by Judy Handley | Aug 30, 2010 | Madagascar, Sailing Logs Year 5 |
Day 308, Year 5 Weather & Shop ’til You Drop.Again
Date: Monday, August 30, 2010
Weather: Rain Early Morning and Late Afternoon
Location: Nosy Sakatia, NW Madagascar
What is going on with the weather? This is the dry season in Madagascar and we should never be getting rain during the day according to the locals. But we are. The dry season was supposed to be cooler than it has been, but it was not and already they say it is getting warmer. I have no proof of that as I am always hot, so I’ll just take their word for it. Nandipo is a restaurant in Hell-ville that is the meeting place of expats and sailors in this area. We were there today and they were saying that the northerlies are coming in already, a couple of months too soon. I don’t know if any of this will have any impact on our trip to South Africa, but it is a familiar tune. When we crossed the Pacific in the summer of 2006 we did not have the southeast trade winds that we were supposed to have. In fact, we have not had typical weather during any of the five years of our circumnavigation, so we have just decided that there is really no such thing as typical weather. But then maybe global warming has something to do with this. Something that is expected is hurricanes in the Atlantic at this time of year and we hear that Hurricane Earl could go north parallel to the East Coast of the US. We just hope that it doesn’t pick up steam and that if it does go north that it is far off-shore.
We went to Hell-ville today to take Mark’s computer in to try and get rid of the virus that has been with us for the past month and to do some shopping. We went in with John of Sakatia Towers and between us we had ten HEAVY cases of Three Horses Beer bottles to return. These bottles hold the equivalent of two normal beers, but the glass is super thick and the plastic cases are even thicker. John also had two bottles of propane to be refilled and we had two five gallon fuel jugs, so getting all of this into Anatole’s (John’s driver) small car was almost comical. But we made it. We dropped off our empty beer cases and our food orders at Ah-Kam Oliver’s and headed on into town. Oliver’s is a little Chinese shop that does an incredible business. Prices are better than at the SuperMarche in town so it is always overrun with people. By leaving the order, Oliver can then gather the things when he has a breather and has the goods and the bill ready when we return a couple of hours later. We then went on into town. Mark went to the computer shop and John and I went to the bank. Then John and I split up but before long, we all ended up at Nandipo. The computer shop had taken Mark’s hard drive out and was scanning it for virus problems and that was going to take most of the day. So we had to decide whether to leave the computer and return tomorrow or stay until late afternoon. We opted for the latter, but we had to figure out what to do with the huge load of groceries we had ordered at Oliver’s. John had an even bigger order, so I went with Anatole to pay for our order and we put everything in the back of a truck and sent it out to Chanty Beach to be carted over to Sakatia Towers. I couldn’t believe it, but between John’s order and ours plus our fuel cans and his propane tanks we filled the entire back of a small truck. That done, I returned to Nandipo. I had seen Peter and Carla of Odulphus walking on the street when I was with Anatole, so we sent them a text message to see if we could get together for lunch. We didn’t hear back from them right away, so we wandered up the street to find a restaurant John had recommended. We found the sign and were on the street looking at it when we heard Peter and Carla yell at us from the second floor. They were just in the process of sending a text message back when they saw us on the street. This, plus the fact that we knew four of the other five customers in the restaurant illustrates that Hell-ville is really a small town and we have been here long enough to know more people than we should.
We ate and talked and waited for the shops to re-open at 3 pm. Mark then returned to the computer shop, I did the super market and fresh market shopping, and we hooked up with Ann Christine, the woman who started the school on Nosy Sakatia, and we hired a taxi together to take us back to Chanty Beach. From there, John’s motor boat met us laden with our purchases from Oliver’s and we returned to Windbird. We now have most things put away and are getting ready to eat a late dinner. It was a busy day, but a good one. We have much of the shopping done for our trek to South Africa and we seem to have a computer that works and allows us to get on the internet. So once again, life is good. Tomorrow we will stay close to home, bake bread, do some cooking, and visit with Dream Catcher and Constance to discuss plans for our trip south.
by Judy Handley | Aug 29, 2010 | Madagascar, Sailing Logs Year 5 |
Day 307, Year 5 Sunday Lunch at Sakatia Towers
Date: Sunday, August 29, 2010
Weather: Another Beautiful Day with Light Winds
Location: Nosy Sakatia, NW Madagascar
Today was a free and easy Sunday. We went snorkeling in search of nudibranchs. We found none but we had a great snorkel, catching the tide at just the right time to have good clarity. The big find for today was a juvenile Semicircle Angelfish. We saw an adult in the Bay of Islands in Fiji but have never seen another. The adult is large with blue, green, and yellow coloration and is not particularly spectacular. But the juvenile is dark blue with white lines that begin at the nose as vertical lines and then begin to curve until they are crescent-shaped near the tail. I saw a larger juvenile while snorkeling here a couple of weeks ago but we didn’t have the camera with us. Today we were able to get a photo of this beautiful little fish.
