Day 329, Year 5 Looking Ahead to VOW’s Year 6
Date: Monday, September 20, 2010
Weather: Another Beautiful, Sunny Day
Location: Nosy Sakatia, NW Madagascar
The Voyage of Windbird is looking ahead. We have many miles to go to get from here to Richards Bay in South Africa. That will end Year 5 of our voyage. Year 6 will begin with the trip from Richards Bay around the Cape of Good Hope to Cape Town and then on across the Atlantic to Brazil and then north through the Caribbean, to Florida, South Carolina, the Chesapeake, and end up on Cape Cod by next July. After talking to our daughter yesterday, we did a day of forward planning. Heather, Jed, Sam, and Jonah are planning on meeting us in Brazil in March. Justin, Jo, and Ziggy were also going to come but we are not sure what Jo’s situation will be in terms of international travel. So they might have to wait and come to Florida or South Carolina when we reach the states. But Heather’s questions on the phone yesterday prompted a lot of reading about Brazil today and I fell in love. There is an archipelago a couple of hundred miles off the northeast corner of Brazil called Fernando de Noronha and the Lonely Planet says this is “one of the most stunning places in Brazil, if not the entire world.” That got my attention and then I read an article in a National Geographic Traveller magazine. The article was written by Stanley Stewart and he was searching the 8000 kilometers of Brazil’s beaches to find the ultimate beach. He found it on Ilha de Fernando de Noronha. Here’s what he had to say:
“But the best beach on Fernando I left for last. I reached it by bicycle, following a dirt track that wound through forest and scrub. From the viewpoint know as Mirante do Leão, I looked down on it, stretching out like a goddess in the sun, long-limbed and golden. It was love at first sight.
As with all beauty, that of Praia do Leão was simple and indefinable, some exquisite balance of sand, sea and over-arching-sky. The water was the colour of pale porcelain. The sands curved away, honey coloured, behind a hill. And here was that hint of wildness I’d sought, that touch of the elemental, in the shoals of coral rock and the sudden gusts of wind that surged off the Atlantic Ocean and set the dune grasses to dancing. I donned a snorkel and fins and waded into the warm blue waters. The Noronha archipelago is known in Brazil for its abundant marine life, including rays and turtles. Soon I was drifting over coral outcrops. A school of parrotfish wafted back and forth in blue shafts of light. Long-finned batfish waltzed past some damselfish queuing up at tendril anemones like partygoers at the punch bowl. Two imperial angelfish pursed their lips and passed on.
When I surfaced, I found Praia do Leão deserted. The handful of other beachgoers had gone off for lunch at one of the simple seafood restaurants just 15 minutes away by scooter. I was completely alone on one of the most beautiful beaches in Brazil, a place where nothing seemed to exist but the startling sea, the soft sand underfoot and the warm caress of the sun. It was a perfect moment of escape.”
Wow! I’m definitely in love and I haven’t even seen it. The archipelago is a Marine Park and a UNESCO World Heritage site and is much like the Galapagos in terms of restrictions and cost. We’ve seen some beautiful places, but I don’t think I can complete a world circumnavigation without a visit to this archipelago.
But now back to Madagascar. Tomorrow we will sail to Hell-ville to do our final provisioning for the trip to South Africa. We will then return here to Nosy Sakatia for some full moon low-tide snorkels and a Sunday birthday party for John. Then on Monday morning, we head south. We have loved every minute here but I am now anxious to get on with the show. South Africa means high-speed internet so I can “see” my grandchildren on Skype and it is a land of game parks where we will see the big guys-elephants, lions, leopards, water buffalo, rhinos, and maybe a few zebras. So much to see!
