by Judy Handley | Jul 9, 2010 | Madagascar, Sailing Logs Year 5 |
Day 256, Year 5 The Watering Hole
Date: Friday, July 9, 2010
Weather: 20th Gorgeous Day; Cloudy Evenings, Clear Nights
Location: Nosy Sakatia, NW Madagascar
Just as animals gather at the watering hole, people seem to gravitate to comfortable places to socialize. Sakatia Towers is one of those ‘watering holes’ for people. Here on tiny Nosy Sakatia, John Sheppard has built a small resort that is a magnet for world cruisers as well as his guests who come to enjoy the seclusion of a small island in Madagascar with no roads, no stores, no nothing but beauty and a little speed boat to get you to the main island of Nosy Be. Sakatia Towers is a few cabins built with traditional materials, a main building with a bar, a kitchen, a library of used books, and a great deck overlooking the water, a generator to supply a little bit of electricity, a walkway from the dock to land made of sticks – really, and a very friendly staff of locals. It is nice but it is rustic and that is its charm. This is not the Hilton, and it is certainly not a tower, but we are loving our evening trips into the Sakatia Tower’s deck for sundowners and the chance to meet whomever is there that evening. Tonight Peppe and Bob of Far Niente who we first met in Chagos were there as well as a man named Bert, a South African who now lives here and sails a monstrous catamaran with Admiral Marine written along its side. Admiral Marine makes catamarans in South Africa but we are not sure of Bert’s association, but he is a wealth of information, as is John Sheppard. However, tonight’s main attraction was Olivia Wray. Olivia is John’s ten year-old step-daughter visiting here from Cape Town. John and Olivia’s mother, Heidi, were married just four months ago, and Heidi and Olivia have been here during the South African winter school holiday. Unfortunately they leave early in the morning, but we feel fortunate to have been here while they were visiting. Olivia, Mark, and I had a great conversation about schooling in South Africa and we made tentative plans to visit her school, the International School of Cape Town. Olivia made sure we knew that her school is different from the American International School of Cape Town and we had a good laugh over me writing today’s date as 7/9/10. In the US that would be July 9th, but in the rest of the world that would be September 7th as the month is always written first. We hope to keep in touch with her via email and meet again in South Africa.
Our morning was spent on a whirlwind shopping trip in Hell-ville. The Sakatia Towers speed boat picked us up at 7:15 am and took us across to the closest beach on Nosy Be. We were met there by Anatole who drove us to Hell-ville and helped arrange all of our purchases. We were buying food and drink for the next month, propane fuel for cooking, and more phone cards for long distance calls and internet. The afternoon was spent putting all of that away and now we have a couple of days to sit and relax before heading south. Olivia told us that we really should try snorkeling here as there are some interesting fish, and there is also a trek from Sakatia Towers to the long beach on the north end of Nosy Sakatia, so we will fit those activities into our weekend schedule.
by Judy Handley | Jul 8, 2010 | Madagascar, Sailing Logs Year 5 |
Day 255, Year 5 A Love Affair
Date: Thursday, July 8, 2010
Weather: 19th Gorgeous Day; Cloudy Evenings, Clear Nights
Location: Nosy Sakatia, NW Madagascar
Slowly and quietly we have fallen in love with Madagascar. We have had just wonderful experiences every where we have been. It was certainly windy far up north, but we loved seeing our first baobabs in bloom. We moved south to Andranoaombi Bay and had our first trading experiences with the local villagers. The best trade was a pair of shorts and a t-shirt for two of the best mud crabs we have every eaten. Our visit to the upscale Tsara Banjina resort was lovely. Our time in Nosy Mitsio was very special, especially our walk across the island visiting various villages and seeing how the local people live their everyday lives. And buying four beautiful spiny lobsters for $6 US wasn’t a bad deal. Anchoring here at Nosy Sakatia is so comfortable. We can go ashore to Sakatia Towers, sit on the deck with a beautiful view of the anchorage and on across to Nosy Be, and talk with John Sheppard, the owner, who is just brimming with information on Madagascar and Africa. Nosy Komba was the highlight to date, however, because we got to play with the lemurs. We will see lemurs in the wild in various locations, but only on Nosy Komba are the lemurs so acclimated to humans that they will actively play with you. Add to all this the chameleons, the birds, the fantastic weather, and the gracious people, and it adds up to a love affair.
