by Judy Handley | Jun 27, 2010 | Madagascar, Sailing Logs Year 5 |
Day 244, Year 5 A Day at Nosy Sakatia
Date: Sunday, June 27, 2010
Weather: Yet Another Gorgeous Day, Winds 5-10
Latitude: 13 degrees 18.147 minutes S
Longitude: 048 degrees 10.729 minutes E
Location: Nosy Sakatia, NW Madagascar
Our first day here was spent just getting acclimated. The boats from the regatta were anchored all around us until early afternoon when they took off to the south. We have met Red and Shirley on Solaire and Tina and Barry on Dream Catcher, both from Richard’s Bay in South Africa. A are learning a lot from them about sailing to and around South Africa.
We are leaving here at 5:30 am to head for Hell-ville for check-in and then we will check out Crater Bay near Hell-ville as a possible haul-out for Constance. Barry on Dream Catcher from South Africa has done extensive fiberglass work and might be able to help Constance with their hull repair. Barry and Tina on Dream Catcher are traveling with four of their five children, aged eight to twenty-five. We met them this evening but hope to be able to spend more time getting to know them. But check-in first and then socializing.
by Judy Handley | Jun 26, 2010 | Madagascar, Sailing Logs Year 5 |
Day 243, Year 5 Happy First Birthday to Jonah
Date: Saturday, June 26, 2010
Weather: Yet Another Gorgeous Day, Winds 5-10
Latitude: 13 degrees 18.147 minutes S
Longitude: 048 degrees 10.729 minutes E
Location: Nosy Sakatia, NW Madagascar
Happy Birthday, Jonah!!! One year ago at this time Mark and I were taking care of Sam while Heather and Jed were at the hospital welcoming Jonah into this world. I simply cannot believe Jonah is now a one year-old. Evidently he is absolutely crazy about balls, so the theme of his party is spherical. Heather and Jed got him a hundred plastic balls the size of baseballs and filled the kiddy pool with them. I’m sure Jonah will love that. And his cake is shaped and decorated like a soccer ball. And there is also a full moon for his birthday just to ’round’ things out.
We also want to wish Madagascar a happy birthday. Today is Independence Day and we arrived in the midst of a sailing regatta that evidently happens every year on this day. We are now anchored off Sakatia Towers, a very small resort, and the party for the racers is here tonight. So we are surrounded by lots of “overly” happy sailors celebrating. We are getting ready to go ashore for Happy Hour and hope to meet some of these sailors.
by Judy Handley | Jun 25, 2010 | Madagascar, Sailing Logs Year 5 |
Day 242, Year 5 Nosy Mitsio to Tsara Banjina
Date: Friday, June 25, 2010
Weather: Another Gorgeous Day, Winds 5-10
Latitude: 13 degrees 01.453 minutes S
Longitude: 048 degrees 32.692 minutes E
Location: Tsara Banjina, NW Madagascar
Here we sit in front of the Constance Lodge on Tsara Banjina. The Lonely Planet says this is the place to “drop your swanky anchor” in Madagascar. They describe the resort as “very swish and back-to-the-basics” and that is a perfect description. After dropping our swanky anchor in crystal clear water, we went ashore and walked the perfectly groomed paths that wind through the resort. There are twenty-one bungalows that are built of wood with thatched roofs to help them look native. Each bungalow has a hammock out front and access to the beach with beach chairs. We inquired about having dinner, but it was a bit pricey for us, so we are going in for cocktails at 6 pm. We spent our afternoon snorkeling around some rocks to the east of Tsara Banjina and then we came back to the south side of the island and pulled our dinghy as we snorkeled the southeast corner and up the east side. The water felt wonderful but it was not as clear around the rocks to the east as it was in the anchorage. There was no coral there, just fish, and we decided to head on back to the island and snorkel the southern coast. Here there was coral, but unfortunately, it was nearly high tide, so it was far below us. Because of the upcoming full moon, we have a fifteen foot difference from low to high, so I know the snorkeling would have been much better earlier in the day. There were huge schools of black and white, bigger than normal, Sergeant Majors and bright blue Fusiliers. There were loads of white, yellow, and black Moorish Idols, parrotfish, and just hundreds of tiny fish in the water. We snorkeled up the east side of the island and finally decided to call it quits. Just when we got out of the water, a lone tropic bird with its long, trailing tail put on quite a show for us. I think it must have been a female trying to lure us away from her nest, but she would fly over us and out to sea, the come back and go right up the cliffs, stop with her tail hanging down, and just flutter for a few seconds. Then the whole show would start again. We’ll have to come back and snorkel here at low tide and spend more time observing the birds, but we are leaving early in the morning and heading to Nosy Sakatia. There is another resort there, not the high end like this one, but it has internet. We are so hoping to be able to talk to our kids. We’ll let you know if that works in tomorrow night’s log.
