by Judy Handley | Aug 12, 2010 | Madagascar, Sailing Logs Year 5 |
Day 290, Year 5 Thinking of Jennifer
Date: Thursday, August 12, 2010
Weather: Beautiful Day but Mixed and Strong Wind
Location: Paradise Hole near Berangomaina Point, NW Madagascar
My niece Jennifer is having breast cancer surgery today and we send our hopes for a speedy and complete cancer-free recovery her way. I know Jennifer will have lots of support from family but I miss being able to be there to be a support to my sister Patsy and to Jennifer. So Jennifer, just know that we are thinking of you and with you in spirit.
Today was a MOST interesting sailing day. For weeks now we have had 10 knot winds coming from the land in the morning and from the sea in the afternoon and evenings. Land breeze, sea breeze, moderate winds-that’s been our pattern for Madagascar sailing. We get GRIB files and talk to the South African Mobile Maritime Net to get weather a few days a week, but weather has just not been an issue. Well, today was a different matter. We left completely protected Baramahamay Bay at 6 am and we motored for the first hour and a quarter. Then we had 10 knots of wind from the south but we still needed a motor assist. By 7:30 pm we had 15 knots, still from the south, and we sailed along beautifully all morning even though we had a big westerly swell. We had expected the wind to come from the southeast instead of due south, so we did adjust our course to sail with the wind. And we expected the wind to die sometime between 11 am and 1 pm-it always does. But today it waited until 1:30 pm to die down, but then all of a sudden we had 20 knots of wind hitting us right on the nose from the south. NOT what we expected. So we had to beat into 20-25 knot winds all afternoon, running the motor hard, and still barely got to an anchorage before sundown.
The seas were big and sloppy today and we knew anchoring out at Nosy Kalakajoro would be untenable. So we changed our destination to a bay called Paradise Hole on the mainland. This is the cruiser name for the little bay and it doesn’t have another name on any of the charts. The winds are still blowing 15-25 knots as we sit here. We are bouncing a bit, but basically we think it will be fine even in these strong winds. If the south winds are still blowing strong tomorrow morning, we will probably stay here for another day. And seeing as how tomorrow is Friday the 13th, sitting still is fine with me. There is a tiny village here and lots of low, dry hills we could climb. So that might be tomorrow’s activity.
by Judy Handley | Aug 11, 2010 | Madagascar, Sailing Logs Year 5 |
Day 289, Year 5 Exploring Baramahamay Bay & August Letter to Family & Friends
Date: Wednesday, August 11, 2010
Weather: Mix of Sun and Threatening Clouds
Location: Baramahamay Bay, NW Madagascar
Windbird’s dinghy got little rest today. In the morning we took the dinghy back out of the bay and tried to get to the beaches on either side of the entrance. Unfortunately, the tide was too low and there were too many rocks, so it seemed like too much a risk to try and beach the dinghy. We tried three different places and finally gave up. I had hoped to take a long walk on the beach but that was not to be. On our way back to Windbird we stopped to meet Richard on Chant de Mer. Richard grew up in France and then moved to South Africa as a young adult. He has sailed back and forth from South Africa to here numerous times since1991 and we really enjoyed talking with him learning about different anchorage possibilities. We also enjoyed hearing about how he built his built. We spent at least an hour aboard Chant de Mer and then headed back to Windbird for lunch. In the afternoon we took the dinghy and headed further into the river. Richard had drawn a map for us, without which we would have been lost again, and went as far as we could go before there was barely any water over the rocks. The Baramahamay River is big and the tributary we took was also wide for a bit, but then it narrowed. We didn’t see any crocodiles, which is good, but we also didn’t see many birds. Beyond the mangroves, it looks as if the hills have been stripped-of what, we don’t know. Hardwood trees have probably been logged, but we really have no idea.
