by Judy Handley | Aug 21, 2010 | Madagascar, Sailing Logs Year 5 |
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.
by Judy Handley | Aug 20, 2010 | Madagascar, Sailing Logs Year 5 |
Day 298, Year 5 South Side of Moramba Bay
Date: Friday, August 20, 2010
Weather: Sunny AM, Wind SE 10; Partly Sunny PM, Wind NE 15
Location: Moramba Bay, NW Madagascar
There was very little wind during the night and then as the sun rose above the horizon, the breeze started blowing from the land. It was a gentle ten knots and good enough for Ed and Lynne to feel they should pull up anchor and start their trip back to Nosy Be. They are doing an overnight which should get them back to Nosy Be by tomorrow evening.
We stayed on Windbird during the morning and at noon when the land breeze died down and just as the sea breeze from the northeast started blowing, we got in the dinghy and headed all the way across this wide bay to the south shore. We picked a point about two-thirds of the way from where we are to the point of land as far as we can see to the south and landed the dinghy on a beach there. The tide was still coming up and we didn’t want to stray too far from the dinghy until the tide was receding so we took off on a path leading away from the beach and promised not to walk too far before returning. The paths were obviously zebu paths and they led us to a barren area that looks like it must fill with water in the wet season and then on to tsingy cliffs. The path kept going and we wanted to go with it, but we returned to the beach to check on the dinghy. We surely wouldn’t want to lose it, and we weren’t sure we could count on the tide table being correct here. But actually it was right on. We now felt confident enough to leave the dinghy and go for a longer walk. The beach we were on was very long and the high tide line was a treasure trove of small cowrie shells and olive shells, all with different designs. Mark found one large cowrie that I love, so walking the long beach was a delight for me. At the end of the beach there was a limestone wall so we turned inland following the cliff. Immediately Mark turned around and whispered, “Maki.” The lemurs were leaping across the path in front of us and into the trees on the limestone cliff. We stopped and took photos and enjoyed their antics and then continued following the path. Actually it was more like a dirt road. We walked past a fenced area and through a wet area that brought us back out onto another beach. We walked and shelled this beach and went inland to the trail near the end of the beach. This time the trail took us uphill. We know there is a very fancy looking building on the end of the point, but as we continued to walk in that direction we could see that we were still only half-way there. We wanted to get there just to see what it is, but it was getting later in the afternoon so we turned around for the trek back to the dinghy. We saw numerous birds on the way back, more lemurs, but only one lone zebu calf. When we got back to the dinghy we could see that the sea breeze had kicked up a bit of surf. The ride back to Windbird was a little lumpy but it was dry.
We haven’t made a decision as to what we will do tomorrow-leave or stay. But unless the weather changes drastically, I think we will stay one more day. I don’t think I can leave here without visiting the momma and baby lemurs one more time and going back to the Giant Baobab beach to see the rowdy lemurs that leap through the trees there. So my vote is one more lemur hit tomorrow and then we will be on our way back north.
by Judy Handley | Aug 19, 2010 | Madagascar, Sailing Logs Year 5 |
Day 297, Year 5 Hooked on Lemurs
Date: Thursday, August 19, 2010
Weather: Sunny AM, Wind SE 20+; Overcast in PM, Wind NNE 5-10
Location: Moramba Bay, NW Madagascar
Big ones, tiny ones, middle-sized ones . . . no matter the size, we are definitely hooked on lemurs. This morning was just too windy to go out exploring, so I baked bread, but for the first time since we have been here, the wind died down just after noon and we actually got a gentle afternoon sea breeze from the northeast. This made going out in the dinghy much more fun and it allowed us to go further than we have before. We went past the beaches we have visited and finally found a small village. We have seen a few local canoes and wondered where they came from. Now we know. We then worked our way back stopping at the next beach back from the village for an explore. As we neared the shore, we saw some white spots in a tree on the beach. By the time we beached the dinghy, the lemurs started bounding down out of the tree. One bounded on to the beach and disappeared, and then the others leaped through the trees and out of sight. We didn’t see them again, but it is nice to know that they are there. Next time we’ll row in so as not to scare them with the sound of the dinghy motor. We explored this beach and found a talking baobab. This one had gashes on the trunk that looked like eyes and a mouth with arms (branches) and looked just like it was speaking to us. I saw more of the green pods that we have been seeing and realized today that they look a little like large milkweed pods. These were drying and splitting open, and inside there was the same kind of fluff you find attached to the seeds in milkweed. But when these pods dry, they flatten out and make quite a lovely decoration. On this same beach we also saw the big bird called a coucal and a slightly smaller blue bird with a very long tail called a crested coua. I pulled another of my “tromping through the vines to photograph a bird” trick and fell flat on my face. The vines here are everywhere and are just like little trip wires.
