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Published: September 27th 2022
Yes, OK, I missed posting a blog 2 days ago, and now need to tell you about 4 days. We’ve had a really busy time!
The first thing to say is massive congratulations to Collette and Greg. They went for a walk on the beach, he asked and she said yes! They both arrived back from their walk with big smiles on their faces, and Collette wearing a beautiful diamond ring. Such a special place to get engaged 🤗
Anyway, back to our adventure. Saturday was two morning dives for the divers, and the non-divers did a walk on Nosy Sakatia. Unfortunately, Big Paulo gave my dive kit bag to Jessica for snorkeling instead of hers, so I had to use her boots and fins. She has bigger feet than me, and the boots were a bit flappy and kept coming undone. I did the first dive, the deepest of the week, and we saw massive beautiful fan corals. Some did a deep swim through, but I opted out and stayed on the reef. There was quite a current as we ascended onto the top! Not much fish life, but I did see a tiny weeny blue nudibranch.
The next dive was described in the briefing as having a strong current but you might see sharks. I decided not to dive; currents are not my favourite thing! I think it was the right decision listening to some of the comments from those that did it.
We arrived to join the non-divers on Nosy Sakatia at lunch time and I was reunited with my kit bag. Poor Jessica was very concerned that I hadn’t been able to dive, so I reassured her that I had indeed dived, but with her boots and fins. They told me they had tried very hard to get someone to bring the bag back, but by the time she realised she had the wrong bag we were already underwater.
Unfortunately there had been some miscommunication, and the restaurant was surprised to see us, so no lunch was ready. They did a fabulous job of throwing something together for us though.
While we were waiting for lunch Little Paulo gave us a lesson on Green Backed Turtles. He did a sand sculpture of a turtle as a teaching resource. Adult males have tails, females and juvenile males don’t. They don’t reach maturity
until 25 years old. They lay around 100 eggs at a time in the sand, and the ones at the bottom hatch first so the babies don’t have to find their way out through a mass of egg shells. The mums make 2 nests at a time but only lays eggs in one; the other is to try and confuse predators.
After a yummy lunch of fish and rice, we went snorkeling with the turtles living around the island. What a special afternoon! We saw many turtles munching on the sea grass in the bay, and many photos were taken. The highlight for me was watching a turtle with 2 ramoras on it. They were on the top of the shell, but as the turtle swam up to the surface to breath they moved onto its belly, returning to the shell once the turtle descended; very clever.
Post a couple of cocktails and dinner I retired to ma chambre pour le nuit.
Sunday saw the divers aboard the boat once again. As we headed out to the first dive site John and Ian W spotted a whale shark alongside the boat. What a treat! We all
threw our fins, mask and snorkels on and jumped in the water. It was a juvenile, and was very interested in the boat. It took a really good look at it for a few minutes before swimming under the boat and disappearing into the blue.
The non-divers were on another boat whale watching, and saw humpbacks plus a whale shark. We’re not sure whether it was the same one though.
The first dive was a coral garden, so beautiful, as well as a selection of reef fishes. I was going to pass on the second dive as the briefing said it was going to be a stronger current than yesterday’s dive, but Big Paulo said he would take Jessica and me on a slightly different dive to the others. We didn’t go over the edge of the reef to look at the wall which is where the strongest current was. Instead we waited just back from the edge for about 10 minutes before letting go. Well, this has changed my mind about drift dives! It was fabulous! A very pleasant speed drift, flying over a very colourful coral garden. We saw a large Moray hiding in a hole,
and a school of around 10 humphead parrotfish – they were huge! Jessica and I both raved about the dive on the surface, and thanked Big Paulo very very much for making it possible.
We arrived back at the hotel for lunch and after we were satiated Greg, Jessica, Jane and I swam across the channel off the hotel beach to Nosy Tanga, something we’d planned this earlier in the week. The sun was shining and the water pleasantly warm. There was a bit of chop as we swam into the waves, which was a little unpleasant as the water splashed into my face and mouth. I had my SMB as a tow-float, and Sean was providing surface cover in one of the hotel kayaks. Finally we reached the beach on Nosy Tanga. It’s a private island, but no one lives there. Apparently there was a guardian until he died during Covid, and there’s now just a very ramshackle wooden hut where the beach meets the forest, with what looks like a headless scarecrow next to it. We rested for about 5 minutes then headed back to the hotel. It was certainly an easier swim back with the waves
behind us, and took about 40 minutes. Jessica had sensibly taken her mask and snorkel, and reported seeing a turtle, lion fish and puffer fish. Ian L flew his drone over to the island and said it was around 750m each way.
We dried off and got ready for our night dive. We were picked up by a minibus and taken to the Dive Centre to see it and buy T shirts. It’s a great setup, and the staff seemed very proud to be working there. We met Carlotta, the wife of Emanuel who is the main man.
The night dive, our last dive of the trip, was around 20m maximum depth, and pleasant enough. There was a bit of a problem when just before the dive Sean needed a poo, NOW! As there is no head (loo) on the boat, he jumped in the water to relieve himself and there was of course a bit of banter from us all! Thankfully we moved to a slightly different place for the actual dive.
