Day 236, Year 5 Finally . . . An Explore on Land
Date: Saturday, June 19, 2010
Weather: Mostly Sunny AM, Overcast PM; Winds SSE 20-28 Knots
Location: Ampanasia Bay, NW Madagascar
No let up in the wind except at night. In fact, last night was very quiet and peaceful until just about 8 am and then the winds returned with a vengeance. And according to Graham on the South African Maritime Mobile Net there will not be the let up early in the week as previously forecast. He says we should have what we have now for the next five days. So we are going ahead with repairs in the wind and do plan to try and leave on Monday. Constance now has a secure headstay but the roller furler has a problem. But with this wind, we won’t need headsails anyway. Our smaller staysails should work just fine. To stem the leak, the plan is to plug the scupper drain with a plug using the Life Caulk early tomorrow morning and then we will all head up the river to see what we can see.
After finishing the job of securing the headstay on Constance, we all got in our dinghy and headed out for a little explore on land. Through the binoculars we can see a beach area to the southwest and this morning I saw a number of cows there. I can also see the tops of some very large baobabs in that area, so we decided to land the dinghy on that beach, walk on land a bit, and then dinghy around to the beach with the baobab in bloom. I still don’t know for sure that the tree in bloom is a baobab, but I did read in the Lonely Planet that baobabs do not bloom until they are over 100 years old. Many of the baobabs in Madagascar are over a 1,000 years old, and since the one on the beach is no more than fifteen feet tall, it is a youngster. And since everything about its shape tells me it is a baobab, I will call it that for now.
We picked up Ed and Lynne and off we went. As we got closer to the dark-colored beach we could see that it is covered in what looks dark paving stones. Not exactly the best landing spot for a dinghy, but we pulled the dinghy on the beach and enjoyed standing on ground for the first time in twenty days. Our last walk on land was on May 30 when we walked on the reef flat from Ile Mapou to Ile De La Passe. So today’s walk was a true pleasure. To the left of the barren beach area there were mangroves and two other trees that are very salt-water resistant as they grow right below the tide line. Maybe they are mangroves as well, but they did not have the gnarly, knotty trunks and roots of the mangroves. As we walked up the little hill from the beach area we were met by hundreds of small Wild Tamarind trees. These are also called Mimosa, Acacia, and Cow Tamarind. The reason for the last name is that the leaves and seed pods of these trees can be used as an extremely high protein fodder for cows and goats, both of which graze here. However, if horses, donkeys, and pigs eat the fodder, they lose their hair. Since there are none of those here, we have no problem. The Wild Tamarind have thorns all over their trunks and branches as do most of the other trees that we saw today. So I guess this is how the ‘spiny bush’ gets its name. We found a fishing hut over the hill on the beach at another little bay and it had a dugout canoe sitting beside it. The hut was built of small branches and covered with thatching for the roof and the walls. It sits right on the tide line and inside was a floor and even a trash can. So obviously someone comes here and uses it. We found a number of other interesting trees, all with seed pods or fruit that we have never seen before. The nightshade plant here looks like the one that grows in the eastern US, but the one here has thorns on the leaves and has beautiful, bright yellow fruits that look like cherry tomatoes. I’m assuming this plant is poisonous as I believe all members of the nightshade family are, but again, I’m going on memory. We had to fight the wind to get the dinghy off the shore and then got soaking wet as we motored into the wind to get around a point and to the bay with the baobab tree in bloom. One thing about this wind, you don’t stay wet too long. We scrambled up the gravel beach and found that the blooming baobab is about fifteen feet high. We took lots of photos and then as we started looking around we found more little baobabs. These were knee high to waist high and had no branches. They actually looked more like a straight cactus. Evidently baobabs are some of the slowest growing trees on earth, so the ones that came up to our knees were probably no more than ten years old. We found another one about ten feet tall and it had branches at the top but no blossoms. So we assume it was just not old enough yet. We gather from what we have seen that baobabs grow straight up for a number of years before branching out at the top. None that we have seen have leaves, so we are yet to learn about that.
It is 5:15 pm here and the sun is getting ready to set. It sets at 5:30 pm and rises again at 6:00 am. The temperature is 77 degrees F which feels very cool to us. We don’t have to use fans anymore (Who would with this wind?) and when the sun goes down, we feel chilly. I guess that’s what happens when you are used to temps in the 80’s, but we are not complaining. This is a wonderful temperature. We even have to sleep with a sheet over us these days.
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| 100619 Day 236 Ampanasia Bay, Madagascar–First Time on Land |
