Day 336, Year 5 Mora, Mora (slowly, slowly)
Date: Monday, September 27, 2010
Weather: Dark Clouds Early, Clearing to Sunny Skies; Wind NW 10
Latitude: 13 42.778 S
Longitude: 047 54.102E
Location: Baramahamay Bay, NW Madagascar

We have started our trek south but we will be going “mora, mora”-the Madagascar phrase that means slowly, slowly as that is the way of life here. We are going mora, mora trying to bide time until mid-October which should be a better time for crossing the Mozambique Channel to South Africa’s east coast. That passage will take anywhere from seven to ten days depending on where we start across. So for the next two weeks we will just meander down the Madagascar coast. Tonight we are back in Baramahamay Bay which is known locally as Honey River. The chief of the village on the south side of the bay sells local honey, thus the name. Tomorrow we will visit that village to buy honey and visit the village on the north side to try and see the school there with children in it. Children have been on winter vacation since we arrived in Madagascar and I’d love to see a school alive with children before leaving here.

On Saturday I wrote “one more snorkeling day” but it ends up that we had two more snorkeling days. We snorkeled yesterday morning before John’s birthday party and on our way south today, we reached a small island that has a mooring that you can pick up for a short period of time. We got to snorkel what cruisers call Passage Island and others call it the Italian Island as there is a resort owned by an Italian on the island. The reason for the nicknames is that the real name of the island is impossible to pronounce. It is Nosy Ankazoberavina, thus Passage Island. The only thing on the island is the resort and Private Property signs are posted on the land and there was even one on a float in the water! That’s a new one on me. We had been able to sail in the early morning but then the wind totally died. So when we reached the island it was the perfect time to stop and snorkel while waiting for the afternoon wind to pick up. We took the dinghy around a rocky point, anchored it, and snorkeled against the tide so we would have a free ride back to the dinghy. At first we thought we had been misled by our good friends who told us about the amazing snorkeling at this spot. Both Ed and Lynne on Constance and Bruce, Nadine, and Tristen on Pioneer had great snorkeling experiences then. Just about the time we were ready to give up, we saw why they have raved about it. The Bluebarred Parrotfish (Scarus ghobban) and Snubnose Pompanos (Trachinotus blochii) were HUMONGOUS. Both were more than two feet in length and that is just about their maximum size. Usually what we see is half that size or even smaller. And there were hundreds of False Moorish Idols (Heniochus diphreutes), huge Ringtail Surgeonfish (Acanthurus blochii) and Yellowfin Surgeonfish (Acanthurus xanthopterus), and even one Palate Tang (Paracanthurus hepatus), a spectacular fish we have only seen previously in the Komodos in Indonesia. This is a bright blue fish with a darker blue design on its body that looks like an artist’s palette topped off with a bright yellow tail. And then we saw the prize of the day. Swimming along on the sand below us was a moray eel longer than either of us. It was the color of the sand with tiny speckles all over. We aren’t sure what species, but we think it might have been a Laced Moray (Gymnothorax favaineus). Whatever it was, it was quite a treat to swim along with it. As it led us to shallower water, however, we backed off not wanting it to feel cornered. That ended a very successful snorkel. We won’t have another chance until southern Madagascar (if we get that far south before crossing), so the snorkeling gear is drying is will be stored for the next couple of weeks.

Just after we left Nosy Ankazoberavina the cell phone rang. It was John back at Sakatia Towers wanting to thank us once again for our birthday gift to him. We had ninety-nine underwater photos from Sakatia snorkeling forays copied at the Kodak shop in Hell-ville and put them in a photo album for him to share with his guests. The photo album was a quite a hit and John and Heidi really appreciated it. It made us a bit homesick to get a call from John but we were so glad to hear from him. We are out of cell phone range now and will be for a few days, so he called just in time.

100927 Day 336a Nosy Sakatia, Madagascar–John's Birthday Party

100927 Day 336b Nosy Sakatia, Madagascar–Sakatia Memories