by Judy Handley | Aug 27, 2010 | Madagascar, Sailing Logs Year 5 |
Day 305, Year 5 Rotary International in Madagascar
Date: Friday, August 27, 2010
Weather: Beautiful Day
Location: Nosy Sakatia, NW Madagascar
Where to begin? We left Windbird at 11:15 am this morning and just got home at 5:45 pm. It took fifteen minutes to get to Sakatia Lodge where today’s Rotary meeting was being held and another fifteen minutes to get back, so that means we attended a six hour Rotary meeting. Everything about the day fascinated us as it was so different from a Rotary meeting in Concord, New Hampshire. First, we had to go by boat and wade and walk about a quarter of mile to shore because the tide was so low, as did all of the other members. This means you arrived bare-footed and basically you stay that way. There was no reason to wear shoes. In Concord the members arrive in suits and are certainly not bare-footed! The Concord club has at least fifty members whereas the Nosy Be chapter has fourteen, but only ten were present today. Of the ten members present today, seven were women. As I remember, you can count the number of women members in Concord on one hand. So that was interesting. The Concord meeting is held in a restaurant and so was today’s meeting here, but I’m afraid the Cat ‘n Fiddle in Concord is no match for Sakatia Lodge. This club meets at a different member’s business each week and since most members are associated with the hospitality trade, it means that each meeting is held at a fantastic ocean-front resort. Sakatia Lodge is managed by Isabella and Jose from Portugal and Isabella had us come to her home for the business meeting. It was a lovely home set high on the hill with a fantastic view of the bay. The windows were all dressed with recelet curtains. Recelet is the type of cut-out embroidery done on Nosy Komba and the long table that accommodated all twelve of us had another Nosy Komba white table cloth with colorful fish embroidered all over. There were bowls of bougainvillea flowers and a typed meeting agenda at each place. The meeting was called together with the ringing of the Rotary bell and the president of the club read the Rotary message welcoming a new member. Today’s new member was Joanna, a woman who has retired here from London to try and save Madagascar’s forests and the lemurs. Another major difference from a club meeting in Concord was that this one was multi-lingual. French is the main language understood by all in attendance, except for us and Joanna. The only Malagasy members present today were Dr. Abdul (who attended to Lynne of Constance when she had her infection) and his step-daughter Sandra who has just returned here after living in London for five years serving as a public relations person for the Hilton Hotel. She was born and raised in France, so living in Madagascar is a new experience for her. She came back to take over her mother’s family farming business but she misses London terribly and doesn’t know how long she can stay here. Dr. Abdul and Sandra both speak Malagasy and French and Sandra’s English is as good as ours. Other members speak only French and some speak Portuguese and French and others German and Italian. They did try to speak English for our benefit when possible and it was fascinating to watch the way every member moved from one language to another. The business meeting was very much like any Rotary business meeting. The club has been given a grant from a Dubai club and they discussed the best way to spend the money. It will go to build a school, but deciding where to build the school was the discussion. There will be a district-wide meeting in the capitol of Madagascar and this club wants to be well represented. The district here is all of the neighboring French speaking countries-Comoros and Mayotte, Seychelles, Reunion, Mauritius and Rodrigues, Djibouti in East Africa, and Madagascar. There will also be a celebration in Majunga in October honoring that club’s 50 years in Rotary and members here want this club represented. Ann Christine, a woman from Switzerland who came here fifteen years ago and built the only school on Nosy Sakatia, just returned this morning from a trip to the capitol of Tanna and to Majunga and had first hand reports on all of these activities. Wendy, a young woman from South Africa, seemed to be the note taker today. She lives on Nosy Komba and is currently trying to get an import-export business started. She exports crafts produced by handicapped Malagasy and imports goods from displaced and handicapped Africans. We will see her again at Sunday Brunch at Sakatia Towers. She is a diver and she speared the fish we will be eating on Sunday. I could go on and on describing the fascinating backgrounds of the members present today, but I must stop myself and report on the remainder of the day.
After the meeting we went back down to the Lodge for a scrumptious meal that was brought by each of the members. Once a month they have a shared meal and today was one of those meals. Since all of the members are in the hospitality business, the food was just spectacular. They all try to outdo each other. We had a raw fish salad, marinated in gin and mixed with cucumbers, lettuce, and onions. This was provided by Isabella and Sakatia Lodge and it was spectacular. Then there was thin-sliced pork, a zebu and rice noodle salad, potato salad, cabbage salad, and a tomato, cucumber, and carrot salad. Everything was delicious and there was white and red wine in abundance and Chocolate Decadence (flourless chocolate cake) and chocolate brownies for dessert. This meal was over the top. It was the best food I have had in years.
