Day 274, Year 5 To Ankarana

July 27th, 2010

Day 274, Year 5 To Ankarana
Date: Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Weather: Perfectly Beautiful Day, Winds 10-12
Latitude: 13 20.060 S
Longitude: 048 10.638 E
Location: Nosy Sakatia, NW Madagascar
Early in the morning we leave for our first inland trip in Madagascar and we are really looking forward to it. We hope we really have reservations at Goulam’s Lodge and we surely hope we have reserved his time to be our guide. If not, we’ll stay somewhere and find another guide, but Goulam is definitely the man to have as a guide in northern Madagascar. I read a few articles online and found out that he self-taught himself English so he would know what James Brown was singing about. Now you have to love the guy even before you meet him. Add to this the fact that he has participated in two American documentaries on Ankarana, is a specialist in chameleons throughout Madagascar, is an expert in the local floral and led the team of Lucile Allorge, a botanist at the National History Museum in Paris, who authored “Plantes de Madagascar, and he advised Nicolas Hulot about Ankarana for the film “The Spell of the Red Island” for Ushuaia. I have no idea what that is but it sounds impressive. He also offered advice to Olivier Langrand, renowned ornithologist and co-author of “Birds of the Indian Ocean Islands.” With a bio like that and a love of James Brown, how can you lose? And he evidently sees things no one else sees and is able to help you see with him.
At 6 am we will be picked up by John Sheppard’s boat and taken to shore. We should have a taxi waiting to take us to the wharf in Hell-ville and hopefully we will be on our way to Ankify on the mainland in a speedboat by 7:30 am. There we are met by another taxi and are taken to the public mini-bus. This is when the real fun begins. The mini-buses are jam-packed with people and the road is full of pot holes, but in three or four or five hours, it all depends on we are not sure what, we will arrive in the village of Mahamasina and walk into the Reserve. Goulam’s Lodge is right there and we know it is a lone brick building and a few huts, so it shouldn’t be hard to find. We will be staying in one of he little huts. There are shared “flush” toilets and bucket showers. It is very basic but perfect for our exploration of Never Neverland. The caves, the tsingy, and the strangest animals on earth make this place a little other worldly. It is on a par with the Galapagos and we surely enjoyed our time there. But this time we only have three days to see it all. We’ll have tired legs and sore feet when we return, but hopefully our heads will be spinning with all the sights we have seen and we won’t even notice the pain.
Today was a fun day in the Sakatia Towers anchorage. We moved Windbird closer to shore which put us between the two South African catamarans that are here. Bruce from the delivery boat swam over and buried our anchor for us. When he came up he asked if we knew that three 18 inch long Remoras were living on our keel. We told them they had been with us for about three weeks now and he commented on how they must be slowing us down by providing drag. We hadn’t thought of that, but later in the day we found out why Bruce would notice something like this. I’ll get back to that, but back to the South African boats that we are now anchored between. Both boats have young children and they know how to liven up an anchorage. One of the twenty-somethings on Dream Catcher had all three of the 7 to10 year olds out ’surfing’ behind his dinghy. First they were on their tummies on the surfboard but then one got brave and stood up on the surfboard holding on with only one hand as he was flying around the anchorage. We noticed that the adults were in the water, too, and without dive skins. So we decided to jump in to check the anchor and then go for a snorkel around the headland. The water felt great and we are looking forward to getting back in the water when we return from Ankarana.
Tonight we went up to the deck at Sakatia Towers to make final arrangements with John for our morning departure and for his employee that will be sleeping on our boat. The young man’s name is Greg and John suggested we leave a blanket for him as it is winter. I keep a fan on all night to stay cool enough to sleep, but locals here think it is cold. Greg is also the little speedboat driver, so he will be picking us up in the morning and taking us to the shore of Nosy Be. As always, we talked to John about a myriad of things, one of which is that Bruce on the delivery boat is Bruce Tedder, a world class sailboat racer. He has sailed in round-the-world races and the Cape town to Bahia race among others. You just never know who you are going to meet out here.
As far as we know, we will have no internet, maybe not even electricity for the next four days, so there will be no logs until Saturday. I’m taking my computer to write the logs and will just wait to send them when we return. I hope to have lots of wonderful things to report.