by Judy Handley | Jun 24, 2010 | Madagascar, Sailing Logs Year 5 |
Day 241, Year 5 Day Trip to Nosy Ankarea
Date: Thursday, June 24, 2010
Weather: Another Gorgeous Day, Winds 15 From Land, Then from Sea
Location: Maribe Bay, Nosy Mitsio, NW Madagascar
Bolatara! I really have no idea how to spell this, but it is the equivalent in Malagasy (pronounced MAL-a-gash) of ‘Bonjour’ in French. And it was a good day. Ed and Lynne came over in their dinghy at 7:30 am. We attached their dinghy to Windbird, pulled up the anchor, and motored Windbird the four miles out to little but high Nosy Ankarea. We arrived by 8:45 am, took Constance’s dinghy to shore, and walked the beach at low tide. It is always fun to see what kind of shells wash up in different places Here it seems that small cowries, cones, and nerites (little dome-shaped shells with ‘teeth’ at the opening on the underside). We also found some heavy shells that I can only describe as ‘bumpily.” My find of the day was a Textile Cone. My two front pockets were so heavy with rocks and shells that I was sure my pants were going to fall down before we completed our walk. But I made it just fine and am enjoying looking at my haul of smooth black rocks and shells from the beach. When we came to the bigger black rocks at the end of the beach, we had another delightful surprise. There were lots of small baobab trees in bloom and some VERY large baobabs as well. One of the big trees was about thirty feet in circumference and had a large hole in it so that you could see that it was hollow inside. After investigating the baobabs, large and small, we walked on a trail that led back in the general direction we had come from. We immediately saw that this end of the beach, in the forest just off the beach, was the location of a resort at some time in the past. We could see the foundation posts of beach huts and further back in the forest we found two buildings which at some time in the past had three bathrooms each-with running water for showers and a toilets. So the huts on the beach were probably built like the traditional huts here since there is no sign of them left except for the foundation posts and the bathhouses were constructed of brick, concrete, and tile and were quite modern and durable. There was a lovely Morning Glory Bush with delicate pink morning glory flowers, a Coral Hibiscus with a red, fringy flower with a long stamen hanging down several inches with stigmas at the end that looked like a little bottle brush. There were a couple of Frangipani trees in bloom with white flowers with yellow centers and the required Bougainvillea with dark red blossoms. There were mango trees, papaya trees, and banana trees. You could see that this resort was its own little paradise at some time. We kept following a path and then made our own path until we reached a boggy area. We saw a dead crab that gave us some idea of what the live critters who live here look like and we saw a beautiful butterfly, maybe a dragonfly, with clear wings that were tinged with a bright, bright red. There was an orange butterfly and a white one with red and black spots. So we chased butterflies for a bit and than took the path back out onto the beach. It was a lovely explore.