Tomorrow we will head further south to an island called Nosy Kalakajoro. If it looks like a good anchorage, we will spend the night there. If it doesn’t, we will continue on to a little bay on the mainland called Paradise Hole by cruisers. We’ll see where the wind blows us.August 11, 2010.
In the meantime, we have included our August Letter to Family and Friends below:
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Dear Family and Friends,
Windbird’s Indian Ocean adventure continues. The last letter to Family and Friends was sent on June 2. Since that time we have traveled from the atolls of Chagos to the island country of Madagascar off the coast of East Africa. In the last letter I mentioned that the 1500 miles from Chagos to Madagascar might be windy ones, and that they were. We had our first ever passage where we traveled over165 nautical miles each day at an average speed of 6.7 knots. It was a beautiful day when we rounded the top of Madagascar, but the winds gusting to 50 knots made it a ride we will never forget . and never want to repeat!
The islands of the atolls in Chagos didn’t peak their heads above water until about 6,000 years ago. In comparison, Madagascar broke away from Gondwanaland and has been in its current location for hundreds of millions of years. And because of its isolation from the mainland of Africa and Asia, the plants and wildlife here have evolved differently from any other place on earth. We have done one trip inland to see some of the world’s strangest rock formations called ‘tsingy’ (razor sharp limestone formations) and to see lemurs and chameleons. It was spectacular. As we have sailed around the world, it seems that every place we go we think, “Does it get any better than this?” And then we move on and the next place seems even better. Maybe we are too easy to please or maybe the world is just a beautiful place. Each place is so special in its own way that there can never be an answer to the question most people ask us, “What has been your favorite stop?” Madagascar is very different from anyplace we have been and we are loving it. The red soil looks like that of New Caledonia in the Pacific. The mountains remind us of the Rocky Mountains in the US. The islands are beautiful. The word for island in Malagasy is ‘nosy’ and there are many little off-shore ‘nosies’ that provide great cruising grounds. Some are just patches of sand with a few trees in the center but others have high green hills coming down to white sand beaches. Nosy Be is the most populated island with 40,000 people and it’s main town is Hell-ville, named after French Admiral de Hell and not the condition of the town. The buildings in this once French colonial town are now crumbling, but the town is always buzzing with activity. Some of the houses on Nosy Be are built of concrete block, but most of the housing that we see is in the form of traditional huts with walls built of palm frond stems and roofs covered in thatch of palm frond leaves. Most places have no electricity and plumbing is most often a bucket. Resorts have generators, but most villages do not. In Hell-ville there are little hole-in-wall shops, but no place to buy anything major. There is a super market in Hell-ville, but elsewhere you can only find little shops that carry a limited supply of anything. In the islands, you can trade for bananas, papayas, and sometimes limes, crabs, and lobster, but there are no food markets. You have to travel to Antananarivo, or Tana for short, the political and economic center of the country, if you want to find stores with major appliances, tools, computers, etc. If you want a vehicle, you have to order it and have it shipped to the main port on the east coast of the country. The elected president, who also happens to be the richest man in the country, was Marc Ravalomanana, but he was ousted in a coup last October. The current head of the country is a high profile disc jockey turned politician. Currently, the Chinese are raping the forests of rosewood and other resources. The government is paid for the resources taken, but local people are not hired to do the work so none of money reaches the common man. Madagascar is a poor country, getting poorer everyday, but it is beautiful and the people live simply and happily. The national languages are French and Malagasy (pronounced Mala-GASH) so we do have a language barrier, yet somehow we manage to communicate with these gentle people.
