Day 250, Year 5 Crater Bay to Nosy Komba
Date: Saturday, July 3, 2010
Weather: Same Same-Still Gorgeous
Latitude: 13 degrees 26.489 minutes S
Longitude: 048 degrees 21.115 minutes E
Location: Ampangorina Village, Nosy Komba, NW Madagascar
During the night, Windbird became a gentle rocking horse as the swell came into the bay from the south. Early this morning, the anchorage was not a place you wanted to negotiate in your dinghy unless you wanted to get wet, so we cancelled our plans to go back into Hell-ville and decided to just work on the boat until time to leave for Nosy Komba. I did laundry and baked bread while Mark tackled yet another plumbing problem. But by noon we were ready for take-off. Constance, however, needed a little more time, so we set 2 pm as the time for departure. At 1:57 pm we started bringing up the anchor. About half of it came up and then we were at a standstill. I am always in the anchor locker flaking chain when we raise anchor, but Mark called for me to come up on deck. We had pulled up enough chain to be sitting right on top of some big ugly rocks. Fortunately, they were just below our keel but the problem with bringing up the anchor became evident. The chain or the anchor was wedged under the rocks. So we motored forward, backward, and sideways until we could finally bring up the anchor. Whew! We thought we might have to dive on the anchor to get it up, so we were very grateful when the other maneuvering worked. We had almost a knot of current with us for the nine mile trip to Nosy Komba, but the ten knots of wind was right behind us and we had to give ourselves a motor assist to reach our destination before sunset. Nosy Komba is a tourist destination and we can see the little village of Ampangorina from the anchorage. We are anchored right in front of a small resort and we know that there are restaurants onshore. One called Chez Yolande is supposed to have wonderful Madagascar seafood dishes and we are anxious to try that. But tomorrow is the Fourth of July and we will definitely barbecue zebu aboard Windbird. But first thing in the morning we will go ashore in hopes of seeing the black lemurs that live here. I’m just hoping they don’t take the day off on Sunday!
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| 100703 Day 250 Nosy Komba, Madagascar–Arrival |