After lunch we walked through the village to the school and drug out a huge spinnaker that was donated to the club by the yacht Selema (over a 100 feet long). This spinnaker covered an entire soccer field. Mark and I had been invited to the meeting today to help with the decision-making on how best to cut up this spinnaker to make small sails for the local pirogues, but we don’t really have that expertise and it became evident that what various members thought sometimes differed from what the local men who were present thought. So we cut off the bottom portion of the sail and cut out one square that we now have on Windbird. We will sew the edges to make a pirogue sail and give it to the locals to try. If it works, then the club members will have a pattern to use for cutting up the remainder of the spinnaker. If it doesn’t work, then I think the club will try to borrow a local sail and use that as their pattern. While the sail was laid out on the field, local children started gathering and watching the sail as it would rise with the wind. I convinced a few of them to run under the sail with me and we had a fabulous time running in and out the other side.
It was quite the day and tomorrow we start again by going to the shore of Nosy Be with John to the hotel opening of one of the Rotary members we met today. We hope to be able to get a snorkel in before we leave as the tide will be just right. Ed and Lynne went in today and had one of the best snorkeling experiences they have ever had. The water was clear, there was an abundance of fish, and they saw beautiful nudibranchs. These are sea slugs and they can be unbelievably colorful. We have looked for them all around the world and never seen them, so we will give that a go in the morning before heading to the hotel opening celebration. What a good life!
by Judy Handley | Aug 26, 2010 | Madagascar, Sailing Logs Year 5 |
Day 304, Year 5 Feels Like Home
Date: Thursday, August 26, 2010
Weather: Beautiful; Winds ENE 8-10 Knots
Latitude: 13 18.105 S
Longitude: 048 10.660 E
Location: Nosy Sakatia, NW Madagascar
Windbird returned to Nosy Sakatia today and is anchored in front of Sakatia Towers. The only other boat here is Constance and it feels like we have returned home. Unfortunately, we had to motor most of the way here as the winds today came from the ENE all day. I don’t think we have seen this before. We sometimes get wind from the NE as it backs or clocks changing from land breeze to sea breeze, but consistent winds from the NE is a new one for us. At least the seas were calm and it was a beautiful day and we got to sail for the last hour or so and that was nice.
We went to shore to Sakatia Towers in the late afternoon to see John Sheppard. As always, he was a wealth of information and great company. He gave us the name of the local computer guru but it will probably be Monday before we can get an appointment with him. His name is Giam and his father owns the resort just south of Sakatia Towers. Sometimes Giam comes here for the weekend, so it is possible that we might get to see him sooner than Monday. Whatever, in the meantime we will try to cure Mark’s computer virus. But of that doesn’t work, we now know that there is someone who can help. John offered to have his chef pick up some fresh veggies for us in Hell-ville tomorrow morning and also figured out a way that we can get dinghy fuel delivered to us. Then he invited us to attend tomorrow’s local Rotary meeting. It is being held on Sakatia this week. A boat that was here a couple of weeks ago donated a huge spinnaker to the club and tomorrow it will be laid out on the school playing field to decide just how best to cut it up to make small sails for the local pirogues. John thought Mark might be able to lend a little expertise to this decision-making process, so we will tag along and enjoy yet another Madagascar experience.
My great triumph for the day was that I finally finished organizing all of the Chagos and Madagascar photos. This has been a long and arduous process, but it is finally done. I feel the weight of the world lifted from my shoulders. Until we can get our computer virus under control, we have no idea whether or not we will be able to upload all of these photos to the website. But if not here, surely we can do this in South Africa.
After visiting with John at Sakatia Towers, we went to Constance for sundowners. It was great to see Lynne and Ed again and to talk about our plans from here to South Africa. Many decisions to make.
by Judy Handley | Aug 25, 2010 | Madagascar, Sailing Logs Year 5 |
Day 303, Year 5 Justin, Jo & Ziggy Back Together
Date: Wednesday, August 25, 2010
Weather: Partly Sunny; Land Breeze/Sea Breeze 10 Knots
Location: Baramahamay Bay, NW Madagascar
Justin left New Mexico on Monday and arrived in England yesterday. We knew he was going but were sworn to secrecy as he wanted to surprise Jo and Ziggy. Well, he did that. Jo almost fainted, but she was elated. I got an email from her this morning expressing her absolute joy of having the family back together. They have to wait another two weeks to get the approval for Jo to return to the US and then they have to wait longer once they return to see if her application for an unconditional ten-year visa is granted. They have lawyers dealing with all of this, so we are hopeful that all will go smoothly. We are just so happy that they are back together for now.
