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Published: April 18th 2013
Lemur Park
Looks comfyDecember 2001
Picture in your mind clear turquoise seas gently lapping over secluded white beaches, palm trees swaying in the light breeze, a yacht moored in the bay. Hot days and balmy nights, swimming, diving, fishing, snorkelling, or just strolling on the beach. Sounds like bliss, doesn't it? Of course it is, but this time I am not going to bore you with an account of how wonderful it is - ok, you’ve got me, of course I am, but at the same time I am going to tell you of about a few things that could have made this trip a disaster if we weren’t able to get things sorted and under control.
We decided to do another trip to Madagascar, this time in December 2001. It made such an impact on us the first time, that we wanted to go back and experience it again. So much so that we decided to invite Wikus and Juanita (who were also adventurous) to join us for the first week. Some of you may have read my blogs of our last trip to Madagascar, but if not, here is the link of the first blog and the next
Lemur Park
Hop, skip and jump! five following after that one, when you click on Next Entry at the end of the text.
http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Madagascar/blog-757775.html We spent a day in Antananarivo first, doing some sightseeing, One of the highlights was walking around a lemur park where we saw a wide array of lemurs, chameleons and some other creatures that inhabit Madagascar. We drove around, showing Wikus and Juanita a bit of the life in ‘Tana’ as well. The next day we then left for Nose Bé where we would meet up with Willem and Elize again.
The 1st week of paradise. This time we were on board a catamaran called Tigress, because Bossi was already fully booked for both weeks. Because Willem was skippering Bossi, we had a different skipper, Jako, for the first week complete with his own pet dog, Tracy who lived on board with him. She certainly had her sea legs and was very much at home on the boat and lapped up all the attention we gave her. We sailed down to Nosy Iranja via Russian bay. Some changes had taken place on Iranja. A resort hotel had been built
Lemur Park
Munch munch on the smaller Iranja island, where we went to shore and enjoyed a drink. On the larger Iranja island the village had increased in size and looked quite pretty after a bit of a revamp. This time we took the chance and climbed up the rusty lighthouse. Wonder of wonders, it didn’t collapse under our feet. At the school on the island we were once again greeted with smiles from the school children: Bonjour Madame, Bonjour Monsieur!
The week was once again spent sailing to various islands, mooring in bays, diving and doing all the wonderful things we did on the last trip. Nosy Tanikely was a good dive spot. At the end of the dive my gallant husband pushed me from behind onto the inflatable dinghy to get us back to the yacht, but before I could get a good hold and hoist myself aboard, he suddenly lets go of me to duck underwater again, because he had just seen a large manta ray swim past – his first one ever. Naturally I missed the sighting because I was spluttering, having just landed back into the water, with this totally unexpected release!
After great diving,
Chameleon
30 cm long fishing and relaxing over the week, we sailed back via Nosy Komba, before we came back to Nosy Bé to bid farewell to Juanita and Wikus. We trust they enjoyed the first week that passed so quickly, as much as we did and we certainly haven’t heard any accounts to dispute that.
We restocked for the next week and went ashore to meet up with Willem and Elize. It was decided that we would have dinner at Ambataloak on Nosy Bé at a restaurant called Chez Mama. The small restaurant was just off the beach, with rustic wooden benches and about 2 or 3 tables. We were invited into the tiny kitchen probably only about 1m x 2m in size. The lids of the four bubbling saucepans were lifted so we could see what was in them. They then took half a coconut shell, scooped it full of rice, turned it upside down on the plate and then ladled whatever we chose on the plate next to that. It was a very generous portion and most of us couldn’t empty our plates, no matter how delicious it was. There was Malagasy chicken stew, coconut prawn curry, Beef
Antananarivo
Typical market (zebu) stew and in the last saucepan coconut crab curry. Good hearty food that was inexpensive, with tons of flavour, that filled our bellies.
After dinner we went for a walk along the beachfront to digest some of that lovely dinner before going back on board Tigress. We could see some changes that had taken place in the last few years. More restaurants, bars, and a few more tourist traps. This was our teenage sons first encounter of ladies of the night doing business with potential customers, even trying to chat up our sons: Hello daahlink……! Luckily our boys were a bit taken aback and bewildered by this and decided to stick close to us for safety and protection.
2nd week of paradise with a few nasty surprises. The following morning we left on Tigress to sail north as far as the archipelago consisting of many little islands such as Nosy Valiha, Nosy Tango, Nosy Mangazona and Nosy Mandnora. This week Willem would be our skipper again and it was great to have him on board with his sense of humour.
We did much of the same as
Antananarivo
Washing day - done in a river and left to dry on the banks the first week, just in different places. There are so many unspoilt dive sites and snorkelling spots, islands with deserted beaches. As for the fishing, eventually we had to stop fishing, as we wouldn’t have been able to eat all the fish we could catch.
Then one by one little disasters struck. While walking on a beach on one of the islands we were bitten by some nasty little things that looked like gnats. They seem to breed in the dried up seaweed lying on the beach. Itches like crazy and can leave nasty sores that don’t disappear quickly – we have heard that they lay tiny little eggs under the skin, but we are not sure if this is just an urban legend. Mosquitoes are bad enough but these are just as nasty. Although the itch was driving us crazy, we could live with that with a bit of antihistamine ointment, so we weren’t too worried as this was a minor thing.