We had lunch on the Sakatia Towers deck with seven of John’s guests, Ed and Lynne of Constance, Claude, Aileen, and John (a visitor) of Koukouri and John, and Bruce and Bierget of Irene from South Africa and a couple visiting them from South Africa. Two of John’s guests are Australians that are leaving here and heading to Africa to climb Kilimanjaro, another young woman traveling alone from Switzerland, a couple I didn’t meet, and then an older couple that just arrived from South Africa who were very good friends of John’s parents and have known John for many years. So it was a wonderful mix of people with great food.
Tomorrow we go to Hell-ville by taxi to take Mark’s computer in to try and get rid of the virus that has been a problem for weeks now. We’ll do a little shopping and then return. At some point tomorrow, we hope to make a decision on what we are doing with the last three weeks we have here in Madagascar. One thing is for sure. We need a couple of days of down time as we have been partying nonstop since Friday. It’s a tough life but somebody’s got to do it!
by Judy Handley | Aug 28, 2010 | Madagascar, Sailing Logs Year 5 |
Day 306, Year 5 Proud Parents
Date: Saturday, August 28, 2010
Weather: Beautiful Day; SE Winds Light, PM Sea Breeze Strong
Location: Nosy Sakatia, NW Madagascar
Today our daughter’s blog went public. Here’s part of the press release that went about this: “We’re proud to announce that WGBH’s Cape Cod affiliate, WCAI, was selected as one of 12 pilot NPR (National Public Radio) stations that will curate and distribute online content about high-interest, specialized subjects. In the case of WCAI, the topic of interest is oceans and global climate change, and the reporter chosen to lead the effort after a nationwide search is WCAI’s own science reporter/editor Heather Goldstone, who has a PhD in marine biology from MIT and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. Goldstone’s task for Argo is to write and curate a daily blog on the WCAI website that will provide original reporting on all matters involving the ocean and climate change – from the very latest on the mammoth BP oil spill to shifting weather patterns to what’s going on miles below the ocean surface. Goldstone is also tasked with creating a one-stop-shopping online resource on global climate change and related topics, and will develop and lead an online community of concerned citizen-readers in discussions related to the issue.” We were able to get online yesterday just long enough to take a look at the blog site and we were very impressed. We know how Heather has struggled to find child care and start working much sooner than she expected to. But this was an opportunity she just couldn’t pass up. We talked to her late this afternoon to tell her how very proud we are of what she has accomplished in the last month to get the site up and running. She has wonderful support from NPR and that has certainly helped. So congratulations, Heather. We are very proud of your accomplishments.
We started our morning with a Sakatia snorkel. We were hoping to see nudibranchs but didn’t. Well, we did, but we didn’t know it until we looked at our pictures from the excursion and saw a pair of black and orange nudibranchs in a photo. So we’ll try again tomorrow morning when the tide is a little lower and look more carefully. We were in a bit of a hurry this morning as we needed to be ready to go with John Sheppard at 11 am to the dedication celebration for the Hotel Loharano (Tsyazo Idriana Ato). The temporary sign on the beach said all of this but we are thinking that Loharano is the name of the hotel and the rest was a greeting. It’s pretty bad when you don’t even know where you have been! We met the owners, Isaletto and Alberto (I hope I have the spelling correct, but please forgive if I do not.) at yesterday’s Rotary meeting and were graciously invited to today’s celebration. We rode in John’s boat across to Nosy Be and because of low tide, once again had to get out and wade for a bit and then walk down the beach to the hotel. It has been open for a couple of months but today was the grand opening. We entered the hotel grounds and immediately saw Joanna and Wendy that we met yesterday. They were wrapped in African-looking cloth and Joanna yelled across to us that we must go to the office to get our wrap. It was all part of the celebration, so the men wore their wraps from the waist down and women wore the material as a sarong with a second piece of material over the shoulder. The hotel has an African feel to it. The bungalows are bright orange with circular thatched roofs. There was a beautiful pool with a slide down the hill to yet another pool. The staff was busy cooking and a band was playing as we walked through the hotel grounds and back out to a knoll overlooking the beach. We sat at a table with many of the Rotary members we met yesterday and we met other hotel owners from Sakatia and the stretch of Nosy Be facing Nosy Sakatia. We ate, drank, and were merry. The whole affair was lovely. When it was time for us to leave I went to say thank you to Isaletta and Alberto. I don’t know if it is the Italian way or the Malagasy way, but my thank you was over-shadowed by Isaletto’s graciousness. She expressed how honored she was that we could be them on this very special occasion. Mark and I walked down the beach to where John’s boat would pick us up and take us back to Windbird feeling like very lucky people. John has introduced us to a wonderful community of people here and we are so much richer for our encounters here.
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.
