more Madagascar Sep 2015

This is Cap D'Ambre (Amber Cape) at the top end of Madagascar as we rounded it late in the afternoon.  We had the current and wind with us and caught the end of the incoming tide, so we couldn't have had it much better.  This cape can be really snotty if you get wind or tide against the current.  We had at least a 3-knot current pushing us around.  We ended up surfing down some of these waves as we turned the corner to head south.  That can be a bit exciting when the boat gets a bit sideways to one of these waves.

Jason watching our progress from the bow as we head up from Ile Sainte-Marie to make the rounding of the cape.  He was watching dolphins or whales.

We left the fishing line out one night by mistake and this shiny silver fish took the lure.  He was very very thin and we threw him back as we didn't know what he was and had just had dinner.  He didn't look like there was much there to eat.

This is the baby humpback whale that came up next to the boat to check us out.

He takes a breath or two and then faded away behind us to rejoin his mama.  We were surprises she'd let him get so close to us without intervening.  Glad she did though.

A village on one of the capes where we anchored for the night.  Tiny stick and thatch huts with a stick fence for the cows.

This guy, Dune, came out with his son, Laman, to ask us for stuff.  I gave them a couple of t-shirts and promised them hooks if they'd bring me back some bananas or mangoes or tomatoes.  He said yes, then went fishing instead.  He came back to show me this huge fish they caught and wanted to sell it to me.  I declined, but still wanted some fruit.  He said he'd bring it the next morning, but we left before seeing any fruit arrive.  Of course, our entire conversation was in my old French, so at least this is what I think we said....

When I have some down time, I might play slots on the iPad.  Here, in Dawn of Pharoahs game, I got six Free Spins scatter and won over 222,686,537 free spins!  I'd never live long enough to use them.  This is the second time I've won millions of free spins in this game and have to eventually shut it down and lose them all.  I can't stay awake and keep the iPad powered up long enough to take advantage of them.

We anchored at Nosy Mitsio and I went ashore with other cruisers to the village here.  More sticks and thatch, but a very nice beach, with a small resort at one end.  These huts are built of wood with thatched roofs and belong to the resort.

This guy is paddling his dugout canoe overflowing with pandanus leaves across the bay to his village.  They use these leaves for everything here and weave them into walls, roofs, baskets and such.

Kids take out the canoes with old rice bags cut for sails.

The little kids swarmed us when we dragged the dinghies onto the beach.  They all wanted to help move the dinks.  The guy at the right, Rodlys, spoke English and gave us a little tour of the island and told the kids to keep off the dinghies while we were away.

A spiny baobab tree in the village.

The big, fat baobab tree in the village.

This little girl was pounding the bowl of rice with this stick to remove the hulls.

The structure in the middle is the raised chicken coop.  Built just like the village homes, but up on stilts.

The eggs had their own little conical structures on the ground.  I don't know why.  I asked about buying the eggs and the lady was quite willing to sell them to me, but at a pretty hefty price, considering they were so small and dirty.

A Zebu cow with calf on the edge of the school grounds.

The "secure rice field".  This hut has a sleeping pallet in it for a guard to stay in when the rice is planted.  The lazy men in the next village steal the rice rather than grow their own so they have to post the guard.

A view from a high spot on Nosy Mitsio looking down at the yachts in the distance.

The top of the viewpoint hill.  Still the dry season here. That's a pandanus tree on the left.

We walked across the island to another seaside village.  This man was using his machete/cane knife to repair his canoe.

Rodlys climbed up into the mango tree and handed down some green mangoes.

A local kid eating a mango on an upturned canoe on the beach at the edge of the village.

The black marlin we caught on the way down from Nosy Mitsio to Nosy Be.  We let this guy thrash until he got himself off the hook as we didn't want to kill him to eat.  A beautiful 2m sailfish.

We stopped at Nosy Komba for the night before getting to Hellville on Nosy Be.  These water taxis plied the waters, moving people and good back and forth.  They always seem to be overloaded.

This guy's sail needs some attention.  But they manage to make it back and forth across from the mainland to the island every day.

A woven basket full of chickens came in on a local boat.  This guy is trying to stick the chicken parts back into the basket as there are too many chickens for them all to fit properly.  Some didn't make it alive.

An example of the old French colonial buildings in Hellville.

The church bells and a fenced in shrine in Hellville.

Outside the Police post, this old cannon on its swing circle is one of several still mounted in town.

An oxcart carrying goods in town.  This is the main street in Hellville.

Another overloaded local ferry boat at the dock in Nosy Be.  All that stuff gets offloaded by hand.

Jason likes these old Renault CL cars.  They are tiny and under-powered and still common here.