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Day 273, Year 5 Second Madagascar Full Moon at Sakatia

July 26th, 2010

Day 273, Year 5 Second Madagascar Full Moon at Sakatia
Date: Monday, July 26, 2010
Weather: Perfectly Beautiful Day, VERY Light Winds
Latitude: 13 18.089 S
Longitude: 048 10.666 E
Location: Nosy Sakatia, NW Madagascar

Sakatia Towers has become our home away from home. We celebrated our first Madagascar full moon here ion June 26 which was our grandson Jonah’s first birthday. And here we were again tonight sitting on the gracious deck at Sakatia Towers to watch that most glorious orb rise above the craters on Nosy Be. John Sheppard’s hospitality and the comfort of his huge deck is just so comfortable. It is wonderful to have such a welcoming place to sit and meet new friends. Tonight we enjoyed the company of two South African couples who are doing a boat delivery. One couple is from Cape Town and the other from the lovely port of Knysna, northeast of the Cape. Everyone raves about Knysna, but the entry is notoriously difficult. But now we have friends there, so if we decide to go in, they can help us with local knowledge. Both couples are considerably younger than us, one with a ten year-old and the other with a seven year-old aboard. They were quite interested in our up-coming inland venture and are anxious to hear how it goes. They have not been brave enough to attempt inland travel. Since I don’t think of myself as brave, I thought maybe I’m just being stupid to think that we can make this work with no way to communicate other than hand signals. But I trust that it will work. I’m hoping to be able to report to them that it was a wonderful trip. We shall see.

Unfortunately the winds today were non-existent today so we motored the thirty miles back ‘home’ from Nosi Iringa. Dream Catcher, the South African boat that did the repairs on Constance, was here in the spot that we had hoped to anchor in so we went closer to land than comfortable and dropped the anchor. That spot just didn’t seem right, so we came back out and anchored on the outside of Dream Catcher. But this spot doesn’t seem like the right spot to leave Windbird, either. So tomorrow we are hoping to swap anchorage locations with Dream Catcher. They will be here for a couple of days and the folks we met tonight will be in and out as well, so hopefully they can help keep watch on Windbird while we are away. We’ll work out the details tomorrow and take off at 6 am on Wednesday. We are really looking forward to our explore in Ankarana Special Reserve. We just hope the transportation and lodging reservations all work as planned.

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Day 272, Year 5 Turtle Quest II

July 25th, 2010

Day 272, Year 5 Turtle Quest II
Date: Sunday, July 25, 2010
Weather: Perfectly Beautiful Day, Light Winds
Location: Nosy Iranja, NW Madagascar

I don’t usually write two logs in one day, but I just had to write a sequel to Turtle Quest. I know I keep saying this from time to time, but life just doesn’t get better than this. There is an almost full moon overhead, the sunset was lovely, and we had a great trip to shore to the Iranja Lodge. We learned that there were no hatchlings tonight, but if we come back next week we will get to see the babies scrambling for the water. So we will be back next week.

We went to shore to have a beer at the Iranja Lodge bar in hopes of finding a way to see the baby turtles hatching. We were armed with our son-in-law Jed’s email full of information. We hit the shore with the surf, jumped out of the dinghy, and were helped by our security guard friend and another guy. Whew! The first obstacle is successfully met. Then we go to the bar and order a beer from one of the English speaking young men we met this morning. I think he is a manager, but not sure about that. When he brings the beer, we ask him is he know Ignance, the ‘turtle man.” Of course he does and he goes and gets him for us. Ignance is probably thirty years old, no older, and he speaks a little English. We tell him our son-in-law and daughter are marine scientists in America and they have told us about him. He was so pleased and he asked if we would like to see baby turtles hatching. Are you kidding me? I could hardly contain my excitement. He explained that there was a hatching yesterday at 5 pm and that there will probably be another one tomorrow at the same time. Evidently 5 pm is the hatching time. But there was not a hatching today. He told us that the Green Turtles lay eggs all year long and that they take two months to hatch. The Hawksbills, however, hatch only in December. We explained that we cannot stay for tomorrow night’s hatching but we will return next week. No problem. Just come to the island and ask for him. Jed, you are a genius. Thanks again for the quick return on information.

