Day 278, Year 5 Back Home on Windbird
Date: Saturday, July 31, 2010
Weather: Partly Cloudy
Location: Nosy Sakatia, NW Madagascar

Our first trip inland in Madagascar was a huge success, but as you know, it is always good to be back home. Everything was fine aboard Windbird, so no worries here. It is so wonderful to have someone like John Sheppard and his capable staff to look after your boat while away. In a country with no marinas, this is the only way to go. Our trip home was super fast as we had a kamikaze taxi brousse driver. Even after stopping in Hell-ville for food shopping, we were back on Windbird well before noon. Last night Goulam called the phone number we had written on our little blue ticket and he arranged for the taxi brousse to pick us up at his place instead of in the village of Mahamasina. Coolie told Goulam the taxi would arrive at 5:30 am, but it was more like 6:15 am when it arrived and probably 6:30 am when we left. Goulam had arranged for the three people from Austria to travel in the same taxi brousse, and they packed us in like sardines. Taxi brousse just means jungle taxi and it can be anything from a small Puegot to a mini-van that has been adapted to hold about eleven people comfortably or eighteen people very uncomfortably. We were eighteen this morning but other than not being able to move, all was fine. We were in Ankify in three hours and on a speedboat headed for Nosy Be by 10:15 am. Coolie, the man who arranged our transportation was in the van and on the speedboat, so we were escorted all the way. How lucky that he needed to go to Diego Suarez to get new pages in his passport and that his travel coincided with ours exactly. Otherwise, I cannot imagine how we would have made the connections. I think some guardian angel was with us on this trip.

The country between here and Ankarana to the north is quite interesting. The little ferry stop of Ankify is a bustling wharf like the one in Nosy Be, just much smaller. As you head the fifteen kilometers from Ankify to RN6, Madagascar’s only national highway (that word is used loosely here), you go through a green, lush countryside. Once you hit the highway and head north you are in river country. Small rivers head out of the mountains to the east and flow westward to the sea. The river water is diverted for farming and there are rice paddies and small fields of grain mixed with zebu grazing land. Then the rivers end and all there is for as far as you can see is zebu grazing land. The zebu carts in this area have wooden wheels like American covered wagons used. In Nosy Be, most of the carts are built on old car axles. It was interesting to see the difference between Nosy Be and villages on the road north on the mainland. Ankarana is up on a plateau, so this morning it was all downhill to Ambilobe, the only town of any size that we passed through. The poverty of the country is most visible as you travel like this. From our perspective it looks like the island people are much better off than those on the mainland. We loved our walking tours in Ankarana but enjoyed seeing the countryside just as much. And we are glad that we took the less expensive public transportation instead of more comfortable and more expensive alternatives. We feel like we saw more of what life if really life for the Malagasy this way.

Our hikes in Ankarana with Goulam have left us with wonderful memories. Just being with Goulam was very special. For the rest of our lives we will hear Goulam saying, “Nike–Just do it!” He would say this when I would hesitate to make a jump across a deep crevasse or when climbing in the tsingy formations. And as he hiked up hills or in difficult terrain, he would say, “Mora, mora. Slowly but surely.” And he was right. One step at a time we hiked though amazing countryside. And then he would say, “You are lucky today. I called ahead on the cell phone to talk to the lemurs and they are in their places.” More amazingly, however, are the times we would be driving down a dusty road and Goulam would make a quick stop and say, “Chameleon. There.” How he could see a chameleon, camouflaged by definition, while driving we don’t know. But we do feel like we had three lucky days thanks to Coolie for his travel arrangements and Goulam for giving us a graduate course in plants, animals, and geologic formations in Madagascar in those three short days. It was also interesting to stay in a traditional hut for that time. It gave us a glimpse of what life is like for villagers in Madagascar.

Day 276, Year 5 Second Day in Ankarana
Date: Thursday, July 29, 2010
Weather: Another Perfectly Beautiful Day
Location: Ankarana Special Reserve, N Madagascar

Wow! We had a second great day walking in the tsingy, exploring caves, walking through the forest and fields, and watching a sunset from a viewpoint from which we could see all of Anakarana, Goulam’s Camp, and out to sea to from Nosy Mitsio to Nosy Be. It was a spectacular view. We saw Northern Sportive Lemurs and Sanford’s Lemurs but we did not get any National Geographic shots of them today as they were so high in the trees. We did see a beautiful male Parson’s Chameleon on our night walk and just generally enjoyed a day of walking with Goulam and learning more about Madagascar flora and fauna.

