17 August 2017 Ambodifototra, Ile St Marie, Madagascar
We had a quiet morning on the boat using the fast internet. Glenys is focussed on arranging a two week land trip in South Africa for when our son, Craig and his girlfriend Kristen come out to visit us in November.
I was concerned that we haven’t managed to obtain a Domestic Clearance, so I did some serious research looking back at emails from friends and blogs from other cruisers who went through Madagascar in the past few years.
There’s nowhere to get good information, but eventually I figured out that we need to get the Domestic Clearance from the Port Captain, who we haven’t found yet. Our friends on “Keyif” were fined $100US last year for not having one. There’s also something called a “Permis de Circulation”, which I think that we also get from the Port Captain.
At 11:00, we ventured out and had a walk around town. There’s not much to it and there’s only one small supermarket with basic supplies. Otherwise everything else has to be obtained from the many small ram-shackled shops and market stalls. The central market has twenty or so stalls selling vegetables and there are a few butchers displaying hacks of meat, which don’t look too appetising with the flies swarming about.
We called in at the tourist office and found out that the small zoo is closed today (Thursday) and Sunday. It’s a few miles away, so we’re planning to hire a scooter tomorrow, visit the zoo and then tour the island.
After lunch, we went across to Ile Madame to look for the Port Captain. Mr Toad, the customs man, intercepted us, but he didn’t have a clue what we wanted. I found the Coast Guard guys in their bar/recreation building and it took five minutes for them to grasp what we wanted and point us to the Port Captain’s office which has a sign “Navires Gen de Mer”.
The Port Captain’s office building is small, but tidy and even has a little garden outside. The officer was polite and knowledgeable, taking a scan of our ships papers on his computer (yes, a computer!) and told us that he would issue a Domestic Clearance to Mahajanga when we are ready to leave Ile St Marie. We confirmed that he would be available on weekends, but we said that we would be back early next week.
We retired back to the boat and chilled out for the rest of the afternoon. In the evening, we invited “Red Herring” and “Jackster” over for a few beers, where our frustration with the official corruption turned into a set of tall stories to be repeated for years.
18 August 2017 Ambodifototra, Ile St Marie, Madagascar
Together with “Red Herring”, we hired motorbikes for the day. They weren’t the best vehicles in the world - mine had a flat battery and the back brake was almost non-existent, but they only cost £12 for the day. Our first stop was to the petrol station to fill up with £5 worth of petrol. One of the guys from the rental shop followed us there to make sure that we completely filled up our tanks. Call me cynical, but I’m pretty sure that they syphon the petrol out of the bikes each night to make extra profit.
Just as we headed south out of town, we were stopped by a police checkpoint - I noticed that they were only stopping tourists. They wanted to see our vehicle papers and also our passports. We only had a photocopy of my passport and they wanted to see the original passport, in particular they wanted to see our visas. After a bit of arguing, they let us through, but warned that we should have our passports with us next time.
We drove south along the coastal road, which has a number of small resorts and some villages. After five miles, we came across the small zoo called Endemica, which is on a road junction. The sign is very hard to see and you have to look back to see the zoo gate. After paying the entry fee of 15,000 Ariary (£3.75), a lady guide took us around.
It’s a pleasant little place, but very dark and damp being dominated by large trees and vegetation. They have some snakes, one species of chameleon, a terrapin, a baby tortoise and two species of lemurs. Despite the lack of animals, we had an enjoyable trip and the guide showed us other things like a Vanilla plant, a small 10mm long Small Frog and showed us how to eat the fruit of the raffia tree - unpleasantly dry and bitter.
The Lemurs were interesting - some are in cages and there are about six roaming free. We saw a Common Brown Lemur and a Black and White Ruffed Lemur All of them are very attentive, waiting to be offered bananas and climbing all over you when you reveal one. They are quite gentle and I believe that they don't have claws, but have fingernails like humans.
I was particularly fascinated by the Chameleon. They were quite large and I took some good photographs and a video of a chameleon flicking out its long sticky tongue to grab an insect. There were two type of snakes a Boa Constrictor and a tree-dwelling snake called a Leaf-nosed Snake, which was really hard to spot amongst the branches.
Sadly, we were told that locals keep coming into the zoo and stealing animals - they’ve lost all of their 15 adult tortoises and three chameleons, which they believe were sold to foreigners.
Heading back north, we passed through town and were stopped by another police checkpoint. This time they let Graham and Karen through, but the policeman demanded to see our passports. After a little argument, he asked that we pay a fine now. I told him firmly that we wouldn’t pay anything and would go back to the boat for our passports. We had a stand-off for a minute and then I snatched the photocopy of my passport out of his hand; we climbed back on our bike and heading back to town.