Just being anchored here is a bit of a challenge as it is a bit rolly. Add to that the surf that we have to ride into shore and head back into to get off the shore, and that doubles the challenge. But then imagine the perfect island resort that is shared by a turtle reserve. When I get rich I will fly back to Madagascar and come to Iranja Lodge. The accommodations are built in traditional style and you can hardly tell that there is a resort from the water. It really fits into the environment nicely. The restaurant and bar is right on the sand spit with water on two sides and has a great sunset view over the other end of the island. The Lodge takes their guests to Nosy Komba by speedboat to see the lemurs and buy recelet, they take them snorkeling at Tani Keli, they take them fishing, they entertain their children while the parents are having a traditional dinner in the village across the sand spit, and they have this wonderful sand spit to walk at low tide everyday. All this and you get to see baby turtles hatching and heading out to sea. Iranja Lodge gets an A+ from me.

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Day 272, Year 5 Turtle Quest

July 25th, 2010

Day 272, Year 5 Turtle Quest
Date: Sunday, July 25, 2010
Weather: Perfectly Beautiful Day, Light Winds
Location: Nosy Iranja, NW Madagascar

Yesterday we visited ‘turtle’island by the back door. We took our dinghy to the far end of the beach away from the resort, but we were soon told we must leave. So our son-in-law Jed read last night’s log, got on the internet and did a few searches, and sent us new information on the turtle project here as well as a few suggestions on how we might still have a chance of seeing the hatchlings. Evidently the lodge works with Kelonia, the Observatory of Sea Turtles and Research Center in Reunion, to protect the endangered sea turtles that come ashore. Jed’s information went on to say that Nosy Iranja is the only island in Madagascar visited by two of the world’s eight turtle species. Both the Green Turtle and the Hawksbill’s come here to lay there eggs. So it really is a special place. The name of the ‘turtle man’ is Ignance, so thanks to Jed we at least know what is happening here and who to ask for. So this morning we said farewell to Ed and Lynne as they headed back to Hell-ville and we took our dinghy to the far end of the sand bar at low tide, beached it, and walked the three-quarters of a mile to the resort. We were immediately met by the same young man that met us yesterday, but this time he was wearing his official security badges. We tried to ask him if we could return in the evening for a beer. He understood ‘beer’ and immediately took us to the bar and restaurant. Then he went to get someone who could speak some English. So we are preparing to go ashore in just a bit, go to the bar, ask about Ignance the ‘turtle man.’ If we can’t talk to him we will then see if we can charm someone, anyone, into letting us see the hatchlings if there are any tonight. It is honestly much easier to take our dinghy into the end of the island where the turtle nests are because there is more surf at the resort end, but we were told we must bring the dinghy up on the beach right by the bar. So there is no way to see these little babies by going in the back door. We are going to have to walk right in the front and hope for the best. And Jed, thanks so much for the information.

After walking the three-quarters mile from the far end of the sand spit to the resort, we walked back to the village on the other end. The village end of the sand spit was crawling with tourists that must have arrived while we were at the Iranja Lodge. There was a neat row of white sun umbrellas and bikini clad people in the water, walking on the rocks, and sitting under the umbrellas that were affording absolutely no protection from the sun. A local woman was walking to the village so we asked her if there was a track to the lighthouse. Somehow she understood what we meant and showed us the way. We walked to the top of the island to the lighthouse and school, took a path through the bush and found it was not taking us in the right direction, and then came back and found an alternate path that led us back down the hill, through the village gardens, and eventually back to our dinghy after three hours of walking. We went snorkeling early this afternoon but it was not the greatest. But it was wonderful to be in the water. Now if this is to be sent while we still have propagation to do so, I’ll have to stop here. You’ll have to wait until tomorrow to find out what happens with the turtle quest.

