Category: 2012 Blog

Majunga to Baly Bay!……

12 November 2012

Dear F&F,

We departed for Baly Bay early as it was a long trip. The weather was perfect for a crossing to South Africa even. In fact, it was so good, we decided to go!

We set the reacher, the full main and set a waypoint for 5 miles north of Cape St. Andre, the western most cape in central Madagascar. It was still 40 miles from Baly Bay and we expected to pass the Cape just after dark. It\’s got lots of shallow areas, a few wrecks and other hazards, so we didn\’t want to be too close.

Well first, we started getting headed in toward the point. It became clear about 20 miles away, we\’d have to motor to get around so we did.

I went down off watch and came up to Nikki watching the sky to our south. A HUGE squall hit us and fortunately I\’d already taken two reefs in the main as I often do when motor slogging. The wind came up 35 knots and stayed for about a half an hour. The absolutely clear sky turned jet black in 15 minutes and rained hard.

This was most likely a short lived squall, but after an hour, I threw in the towel and we motor sailed back to Baly Bay. It turns out, it was short lived, but who knew! There was nothing in the forecast and this phenomenon is completely normal, though unpredictable for this area.

The trade winds on the west side of the island, (remember, it\’s the 4th largest island in the world), get compressed as they go up the eastern slopes. The air is cool and dry. It then gets really cold up in the mountains and falls on to the west side of the island like a rock. The warm, wet air on the eastern side collides with it and BOOM! A mini weather system with LOTS of punch.

As my Mother used to say, \”Discretion is the better part of valor\”. We turned tail! If we\’d gotten past the point, the seas in the VERY shallow water (much of it around 20 feet deep), could have been big breaking waves. As it was, our proximity to the shore protected us from big seas, but once that protection to our south would have disappeared?…NO FUN.

We got to Baly Bay at 11:00 pm. We were tired. A comfy night\’s sleep and we\’ll try again tomorrow…. Stay tuned. Scott and Nikki

Majunga…..

09 Novemeber 2012 (Eastern Hemisphere)

Dear F&F, Well, the guide book and Des and Nell of \”Gambit\” said, \”don\’t go there!\”… The guide book further says, when the prison closed…all the thieves and murderers came here….. Food for thought.

However, I wanted to top off fuel and go to a last market before we headed to Baly Bay for our jump off to South Africa. If it was that bad, we\’d just leave.

We arrived in the late afternoon and with the tide falling against the 20 knot westerly we\’d MOTORED into all day, the standing waves were impressive.

The one anchorage the guide book recommended was \”full\”. Read that as ONE boat. It was 5 feet deep in most of that bay, too shallow for my tastes with a strong tidal flow. We went to the far East end of the wharf and found a big boat ramp and a literal \”Ship\’s Graveyard\”. There were dozens, perhaps a few hundred people mulling about the boat ramp with all the coming\’s and goings and right next to it, 25 rusted out hulks. These were mostly small coastal freighter which were clearly one day going to be reclaimed as scrap. To our surprise, at high tide around 11 pm, one of the \”junks\” backed off the beach and pulled up the wharf. Apparently, it\’s used as a cheap repair yard too.

We anchored in 10 feet of water which at low tide became 6 feet of water. That\’s UNDER the hulls of course, so we\’ve about 3 feet (1 meter) of clearance. The bottom was soft mud, so no worries. We\’ve been told about theft stories here, the town is very very poor. The north side beaches looked fairly up market, but the south side wharf area was about as poor as we\’ve seen.

We had an uneventful night and the next morning I went toward the boat ramp with my 13 jerry cans for diesel and was hailed by Andre the boat boy! Andre wanted 10,000 Airy Airy for himself and a friend. That\’s $5.00 USD. He got me a taxi. The taxi driver, \”Mr. Tafita\”, wanted 5,000 Airy Airy. That\’s $2.50 USD. So, you get the concept. They\’re poor. Tafita and I went to the ATM, the diesel station and the quite nice \”Score\” Market. It all took 2 hours. I gave the boys tips amounting to twice what they asked for. For Mr. Tafita, it was three times what he\’d asked for. I thought I was going to be made Mayor of Majunga.