We fought the incoming tide to get the dinghy off the beach and went back to Windbird to have lunch and then motor back to Maribe Bay. We are at anchor not far from where we have been the past two nights, but in the morning we will up anchor again (weather permitting) and head around the south side of Nosy Mitsio to an island called Tsara Banjina. It is about twelve miles from here, so we should arrive early in the day. The water there is supposed to be crystal clear and the snorkeling very good. Our plan is to spend only one night there and head for Nosy Sakatia near Nosy Be on Saturday. We know there is internet there and we are trying to reach there in time to talk to Justin, Jo, and Ziggy before they head to England (on Monday) and to ‘talk’ to Jonah on his first birthday. If all this works out, we will then check-in on Monday in Hell-ville. Constance is not leaving with us tomorrow, but they hope to join us in Hell-ville for the check-in process. I hope the name of the town doesn’t indicate the type of check-in process we might have!
by Judy Handley | Jun 23, 2010 | Madagascar, Sailing Logs Year 5 |
Day 240, Year 5 Walk About on Nosy Mitsio
Date: Wednesday, June 23, 2010
Weather: Gorgeous Day, Winds 5-10 SE to SW to S
Location: Maribe Bay, Nosy Mitsio, NW Madagascar
It was up early this morning so I could get a laundry on the line and Mark could try to fix our pressure water pump before heading to shore. We had made arrangements for Constance to pick us up in their dinghy as it looked like low tide and their dinghy is much easier to carry up the beach. We were delayed when Constance realized their dinghy fuel tank was stone dry (hopefully fuel was not siphoned from it during the night) and while we were waiting the man who greeted us when we arrived yesterday returned. He speaks no English, but he understood that we were going to land to go for a walk. Now I know to call it a promenade, but I learned that as the day progressed. Anyway, Zachary (Zac-har-EE) met us on shore and became our guide for a three and a half hour walk about the island. What looked like a couple of little huts near the beach turned out to be a village of about forty people. We met Zachary’s mother and father who were 73 and 88 respectively. We know Zachary’s mother was born in 1937 as she showed us her Malagasy identification card, but the father didn’t really look 88-but maybe. The mother was sick and needed an injection that had been prescribed for her. Lynn gave her the shot as they didn’t know how and there is not medical personnel on the island.
We met mothers with tiny babies, lots of smiling children, goats, chickens, and zebu. There was a little store, what looked like tables where tourists could be served food, and an outdoor dancing area with sound equipment in a small hut. We assume all of this is to serve the tourists who come and stay at some huts to the left of the village as you look at the island. We walked across the island from north to south, up and over a small hill, and visited more villages on the windward side of the island. There was very little beach on that side of the island and many of the little huts were right on the water. The huts were small but I could just imagine how wonderful the sound of the lapping waves would be during the night. Huts are constructed of poles (small branches from trees) and then the sides and roof are covered with palm fronds. The fronds from the palms here are small and rounded, not long like coconut palms, so they are arranged in fan shapes in the walls. Everywhere we went women were winnowing a grain that looked something like barley, but we could never understand what they do with the grain. They have bananas here, but plantain seemed to be the food of the day. When we went as far as we could go, we stopped at a hut and were offered some of the plantain and coconut crème staple. Even with the coconut crème, it was not sweet and actually was very filling and had a pleasant taste.
As I write this log, Mark is outside negotiating for spiny lobster. It is dark but we can see that that the lobsters are good sized. But we had to ask Ed and Lynne to come over in their dinghy to help with the negotiation. Four lobsters ended up costing us $5US and a t-shirt. Not bad. But with absolutely no comprehension of French, we do not understand anything. It is very frustrating. We did learn to say goodbye in Malagasy today and that is ‘veloma’ pronounced ve-low-mah. We were taught to say Bon Jour in Malagasy, but neither of us can remember that one. We’ll have to add that tomorrow.