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Day 271, Year 5 Green Turtle Nursery

July 24th, 2010

Day 271, Year 5 Green Turtle Nursery
Date: Saturday, July 24, 2010
Weather: Sunny Day, Light Winds
Latitude: 13 36.559 S
Longitude: 047 49.813 E
Location: Nosy Iranja, NW Madagascar

We came here to see baby turtles but, unfortunately, we aren’t going to get to see them. First, I’ll explain where we are and then I’ll explain why we won’t get to see the babies. Nosy Iranja is actually a larger island and a smaller island connected by a sand spit that is underwater at high tide. The larger island has high, steep sides and lots of green. It is the home of a fairly large village. The smaller island is just a lump of sand, beautiful sand, but just sand with a few palm trees and even fewer casuarinas.. Sometime in the past ten years, a resort was built on the smaller island. It was called Hotel Iranja and before coming here, we were told that the resort is currently closed because there is a land dispute between two Indians who both claim to own it. We knew this and we knew that somewhere on Iranja sea turtles come to lay their eggs. We also knew that in July of last year, turtles were hatching. So when we got here, we got in the dinghy and headed to the far end of the little island where there is nothing but sand. That looked to be the spot where turtles would most likely lay their eggs. As soon as we got out of the dinghy, we saw big turtle tracks. That surprised us a bit as we thought we would be seeing baby turtle tracks, but on closer observation we started seeing nest after next with a circular cage on each and a sign post saying the date the eggs were laid and the number of eggs. We’ve learned to read enough French to recognize the word for egg and we know the date is always written with day, then month, then year. Most of the eggs were laid between March and June of this year and the count on each one was between 120 and 150 eggs. I didn’t count the number of marked nests, but there must at least fifty. We found a small World Wildlife sign explaining in English and French that the nests here are those of green turtles. We were getting excited about the prospects of seeing a hatch, but then a couple of young Malagasy men greeted us and very politely explained in French that we were walking on private land and that we needed to leave. If they were representing the WWF then we gladly accept the fact that they want to keep the public away from the nesting ground, but if they were representing the resort, we resent that they would not allow us to share in this special event. We left the island but later in the afternoon we saw a few people walking in the same area. They looked like tourists so maybe the resort is not completely closed. But lucky for them that they might get to see the baby turtles.

We left the little island and fought the sloppy high tide seas over to the larger island. We landed on the beach near a village. Our first sight was a fish drying rack with the largest fish hanging to dry that we have seen to date on these drying racks. Usually the drying fish are small, but not here. We had seen tourist boats in the village in the afternoon and onshore we could see that the village is set up for tourists with picnic tables and crafts to sell. They were selling a few pieces of recelet, other embroidered tablecloths, t-shirts, and carvings. The woman said they do the recelet on the island, but from the hodge-podge of offerings, I wondered if things are bought elsewhere and brought here to sell.

We will see how the night goes being anchored next to an offshore island and make a decision tomorrow morning as to whether we will return to Nosy Sakatia tomorrow or wait until Monday. We’d love to get in the water here. We do see turtles from the boat so maybe we can swim with them even if we don’t get to see the babies.