Madagascar east coast Sep 2015

A huge dolphin playing at our bow.  A whole pod of them played by us and rod the bow wave for quite a while as we sailed from Reunion to Madagascar.  They were some of the biggest dolphins we'd ever seen.

Jason playing around, looking through the silicone hotpad we use to keep the bowls of dinner from sliding around while we eat.

Karen looking back at him through her silicone hotpad.

Karen outside the Customs office in Ile Sainte-Marie, Madagascar, where we cleared in.  The Customs officer didn't want his photo taken.  Evidence, perhaps?

The Coast Guard in his office.  Another payoff/fee required here.  The Coast Guard here didn't have a radio or a working boat.

This typewriter is still used here!  Not for our clearing in, though.  Just a handwritten receipt for us.

Not sure what this building is, but it is undergoing extensive building or renovation.  The stick scaffolding was all in place, but we never saw anyone working on it during the two weeks we were here.

A statue of a humpback whale jumping over a dugout canoe.

An old Anglican church on the island, a local landmark.

One of the flat cargo carts making the crossing on the causeway between the main town and this little island, Ilot Madame, where Customs and the Coast Guard are.  These carts get overloaded and pushed along the roads to deliver cargo from the ferries to all the destinations here.  That white box is a chest freezer on the cart.  This is a pretty light load compared to what we saw being pushed through town.

The main street in town on Ile Ste-Marie.  The town's name is Ambodifotatra.

A man drying cloves next to the supermarket.  The air smelled wonderful around these cloves.

One of several very bald tires on a delivery truck.  Hey, if it still holds air, it still works.

Jason in the Police/Immigration office at the desk.  The stacks of bound paper behind him are the filing system.  You can see another of those old typewriters on the lower left shelves.

The view from YOLO looking into the small boat harbor at Ile Sainte-Marie.

Local ladies in their tribal finery, out for a walk.  Lots of folks here still don't want their photos taken so you won't get to see many candid shots of locals.

This is public housing, Madagascar style.  The walls are woven mats and cloth hangs to cover the opening of the door,

A very old piece of machinery along the road.

The steeple of the old Anglican church.

This table is too low for Jason to even sit at.  Made the lady laugh when he tried to sit there just as a joke.

Women still carry most of their loads on their heads here.  Baskets, tubs, crates and bags were all carried on the heads here.  It was funny to watch them swivel to reply to someone talking behind them.  The whole body has to turn to avoid dumping the load.

A cat sitting on a roadside stall on a back road in ISM.  It never flinched at the ducks and ducklings parading around below him.

Jason and I stopped here to rest and read our guide books on the island.  I like the bent coconut palms over the water.

More bent coconut palms looking the other way from our rest stop.

Our dinghy tied up to go to the Customs office.  Behind us is a mostly-sunken boat, using 55-gallon drums as flotation devices.  They weren't helping much.  The dock in the background was where we tied up the first day and got scolded by a man who told us it was a private dock for the fish processing plant there.  They don't cater to yachts and dinghies here.

 A little boy climbing on the whale statue.

A small children's fair along the road.  A tiny carousel, ring toss onto Coke and beer bottles and a roulette wheel here.

Some colorful carving at a local restaurant. Like a Malagasy totem pole.

The local antenna made of an old bicycle wheel, minus the spokes and tires.

The festival of whales banner.  The whale part was in July and now the 4-day festival was just for music.

Look closely and you can tell this is the skin off of the head of a cow.  Those are its nostrils looking at you,

A fruit vendor at the local market.  This was the first stall as you entered the market lanes.

The only bakery in town.  We bought our baguettes here.

Local dugout canoes on a stream we crossed while walking to the other side of the island.

A rice field along the road, tucked back from the hustle and bustle of town.

Helga and Rene from Austria off the boat Amigo, walking with us after a morning rainshower left puddles in the road.  That's Jason in the rear, catching up slowly.

A Zebu beef cow in the front yard of this resort.

A lady sorting through her basket of drying cloves.

The ocean on the east side of Ile Sainte-Marie.  The shore is sheltered by a fringing reef.  Lovely turquoise water out there.

Karen and Jason on the eastern beach of ISM.  No shells here.

A local poled his dugout canoe ashore while we were here.

Kids find fun in simple things.  A couple of sticks and an old reel from twine or fishing line kept this little fellow entertained.

Just walking along carrying a goose.  And the girl has on a Santa hat???

This lady is tossing rice to let the chaff blow away.

A local was carrying this tub of fish on her head but didn't want her photo taken.  She took the tub off and removed the branches that were covering the fish from the sun so I could take a photo of the fish, though.  I had to oblige.

A typical grouping of homes here on the island.  All made of sticks and woven walls, with thatch roofs made of pandanus leaves.

A convenient rock in the river provided a place for this local lady to scrub her clothes.