Day 245, Year 5 Day in Hell-Night in a Crater
Date: Monday, June 28, 2010
Weather:Â Yet Another Gorgeous Day, Winds 5-10
Latitude:Â 13 degrees 23.930 minutes S
Longitude:Â 048 degrees 13.114 minutes E
Location:Â Crater Bay, Nosy Be, NW Madagascar
What at day! We left our snug little anchorage at Nosy Sakatia at 5:30 am and arrived in the anchorage off Hell-ville three hours later. We were immediately, and I mean before the anchor was down, met by boat boys in various boats. But we had been forewarned to steer clear. We tried to tell them we didn’t need any of their services, but they continued to hang around. By 9:30 am Lynne was taking Mark and Ed to the dock to meet Frank. John Sheppard at Sakatia Towers said we could borrow his bookkeeper Frank for the morning to help with the check-in process and as it turned out he was invaluable. Mark speaks no French and Ed very little, so Frank served as the interpreter and got them through the process quickly. Lynne and I stayed on the boats just watching. You are warned to never leave your boat without someone on it in Hell-ville as things can go missing very quickly. In this part of the world, everything closes from 11:30 am to 3 pm, so by noon Mark and Ed were back having ‘almost’ completed the check-in procedure. They still needed to go back in at 3:00 pm to pick up the cruising permit, but all else was done. It cost us a total of 320,000 Ariary or $70 per person for a three-month visa, a $10 charge for the boat, and another $10 Custom’s charge for something-not sure what. But in total it is costing us the same amount for three months here as it did for one month in Chagos, so no complaints. And all of the officials were friendly and easy to deal with.
Break. Break. (That’s what you say when you need to interrupt a radio communication.) And I need to interrupt this email to say that Mark just got online (Yes, on the internet on the boat at anchor in Madagascar . . . something we never thought could happen.). And the first thing he did was go to the Picasa photo websites for our kids. I just saw Sam’s graduation from nursery school and he looks so grown up. And there were wonderful photos of Jonah’s birthday party with a perfectly round soccer ball cake. Heather, how did you do that? Jonah’s hair is getting lighter and longer and he looks more like Sam than I have ever thought before. They are two beautiful little guys (no prejudice here). We got see photos of Ziggy’s first birthday back in April and some photos from Father’s Day. Ziggy is another beauty. Smiley blonde chunk describes him. But the biggest shock were some photos of my son with a shaved head! For years he has had longer hair than mine, so to see him with none at all was a bit of a shock  Justin, what brought that on? It is killing me to think that it will be almost another year before we really see our little ones face to face, but in the meantime, at least seeing photos of them helps. We still don’t know if Skype calls will be possible and we are not expecting Skype video to work, but we can try. But I just can’t tell you how exciting it was to just see photos after three months with no visuals. I am one happy Oma.
Now back to today’s happenings. I went in with Mark and Ed in the afternoon to pick up the cruising permits and to make a quick trip to get the internet SIM card for our computer modem and to buy a few fresh veggies at the market. As soon as we hit the shore, we were inundated by boat boys wanting to help. And they do not give up easily. We kept saying we needed no help, but when we got in the taxi to go to the internet provider shop, Julian got in the taxi with us and stayed with us for the afternoon. So we ended up having to pay him for his help. While Mark waited for the internet provider office to open, Ed, Julian, and I walked to the gas station to check out the price of fuel and oil and went to the fresh market and quickly bought some carrots, potatoes, tomatoes, cabbage, green peppers, and bananas. The produce is not great, but it sure beats nothing! So we are eating a fresh cabbage salad tonight for the first time in two months. We didn’t get our cruising permits until almost 4:30 pm, so we then had to go quickly back to the boats and race the four plus miles to Crater Bay to anchor before dark. The sun goes down here at 5:30 pm and we just barely made it. Ed and Lynne have made arrangements to tie up to the wall here on Wednesday, wait for low tide, and then have the fiberglass work done. Tomorrow final arrangements will be made for that work and Mark and I hope to get a taxi into Hell-ville to do some more shopping. Hell-ville is named for one Admiral de Hell. He was once the French governor of Reunion and I’m not sure what his connection was to this little place in Madagascar, but his name certainly catches your attention. And actually Hell-ville was much nicer than we anticipated and we look forward to returning there. The architecture is crumbling colonial but it is a clean town with friendly people. The main street is Cours de Hell which we think translates as the Road to Hell. And it is very ironic that the street sign hangs on the Catholic Church. You’ve got to love a place with this sense of humor. We had a great day in Hell . . . ville and so far we are enjoying our evening in Crater Bay.
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| 100628 Day 245 Nosy Be, Madagascar–Hell-ville Check-in |