It is still the Age of Sail here and there are sailing dhows and outrigger canoes everywhere you look. We are basing our travels north and south out of an anchorage between bustling Nosy Be and quiet Nosy Sakatia. Nosy Sakatia is the home of a lovely little resort called Sakatia Towers, named after the 1980’s British sit-com called Faulty Towers. John Sheppard, the owner, was once a sailboat racer and cruiser and he takes good care of sailors coming in here from around the world. Happy Hour begins at 5 pm on his deck overlooking the anchorage and there is always an interesting mix of his guests and visiting cruisers. There are not many of us cruisers this year, however. The scare of theft in a dirt poor country and of pirates moving further south to the Mozambique Channel has kept most cruisers away. A very few of us came here from Chagos and there are a few South African boats that have come up for the season. There are no marinas in Madagascar, so John’s Sakatia Towers has become a bit like a yacht club for us. It is really the only place where we can gather and meet other people.
When we send our Letter to Family and Friends we always include an update on what is happening in the lives of our children. This time the news is mixed. They are doing great but unexpected things have caused some changes in their lives. Our son Justin, his wife Jo, and their one year-old Ziggy were visiting Jo’s family in England in July. They had a fabulous visit. Ziggy especially loved playing in green grass as there’s none of that in the New Mexico desert. They were supposed to fly home early last week, but when they got to the airport they were told that Jo could not go back to the US because her Green Card had expired while she was out of the country. When she initially received the card, the 2010 renewal date seemed far in the future and she simply forgot about it. So now she and Ziggy are having an extended vacation in England while Justin is back in New Mexico trying to figure out if he will return to England to wait with them until Jo can return or whether he will stay in New Mexico. They have hired a lawyer who says he can get her back in the US in five weeks rather than the six months the US government officials are quoting. So that’s the news from Justin, Jo, and Ziggy. The Goldstones, our daughter Heather, her husband Jed, and three year-old Sam and one year-old Jonah, have been having a great summer on Cape Cod, but the big news in that family is that Heather is going back to work full-time for the first time since the birth of Sam in 2007. This was not planned, but a job opportunity came up a few weeks ago and she just couldn’t pass it up. She is a research scientist by education, but her part-time work since Sam was born has been doing science reporting on the local public radio station. National Public Radio got a major grant to start up a series of blogs around the country to get more people involved in conversations around major issues affecting our lives. Woods Hole on Cape Cod was chosen as the blog location dealing with oceans and global warming. Heather has always wanted to help people understand the complexities of science in order to help them make life decisions that are eco-friendly. She applied for the job and has already started working part-time, albeit reluctantly, as she hates being away from Jonah and Sam. Her blog goes public the first of September, so I’ll update you on that as it develops.
When we reach South Africa sometime in October it will have been a year since we last saw family. Even if we had the money, flying home from South Africa is not possible because we need to watch the weather and take every weather window we get to work our way down the coast of South Africa and then finally round the Cape of Good Hope. The weather of the South African coast is just not cruiser friendly, so you make the trip in small hops from harbor to harbor when you get a good weather forecast and then wait days or weeks for another small window of opportunity. This process will take all of November and December and will begin the sixth year of the voyage of Windbird. By mid-January, we will leave Cape Town, South Africa, to start our voyage across the southern Atlantic Ocean to Brazil. We are hoping that our children and grandchildren can come to Brazil to see us before we start the 1500 mile trek to the Caribbean and then the next 1500 mile trek from the Caribbean to southern Florida. As you can see, we are still a very long way from home.
This is a long and lonely cruising season without seeing friends, family, and fellow cruisers, so that means hearing from you means even more to us than ever. But please remember that we are bandwidth impaired, now more so than ever as Mark’s computer he uses for communications has a virus that is slowing things to a crawl. Please do not send attachments and make sure that you delete our message if you hit the reply button. Whether you are family, friend, or fellow cruiser, we miss you.
