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.
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| 100709 Day 256 Nosy Sakatia, Madagascar–On the Deck at Sakatia Towers |
