Day 279, Year 5 The Meeting Place
Date: Sunday, August 1, 2010
Weather: Nice Day, Cooler Than Normal, Cloudy Late Afternoon
Location: Nosy Sakatia, NW Madagascar
It was a good day. I worked on naming photos from Ankarana and Mark worked on his computer. It has gotten sooooooo slow, so he worked to clean it up. I have created the Best Of. all of our Madagascar photos and we had hoped to get those on the website today. BUT even the internet connection was slow today, so we will try again tomorrow. I had so hoped to have a few photos from Ankarana on the website by tonight, but that will have to wait as well. We saw such wonderful things and we want to share those with you as soon as we can.
We jumped in the water for a snorkel in the early afternoon. After being inland for a few days, it was good to be back in the water. We saw Lionfish hiding in soft coral and a juvenile Emperor Angelfish that is dark blue with concentric ovals radiating from the rear to the front. We saw adult Emperors in Chagos, but we have never seen a juvenile, so that was a thrill. Ed and Lynne came over in the afternoon and we talked about our plans for the next six weeks in Madagascar. By the end of this week we hope to be headed south for a three week tour. By the end of August we would be back here and then head north for a couple of weeks before checking out and heading for South Africa. It was good to share plans and ideas. After Ed and Lynne left, we called our daughter Heather. It was great to hear Jonah and Sam talking in the background and to get an update on what is happening in their lives. We then headed into Sakatia Towers to thank John Sheppard for looking after Windbird while we were gone. It is so wonderful to have someone like John to be there to watch over us. His place is truly the “meeting place.” Tonight we met a dentist from California who is here with his teenage daughter, a friend of John’s from Germany who lives on Nosy Be working on agricultural projects, and two of the crew from a BIG sailboat from the United States that is being delivered to Mayotte where the owners will come aboard. When I say big, I mean a sailboat that is more than a hundred feet long with a crew of six plus a skipper and his wife. The crew members we met tonight were from Italy and South Africa. Sitting on the Sakatia Towers deck in the evening is certainly an international experience. I do believe that when we complete our circumnavigation and look back at favorite places, Sakatia Towers will be in the Top Ten.
When we got home from Sakatia Towers we called Justin, Jo, and Ziggy in England. They are leaving there in two days and heading back to New Mexico. We were having a great conversation when the cell phone beeped telling us we were out of time. We didn’t realize that it costs twice as much to call England as the US from here. Strange! But we will call them again later in the week when they return home. The weather has been wonderful in England this summer and Ziggy has so enjoyed being where there is grass instead of desert sand.
We will spend the next three or four days here and then start our trek south. The last time we headed south we ended up coming back, but this time we really hope to get down to a place called Moramba Bay. There are lemurs, strange limestone formations, and loads of baobabs. And while on the subject of baobab trees, I must admit to a huge error. I thought we were seeing baobabs in bloom when we arrived in Ampanasia Bay in the far north and again on Nosy Ankarea near Nosy Mitsio. But we learned from Goulam that what we were seeing were a type of Elephant’s Foot (Pachypodium rutenbergianum). We now know the difference but without good identification books, I was definitely confused.
