Day 299, Year 5 Last Day in Moramba Bay
Date: Saturday, August 21, 2010
Weather: Cloudy Then Clearing; Land-Sea Breeze 10 Knots
Location: Moramba Bay, NW Madagascar
Today is Mark’s sister Mary Ellen’s birthday so Happy Birthday to ME. I won’t tell her age, but she is a year younger than Mark. We tried to call but there was no one home, so ME, we hope you have a wonderful day. We certainly had another wonderful day of lemur watching and have reluctantly decided to leave here tomorrow morning. We could stay here forever, but we know it is time to move on. I can only pull myself away because I know we get to return on our way to South Africa.
On first glance, this is not a particularly pretty bay. It is large and all of land surrounding it is low. It is not until we get in the dinghy and get closer to shore that we begin to see the beauty of the little button mushroom-shaped islets and the limestone cliffs where majestic baobab trees grow. We have explored most of the beaches on the northern side of the inner bay and have found lemurs living on most of them. We have given the beaches our own names, the Beach of the Talking Baobabs, Baobab Beach, Momma Lemur Beach, and Giant Baobab Beach. Today we visited Baobab Beach but didn’t see the juvenile lemurs that we saw there yesterday. I went there to gather some of the dried seed pods that look something like a milkweed pods except they are flat when they dry and the inside has a rumpled texture in a beautiful shade of tan. From Baobab Beach, we backtracked to Momma Lemur Beach. As we approached we could the lemurs hanging in a tree on the beach. There were five of them. We shut off the motor and rowed in so we wouldn’t scare them, but as we set foot on the beach, we heard a raucous noise like none we have heard here before. We looked at each other and wondered if the wild boars could make noises like this. But we knew that couldn’t be. And since we know there are no lions or tigers or bears, we finally figured out that it was the lemurs. We heard one group on the hill to our left first and then the group of five that we saw on the beach making this loud raucous noise. As we approached them, however, they settled down and we were able to watch and photograph as they leaped and played and ate the leaves of one of the trees. But we also saw a behavior today that we have not seen before. Every so often the lemurs would throw their heads back. It looked like they would throw themselves backwards, but they would recover, play a bit, and then throw their heads back again. Something was definitely different today, but we are not sure what. Again, we didn’t know it until we got home and looked at the photos, but one of the five was carrying a baby on her tummy today. We got some good video with some wonderful bird sounds in the background. The tiny glistening sunbirds were flying all around us as we watched the lemurs. It was really fantastic. We decided to walk up the hill that we usually come down from the homestay beach just to see if we could spot the other lemurs we had heard. We didn’t find them, but on the way down, on the same path we have walked the last few days, we saw what looked like a few bright red leaves. We went closer and saw the most fantastic red blossoms on a tiny little tree. They looked like orchids, but were definitely blossoms on the branches of the tree. What a special treat.
Our next stop was the only beach we had not visited previously. We headed in and immediately saw a baobab with psychedelic bark. We have passed by this beach every day but the colors of the bark were not visible until we got on the shore. The bark had swirls and curls in shades of brown, orange, and tan. It was quite remarkable. From this beach we were able to walk to the homestay beach with mangroves on the waterside.
As I write this log, I begin to think that maybe we should stay one more day. This is the kind of place where you feel like you could stay forever. The sounds of the vasa parrots reverberating off the limestone cliffs, the sounds of the dry seedpods rattling in the wind, the songs of the sunbirds, the delightful movements of the Coquerel’s Safika lemurs, the flight of the butterflies as big as birds, and the amazing size and shapes of the ancient baobab trees and other plants of the dry lands all combine to make this a very special place. But it is a harsh land. There is no banana, no papaya, no coconut palm, and therefore, not many people. That is why the wildlife is so prolific here. May it stay like this forever.
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| 100821 Day 299 Moramba Bay, Madagascar–Explore #7 |