The next stop was on the beach where Mark and I saw the giant butterfly a couple of days ago. We call this one Baobab Beach because it also has a lovely assortment of baobabs. I no sooner started walking up the beach when a much smaller swallowtail than we saw before came flying directly at me and looked like it was going to land on my finger. I was ahead of Ed and Lynne and tried to call to them to look, but they only saw the butterfly flying away. We walked down what looked like a bit of a sand path. Mark and Ed walked ahead with Lynne and I behind them. I saw a spot of white in a tree so Lynne and I walked that way and found three little lemurs. We’ll call them juveniles but we have no idea if they are two months old or a year old. We just know that they are not nearly as big as the adults. These three little guys put on a show that delighted us. They do more climbing than the adults we have seen, but they can still leap a fair distance from tree to tree.
Our last stop was at what we are now calling Momma Lemur Beach. We just had to see if we could get another glimpse of those babies. We saw leaves swaying and knew the lemurs were jumping. Mark headed up the hill but Ed, Lynne, and I stayed on the low ground. We could see the lemurs from a distance, but it was hard to get photos through the trees. I found a mother with a baby and kept my eye on her. Eventually I heard Mark call down that he didn’t have his camera. It was in the backpack on my back. So I went to the path that goes up the hill and then cut across to him. He had been sitting in the same spot for at least twenty minutes with an unbelievably close view of the mother with the oldest baby. By the time I reached him, she bounded away and the mother with the tiny baby was still in her perch and not moving. As we watched we realized that this mother looks young and her baby can’t be very old. There’s nothing fluffy white about it yet. It is still in the grayish-white stage. We just can’t believe how many lemurs we are getting to watch and getting to see the babies is such a treat.
We were able to fly back to the boats as the wind had virtually died in the part of the bay we were exploring. When we got back to where we could see the boats, we realized that we had a gentle sea breeze blowing in from the west. That is the first we have in days. The southeasterly winds have just been so strong that we have not been getting the normal land breeze-sea breeze winds each day. We listened to the weather this evening and it looks as if we will have light breezes for the next couple of days. If so, tomorrow we will do some exploring across the bay to on the south shore. That has just not been possible with the strong winds. We will then decide whether to head north and motor if there are light winds or stay here a few more days. We would love to get back north to Nosy Saba when the winds are light so we could enjoy the snorkeling there, so we’ll have to weigh that against the cost of motoring.
by Judy Handley | Aug 18, 2010 | Madagascar, Sailing Logs Year 5 |
Day 296, Year 5 Babies and Baobabs
Date: Wednesday, August 18, 2010
Weather: Another Beautiful Day; Wind SE 15+
Location: Moramba Bay, NW Madagascar
Baby lemurs are just too cute, so the hope today was to get to watch the mother and baby that we photographed yesterday, not even knowing at the time that we were seeing a baby. This morning the wind was blowing like crazy again, so we took the dinghy to the closest shore hoping to not get soaked again. The closest beach happens to be the one with the homestay and a path over the hill to the lemur beach. Just like yesterday morning and unlike yesterday afternoon, the lemurs were in the trees waiting for us. Unfortunately, they were higher in the trees and there were all sorts of vines hanging in the line of sight. So we climbed through brush and vines and every manner of prickly forest vegetation to get a better look. Finally we spotted the mother and baby. The baby was riding on mama’s back as she made her leap from one tree to another, so we tromped further into the dense vegetation. We managed to get a couple of photos of mother and baby and one short video. This baby lemur already has a fluffy white coat and was quite curious. She or he would look down to where we were and then look back at mamma. Then the baby decided it was time for a mid-morning snack and crawled around to the mother’s front and tucked in to nurse. We could still see one little leg and the scrawny little tail sticking out. Lynne and Ed had gone back to the beach by this time, but Mark and I persisted and found another mother and baby. This baby was obviously younger and we think it is the one we saw yesterday. We feel so fortunate that these Coquerel’s Safika lemurs allow us to hang around with them and just watch. Today we stood under the trees watching them for at least half an hour. They did move from tree to tree when we moved in closer, but they didn’t try to get completely away from us.
