitality trade, it means that each meeting is held at a fantastic ocean-front resort. Sakatia Lodge is managed by Isabella and Jose from Portugal and Isabella had us come to her home for the business meeting. It was a lovely home set high on the hill with a fantastic view of the bay. The windows were all dressed with recelet curtains. Recelet is the type of cut-out embroidery done on Nosy Komba and the long table that accommodated all twelve of us had another Nosy Komba white table cloth with colorful fish embroidered all over. There were bowls of bougainvillea flowers and a typed meeting agenda at each place. The meeting was called together with the ringing of the Rotary bell and the president of the club read the Rotary message welcoming a new member. Today’s new member was Joanna, a woman who has retired here from London to try and save Madagascar’s forests and the lemurs. Another major difference from a club meeting in Concord was that this one was multi-lingual. French is the main language understood by all in attendance, except for us and Joanna. The only Malagasy members present today were Dr. Abdul (who attended to Lynne of Constance when she had her infection) and his step-daughter Sandra who has just returned here after living in London for five years serving as a public relations person for the Hilton Hotel. She was born and raised in France, so living in Madagascar is a new experience for her. She came back to take over her mother’s family farming business but she misses London terribly and doesn’t know how long she can stay here. Dr. Abdul and Sandra both speak Malagasy and French and Sandra’s English is as good as ours. Other members speak only French and some speak Portuguese and French and others German and Italian. They did try to speak English for our benefit when possible and it was fascinating to watch the way every member moved from one language to another. The business meeting was very much like any Rotary business meeting. The club has been given a grant from a Dubai club and they discussed the best way to spend the money. It will go to build a school, but deciding where to build the school was the discussion. There will be a district-wide meeting in the capitol of Madagascar and this club wants to be well represented. The district here is all of the neighboring French speaking countries-Comoros and Mayotte, Seychelles, Reunion, Mauritius and Rodrigues, Djibouti in East Africa, and Madagascar. There will also be a celebration in Majunga in October honoring that club’s 50 years in Rotary and members here want this club represented. Ann Christine, a woman from Switzerland who came here fifteen years ago and built the only school on Nosy Sakatia, just returned this morning from a trip to the capitol of Tanna and to Majunga and had first hand reports on all of these activities. Wendy, a young woman from South Africa, seemed to be the note taker today. She lives on Nosy Komba and is currently trying to get an import-export business started. She exports crafts produced by handicapped Malagasy and imports goods from displaced and handicapped Africans. We will see her again at Sunday Brunch at Sakatia Towers. She is a diver and she speared the fish we will be eating on Sunday. I could go on and on describing the fascinating backgrounds of the members present today, but I must stop myself and report on the remainder of the day.

After the meeting we went back down to the Lodge for a scrumptious meal that was brought by each of the members. Once a month they have a shared meal and today was one of those meals. Since all of the members are in the hospitality business, the food was just spectacular. They all try to outdo each other. We had a raw fish salad, marinated in gin and mixed with cucumbers, lettuce, and onions. This was provided by Isabella and Sakatia Lodge and it was spectacular. Then there was thin-sliced pork, a zebu and rice noodle salad, potato salad, cabbage salad, and a tomato, cucumber, and carrot salad. Everything was delicious and there was white and red wine in abundance and Chocolate Decadence (flourless chocolate cake) and chocolate brownies for dessert. This meal was over the top. It was the best food I have had in years.

After lunch we walked through the village to the school and drug out a huge spinnaker that was donated to the club by the yacht Selema (over a 100 feet long). This spinnaker covered an entire soccer field. Mark and I had been invited to the meeting today to help with the decision-making on how best to cut up this spinnaker to make small sails for the local pirogues, but we don’t really have that expertise and it became evident that what various members thought sometimes differed from what the local men who were present thought. So we cut off the bottom portion of the sail and cut out one square that we now have on Windbird. We will sew the edges to make a pirogue sail and give it to the locals to try. If it works, then the club members will have a pattern to use for cutting up the remainder of the spinnaker. If it doesn’t work, then I think the club will try to borrow a local sail and use that as their pattern. While the sail was laid out on the field, local children started gathering and watching the sail as it would rise with the wind. I convinced a few of them to run under the sail with me and we had a fabulous time running in and out the other side.

It was quite the day and tomorrow we start again by going to the shore of Nosy Be with John to the hotel opening of one of the Rotary members we met today. We hope to be able to get a snorkel in before we leave as the tide will be just right. Ed and Lynne went in today and had one of the best snorkeling experiences they have ever had. The water was clear, there was an abundance of fish, and they saw beautiful nudibranchs. These are sea slugs and they can be unbelievably colorful. We have looked for them all around the world and never seen them, so we will give that a go in the morning before heading to the hotel opening celebration. What a good life!