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Day 270, Year 5 Trip to Hell-ville and MORE Info

July 23rd, 2010

Day 270, Year 5 Trip to Hell-ville and MORE Info
Date: Friday, July 23, 2010
Weather: Nice Day; Partly Cloudy and Windier (10-15)
Location: Nosy Sakatia, NW Madagascar

How much new information can a person absorb? Well, I guess a lot. Today we went into Hell-ville with John Sheppard (Sakatia Towers). He arranged an informal meeting with us and Peter of the sailing vessel Cynthia at the expat bar and restaurant, Nandiapo. By the way, it is a neat little place. But we were focused on talking to Peter to find out his opinion of sailing way south in Madagascar before heading across the Mozambique Channel or heading across the Channel further north. Peter is an experienced sailor and has been to South Africa from here four or five times and he emphatically said not to go far south. That’s a bit of a bummer as I had gotten my hopes up of seeing Southern Madagascar. But after hearing all the details of why we should not, I do not think we will go that way. We know it is only one person’s opinion but Peter had information on the anchorages south and that news was not good. So back to Plan A or is it now Plan C?

The purpose of our trip to Hell-ville was to make arrangements for our inland trip next week. Early in the morning, we called the lodge in the park where we want to stay. A woman answered the phone. Both of us only understand about half of what the other said, so we told her we would call back. We hoped to have John call for us but he suggested that we go back to his accountant, Frank, who helped us with check-in and have him call. Frank speaks French, Malagasy, and English fluently. John speaks a little French and a little Malagasy, but he knew Frank would be able to better understand. We went to Frank and he was able to successfully book a place for us at the lodge and make it clear that we wanted Goulam as our guide. Frank also went with us to see Coolie to make the travel arrangements. I don’t know how we could have done it without him because even with him the arrangements are more like a promise than a sure thing. But in this country you have to trust, and almost always, things work out. Coolie gave us a piece of blue paper about two inches by two inches which is our ticket to and from Ankarana Special Reserve. That little blue ticket gets both of us from the wharf in Hell-ville onto a speedboat to the mainland, into a taxi that will take us to the mini-bus, and then on a mini-bus for the four hour ride to the reserve. We will do this on Wednesday and on Saturday we will do the return trip. Evidently we just stand beside the road in the same place that we are dropped off and another mini-bus will magically appear and bring us back. Since we won’t be able to communicate with anyone, the back-up plan is that we will call Frank if there is a problem and he will solve the problem for us. The phone provider here is Orange and it costs almost as much to call locally as it does to call the US. So we’ll take our supply of Orange top-up cards with us and hope for the best.

Tomorrow we leave for Nosi Iranja, commonly referred to as turtle island because each year the turtles come here to lay their eggs. Some time later those eggs hatch and many hundreds of baby turtles make their way to the sea. This is hatching season and it often happens near the full moon and that is Monday, so we are hoping to see this exciting event.

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Day 269, Year 5 Gathering Information

July 22nd, 2010

Day 269, Year 5 Gathering Information
Date: Thursday, July 22, 2010
Weather: Really Gorgeous Day
Location: Nosy Sakatia, NW Madagascar

Mid-morning we headed up to Sakatia Towers to ask John Sheppard, the owner, a few questions. He is like an encyclopedia of information, so we spent the next hour or two asking and getting information. On the deck at Sakatia Towers there is a huge bird cage where two Lesser Vanga Parrots live. Since these are an endangered specieis, my questions was, “Where did they come from?” John explained that a friend rescued the parrots from mistreatment on the wharf in Hell-ville, brought them to John, and then left them there. So they are now residents of Sakatia Towers. Their names are Birdie and Num Num. John reminded us of the scene from The Pink Panther where Peter Sellers walks into a restaurant with a parrot on his shoulder saying, “Birdie, num num.” He wanted food for the bird, but the proprietor misunderstood, took the bird, and cooked him. “Nummy num.” Of course, we had forgotten this scene completely, but now we must see that old classic again just to see this scene. John also talked to us about the current political scene in the country. The once President Ravalamonana was removed in a coup last year. He was working hard to preserve the fragile environment. The current ‘president’ took power after the coup. He is a former disc jockey, high profile with lots of name recognition, who is selling the resources of the country to the Chinese as quickly as possible. The amount of rosewood headed to China everyday is shameful. And every tree that is cut down diminishes the home for many animals found only in one place in the world-Madagascar. What a disaster. But for now that is the way things are here.