Nikki was embolden and I took her ashore and went back to watch the boat. She walked the 300 meter to the market and had no problems whatsoever. The market was nicer than Hellville\’s (new nice market).

As the wind was back up and the internet was as good as we\’d seen on the boat, we stayed the second night in preparation to go to Baly Bay where we\’d jump off for Richard\’s Bay, SA. We sent \”Sunflower\” and email with peoples names and phone numbers for the taxi, etc. People like it when \”Beach House\” goes ahead of them. They get lots of current information.

More soon, Scott and Navigator Nik

Russian Bay to Berangomania Bay, on to Moramaba Bay…..

05-07 November 2012 (Eastern Hemisphere)

Dear F&F, We\’d heard about a nice anchorage and \”local experience\” in Baramahamay Bay, but it was only another 16 miles and a restaurant ashore didn\’t appeal much as both Captain and Crew had a bit of \”tourista\” from our eating ashore in Hellville.

Hence, on we went to Berangomania Bay, another very well protected anchorage with a local village. On our next days run, we wanted to get to Moramba Bay where Des and Nel told us we would see Lemurs right on the beach and in the trees. This anchorage also has some incredible limestone rocks and fabulous Baobob trees. The Baobob\’s are also in Africa and Australia. They look like a tree turned upside down. Photo one day… (as if!..:-))

En route, we passed the infamous island of Nosy Lava. It is a former prison and is now closed. In 1993, two escapees went aboard the s/v \”Magic Carpet\” and murdered the crew!… The guide (when the prison was open), said, \”we cannot recommend the island\”…

We arrived at Moramba Bay in the afternoon and anchored in a lovely spot that reminded me of last years trip to the Lau Group of Fiji. The limestone islands there were a bit more spectacular, but these were very nice. Also, the baobob trees were spectacular AND BEST OF ALL! We saw the Colqueri Safakia Lemurs (7 of them), right in a big tree on the beach!..Yeah, we found our lemurs! They are diurnal, so we saw them in the trees at dawn and dusk. According to what I read, there are about 60 animals per sq. kilometer. This particular species (of which there are dozens), is one of the largest. The body is about 2 feet tall and the tail a bit longer. They vertically climb, swing and stay in small groups. They were very alert to our presence as well. These animals have been hunted and are most likely quite leery of people. A local guide told us their species and had a group of 3 tourists from Ireland with him. He said if we go ashore, they\’ll go high up into the canopy. The next morning, we went for a walk on the beach and indeed, they wouldn\’t come down till we left. We did see paw prints on the beach too which was pretty cool. Yeah, photos one day!…

After a full day and two nights, \”Sunflower\” arrived and we left the next morning for another town of ill repute, Majunga…. More soon,

Kit, Scott and Nikki

Getting Ready to head South, Happy Birthday Nikki!…..

01-04 November 2012 (Eastern Hemisphere)

Dear F&F,

We departed Hellville for a 1 1/2 hour trip to the next door island, Nosy Komba. This had a lovely anchorage, lots of local shops and a reasonable restaurant which the four of us, Dave, Kathy, Nikki and Scott. After a nice lunch we went for a long beach walk amongst the shops. We found out that there is a nice lemur viewing spot here and would perhaps come back the next morning to see them. After a calm night, Nikki and I decided to skip the lemur viewing and head back to Sakitia. Dave and Kathy did do the viewing and saw a nice bunch being fed by hand. We\’re anxious to head south and get going to South Africa, we\’ll start our trip tomorrow to Russian Bay.

Russian Bay, we left casually as the trip to Russian Bay was only 18 miles. Motoring as there was little wind. We arrived at the nice anchorage just inside the entrance and had a lovely calm evening. Just us, \”Sunflower\” and the mozzy\’s…:-)

The best thing about today is!…Happy Birthday Nikki!…. She\’s a pearl of a girl.