We visited the village on the north side of this bay today. The last time we were here we visited the village on the south side to buy honey, but today Peter and Carla of Odulphus went in with us and took us to see the school and a little restaurant. It takes at least an hour to have the food cooked, so we ordered and then strolled through the village. The children here were very friendly and walked with us holding our hands. The school is on vacation right now but Peter and Carla explained that there are two teachers that the villagers have to pay and they have no books, no paper, and no pencils. They have two chalkboards and chalk and that’s it. I wish I had things with me to donate but I do not. Maybe I can buy some things in Hell-ville and leave them at the school when we stop here on our way to South Africa.
We had local crabs for lunch and talked about plans for heading south. Richard of Chant de Mer whom we met when we were here last time came by. He is another walking encyclopedia of knowledge about sailing the west coast of Madagascar, especially south of here. We tried to absorb as much as we could and came back to Windbird to write down what we could remember as quickly as possible. As I write this log, Mark is copying charts of southern Madagascar that Richard loaned us for the evening. So we are gathering as much information as possible in order to make a decision about when to leave this area to head south and to decide just how far south we will go. But since we can’t decide where we are going tomorrow, I have no idea how we will ever make the larger decision. It is one of those cases where there are options and every person we meet with first hand knowledge of the trip to South Africa has completely different advice. Maybe we’ll flip a coin on this one.
by Judy Handley | Aug 24, 2010 | Madagascar, Sailing Logs Year 5 |
Day 302, Year 5 Mahavanga to Baramahamay Bay
Date: Tuesday, August 24, 2010
Weather: Most Cloudy with No Wind
Latitude: 13 42.797 S
Longitude: 047 54.002 E
Location: Baramahamay Bay, NW Madagascar
Just when we think we are getting the hang of sailing with the morning SE breeze from land and the afternoon NW wind from the sea, we get a day like today with no wind and absolutely glassy seas. So we didn’t do much sailing, but we did have a nice calm trip from Mahavanga northwards. After a bit of a rocky and rolly night, the calm trip was most welcome. We arrived in Baramahamay Bay mid-afternoon and were delighted to see that Peter and Carla of Odulphus are here. They came over for Happy Hour tonight and we caught up with our separate adventures of the past couple of weeks. Peter has a new plan for the trip from here to South Africa that would require us to leave this area a little sooner than planned and travel further south down the Madagascar coast. So we have much to think about. But they have actually discovered a tiny local restaurant on shore and we are going there for lunch tomorrow. Peter told the story of going there and ordering chicken for lunch. Preparation takes about an hour, so he and Carla went for a walk. When they returned they were told that the chicken escaped and that he would have to order something else. Too funny!
We got an email from our son-in-law Jed this morning that gave us a bit of a scare. He responded to yesterday’s log where I stated that there is no threat of ciguatera in Madagascar. Evidently that is not true. Here’s what we received from Jed:
University of Florida From http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/in742
(University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Services)
In the Indian Ocean, ciguatera commonly occurs in Reunión, Madagascar, Mauritius and the Seychelles and has also been reported from Sri Lanka, the Maldives and the Comoro and Chagos Archipelagoes.
I have the remaining barracuda filets nicely frozen against the cold plate in our refrigerator and they will stay there until we can research this further. Even though we no longer have a freezer, we do have the luxury of freezing small portions against the evaporator plate of the refrigerator. If our barracuda was carrying the toxin we should have felt the results within eight hours after eating it. Since we didn’t, there is probably not an issue, but there is no sense in taking a chance. You can suffer for months after experiencing ciguatera poisoning and it is not something you want to take a chance with. We just want to check in with the locals we know back in the Nosy Be area and see what they know about this. But once again we are very thankful for Jed’s quick research.
We have decided to stay here tomorrow and go into the village on the north side of the bay. We didn’t visit there before and this is where Peter and Carla tell us there is a restaurant. We will meet them there for lunch. Hope they can catch the chickens tomorrow!
by Judy Handley | Aug 23, 2010 | Madagascar, Sailing Logs Year 5 |
Day 301, Year 5 Forgot to Mention the Barracuda
Date: Monday, August 23, 2010
Weather: Clear Day; Land-Sea Breeze 10-15 Knots
Latitude: 14 21.101 S
Longitude: 047 42.468 E
Location: Mahavanga Coastal Village, NW Madagascar
In yesterday’s log I totally forgot to mention the ‘humongo’ barracuda Mark caught yesterday. It wasn’t the fish of choice, but actually it tasted very good. This one was three feet long (92 centimeters). This kind of barracuda can grow to be 140 centimeters, so our guy still had some growing to do, but I don’t want to see a bigger one. These guys have fangs. Yikes! Barracuda in the Atlantic is rarely eaten because they can carry the dreaded ciguatera toxins, but this is not the case in the Pacific or the Indian Ocean. We marinated part of the barracuda in a tablespoon of chili powder, a tablespoon of kosher salt, and a third of a cup of lime juice. After two hours, we removed it and put it on the grill. We flaked the fish and used it to make barracuda tacos. We added finely chopped cabbage and salsa and had a delicious meal.