Just being here is so special, but Goulam’s stories make it even more interesting. As we were climbing through the tsingy this morning, he stopped and said that we had not asked him how the tsingy got their name. We had just assumed that tsingy means sharp, pointy rocks in Malagasy, but Goulam’s story was much more interesting. In the second half of the 19th century, the French were exercising their power over this country. The Queen in power decided to try to overthrow the French and much violence pursued. The people of Ankarana fled from the French by coming in to this area with the lethally sharp rocks hoping to hide or escape from the French. The Malagasy people had no shoes, so they were fleeing into the fields of sharp, pointy rocks on tiptoes. In Malagasy “mi tsingy” means walking on tiptoes. And that is almost what you have to do even when wearing hiking boots or substantial running shoes. There are acres and acres and acres of these sharp, pointy limestone formations, some low, some very high. When walking amongst the tsingy you feel as if you are in a lost world. It is just like no other place on earth. So climbing among these rocks has been a highlight for me. The cave walks were also spectacular with other worldly stalactite and stalagmite formations and thousands of bats of all sizes. Our headlamps that we usually use for reading on passage have been invaluable leaving our hands free for climbing and holding on in the caves while viewing the fantastic sights.

Tonight we had dinner with a couple from Austria and their 19 year-old son Nick who has just completed a public service project in northeastern Madagascar. The other couple is from the Netherlands and they have just come from a tour of the southern coast. We had a great dinner of mud crab and rice and enjoyed sharing experiences with both couples. Tomorrow morning we are up and out at 7:30 am to see more tsingy, more tsingy forest, and more caves. And we are hoping to see the Crowned Lemur tomorrow.

Day 277, Year 5 Tsingy, Tsingy, Tsingy
Date: Friday, July 30, 2010
Weather: Yet Another Perfectly Beautiful Day with Late Afternoon Clouds
Location: Ankarana Special Reserve, N Madagascar

Today was Day Three in Ankarana and it is summed up with walking, walking, walking, tsingy, tsingy, tsingy, lemurs, lemurs, lemurs, with another cave experience thrown in for good measure. Today was our lucky day. We saw three different kinds of lemurs-the Northern Sportive Lemur, the Crowned Lemur, and the Sanford’s Lemur. And we saw them in many places so we were ecstatic. Lemurs in the wild are not acclimated to people like the ones on Nosy Komba. The two experiences are totally different. It was wonderful to have them jumping on us on Nosy Komba, but it is a true thrill to spot them in the wild. The tiny Northern Sportive Lemurs peeking their little heads out of holes in trees and looking at us with those BIG eyes was just too cute. The walking distance was triple today what it had been on previous days and we saw enough tsingy for a lifetime. It was a gloriously beautiful day and our feet surely feel the pain of so much walking. As they say, “No pain, no gain.” We have seen so much and enjoyed every minute, but tomorrow morning at an obnoxiously early hour, we must walk out to the main road to catch our taxi brousse back to Ankify and then our boat back to Nosy Be and on to Nosy Sakatia.

Goulam has been a fantastic guide. At every point, he has gauged just how much more we could physically take without being miserable. Walking with him is like walking with an encyclopedia of knowledge of plants and animals. I find it unbelievable that he can look at almost any plant, tree, or animal here and immediately give you Latin name for it. When we returned today, he loaned me three books to look at: 1) Birds of the Indian Ocean by Ian Sinclair and Olivier Langrand, 2) A Field Guide to the Amphibians and Reptiles of Madagascar by Frank Glaw and Miguel Vences, and 3) Plantes de Madagascar Atlas by Lucile Allorge (written in French but Latin names remain the same). As I looked through the books, I realized that Goulam’s spelling of the Latin names of all of the plants and animals that he has written in my journal while on the trail were right on. He truly is amazing. I didn’t carry a journal with me on the day that we arrived, but I quickly learned that there was no way that I could keep up with Goulam without having him write things down for me. Both Mark and I feel richer knowledge-wise and richer as an individuals for having spent three days with Goulam. What Madagascar treasures he and Ankarana are.