Tomorrow we will be picked up at 7:15 am by a little speed boat that will take us across to Nosy Be. There we will be met by John Sheppard’s driver, Anatole, who will take us into Hellville for a four hour shopping spree. We are going to purchase propane cooking gas, fresh food for the next month, canned and packaged goods to supplement what we already have, beer, wine, and a few boat supplies. We will then spend the weekend here getting ready for a month’s cruise south of here. We will then return here in mid-August, do our inland travel, and head back up north to try and see the mother and baby humpbacks. By mid-September we will be back in this area to visit Nosy Komba and the newly born lemurs. Our three-month visa will be up the end of September and that is when we will check-out and head south once again on our way to Richard’s Bay in South Africa. At least this is today’s plan.
by Judy Handley | Jul 7, 2010 | Madagascar, Sailing Logs Year 5 |
Day 254, Year 5 Happy Birthday to Mark
Date: Wednesday, July 7, 2010
Weather: 18th Gorgeous Day; Cloudy Evenings, Clear Nights
Latitude: 13 degrees 18.113 minutes S
Longitude: 048 degrees 10.707 minutes E
Location: Nosy Sakatia, NW Madagascar
Mark had a very happy birthday. He got an early morning mail from Heather and a mid-day call from Justin. This made him a very happy man. We learned that we can receive Skype calls that do not charge our cell, so that is very good news. We moved from Nosy Komba to Nosy Sakatia, had a great Mexican dinner aboard Constance to celebrate Mark’s birthday, and hope to spend a few days here just relaxing and planning our next adventures.
by Judy Handley | Jul 6, 2010 | Madagascar, Sailing Logs Year 5 |
Day 253, Year 5 Another Play Session with Lemurs
Date: Tuesday, July 6, 2010
Weather: 16th Gorgeous Day in a Row BUT Cloudy, Cloudy Evening
Location: Ampangorina Village, Nosy Komba, NW Madagascar
Mark and I just can’t get enough of playing with lemurs, so we ventured back into the village late this morning to have another play session. The people at the park office know us so well now that we didn’t even have to pay the fee, but our guide from yesterday, Rio, wanted to go with us anyway. We now know where the different troupes of lemurs hang out, so we went to the closest location and started calling, “maki, maki, maki.” The call plus a little banana and they come scrambling down out of the trees. This time we had one mature female and one younger with three young males. I can’t wait to come back here in September and see the babies. Rio said the babies ride on the mother’s tummy for 90 days and then ride on the mother’s back for the next 30 days. At that time they are weaned, but we are not sure what happens next. We don’t know if they stay with the mother once they are weaned or if they are sent out into the world to be on their own. We think Rio was saying the babies will join a different troupe, but we were not sure. But one thing we do know is that by the time we leave Madagascar we hope to learn as much as we can about these delightful little creatures.
After playing with the lemurs we spent time walking about the village looking at all of the beautiful embroidered table cloths and door and window hangings. We have never had curtains in Windbird and we thought we might be able to buy some of the narrow hangings and turn them into curtains, but we don’t think it is going to work. These embroidered pieces are called recelet. They begin as a piece of plain muslin. Then the women draw the designs on the cloth free-hand. We watched a woman do this today and it was fascinating. Then every drawn design is outlined with an embroidery stitch taught to the women here by the nuns in the missionary. When everything is embroidered, they then cut out the material inside the embroidered designs. The traditional purpose of recelet was to hang the pieces in the doorways and windows of huts to allow for a little privacy but still allow light and air to flow through the holes. Somewhere along the line, the women of the village discovered that they could sell these pieces to tourists in the form of tablecloths, and sell them they do. Since this island is very close to Nosy Be, tourists can be brought in by speedboat and traditional dhows every morning. They stay just long enough to buy recelet and wood carvings and then back to the main island they go. There are also a number of small resorts on Nosy Komba, some in our little village and some on the south side of the island, and these tourists buy as well. Most pieces sell for $25US or under, and in Madagascar $25US is a lot of money.
We added to the local economy today by buying a few pieces, so now we are ready to move on. Tomorrow is Mark’s birthday and he wants to go back to Nosy Sakatia so that we can purchase more food and drink and head ourselves south for a few weeks. So since he is the birthday boy, he will get his wish. We are all set to pull up anchor and move on in the morning, weather permitting. We have had over two weeks of beautiful weather, but a heavy cloud cover came in late this afternoon and we’re not sure what that means. If it is raining in the morning, or the wind is blowing from the west, we will stay here. Otherwise, it is back to Sakatia. Wherever we are tomorrow night, Ed and Lynne have invited us over for a Mexican dinner complete with Margaritas. That will be a perfect way to celebrate Mark’s birthday.
by Judy Handley | Jul 5, 2010 | Madagascar, Sailing Logs Year 5 |
Day 252, Year 5 Walk to the Top
Date: Monday, July 5, 2010
Weather: 15th Gorgeous Day in a Row
Location: Ampangorina Village, Nosy Komba, NW Madagascar
Today’s walk to the top of the mountain took us from sea level to 1,850 feet in three hours and we are estimating that to be about four miles. Climbing the first 300 feet up, walking what felt like straight up the mountain, was the hardest, but the whole trip was exhausting. At the same time, we had a great guide, a young man named Rio, who shared so much information about the flora and fauna of Madagascar. He is just learning English, but he did a great job. We saw a gecko, lizards, two different kinds of VERY large snakes, two large birds, and loads of tiny butterflies-white, yellow, orange, and blue. We learned much about how people here traditionally use the wayside plants for medicinal purposes, and from time to time we emerged from the jungle to have great views of the area. We learned much about the history of the island including the coming of the Catholic mission in the mid-1830’s, the building of a sanatarium on the mountain later in the 1800’s where military personnel were brought to recover or die or from malaria and various bronchial problems, mostly tuberculosis.