In the afternoon we worked on planning our trip from here to South Africa. Writing down all of the possible anchorages, the mileage, and the dates for the various options is helping us to get closer to a decision. And we have also found out that it could possibly be time for sea turtle hatching on Iranja Island with the coming of the full moon. Iranja is about thirty miles from here, so we are contemplating going there for the weekend and then returning here, leaving the boat, and doing inland travel at the end of next week. Seeing the hatching of the sea turtles would be incredible, but no one has a calendar for these things, so we will just go there and take our chances.

We returned to Sakatia Towers tonight to meet some of John’s guests. We particularly wanted to meet Russell and Beverly from Cape Town in South Africa. They just rented a motor scooter and rode it to Ankarana Special Reserve where we want to go inland next week. They are not as old as us, but not far behind, and they fared quite well on a motor scooter. The roads here are full of pot holes, but they really enjoyed seeing the countryside from the motor scooter instead of from inside a mini-bus. But we will probably go the mini-bus route as transporting a rented motor scooter from Nosy Be to the mainland is yet another hassle. Tomorrow morning we will go into Hell-ville with John, make arrangements for the inland travel, make another stop at the ATM, and then return. If all goes as planned, we will leave here on Saturday morning for Nosy Iranja, the turtle reserve, return on Monday or Tuesday, and leave on Wednesday for a four day inland tour.

On the health front, my niece’s daughter Katie made it just great through her surgery so we are thankful for that. And Lynne’s skin infection is getting better. It will take another couple of weeks, at least, for it to heal, but for now all is well.

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Day 268, Year 5 Thinking of Katie

July 21st, 2010

Day 268, Year 5 Thinking of Katie
Date: Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Latitude: 13 degrees 18.060 minutes S
Longitude: 048 degrees 10.727 minutes E
Weather: Beautiful Day, 10 Knots of Wind-Perfect Sail
Location: Nosy Sakatia, NW Madagascar

We’ve been thinking of Katie all day today. She is my niece’s daughter, in her late twenties, and she has thyroid cancer. She had one operation last year, but some more nodes appeared and today she had surgery for the second time. Katie, we are thinking of you and hope all goes well. Katie is a brave young woman and has met each challenge with strength and grace, and we know she will do that again.

We are starting to get the hang of the land breeze-sea breeze thing here on the northwest coast of Madagascar, at least for the month of July. I’m sure it won’t stay the same, but for now it is pretty consistent. We waited to leave Russian Bay until the afternoon sea breeze started to kick in and we had a glorious afternoon of sailing. We only had ten knots of wind but it was right on the beam and then moved a bit behind us, but it was enough to move us along nicely. We only had to travel eighteen miles and it took us five hours, so it was slow but peaceful and calm. There’s something to be said about that! And I finished naming and organizing all of the Madagascar photos to date, so I am celebrating tonight!

Now the serious research begins on the best way to get ourselves to the Ankarana Special Reserve inland and north of here. There we will see the limestone pinnacle karst called tsingy, caves, and a forest full of critters, mostly lemurs of different types, chameleons, geckos, more ground boas, and birds. We’ve read the books we have about travel in Madagascar and tomorrow we will talk to John at Sakatia Towers. It could be that we will be going as soon as Friday, but probably we will wait until Monday. We are hoping that John can look after Windbird while we are away. When we return we will have to make a decision on which way to go from here. Some people leave here, go to Mayotte in the Comoros, and then hop down the Mozambique coast. Others leave here and continue the day hops to what I call the end of the northwest crescent and then hop over to the Mozambique coast and down. And now we have the new idea of continuing to follow the Madagascar coast much further south before heading across to Richards Bay in South Africa. We talked to Ed and Lynne tonight and both of us will continue to gather information. It is a real toss up, so what feels right to us might not be what feels right to them. One thing is for sure, we will both end up in Richards Bay no matter which way we go. Lynne’s infection is getting better. She has only been on the antibiotic for five days, so in a week when she is off the antibiotics she will know more. But things look good at this point.