I saw my first seahorse, and it was surprisingly large! We also saw a baby honeycomb moray, a greenback turtle, various other fishes, and
the water was full of krill, shrimp, salps, small jellies, – it was a bit like soup! We certainly slept well that night!
Monday saw us heading off to Nosy Iranja for the day with Kennedy and Little Paulo as guides. We were really lucky to spot and follow a couple of humpback whales on our journey, as well as a sail fish which was repeatedly jumping out of the water, apparently to get rid of parasites. I saw my first flying fish, and was amazed at how long it was out of the water ‘flying’, certainly a few seconds! We did of course see some more turtles too 🤗
Nosy Iranja is absolutely stunning, and is named after Princess Iranja who was given the island by her father because it is so beautiful. It is actually 2 islands joined by a bar of bright white sand at low tide. Some of us went for a walk to see the lighthouse, and a beach where turtles lay their eggs. I took advantage of the fact there were a couple of geocaches on the island. There aren’t many in Madagascar or Nosy Be, and I’d failed to realise
there was one on Nosy Tanikley when we were there. I have logged an earthcache, but we couldn’t find a physical cache which should have been by a large tree; I’ve messaged the cache owner asking whether it would be OK to log it as long as I was at the correct place, so fingers crossed!
On the turtle beach there were little signs marking the nests with the date, type of turtle and how deep the eggs are. Thankfully there aren’t any street lights, so the babies won’t get confused as to which way the sea is when they hatch. We walked along Lovers Beach to get there, so called because of the tent shaped wooden bungalows there with just a double bed in. There were around a dozen or so strung along the beach just above the high tide mark with a dining area in the middle. It would be a very romantic honeymoon venue!
We arrived back at the restaurant area where those who hadn’t wanted to walk had waited, of course visiting the Tikki Bar next door for some beers, GnT or cocktail. My choice was a pina colada and it was even better
than the ones at the hotel. We were served an excellent meal with potatoes, veg, rice, octopus, fish and fruit, while being entertained by a band from Nosy Be called Attitude playing traditional Malagasy music. Having had a couple of cocktails by now, I may have had a go on the bongo drums 😉
We had an hour or so to kill before we headed back, so I put on my mask and snorkel and went for a bit of a swim off the beach. There wasn’t much to see apart from a shoal of small fish darting around, but it was pleasant nonetheless.
The two Paulo’s, Emanuel and Carlotta joined us for a drink at our hotel before we had dinner. I honestly can’t praise them all enough, or recommend Manta Diving highly enough. They went out of their way to make sure we all had a good times, and I felt completely safe with them. I will definitely be giving them an excellent Trip Adviser review.
The hotel had set up a table for us to eat our last Malagasy dinner on the beach, and it was simply lovely. The staff at the hotel are
extremely accommodating, work very hard and are all very friendly. The Boss Lady did everything she could to make sure we were happy, and every morning she came to the breakfast table to make say good morning and ensure there were no problems.
Most of us were a bit worse for wear when we went to bed.
We got up this morning to pack and start our travels home. As I finish this blog I’m sitting in the lounge at Addis Ababa airport waiting for the flight to LHR, landing tomorrow just after 07:00.
A few other thoughts and reflections on this fabulous adventure:
-It was a great group to travel with, some wonderful characters, and we had a lot of laughs!
-Nosy Be is certainly more affluent than the parts of mainland Madagascar we visited. While It’s certainly still poor relative to the UK, there are a lot more brick buildings, less fally-down wooden huts, generally tidier, and has industries such as diving centres and boutique hotels.
-A lot of things are carried on the head, more commonly by women rather than men. Almost exclusively women don’t hold whatever it is on their
head with their hands, but men do. We’ve seen very young girls carrying things on their heads – possibly as young as 7.
-Health are is very poor, with high mortality rates. There aren’t many old people around. Medicines are very expensive. A packet of Actifed Night & Day cost me 65000 ariary – around £14! In the UK it costs less than £4. Carlotta said it would be unusual to survive a heart attack or a stroke. Around 430 women in every 100 000 births will die in Madagascar; in the UK it’s around 7. Infant mortality is around 36 per 1000 births compared to between 3 and 4 in the UK.
-My ‘extras’ bill (snacks, drinks etc) at the Nosy Be hotel was 876000 ariary – a bit frightening until you translate to GBP – around £200.
-Children in Madagascar generally seem to be very happy. You seen them playing outside and having fun, they smile a lot. In the whole 2 weeks I only heard 2 children crying. I guess it’s to do with expectations. They don’t expect to have PlayStations etc and therefore don’t complain if they don’t! It’s lovely to see them
running to school along the beach, rather than being driven to school along busy streets.
- It was very humbling to see how some people have to live. While we do of course have poverty in the UK its all relative and generally we’re very spoilt in the UK and have fantastic opportunities.
- Most Malagasies speak at least 2 languages. Malagasy as their first, French as their second, and often, English as their third.
Finally, I would like to thank Greg immensely for organising this fantastic trip and giving me the opportunity to see a very beautiful and interesting country. I’m looking forward to the Galapagos trip in the next 2 or 3 years 😎
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