The lizard we saw was a Zonosaurus madagascariensis with gold, cream, and black coloring. The snakes were boas and a couple of Madagascar hog-nosed snakes. Both are at least six feet long and two to three inches in diameter, but not threatening in any way. Rio could pick them up and plop them back down so we could see them more clearly. The birds we saw were black crested drongos (Dicrurus forficatus) and the giant coua (Coua gigas). Getting a photo of this guy deep in the jungle was not really possible. I have a great shot of the very long tail and a shadow of the whole bird, but nothing identifiable. At various places along the way we could smell the wonderful perfume of the ylang ylang trees. We visited the village of Antamanom (means city of the missionaries) which was built by the Catholic missionaries, another tiny village off the beaten path on the way to the military cemetery with wonderful examples of traditionally built homes, beautiful gardens, and Arabica coffee drying everywhere on the ground. All of this was at about 1,500 feet, so walking up and down the mountain has to be an arduous task. But we met women carrying heavy loads on their heads with babies on their backs, and men toting bags of sand. These are hardy folks!
At the end of the trip, after six hours of hiking, we descended back to the Parc Lemurier and visited the tortoises, chameleons, and lemurs once again. We enjoyed our second look at the tortoises, the panther chameleon, and the lemurs. The chameleons are fascinating in that their circular eyes are covered with skin, all but the pupils, and the eyes can be swiveled independently so that one eye is looking at me and another at Mark. Today the male climbed on to Mark’s arm and went from Mark to Lynne to Rio. We only got to play with the all black male lemurs today, but what a delight. Rio had fed most of the bananas he had to the tortoises, so the lemurs proceeded to steal what was left from the giant tortoise. They have no fear. We are absolutely addicted to them and will return in the morning for another visit. They are just too much fun.
by Judy Handley | Jul 4, 2010 | Madagascar, Sailing Logs Year 5 |
Day 251, Year 5 Lemur-mania
Date: Sunday, July 4, 2010
Weather: 14th Gorgeous Day in a Row
Location: Ampangorina Village, Nosy Komba, NW Madagascar
Winter weather in this part of Madagascar is just fabulous. Sunshine and blue skies without a cloud, just enough wind to feel a breeze but not be blown away, with 80 degree days and 70 degrees night. Perfect! Today was a special perfect day as we got to see our first lemurs. What characters they are! They are about the length of a cat but skinnier, with longer hair, silky soft paws with long fingers that are very human-like but at the same time look like those of a tree frog, just longer, tails that are twice as long as their bodies, and a face that looks like a dog with little sticky up ears. In fact, our son Justin and his wife Jo have a mutt named Alfie and the male black lemurs look like him. The male black lemurs are black, but the females are a chestnut brown with a black face and white hair around their ears. Both male and female have orange eyes and are just as curious as they can be. Add a little banana to the mix and they readily jump on your shoulders, on your back, even on your head to get a little taste of banana. We saw three males and one female today, but no babies. Our guide, Florice, told us that the babies will arrive in September, so you can bet we will be back here again then. In fact, we are going back again tomorrow morning for a much longer walk up to the top of the mountain and we will get another chance to play with the lemurs. In addition to seeing the black lemurs, we got to see our first Madagascar boa, tortoises of various types including the radiated tortoise named for the radiating lines on its shell and the endangered little flat-tailed tortoise (Pyxis planicauda). We saw a tortoise that looks like a ploughshare but the scientific name posted in the park doesn’t match that of the ploughshare, so we’ll have to research this further. Another highlight was seeing the most outlandish looking chameleon that you can imagine. It was green with a tail curled like a fiddlehead, a nose like a pig, and outrageous looking eyes dotted with red. The female was not as colorful, but her walk caught our attention. She took one step forward with one front leg and one back leg and then gyrated back and forth a couple of times before taking the next step forward with the opposite front and back leg. Very interesting! Our guide through the park was a young man named Florice who was very good and spoke good English which is rare here. After the tour, we spent a long time walking through the village craft shops showcasing wooden carvings and the embroidered cloths that the women of Nosy Komba produce. We think it is called resseèleè. This is a cut out calico/cotton embroidery done in white thread on white calico. The designs are intricate and beautiful and my favorites are those with fish and turtles as the theme. We learned from another cruiser in Chagos that this art originated as door and window hangings for privacy with the cut-out areas allowing air to flow in and out. Now the designs are sold to tourists as table cloths, but we have seen them hanging in doorways and in windows on our way south from northern Madagascar, so they are still used in everyday life. Here in Nosy Komba they are hanging everywhere just waiting for the next tourist purchase. This tourist is certainly going to have to buy a few of these.
Tonight we invited Ed and Lynne over for a 4th of July barbeque. We had our first taste of barbecued zebu and it was quite good and very tender. So Madagascar beef gets a thumbs up. Our trek up the mountain starts at 7:30 am, so it is time to turn it and get ready for another day of lemur fun.
