Day 340, Year 5 Nosy Lava to Fantasy Land
Date: Friday, October 1, 2010
Weather: Beautiful, Sunny Day; Winds ESE 15 to 25
Latitude: 14 53.567 S
Longitude: 047 19.868 E
Location: Moramba Bay, NW Madagascar
We are back in one of our very favorite Madagascar anchorages–Moramba Bay. This place will certainly be in Windbird’s Top 10 anchorages in our voyage around the world. The only thing it doesn’t have is snorkeling, but the thing no other anchorage in the world has is beautiful Coquerel’s Safika lemurs hanging from the trees and limestone tsingy on the beaches along with seven of the eight types of baobabs in the world punctuating the scenery. Add to that the mushroom-shaped limestone karst islets dotting the waters and you have a definite winner. We were braver this time and brought Windbird in to anchor among the little limestone islets dotted with baobabs. We can hear constant bird sounds and watch the Sacred Ibis, Vasa Parrots, and Dimorphic Egrets landing in the trees on the islet just behind us and the slightly larger island in front of us. It is spectacular. And our trip here was spectacular because we didn’t have to motor. We are trying to conserve as much fuel as possible for the thousand mile trip across the Mozambique Channel to South Africa, so this forty-two mile sailing day contributed to the cause. We did start off motoring for the first hour to charge the batteries and get around the top of Nosy Lava, but after that we sailed for seven straight hours which was great even though it was a bit rowdy at times. We were on a beam reach all day starting out with 20 to 25 knots of wind and then settling into 15 to 20 knots with higher gusts. It was a good day and Constance caught a huge Yellowfin Tuna today and we are having some of that for dinner. The other part will be chilled for sushi tomorrow night. Our stay here will be short this time as we must continue our trek south, but we will enjoy every minute of it.
