Day 303, Year 5 Justin, Jo & Ziggy Back Together
Date: Wednesday, August 25, 2010
Weather: Partly Sunny; Land Breeze/Sea Breeze 10 Knots
Location: Baramahamay Bay, NW Madagascar
Justin left New Mexico on Monday and arrived in England yesterday. We knew he was going but were sworn to secrecy as he wanted to surprise Jo and Ziggy. Well, he did that. Jo almost fainted, but she was elated. I got an email from her this morning expressing her absolute joy of having the family back together. They have to wait another two weeks to get the approval for Jo to return to the US and then they have to wait longer once they return to see if her application for an unconditional ten-year visa is granted. They have lawyers dealing with all of this, so we are hopeful that all will go smoothly. We are just so happy that they are back together for now.
We visited the village on the north side of this bay today. The last time we were here we visited the village on the south side to buy honey, but today Peter and Carla of Odulphus went in with us and took us to see the school and a little restaurant. It takes at least an hour to have the food cooked, so we ordered and then strolled through the village. The children here were very friendly and walked with us holding our hands. The school is on vacation right now but Peter and Carla explained that there are two teachers that the villagers have to pay and they have no books, no paper, and no pencils. They have two chalkboards and chalk and that’s it. I wish I had things with me to donate but I do not. Maybe I can buy some things in Hell-ville and leave them at the school when we stop here on our way to South Africa.
We had local crabs for lunch and talked about plans for heading south. Richard of Chant de Mer whom we met when we were here last time came by. He is another walking encyclopedia of knowledge about sailing the west coast of Madagascar, especially south of here. We tried to absorb as much as we could and came back to Windbird to write down what we could remember as quickly as possible. As I write this log, Mark is copying charts of southern Madagascar that Richard loaned us for the evening. So we are gathering as much information as possible in order to make a decision about when to leave this area to head south and to decide just how far south we will go. But since we can’t decide where we are going tomorrow, I have no idea how we will ever make the larger decision. It is one of those cases where there are options and every person we meet with first hand knowledge of the trip to South Africa has completely different advice. Maybe we’ll flip a coin on this one.
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| 100825 Day 303 Madagascar–Second Visit to Honey River |