More to follow,
Scott and Birthday Girl Nik

Sakatia and off to HELLville…..

We first anchored at the small island of Sakatia just northwest of Nose Be. We\’d heard good things about one of the fishing lodges here and that they could help us with advice on how to check in. The owner of the lodge no longer lives there, but his immediate neighbors are Des and Nel of South African sailing yacht, \”Gambit\”.

Nel and Des were most gracious and a wealth of information about not only checking in/out, but the strategy and tactics to get to South Africa. They\’ve made the trip six times in their 30 footer. They were all about how we were doing this the right way having avoided going to Mauritius. Des said that in the seven years he\’s listened on the Radio Nets, no one doing that trip had escaped getting weather whacked.

After relaxing a day in Sakatia and having had a meal at the fishing lodge and the Sakatia Resort next door with Dave and Kathy on \”Sunflower\”, we bravely set off for the 14 mile trip to Hell-ville. It\’s named after a French Admiral Hell, btw! The anchorage was a bit bumpy during the day, but that night it calmed nicely. As we arrived, \”Romeo\”, one of the boat boys that Des said would come out, did indeed. The next morning, the four of us began the check in process with Romeo in tow.

First stop immigration which was 30 feet from the dinghy dock. This is good!…NOT so much. After using my mediocre French, the official said to \”come back for your passports this afternoon at 5PM\”, or..\”maybe tomorrow\”! WAIT, said I, \”no official keeps passports\”. After going round and round, it was determined that the boss had to sign them. This necessitated taking a taxi WITH THE OFFICIAL to the airport where we found the \”Boss\”. She was very pleasant and clearly would have been upset if her subordinate did not have our passports signed before returning them. The airport is not very busy, but today it was, so she had to be there to issue visas to arriving tourists. After wasting an hour doing that, we next went to customs which was EASY. Then to the Port Captain, who refused to speak slowly, but I finally got that we were to make an itinerary of our expected travels, pay a fee and he would issue a Port Clearance and Cruising Permit. We were told to go pay at the next office, come back at 3 pm and it would be ready. We went to pay and the officer said, \”come back at 3 pm\”.

Internet and phone were next and a nice lunch at \”Papillion\”. We went back at 3 pm, paid the equivalent of $30.00 dollars and went to pick up our permit. Again, we had to \”wait for the boss\”, but he showed up only 15 minutes later. We all felt kind of beat up after this days experience; kind of like we\’d been to \”Hell-ville\”, but at least it was done.

I would say this was up there on the list of difficult check in\’s along with Fiji. No bribes were asked for or even implied by the way.

We were so tired, we decided to fuel up the next day. It\’s quite hot here. The next day, Anatole, Des and Nel\’s favorite taxi driver showed up at the dock and we were inundated by \”boat boys\” who wanted to carry our empty fuel cans to his taxi to get a tip. More on this later! First, Anatole warned us, \”not all of the three gas stations will have fuel\”! We\’d been told that since the coup 3-4 years ago, fuel was now difficult to get.

We found diesel at the second station at about $1.50/liter. That\’s about the same price as Australia, but expensive by US standards at about $5.80/gallon. The fuel looked pretty good and so our first load of 13 (5 gallon) jerry cans was taken aboard. The boat boys were all over it; I still had another run to go!

After the second run, (Sunflower made two as well), we went to pay the boat boys. There was practically a fight and tears over who got paid and who was just trying to get paid. Eventually it was all sorted out. It\’s not that it was expensive so much as the unruly grief of dealing with all these guys. Romeo, (who is very young), was supposed to be in charge and tell us who got what. He quickly abdicated and Dave and I were left to decipher the entire mess. The dinghies have to be \”watched\” or they will disappear too. This is one of the poorest countries on Earth, the average salary is about $5.00/day. Hence, theft can be an issue.

Welcome to Hell!..ville, next morning…we were off to Nose Komba!

More later, Scott and Lemur seeking Nikki…..