by Judy Handley | Jun 22, 2010 | Madagascar, Sailing Logs Year 5 |
Day 239, Year 5 Andranoaombi Bay to Nosy Mitsio
Date: Tuesday, June 22, 2010
Weather: Gorgeous Day, Winds SE 20-25 ’til 1 pm, then SW 5-10
Latitude: 12 degrees 54.498 minutes S
Longitude: 048 degrees 34.713 minutes E
Location: Maribe Bay, Nosy Mitsio, NW Madagascar
Today was all about rainbows and seaweed, eggs, bananas, crab, and a new location. Yesterday we traveled 46 miles from Ampanasia Bay to Andranoaombi Bay. This brought us from the tippy top of Madagascar down around the first major cape. Today we traveled 31 miles from Andranoaoambi Bay down to Nosy Mitsio. Remember that in Madagascar, ‘nosy’ means island. So we are anchored in v-shaped Maribe Bay on the northern side of Nosy Mitsio. Immediately upon entering the bay, the dugout canoes came paddling our way. And there were two sailboats in the bay and one anchored off an island just a couple of miles north of the inner bay. But before I go into more detail about where we are, I’ll go back and explain what today was all about.
We left Andranoaombi Bay just before 9 am, but already the crabs that we trustingly ‘paid for’ with a t-shirt were delivered and they were beautiful. A huge papaya was also brought out to us. We traded a pair of Mark’s shorts and an old t-shirt for this. Then we ate fried eggs, over easy, for the first time since leaving Thailand in January. We had traded a t-shirt for thirteen eggs yesterday from Chief Jean-Pierre and the eggs turned out to be a great trade. Two of the four eggs we had this morning were so fresh I think they were taken right out from under the hen. The other two were a little older, but not bad. We then ate bananas for the first time since arriving in Chagos. After not visiting a store for two and a half months and a fresh food market for more than three months, getting any fresh food of any sort is a real treat. We were still boiling the crabs as we left the anchorage this morning and had just gotten those out of the pot when we exited the bay and hit the waves and wind. We were sailing into 20 to 25 knots of wind and doing the hobby horse thing. As we passed Nosy Antolo, a little island just out Andranoaombi Bay, I looked around to see if there were any whales. Friends who were there in September last year stayed for a week watching mother humpbacks and their babies swim all around them. We saw no signs this morning as I think they have just not arrived from Antarctica quite yet. The whales come here in July to have their babies and then head back south in October. So we will revisit this area in a couple of months. As we hobby horsed south Windbird made rainbows every time she hit a wave. The water would spray and the little rainbow would form. It was just beautiful. While watching the rainbows we were making, I noticed that there was a huge amount of seaweed in the water. It is the first seaweed we have seen in a very long time–certainly the first we have seen in the Indian Ocean. So I’m wondering if the reason the whales come here to raise their young has anything to do with the seaweed. This is another question for my scientist daughter. When I get an answer, I’ll let you know.
When we approached Maribe Bay, one of the sailboats at anchor called us to give us anchoring information. It was Single Malt, a boat from Switzerland that was in the Maldives with us and again in Peros Banhos in Chagos. We were then approached by an older man with what was probably his son in a dugout wanting to know if we spoke French. I told him no French only English, but somehow we managed to order two kilo of spiny lobsters for tomorrow. We haven’t had those since the Vanua Balavu in the Lau Group in Fiji. I have no idea what the gentleman will want in trade, but I’m sure we can come up with something. Then another dugout came offering oranges and giving us the same story they had already given Constance about needing food for a baby whose mother doesn’t have enough breast milk. This story was all told with sign language, but quite understandable. It is probably just a line to get more for their trade, but I gave them dried milk powder anyway. Then they wanted rum, cigarettes, and who knows what else. But we just smiled and said no and they just smiled and left. I’m sure we’ll see those two guys again tomorrow
Tonight we enjoyed the crabs we got in Andranoaombi Bay as on appetizer at happy hour with Ed and :Lynne.
Tomorrow will be a day of exploring on the island. The next day we will visit an island out in the entrance to the bay to do some snorkeling and exploring, and then on Friday we might head just south of here to Tsara Banjina. This is an island where the Lonely Planet recommends that you “drop your swanky anchor.” It is tiny island with a very nice resort, crystal clear water, and great snorkeling. Sounds like a winner to me. And after a stop there we will head to Nosy Sakatia and then on to Nosy Be to check into Madagascar and go to the super market. I’ve never been so anxious to go shopping in my life.