I am writing this log under one of the covered picnic table areas just outside Goulam’s main office and kitchen, as well as the place where he sleeps. At 6 pm the generator goes on and a TV in front of the main office is switched on. Many people from the nearby village come here to watch what I would call Madagascar MTV in the evenings. Each of the guest huts has one light that can be turned on during the 6 to 10 pm hours, and there is one plug-in for charging camera batteries, cell phones, and for us, computers. I doubt many people bring their computers here, but I’m glad I did. Dinner will be served at 7:30 pm and tonight we will once again eat with our new friends from Austria. Then we will head to bed in order to get up at 4:45 am. We doubt that the taxi brousse will really get here that early, but we dare not take the chance of missing it.

Day 275, Year 5 First Day in Ankarana
Date: Wednesday, July 28, 2010
Weather: Another Perfectly Beautiful Day
Location: Ankarana Special Reserve, N Madagascar

We made it and we did have reservations and we do have Goulam as our guide and we have already had a wonderful whirlwind introductory tour. So life is good, but what a day it has been. We only have electricity for a short time in the evening, so I’m going to have to write fast because both of my computer batteries just don’t hold very long any more. So here goes.

The day started at 5 am. We were up and ready to be picked up by 6 am. Actually Greg come five minutes early. We made it to the Nosy Be shore and before we could get our shoes on (you have to jump out of the boat and into the water to get ashore so you don’t wear shoes), Anatole was there to take us into Hell-ville. So far, so good. We got to the wharf by 6:35 am which was about a half an hour earlier than Coolie told us to be there, and that was a mistake. Immediately it seemed that everyone on the wharf wanted to be helpful and in order to do so they felt like they needed to take our little blue ticket from us to read it. Since that is the only proof that we paid for this trip, it made us a little nervous, but they were just trying to be helpful and we always got the ticket back. It was getting to be a bit of a circus as every boat boy we met when we checked in were all surrounding us with different directions on what we should do. Finally someone called Coolie. He was still in the shower and said he would be there soon. When he arrived things got even more confusing. We were supposed to be on a 7:30 am speedboat, but he said the speedboat was not running today and ushered us through a throng of people and walked us up a plank and on to a car ferry already full of cars and people. He explained that he was going our way today and would be there to help us. It’s a good thing because I don’t think we would ever have figured things out with the speedboat cancellation, the late arrival in Ankify, and all the people there who were trying to get us in their taxi or mini-bus. The ride on the ferry was ‘interesting’ as it was very crowded and it took two hours instead of forty-five minutes but it gave us the flavor of travel in Madagascar. When the ferry landed we were bombarded by people offering this and that. Coolie cut through the crowd, grabbed Mark’s backpack (with all his money and our passports) and threw it to another man and told us to follow him. We did and he led us to our mini-bus. After a wait for others to get in, our jam-packed mini-van headed north. It was almost 11 am by this time but once we got started, it was straight through except for one gas stop in the only town we went through. We arrived in Mahamasina, the little town which is the jumping-off point for Ankarana, but we would never have known we were there if someone hadn’t told us to get off. Coolie got off and made sure we got hooked up with a little boy who said he would take us to Goulam’s and another man who had been in the front seat of the van got off and told us to meet him at the same place on Saturday morning at 5 am. Of course, all of this is done in French so all we understand is 5 am. We thanked everyone and then took off with our little guide and another little boy who joined him. They shook our hands in greeting and off we went down a dusty dirt road passing an Ankarana Park sign and building on the way. Soon we saw some traditional huts and a sign for Goulam’s Lodge. It is just as described. There is a brick building which is the kitchen, store, and indoor eating area. There are outdoor covered eating areas and there are a few traditional huts for guests. Our little guide entered the brick building and started calling “Papa, papa.” Our guide was Goulam’s youngest son, probably seven years-old. Goulam came out to greet us and we immediately liked the man. He has a mild manner, a firm handshake, and a glistening smile. There was some confusion about us being from South Africa which we didn’t figure out until later (our connection to John Sheppard at Sakatia Towers), but he took us to our hut, made sure we were comfortable, and said to come back for lunch in about half an hour. Lunch was vegetables and pasta with duck and it was delicious. By this time, Goulam has sized us up and presented a plan for our stay. It started that afternoon with a three hour walk through the forest of the tsingy. Tsingy are the pointy limestone formations left after years of erosion. What a wonderland of rocks and strange trees. We saw a northern sportive lemur (a tiny little guy), a few beautiful green day geckos with red markings, and a green chameleon of an unremembered species. Goulam walks fast and packs in the information. Tomorrow will be a longer version of what we did today with more time to spot lemurs and a venture into the bat caves. It is time for dinner and time to charge the computer.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.