Ed had gone for a walk while we were lemur watching and found a bamboo forest. All of the garden fencing we have seen is made of bamboo poles and we had been wondering where it came from. Now we know. We walked back to the homestay and found that they wind had calmed a bit, so we got in the dinghy and headed to the beach where we spotted our first lemurs upon arrival here. We didn’t see any lemurs hanging out near the huge baobab where we have seen them before, so we took off on a path into the woods just to explore. We came out in a flat field of dried grass and beautiful baobabs all around. I call it the Valley of the Baobabs. These giants really dolook like someone pulled them out of the ground and stuck them back in with their roots in the air. I read one description that said it has been described as ‘A Caliban of a tree, a grizzled distorted old goblin with a girth of a giant, the hide of a rhinoceros, twiggy fingers clutching at empty air.’ Walking among them is a definite Tolkien-esque experience. Mark and I got back to the beach before Ed and Lynne and I saw some huge birds flying through the trees over by the big baobab. On second look, I realized I was not seeing giant birds, but I was watching lemurs leaping from tree to tree. Then one of them bounded down on the beach right in front of the giant baobab, made another leap, and then went into the trees. They are not as graceful on the ground as they are in the trees, but it was exciting to see this one bound across the sand. We found him in a tamarind tree, but we never did find the other two who flew through the trees with him. We measured the girth of the giant baobab and found that is about twenty-five feet around. The first baobab we saw on Nosy Ankarea up north was over thirty feet around, but both are big. I then wanted to walk into the woods behind this giant to see two other monsters that we had seen from the dinghy yesterday. Mark came with me reluctantly as it was once again a prickly experience. When we got to the trees, I was very surprised to find that they were not as tall as I had thought. They were definitely bottle-shaped and a little less than twenty feet around. Because of all the vines and brush I couldn’t get far enough away to get a photo, but I do have one taken from the dinghy. The bottle-shaped tree has my vote as prettiest baobab and the giant where the lemurs hang out is the most majestic.
by Judy Handley | Aug 17, 2010 | Madagascar, Sailing Logs Year 5 |
Day 295, Year 5 A Magical Place
Date: Tuesday, August 17, 2010
Weather: Beautiful Day; Wind SE 20 am, 10 pm
Location: Moramba Bay, NW Madagascar
A baby lemur, a swallowtail butterfly as big as both of my hands, a Hoopoe bird, a critically endangered Madagascar fish eagle, and baobab trees of every size and shape imaginable . . . these were today’s finds here in Moramba Bay. After a wet dinghy ride in very windy conditions, we landed on a beach to start exploring shortly after 8 am. We had chosen this beach for landing yesterday and we had hoped to stop along the way to take photos of some amazing looking baobabs. The light just wasn’t right yesterday afternoon when we went that way and it was too wild and wet this morning to do much with cameras, but we did get a few photos. As we approached our landing spot we saw zebu wandering about in a flat area behind the beach. We wanted to try and find a path to walk to the next beach, so Ed and Lynne walked along the beach and Ed went over a cliff while Mark and I followed the path where we had seen zebu. Maybe we were hallucinating as we never saw another zebu or even evidence that they had been there. But we did find a fenced garden area with not much growing in it at the moment, a watering hole, and what looks like a home-stay with four or five tents scattered about. We walked around the bottom edge of the fenced area and found a path that would lead us over the hill to the next beach. Ed and Lynne joined us as Ed’s high path was a little too steep. We walked up a hill and down the other side. As we stood on the beach looking at what appeared to be wild boar tracks, Lynne spotted three lemurs in a tree on the hill we had just climbed down. As we walked that way, we all started taking photos just in case this group would not let us get as close as our other two friends we visited yesterday and the evening we arrived. As we got closer, one large lemur took off and leaped high in a tree further up the hill. We didn’t see that one again, but we did get photos of the other two-one very large and one that looked like a juvenile. When we got home and looked at the photos we saw that the one looked so large because she had a baby on her stomach with its little human-like hands wrapped around her back. So very precious!. After watching the lemurs for quite a while, we walked back over the hill to the garden and home-stay. Here we saw beautiful domesticated turkeys and I also did some Hoopoe chasing. This bird is found throughout Europe and Asia and most of Africa, but it was the first time I have seen it, so I went chasing to get a photo. At first I thought it was a small chicken as it was pecking at the ground as if looking for insects. But then I noticed that it had a beautiful crest on its head and I remembered seeing a photo of it in the Lonely Planet. This bird is ginger-colored with white and black stripes on its wings. As luck would have it, the bird was hanging around the bases of trees where there was very little light, so getting a good photo was almost impossible. And when it would fly low to the ground it was hard to see as the black and white stripes just faded into the surroundings.