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Day 267, Year 5 Mora Mora

July 20th, 2010

Day 267, Year 5 Mora Mora
Date: Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Weather: Mostly Overcast Day-Not the Usual
Location: Ambavatoby Bay (Russian Bay), NW Madagascar

‘Mora Mora’ means ’slowly slowly.” And that is how things progressed today. Mark worked on the watermater doing the required 1000 hour rebuild. I wrote long overdue emails and worked on naming photos. The sun didn’t shine. The day went mora mora, but it was a good day. The watermaker rebuild went well and the watermaker is back up and running. I just about have all of the Madagascar photos organized and named and have a few folders with just three or four photos each ready to post when we get back to Nosy Sakatia where we can get on the very slow Madagascar internet. And Mark and I have made the decision that we are not going to continue our trip south right now. We are going to return to Nosy Sakatia tomorrow to talk to Ed and Lynne about the possibility of changing our game plan and heading for southern Madagascar by the middle of August. That means we need to do our land travel here now. So lots of decisions and lots to think about . . . mora mora.

Lynne saw the doctor today and things are progressing nicely. She has to go back to the doctor on Thursday for another check, but it looks like the antibiotic has things under control. We’ll find out more when we get back to Nosy Sakatia tomorrow afternoon, but basically it sounds like a good time for Mark and I to take off and do some inland travel while Ed and Lynne just have to sit and wait for things to get better. They can watch Windbird while they are waiting. And by the time we return (we’re only going for 3-4 days), maybe Lynne’s leg will be healed enough for them to travel while we watch their boat. Sounds like a plan.

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Day 266, Year 5 But on the Other Hand.

July 19th, 2010

Day 266, Year 5 But on the Other Hand.
Date: Monday, July 19, 2010
Weather: Another Sunny Day with Madagascar Clouds
Location: Ambavatoby Bay (Russian Bay), NW Madagascar

It was a quiet day in Russian Bay. We got up at 6 am to try and receive email. The past few days we have been having great difficulty sending email in the evening and have not been able to receive except in the early morning. But this morning it took more than an hour before we got a connection. The problem is location and propagation and we just have to find the right time. We did finally receive email and I baked banana bread and two loaves of whole wheat bread before 10 am when we went to visit Carla and Peter on Odulphus. They reported to us what they have learned from the South African cruisers they have met and have given us a whole new option for getting from here to South Africa. We spent most of the rest of the day looking at the new option of heading further south down the Madagascar coast before going across the Mozambique Channel to South Africa. There is not a lot of information we have to check, but we plotted the possible anchorages listed in the East Africa Pilot and checked the mileages from anchor point to anchor point. Tomorrow I will read the Lonely Planet to see what the inland possibilities are from the anchor points. And slowly we will make a decision. If we do decide that we are going to southern Madagascar, we might return to Nosy Sakatia, to do our inland travel from here now, and then head south. So we keep weighing the options and saying, “But on the other hand.” We feel like Tevia in the Fiddler on the Roof.

We did take a dinghy ride deep into this bay today. We found another ruin from the days of the Russians, a long stretch of stone and concrete pier, but other than that there was nothing else. Not even any villages. Just after we returned to Windbird, a young man named Paul who lives in the village on shore came by in his outrigger. He speaks passable English and has a notebook with tours outlined. His tours cost somewhere between $10-20 US for two people. So this is another option for us to learn more about this area.

We know nothing more of Lynne’s situation except that she is feeling better. She sees the doctor again tomorrow and will see the infected area for the first time since the doctor bandaged it on Saturday. We are all on pins and needles waiting to see how things are going. We just hope the fact that she is feeling better and that the soreness has abated means that things are better. More on that tomorrow night.

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