Today was a delightful day. We waited until 8:30 am to leave Nosy Lava and headed to Nosy Saba with 15 knots of wind from the SE. This gave us a nice downwind ten mile sail. Just before we arrived at Nosy Saba the land breeze gave way to the sea breeze from the NNW. This was perfect for the anchorage at Nosy Saba. Our first order of business was to go snorkeling. We got in the water and drifted with the current for a bit. We saw some nice fish and some coral, but the visibility was not great. We then went back to the shallow waters closer to the beach and to the north of the anchorage and the snorkeling there was much better. We snorkeled over white sand and green grass patches between the scattered coral. There was an unbelievable variety of small fish here, many of which we had never seen before. We saw some beautiful angel fish, lots of raccoon butterflyfish, and a yellow, white, and black fish that is new to us. So as always, we enjoyed being in the water. We then went back to Windbird and got dressed for a hike on the island.
We hiked uphill through golden grasses and when we got to the top we were surprised to find a ‘rest area’ with artwork. There were four tall concrete columns with fancy white stone rectangular bases built around three of them. The fourth stood apart with nothing around it. On one side of each of the columns there was a sculpted outline of horned zebu. There was also a small rectangular stone base with carved drawings on top. And around the area there were stone benches. It felt strange to find something like this on an island where there is nothing but one resort. As we were contemplating this, a young couple walked from the resort side of the island and arrived at this little Nosy Saba Stonehenge. Elisa and Fabio are from Italy and have spent the last month enjoying their honeymoon in Madagascar. We learned that they had arrived at the resort by plane in the morning. Staying at the Nosy Saba Island Resort for a few days is the end of their Madagascar experience. We wanted to know all about them and they wanted to know all about us, so we jabbered away. Elisa told us that if we had the time we should stay and eat dinner at the resort as it is the best good she has had in Madagascar. Then Elisa and Fabio headed to the beach where we had left our dinghy and we headed across the island to the resort. From the water, Nosy Saba is beautiful with white sand beaches interspersed with rock formations and surrounded by surreal blue water of many shades. Inland, however, it is dry with few trees and golden grasses. We walked down the wide road cut by large machinery that led to the resort. It is different from any place we have seen in Madagascar. Instead of bungalows built to look like the native huts, these bungalows are made of concrete, painted orange, with pointed thatched roofs and glass windows with one-way glass. The resort looked much more African than others I have seen in Madagascar. We were met by a young man who spoke some English and he explained that the resort opened two years ago. There are sixty-five locals who live on the island and work in the resort and there is nothing else on the island. The resort has built a huge number of buildings that house a machine shop, a wood working shop, and storage sheds for machinery.
We walked back across the island and found Elisa and Fabio on the beach where Fabio had re-anchored our dinghy for us. We had not expected to be so long and had not brought it far enough up on the beach for the incoming tide. But all was well. We exchanged email addresses and then we took off for Windbird so we could cross to the mainland before dark. We are anchored just off a village on the shore which appears to be the only thing for miles. There is a hillside above the village that is the light, light green of new grass. I’ll have to look at the photos to try and figure out what is growing here because we will not be going ashore. Tomorrow we head for Honey River at an early hour as it is a long sailing day.
by Judy Handley | Aug 22, 2010 | Madagascar, Sailing Logs Year 5 |
Day 300, Year 5 Back North to Nosy Lava
Date: Sunday, August 22, 2010
Weather: Overcast, Clear, Overcast; Land-Sea Breeze 20 Knots
Latitude: 14 32.608 S
Longitude: 047 37.199 E
Location: Nosy Lava, NW Madagascar
Up at 5:45 am, anchor up by 6:25 am, and arrival in Nosy Lava by 1:30 pm. It was a quick forty mile sail and we did get to sail. We had twenty knot winds and calm seas, so it was a great run. It is ten miles from here to the beautiful little island of Nosy Saba that was too rough for us on the way down, so we are going to give it another go in the morning. If it doesn’t work, we will anchor over by the mainland for the night and head for Honey River on Tuesday morning.
We had great conversations with both of our kids last night. Heather, Sam, and Jonah were sick all of last week when they were visiting with Jed’s family in Maine. That was a bummer, but they still had a wonderful time relaxing in the Maine woods. Heather’s blog site has to be ready by Friday as that is when the funders will see it for the first time, so she is working furiously. Justin is missing Jo and Ziggy soooooo much but trying to make the best of a not so great situation. We called last night as we won’t have cell service again until we get back to the Nosy Be area. Ed and Lynne did have a successful overnight and are back in the Hell-ville area. We will get there day by day and then get ready for a foray to north again. We have a month left in Madagascar before we have to check out and I know the time is going to fly by.