Soon after that, I started to get worried. Philip had developed a fever and couldn’t keep anything down – not even water. We suspected heatstroke and dehydration eventually,
Antananarivo
Dinner, anyone? but couldn’t tell at first. With the heat – average temperature 34 to 39 degrees Celsius – and no other lingering symptoms, that was the most likely diagnosis. But being on board a boat with no medical expertise, was a bit of a problem. Even though we were near land, we were away from any major medical facilities. Normal medication wasn’t really helping as he couldn’t drink anything and I was getting desperate. Eventually some medication went down (I actually think in the end I used a voltaren suppository which I luckily had in my first aid kit), and I stood over him with a wet towel on him, fanning him with another wet towel (both had been dipped in the sea, hoping that the wet towels would help cool him down). All the others went diving, but I forfeited mine, and I am glad I did, because that was when his fever broke – it probably was the voltaren that did the trick, though and not me. What a relief! He was back to normal in no time.
Then a strong wind came up with some larger swells and more disasters struck.
The
First fish of the holiday
King fish, same as last holiday. Déjà vu! shade awning at the back of the boat, which was very necessary in that tropical heat, tore. The air temperature was hot so the bit of shade we could get was important. The sea temperature at 32 to 33 degrees, didn’t give so much relief, although it did help a bit! The only sewing kit on board was my tiny travelling kit (almost like the ones you sometimes get at hotels with one or two of my own upgrades). The cotton was more suitable for stitching small buttons, hems or tears on clothing, not tough canvas, but after much deliberation we needed to fix the awning so we could have some shade again so I set forth with a largish needle and used some dental floss to stitch the awning together. Voila! Shade again!
But wait, folks! That’s not all. The dive compressor that is stored on deck got totally drenched from the waves coming over the bow of the boat and wouldn’t start. While struggling to get it going, the starter rope broke. As luck would have it, all Willem’s tools were on board Bossi with limited tools on Tigress. So we loaned tools from the
Tracy
Our pet on board dingha-dingha divers - sea cucumber divers – who were moored close by in the bay. After much frustration, Willem managed to open the compressor and put a new rope around the starter pulley and got it going. We could dive again!
Still not the end of our problems: At the same time the fan belt broke for the water pump that was cooling the main engine. No problem, there was a spare on board, so Willem proceeded to change it. Ha ha, that didn’t last long – less than 10 minutes, as the spare had started perishing and snapped before we could get the main engine started. Spare parts available in Madagascar are not necessarily fresh new products and often get left in the windows of the shops with a hot sun baking on the goods, hence the short life of the second fan belt. We were under sail with no motor and no means of charging batteries (no, not just camera batteries – all of the electrical stuff on board!) for anything that needed power on the boat.
With Willem’s engineering brain and Paul’s technical brain, they made alternative plans to reroute the
Paradise
Wikus and Juanita fan belt around the water pump, but still had no alternator to charge the boat’s batteries to start the main motor. And by now the batteries were going flat. They stripped the motor and managed to start it on one cylinder to reduce the load on the batteries. Picture this: a boat cannot be push started like a car, so there was only one chance to start the motor. We all breathed a sigh of relief, when it got going on one cylinder, but the other cylinders had to be brought in, in sequence to continue running with enough power to propel the boat, which they managed. This still meant we could not turn off the engine. We had an auxiliary engine but we discovered this had also gone faulty.
The auxiliary motor was a much smaller motor and the controller and starter were faulty and was not working properly but it had a working alternator, so they made a plan to bypass and rewire it so it could run without the controller and charge batteries. We had limited general usage of power on the boat, but at least we could limp home. And then to crown
it all, once we had radio reception again, we heard our flight was brought forward by a day, so we had to make haste to get back to Nosy Bé and sailed throughout night to get back in time, with all of us looking out for pirogues, dhows and other debris as we had no electronic navigational aids to spot them. What we did see was beautiful phosphorescence and bright stars in the sky.
NB: I apologise if all technical details are not correct – I am not the technical brain in this family!
Were they pirates or good Samaritans? Willem’s sister was on board the boat with us and he told her about quite a bit of activity with pirates that were sailing around the Indian ocean and Mozambique channel. After loaning the tools from the dingha-dingha divers and managing to repair the engine, we needed to return the tools the next morning as was arranged. However, the divers decided to leave early and they wanted their tools back. So late that night, in the dark, we heard the approach of another boat. This is an unusual sound when you have the bay just about
What a whopper!
Happy to have caught a fish to yourself. Willem’s sister was convinced it was pirates coming to abduct us, but it was only the divers coming to fetch their tools. A couple of stiff whiskeys were drunk after that to calm her nerves and she hardly slept at all that night, watching out for more possible pirates.
It was sad farewells again, once we reached Nosy Bé but we quickly had to head back to Antananarivo to fly back on time.
It certainly wasn't a trip from hell, but there was plenty that didn't quite go according to plan and could have turned out to be a rather nasty experience. In spite of all the mishaps we still had a wonderful time and we would do it again at the drop of a hat. We had the utmost faith in Willem and knew he would try his very best to keep us out of trouble, after all, we knew him well by this time as this was the third trip we were doing with him. If we were on Bossi, most of this probably would not have happened. As for someone you dearly love, falling ill in a remote area,
it shakes you a bit but luckily that didn’t turn out serious.
Of course, if we drifted away without a working engine and shipwrecked on our own personal island, that would have been another story…….....
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Home and Away
Bob Carlsen
What an experience!
Good thing you had some engineers on board.