Affectionately,
Mark and Judy
S/V Windbird
by Judy Handley | Aug 10, 2010 | Madagascar, Sailing Logs Year 5 |
Day 288, Year 5 Nosy Iranja to Baramahamay Bay
Date: Tuesday, August 10, 2010
Latitude: 13 42.792 S
Longitude: 047 54.060 E
Weather: Totally Overcast
Location: Baramahamay Bay, NW Madagascar
The name of this bay looks a little overwhelming at first, but if you just say Obama and then replace the ‘Ob’ with “Bar” and then add ‘hamay’ you have have it. And in Baramahamay Bay, we are experiencing a little change in the weather. I’ve forgotten how long it has been since we have had such an overcast day. Maybe it is because we are tucked into the mainland, but for whatever reason, it was fine as I was busy, busy doing loads of laundry and baking banana bread, whole wheat bread, and brownies. We motored the ten miles from Nosy Iranja to the mainland and then into this little bay. Or maybe it is technically a river. Cruisers refer to it as Honey River as the chief’s wife in a village on the south side sells local wild honey to cruisers. Ed and Lynne picked us up in their dinghy and we went to the village to buy honey. When we got to the village Mark was trying to ask the women he saw if they knew where we could get honey. No one understood a thing he was saying, so I just said ‘miel’ and they immediately pointed to where Ed and Lynne were standing with the chief of the village. I had learned from Lynne that ‘miel’ is the French word for honey and will not forget that one. We met the chief, his wife, and three children, and the chief went to a small hut on stilts, unlocked the door, and poured a plastic pitcher full of honey. That much cost us the equivalent of $10 US. It filled two wine bottles and a mayonnaise jar, so now I can make granola. I was totally out of honey and just waiting to get here to buy some.
We’ll stay here tomorrow and do some exploring and will probably move further south on Thursday. Unlike Nosy Iranja, this is a very calm anchorage. All of the islands off the coast of Madagascar have a bit of a roll to them when the tides change. Nosy Iranja was actually very calm last night, but the night before we rocked and rolled at 3:30 am. But just the thought of getting to see the baby turtles and the stunning location helped me to ignore the rock and roll. And it was certainly worth it. We’ll never forget seeing those baby turtles hatch and head out to sea.
by Judy Handley | Aug 9, 2010 | Madagascar, Sailing Logs Year 5 |
Day 287, Year 5 Baby Turtles on Nosy Iranja
Date: Monday, August 9, 2010
Weather: More Perfect Weather
Location: Nosy Iranja, NW Madagascar
Turtle Quest III was a success!!! We got to watch a nest of 154 eggs hatch late this afternoon. Just as Christian at the Iranja Lodge told us last night, at exactly 4:30 pm this afternoon the first little turtle head started emerging out of the sand inside a circular wire netting that was buried about a foot down. We have no idea how they know the exact time, but it happened on cue. Once the first head emerged, Artur, the young man in charge of turtles in Ignance’s absence, started digging around the circular netting with a shovel. He dug all around until he could pull out the wire netting and then he started digging with his hands so the little guys didn’t have so far to climb out. One little turtle head after another emerged. As soon as the head was showing, Artur would sprinkle a little sand on its head and that would get it wiggling so it could climb out. And then there was another one, and another one, and on and on until we had a wiggling pile of baby turtles. Probably the first fifty climbed out with no shell, but then Artur dug deeper and we could see babies just partially out of the shell. It all happened very quickly and we were watching with guests from the resort. At first there were two families with small children and then some older children started arriving. Other adults from the resort didn’t come to watch. I guess that makes us kids!
Artur was counting the turtles as he put them into a plastic tub. Out of 154 eggs laid on June 9th, 113 babies hatched today. Out of the first fifty or so turtles there were only two that didn’t make it, but as Artur dug deeper thirty-nine more of babies near the bottom of the nest didn’t make it. I guess it is best not to be among the first eggs laid. Once the nest was empty, Artur carried the plastic tub down near the water and the babies tumbled onto the beach. They rushed toward the surf, would get carried back up on the beach by the next wave, but eventually they were off and running. It is sad to think that most of them will not survive, but we are truly grateful for getting to watch this birthing experience. A million thanks to our son-in-law Jed who researched the web and found the name of the turtle man, Ignance. Having that name is what opened the door for us. We also thank the Iranja Lodge for allowing us come ashore to watch this incredible event. And it really was incredible.