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Day 304, Year 5 Feels Like Home

August 26th, 2010

Day 304, Year 5 Feels Like Home
Date: Thursday, August 26, 2010
Weather: Beautiful; Winds ENE 8-10 Knots
Latitude: 13 18.105 S
Longitude: 048 10.660 E
Location: Nosy Sakatia, NW Madagascar

Windbird returned to Nosy Sakatia today and is anchored in front of Sakatia Towers. The only other boat here is Constance and it feels like we have returned home. Unfortunately, we had to motor most of the way here as the winds today came from the ENE all day. I don’t think we have seen this before. We sometimes get wind from the NE as it backs or clocks changing from land breeze to sea breeze, but consistent winds from the NE is a new one for us. At least the seas were calm and it was a beautiful day and we got to sail for the last hour or so and that was nice.

We went to shore to Sakatia Towers in the late afternoon to see John Sheppard. As always, he was a wealth of information and great company. He gave us the name of the local computer guru but it will probably be Monday before we can get an appointment with him. His name is Giam and his father owns the resort just south of Sakatia Towers. Sometimes Giam comes here for the weekend, so it is possible that we might get to see him sooner than Monday. Whatever, in the meantime we will try to cure Mark’s computer virus. But of that doesn’t work, we now know that there is someone who can help. John offered to have his chef pick up some fresh veggies for us in Hell-ville tomorrow morning and also figured out a way that we can get dinghy fuel delivered to us. Then he invited us to attend tomorrow’s local Rotary meeting. It is being held on Sakatia this week. A boat that was here a couple of weeks ago donated a huge spinnaker to the club and tomorrow it will be laid out on the school playing field to decide just how best to cut it up to make small sails for the local pirogues. John thought Mark might be able to lend a little expertise to this decision-making process, so we will tag along and enjoy yet another Madagascar experience.

My great triumph for the day was that I finally finished organizing all of the Chagos and Madagascar photos. This has been a long and arduous process, but it is finally done. I feel the weight of the world lifted from my shoulders. Until we can get our computer virus under control, we have no idea whether or not we will be able to upload all of these photos to the website. But if not here, surely we can do this in South Africa.

After visiting with John at Sakatia Towers, we went to Constance for sundowners. It was great to see Lynne and Ed again and to talk about our plans from here to South Africa. Many decisions to make.

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Day 303, Year 5 Justin, Jo & Ziggy Back Together

August 25th, 2010

Day 303, Year 5 Justin, Jo & Ziggy Back Together
Date: Wednesday, August 25, 2010
Weather: Partly Sunny; Land Breeze/Sea Breeze 10 Knots
Location: Baramahamay Bay, NW Madagascar

Justin left New Mexico on Monday and arrived in England yesterday. We knew he was going but were sworn to secrecy as he wanted to surprise Jo and Ziggy. Well, he did that. Jo almost fainted, but she was elated. I got an email from her this morning expressing her absolute joy of having the family back together. They have to wait another two weeks to get the approval for Jo to return to the US and then they have to wait longer once they return to see if her application for an unconditional ten-year visa is granted. They have lawyers dealing with all of this, so we are hopeful that all will go smoothly. We are just so happy that they are back together for now.

We visited the village on the north side of this bay today. The last time we were here we visited the village on the south side to buy honey, but today Peter and Carla of Odulphus went in with us and took us to see the school and a little restaurant. It takes at least an hour to have the food cooked, so we ordered and then strolled through the village. The children here were very friendly and walked with us holding our hands. The school is on vacation right now but Peter and Carla explained that there are two teachers that the villagers have to pay and they have no books, no paper, and no pencils. They have two chalkboards and chalk and that’s it. I wish I had things with me to donate but I do not. Maybe I can buy some things in Hell-ville and leave them at the school when we stop here on our way to South Africa.

We had local crabs for lunch and talked about plans for heading south. Richard of Chant de Mer whom we met when we were here last time came by. He is another walking encyclopedia of knowledge about sailing the west coast of Madagascar, especially south of here. We tried to absorb as much as we could and came back to Windbird to write down what we could remember as quickly as possible. As I write this log, Mark is copying charts of southern Madagascar that Richard loaned us for the evening. So we are gathering as much information as possible in order to make a decision about when to leave this area to head south and to decide just how far south we will go. But since we can’t decide where we are going tomorrow, I have no idea how we will ever make the larger decision. It is one of those cases where there are options and every person we meet with first hand knowledge of the trip to South Africa has completely different advice. Maybe we’ll flip a coin on this one.

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