Day 281, Year 5 Cooling Down
Date: Tuesday, August 3, 2010
Weather: Beautiful Day
Air Temp: 74 degrees F
Water Temp: 78 degrees F
Location: Nosy Sakatia, NW Madagascar
It is winter here, but it feels more like a lovely New England summer. Mark, Ed, and Lynne have been remarking about how cool they are and I thought they were being rather silly as I am very comfortable. But when I checked the air and water temperature this afternoon I realized that the water temperature is about ten degrees cooler than when we arrived in Chagos (although it cooled down a bit there as well) and the air temperature is fourteen degrees cooler. Most of the time in Chagos the temperature hovered around 80-82, sometimes going down to 79. Today we went snorkeling with Ed and Lynne and after a fairly short time, Mark, Ed, and Lynne headed home because they were really chilly. There’s nothing really dangerous in the water here, so I stayed in and snorkeled alone back to Windbird. And I was not chilly when I got out of the water. So I guess this is one time when body fat comes in handy!
We got an email from our friends Alan and Helaine Kanegsberg today and they sent an article from the most recent Cruising World as an attachment. The article was by Fatty Goodlander and it was about Wild Card’s trip through the pirate-infested Gulf of Aden. It was so much fun to read the article and see the names of our friends that went that way. Fatty didn’t mention Robert and Tina of Shirena who were in his same convoy, but we also got an email from Robert this morning. Shirena is still in Israel while Robert is back in Australia recovering from the heart attack he had in Egypt. He and Tina are hoping to be cruising the Med by his time next year, but it will all depend on his recovery. In Alan’s email he also mentioned a fellow Concord Yacht Club friend who just had a heart transplant. Our thoughts are with Mike and Gretchen Coughlin as Mike recovers from his surgery and with Robert and Tina as Robert continues the rehabilitation program to get his heart back in shape.
In mid-July we started a trek to explore the islands and bays south of here. We planned to be gone about three weeks, but when Ed and Lynne had to return because of Lynne’s skin infection, we ended up coming back and doing our land travel. Now we’re going to try moving south again. We will sail to Hell-ville tomorrow to get the heavy stuff like fuel and beer that is really difficult to transport across the island by taxi and then by motorboat. We have tried to avoid staying the night in Hell-ville, but other cruisers have been doing it and finding there is no problem with theft as long as you have everything under lock and key. So we will spend one night, do our shopping, try to send photos to the website from an internet café, and then head out on Thursday afternoon. We’ll revisit Nosy Komba so I can have another lemur ‘fix’ and visit Lokobe National Park on the southeast corner of Nosy Be. Our plan is to then go back to Nosy Iranja to try and see the turtle hatchlings and work our way down to a place called Moramba Bay. Everyone that cruises to Madagascar says Moramba is their favorite anchorage, so we want to go spend a few days there and enjoy the beauty. Ed and Lynne are going with us but plan to return before we do. We’ll probably get back here sometime the first week of September, so after the next couple of days we will be back to HAM radio for email and no cell phone until we return.
Tonight there were no guests at Sakatia Towers, so the cruisers in the anchorage invaded. Barry and Tina of Dream Catcher from Richard’s Bay in South Africa, Bruce and Nadine of Pioneer from Cape Town in South Africa, and Ed and Lynne and ourselves spent our evening on the Sakatia Towers deck. Lots of cruiser business transacted. John assured us that we would be better off to book his driver Anatole to do our mega shopping on Thursday morning, so he called and made those arrangements for us. Tina and Barry need some sewing done of one of their sails and we think we can do that for them, so they will follow us to Hell-ville so we can do the sewing.. Bruce and Nadine want to head north in early September and would like to tag along with us when we do that, so we planned to meet them back here the first week of September. We shared information about different anchorages and just generally had a great time talking together. The Sakatia Towers deck is truly a meeting place and we truly appreciate John Sheppard’s hospitality. I know we will be looking forward to returning here in early September.
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| 100803 Day 281a Nosy Sakatia, Madagascar–Underwater Sakatia Headlands |
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| 100803 Day 281b Nosy Sakatia, Madagascar–Sakatia Towers Deck |