by Judy Handley | Aug 8, 2010 | Madagascar, Sailing Logs Year 5 |
Day 286, Year 5 Turtle Quest III
Date: Sunday, August 8, 2010
Weather: More Perfect Weather; Winds 10 Knots
Location: Nosy Iranja, NW Madagascar
We’re back. We arrived here at Nosy Iranja the “turtle island” in mid-afternoon. We had a beautiful sailing day. In the early morning when we were headed WSW the winds were just right for a gentle beam reach. Around noon we had to motor for about an hour while the winds switched to come from the sea and at the same time we turned and headed SSW and the winds once again cooperated and went to the NW giving us another gentle broad reach all the way to Iranja. All we could think was, “Wouldn’t it be great to have winds like this all the way to Richard’s Bay?” That just won’t be the case, so we’ll enjoy the coastal sailing for now. Ed and Lynne of Constance are sailing with us and at 4:30 pm we went to shore to the Iranja Lodge to ask for Ignance the Turtle Man. A manager from the lodge named Christian met us and spoke very good English. He explained that Ignance has gone to Nosy Be but that his colleague Artur might be able to help us. We told him that we wanted to see the baby turtles hatch and he said he would go to talk to Artur and come back and let us know if there was going to be a hatching today. In the meantime, we enjoyed the lovely surroundings and had a beer. When Christian returned he said there would not be hatching today but that we should be on shore at 4:30 pm tomorrow and that we might get to witness one. He said he would alert security so we could bring our dinghy to shore on the end of the island where the turtle nests are located. So we are hopeful. Tomorrow might be our day.
Last night we were actually able to send the log, and after that I called my sister Patsy and our son Justin. Justin is back in New Mexico missing Jo and Ziggy, but doing fine for now. They have hired a lawyer who is certain he can get Jo back in the US no later than mid-September. She just simply forgot to renew her Green Card and certainly no reminders are sent out. What a price they are having to pay, living apart. Justin is still considering flying back to England and staying with Jo and Ziggy until they can return. They will make that decision in the next couple of weeks. It was wonderful to talk to Justin and know that he is doing fine. My sister Patsy’s daughter Jennifer has breast cancer and will have surgery this Thursday, so I wanted to talk to her and send our best wishes to Jennifer. When everything is fine, it is not so hard to be away from home. But when there are problems and health issues, it is really hard not to be able to be with family. But we are here and at least we have email. I really don’t think I could have done this prior to time of email. Not hearing from family for weeks or months would make me crazy.
by Judy Handley | Aug 7, 2010 | Madagascar, Sailing Logs Year 5 |
Day 285, Year 5 Quick Trip to Nosy Komba and Back
Date: Saturday, August 7, 2010
Weather: More Perfect Weather
Location: Lokobe National Park, Nosy Be, NW Madagascar
I’m writing this log but do not believe I will get to send it until morning. We are really struggling with communications. Without the ability get email on the internet, we are severely limited as to when we can send and receive on the HAM radio. We had a very busy day traveling to Nosy Komba and back and went over to Dream Catcher in the early evening to share photos of the South Pacific with them. So we weren’t here at the time we should have sent and received mail and we don’t know if we have heard from our son Justin. We really hope he made it home safely and is doing okay without Jo and Ziggy and that they are doing okay without him. What a crazy situation that they have to be separated like this.
I got another chance to play with the lemurs today and to see a couple of different chameleons on Nosy Komba. We met up with Peter and Carla of Odulphus over lunch to discuss travel plans from here to South Africa. They would like to travel at the same time and would also like to travel south with us for the next couple of weeks. So they will go to Hell-ville on Monday to reprovision and then catch up with us. We will leave at 6 am tomorrow morning and return to Nosy Iranji to try and see the baby turtles hatch. After that we will just hop, hop, hop down the coast and back.