After collecting our passports and getting the battery fixed on our motorbike, we headed north again. By this time it was after 12:00, so the policemen had gone to lunch. We carried on along the coast road passing through small villages. Some of the houses are concrete, single-story structures, but the majority are small wooden huts. I’ve been told that a family would have one or more sleeping huts and a separate cooking hut - they mostly use charcoal or dry wood for cooking. The walls and roofs of the Huts are predominately made from Travellers Palm.
We stopped off at a small hotel for lunch - Zebu and Calamari. The hotel is run by a local lady and is in a small fishing village, right on the beach in a very pretty spot. The owner’s daughter was heading up a community association through which the local villagers make crafts and sell to tourists through various shops. Glenys bought some hand woven Raffia table mats.
After lunch, we carried on heading north, looking at the local way of life. We came across a quarry, where guys were smashing big chunks of rock into smaller pieces using a sledge hammer - looked like damn hard work. Later on, we came across some grass roofed shelters, where people were using hammers to break chunks of rock into gravel, which was being graded into piles - I can hardly believe that people are doing this.
By 14:00, we were just past the small village of Lokintsy and we weren’t seeing anything new, so we turned back for town to visit the Pirate’s Cemetery. Ile St Marie used to be home to 1,000 pirates in the 17th and 18th centuries. Situated close to the trade routes from South Africa to South-east Asia it became a haven for notorious pirates including Captain William Kidd. Many pirates are allegedly buried in a small grave yard situated on a small hill at the edge of town.
Tourists have to pay to gain entrance to the grave yard and for a fee of 12,000 Ariary (£3) each, we had a personal guide, who spoke reasonable English and was very informative. It’s a good ten minute walk to the top of the hill and the little tour was interesting.
I chatted to the guide about the Madagascar way of life and he told me that the legal minimum wage in Madagascar is 133,000 Ariary (£33) per month, which is 6,000 Ariary (£1.50) per day. (The minimum wage in the UK is £56 per day - quite a difference.) Our guide said that if he worked for a tourist hotel then they would pay him twice the national minimum wage. Glenys tipped the guy 10,000 Ariary, which probably doubled his pay today.
Back at the harbour, we had a beer with “Red Herring” and “Jackster” at the Terrasse Restaurant before collapsing back on Alba.
19 August 2017 Ambodifototra to Ile Aux Nattes, Madagascar
After our little arguments with the police yesterday, I don’t want to be carrying our passports around with us all the time, so I photographed our passports and visas and printed out a piece of paper containing both. I also put the photographs on my phone, in case they want to see the colour version…
We left the town anchorage at 09:00 and spent an enjoyable three hours whale watching. It was a lovely day with calm seas and we had over twenty sightings. The first meeting was with a Mother and her Calf, who were chilling out, floating on the surface quite close to the shore. We went further out and saw whales breaching - launching themselves completely out of the water. Unfortunately, these were all at least half a mile away, but the splash generated by many tonnes of whale hitting the water was impressive.
There were half a dozen whale-watching boats around and their faster speed enabled them to get closer to the whales than we could with our pathetic six knots, but we still had many encounters. After a couple of hours, we’d had enough and headed for Ile Aux Nattes , where we anchored at 17°05.54S 049°48.56E in 5 metres over white sand. It’s a beautiful place with white sand beaches and swaying palm trees. There’s a slight swell coming around the island, but it’s only making us rock gently, which is not too bad.
After lunch, we pottered about for a while and I ran the water maker. Unfortunately, the new switch that I fitted for the low pressure pump tripped out on start-up and then tripped again after 45 minutes, so I turned it all off after the second time. It looks like there’s a problem on the low pressure pump and it’s drawing too much current both on start-up and when it gets too hot. I’m praying that it will last until we get to South Africa, where I plan to service or replace it.
The water is fairly clear in the anchorage, so I dug out my underwater camera, put on my new 1mm wetsuit and went for a snorkel for the first time in three months. The visibility was only about 5 metres, but there is coral on the reefs. There weren’t many fish where I went, but I had a good time, poking about and looking for new photo subjects. Another cool things was hearing the singing of the whales every time that I dived down. My enthusiasm only lasted for 15 minutes because it was chuffing cold and I was soon heading back to Alba for a hot shower.