We headed back to the Windbird and Constance and found that the wind had picked up considerably and we all got soaking wet on the way back. But it had been a successful morning so the salt-water drenching wasn’t such a big price to pay. When we got back and looked at our photos and discovered that we had seen a mother Coquerel’s Safika lemur with her baby, Mark and I just had to return to see if we could see it again. But our afternoon foray came up with zero lemurs. What we did see, however, made up for it. We saw Atrophaneura anterior, Madagascar’s largest butterfly. While we were watching it flit from flower to flower on a small tree (looked something like a dogwood) we could not decide if we thought it was a bird or a butterfly. It was just way too big to be a butterfly, as big as both of my hands, so that made us think it must be some strange bird. Mark called it a “bird-a-fly.” When we got home we looked in the Bradt Madagascar Wildlife book we have and found that what we had seen was actually a type of swallowtail butterfly whose closest relatives live in southeast Asia. The head and abdomen of this butterfly was bright red and the wings were black with white polka dots edged in red. Quite striking. We saw this on what we are calling Baobab Beach. It was a long beach with so many baobabs. When we left here, we headed back to the place where we had seen our first lemurs. On the way, we saw a majestic Madagascar fish eagle that looks similar to an American bald eagle sitting in the top of leafless tree. We stopped the dinghy and just sat and watched, taking photo after photo. It startled us so when it flew away that we didn’t really get good photos of it in flight, but it was such a pleasure to have this chance to watch one of these endangered creatures up close. We then returned to the beach where we saw lemurs yesterday and the evening before, but again there were no lemurs to be found. I did walk a bit inland and found blossoming bush with a beautiful sunbird. I then walked back to the huge baobab where we had seen the lemurs yesterday, gave it a big hug, and called it a day.
Tomorrow morning Ed and Lynne will head out with us again in search of more wildlife. The shores of this bay and its little islets just seem to be teaming with life. To us it seems like a magical place.
by Judy Handley | Aug 16, 2010 | Madagascar, Sailing Logs Year 5 |
Day 294, Year 5 Windbird in Wonderland
Date: Monday, August 16, 2010
Weather: Beautiful Day; Wind 10-15 Knots SE
Location: Moramba Bay, NW Madagascar
Moramba Bay has the feel of a wonderland. The little limestone mushroom-shaped islets that look like they sit on a pedestal in the water are interesting. But then put a few baobab trees of top and the interest grows. There are six different kinds of baobab trees here. Some have trunks shaped like bottles. Others start as one trunk and then develop into two that twine around each other. Others have a broad base and get smaller as they rise up. And others just rise straight up majestically. But all of them have twisting, finger-like branches only at the top that spread out like an umbrella. When you look at these trees, you somehow get the feeling that they could come alive and start moving. Eerie . . . but beautiful in a strange way. So this afternoon we picked up Ed and Lynne and wound our way through the wonderland of baobab-topped islets. We went back to the area where we saw the lemurs yesterday, but this time we beached the dinghy and walked around to the rocky outcrop where we saw them yesterday. The first thing we saw was a very large baobab tree with a few mangroves on the beach below it. Lynne started walking toward the tree while Ed and I were taking photos of it. Then we saw a couple of spots of white and realized that our lemur friends were there waiting for us. We seem to be able to get very close to these lemurs without scaring them away, but voices immediately scare them and they leap through the tangle of branches. Today one of the pair leaped to a higher branch when we got close but the other one was munching on a long green-bean shaped mangrove seed pod and would not be disturbed. So we were able to get better photos then yesterday when we were taking the pictures from a bouncing dinghy. We must have spent twenty minutes or more just standing there watching the lemurs. We finally pulled ourselves away to explore the other areas around the beach. We saw a flock of black and white Pied Crows, a couple of Vasa Parrots, herons and egrets flying overhead, and one soaring fish eagle. We then got back in the dinghy and went deeper into the bay. We delighted in looking at all of the different baobabs. We saw several beautiful beaches and decided to come back and land at one of them in the morning so we could do a land explore. Lemurs, tsingy, baobabs, mushroom shaped islands. What a wonderland!