20 August 2017 Ile Aux Nattes, Madagascar
Dawn brought us grey skies and a south wind which was bringing bigger waves into the anchorage and making us pitch. We had a couple of long, heavy rain showers, so we stayed on board doing some administration. Glenys was booking accommodation for a land trip in South Africa in November when our son comes out to visit us.
I spent all day doing research into anchorages in Madagascar and also started to produce a set of Cruising Notes about our impending passage from Madagascar to South Africa.
The sky brightened up in the afternoon and the wind backed to the south-east, so the swell reduced. Even so, we couldn’t motivate ourselves to get off the boat. All day, we could see whales just outside the anchorage - slow moving mothers and energetic males breaching.
21 August 2017 Ile Des Nattes to Ambodifototra, Madagascar
Sometime in the early morning, the damn wind picked up from the south again and we started pitching. It was difficult to sleep, so I was up at 06:00 and did some forward planning looking at anchorages around to the north-west coast of Madagascar. It’s 330 miles, so we either do it in one passage with 3 nights at sea or we break it up and do three one night passages, stopping at a couple of anchorages.
We have to pass around the northern tip of Madagascar, which is an acceleration zone for the south-east trade winds. Not only are the winds higher, but big waves are generated and previous cruisers have been hammered as they head west, so we need to make sure that we get there when the winds are relatively light. The weather forecast seems to show reasonable winds in a week’s time, so we’re going to aim for that.
The weather was mixed with some showers, so we abandoned the idea of walking around the Iles Des Nattes and pulled up the anchor to head back to town.
As we were sailing away from the anchorage, a whale was passing by, being pursued by a local whale-watching boat. They’re supposed to keep 300 metres away from the whales, but often approach to within 25 metres. This whale was moving quite fast. It turned away from the local boat and headed straight towards us. We didn’t have our engine running, so I don’t think that it saw or heard us until it was 25 metres in front of us at which time it turned left and swam down our starboard side. Glenys was at the wheel, hyperventilating, and I was taking photos.
Back at the Town Anchorage, we went ashore to buy some vegetables, topped up the internet on our SIM card and settled down for lunch in the Terrasse restaurant - I just HAD to have my last fix of Zebu before we leave Ile St Marie tomorrow. While we were eating, I heard a loud cluck behind me and turned to find a lady holding a live cockerel by the feet, trying to sell it to the owner of the restaurant - not something that would happen in the UK.
There are a number of peddlers who wander around town coming into the restaurants to sell Vanilla Pods. Madagascar is the world’s leading producer of Vanilla, which is the seed pod of a type of orchid, originated from Mexico. Interestingly, the plant can only be naturally pollinated by a particular Mexican bee, so all vanilla orchids around the world are hand pollinated, which is very labour intensive.
The pods are inspected every day and picked by hand when they are mature, but before they split open - another labour intensive process. There then follows a lengthy curing process. The pods are first put in hot water for a few minutes to stop vegetative growth. They are then wrapped in bundles in cloth for a week, which causes an oxidation process, making the beans go brown and developing the characteristic vanilla flavour and aroma.
A drying process takes 3 to 4 weeks followed by a conditioning process which is performed by storing the pods for five to six months in closed boxes, where the fragrance develops further. The processed fruits are sorted, graded, bundled, and wrapped in paraffin paper. This long and labour intensive process makes Vanilla one of the most expensive spices in the world, currently costing $500US per kilogram.
The peddlers who wander around the streets have a starting price of 600,000 Ariary ($200US) per kilo. With a local commodity so valuable, theft is a major problem and the vanilla farmers have armed guards protecting their crops. I wonder how these peddlers get hold of their vanilla pods?
After lunch, we headed back to the boat and I popped out to obtain our Domestic Clearance from the Port Captain. He filled in various forms and I had to pay 30,000 Ariary (£7.50) for one month’s port fees and 35,000 Ariary (£9.00) for processing the clearance. I was told that the port fees cover the whole of Madagascar, so I shouldn’t have to pay any more for a while.
The Port Captain issued the Domestic Clearance from here to Mahajanga, which is the last post before we head off to South Africa. I’m hoping that this strategy will mean that I don’t have to see any of the authorities in Nosy Be. He also told me that I don’t need a “Permis de Circulation” because he could only issue one for the Ile St Marie area and it’s only necessary if we were staying in one area for a long time. I may get stung for one of these “Cruising Permits” in Nosy Be, if I’m not careful.…
We invited George, Mairy and Angus from “Ngalawa” over for a beer or two. They arrived from Mauritius yesterday.
22 August 2017 Ile St Marie to Angontsy, Madagascar (Day 1)
I nipped into town to buy some bread and by 09:30, we’d upped anchor heading for an anchorage on the north end of the island. We had a nice downwind sail in the SW 10 knot winds. Unfortunately, the anchorage that we were aiming for looked to be exposed to the south-west waves, so we looked for somewhere else to anchor.
A long spit of land sticking out from the mainland looked to be suitable, with a gradually sloping sea bed that looked like sand or mud on the charts. I quickly used the excellent internet on our phone to have a look on Google Earth and it looked good. Glenys changed course while I dived down below to create some KAP charts of the new anchorage (using the excellent GE2KAP utility.) Twenty minutes later, we were sailing into the anchorage with my new KAP charts displayed on our OpenCPN chart plotter – I love having internet at sea...
We dropped anchor at Antsiaka at 16°50.29S 049°49.63E in a depth of 7 metres on good holding sand. We were well protected from the south-west wind waves, but a big rolling swell was coming in from the north-east causing big breakers on the beach. It wasn’t a problem in the anchorage, but we didn’t fancy landing the dinghy on the beach. There’s a village on the other side of the spit of land, but we couldn’t visit.
During lunch, we reviewed our plans and decided that we might as well start heading up the coast where we might find more interesting places. We plumbed for Angontsy Bay, which was 110 miles away, so if we left in the afternoon, we should easily get there by midday. By 15:00, we’d stowed everything away, put the dinghy on deck, topped up our water tanks and Glenys had cooked a Prawn Curry for dinner, so we upped anchor and headed north.
Unfortunately, the nice SW wind had disappeared and we ended up motoring for most of the way. When we cleared the north end of Ile St Marie, the north setting current disappeared and we had ½ to 1 knot of current against us for 45 miles as we crossed Baie D’Antongil. We picked up a very slight favourable current when we were north of Cap Masoala.
As the night went on, the clouds built up and we had a few “teasers” where the wind picked up to more than 10 knots, so we dragged out the genoa and turned the engine off, only to find the wind dying ten minutes later. There was a long 1½ metre swell from the north-east, but the motion was comfortable.
23 August 2017 Ile St Marie to Angontsy, Madagascar (Day 2)
At dawn, we were still 20 miles away from our destination. It was a lovely sunny day, but the wind stayed less than 10 knots from the south-east, so we motor-sailed downwind. In order to stay out of the way of local fishing boats, we’d spent the night eight miles offshore in water that was over 1,000 metres deep. As we approached land and came into water shallower than 100 metres, the current picked up to 1 knot in our favour. We saw no fishing boats last night, so we’d have been faster if we’d stayed closer to the shore.
We were approaching Angontsy at 11:00. It didn’t look very good – we had a 2 metre swell rolling in from the south east, which was pushing us towards the breakers crashing on the reefs. About ½ mile out, there was a very sharp line where the water became discoloured (sort of milky), which didn’t help our nerves. We followed the Navionics charts, using the following waypoints and all was well.
The sea bed slowly shallowed from 20 metres to where we anchored in 5 metres at 15°15.07S 050°28.46E. The swell is blocked by the outer reef and the anchorage is relatively calm. There’s a slight residual roll, but it’s very pleasant. There’ a fishing village ashore, which we would like to visit, but I can’t face getting the dinghy off the front deck and then having to put it all back.
When we were five miles out, I caught a nice Tuna, so my first job was to fillet it, so that Glenys could make us fresh Fish Butties for lunch.
Even in this remote place, we have a reasonable telephone and internet connection, so I downloaded a weather forecast. The wind looks like it will be a few knots more tomorrow, so we’re planning to leave tomorrow afternoon and sail directly around the Northern Cape. It’s 210 miles to the cape, so if we leave at sunset, we’ll have two nights at sea and arrive at the cape at daylight on Saturday (25th) and will be in an anchorage on the north-west coast by midday. The weather forecast predicts 20-24 knots for the next 5 days, so there’s no point in waiting.
We chilled out for the afternoon, having a nap and resting. I received an email from a friend, Andy who is starting to think about living on a boat in the future. One of his questions was related to how much does it cost to go cruising, so I did a little bit of analysis of our expenditure over the past 6 years and found that on average, we spend a staggering £47,000 per year. Half of this is spent on the boat and you can have a look because I’ve published a little article analysing our Expenditure. I’m still in shock, but I can’t see anywhere that I would want to make radical savings.
The anchorage became a little more rolly in the afternoon when it was high tide and the swell was sneaking over the reef. We watched a movie with our Tuna in a Creamy Sauce.