Neptune’s Poet Laureates – by All of Us

We left Madagascar at the same time as Ann and Barry on Cats Paw IV and on passage we communicated with them via HF radio twice a day.  These communications were undertaken at scheduled times on scheduled frequencies – in yachtee lingo referred to as ‘scheds’.  At each sched we would exchange position reports and weather information – all a bit boring really.

To liven up these radio communications and make the passage more interesting, Ann suggested we share the writing of limericks according to a specific sequence.  She started it off on the afternoon of our departure by giving us the first line of ‘our’ limerick, i.e.

“There was a sailing boat from Hobart”

On the next morning’s sched we were to give her the second line (plus the first line of ‘her’ limerick).  That afternoon she was to give us our third and fourth lines, while on the following morning we were to supply our last line.  In this way we usually had two limericks on the boil at any one time, one about us and one about them.

We had lots of laughs and ended up with several limericks each. Below are ours, assembled as an entire poem:

Aboard the Good Ship Mojombo

There was a sailing boat from Hobart
Whose little red boat, sadly, was no dart
The four sailors craved speed
And so great was their need
They traded their boat for a gocart




Pastis has become Mojombos favourite to drink
Saluting the French their glasses go clink
The Aussie Cap’n and his lovely 1st Mate
Consume it at an astonishing rate
But I like it slow, murmurs the Mate with a wink.
 





On the gocart the mornings mean school
Headmistress Vicki has only one golden rule
When Zeke and Nina try to bend
Off to the bilges the Captain will send
But at least the campus has a swimming pool





Zeke has a fondness for chocolate pudding and pie
But slimey oysters, spicey curry, even snails he’ll try
He swims, he farts and he draws maps of a prison
I imagine one day he’ll understand nuclear fission
But the state of his cabin makes his parents sigh
 




Nina the youngest has an eagle-eye
And for sniffing out cake, she’ll with a beagle vie
There hasn’t been a kingfisher that’s escaped her sight yet
She’ll have a career in the sciences I’ll bet
While licking cookie crumbs clean t’make a seagull cry.






Limericks!  What a fun idea, thanks Ann!

Ann getting legless in Sri Lanka
if you want to see their limericks click on this link

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Scenes from Madagascar – by Vicki

Our visit to Madagascar was limited to our experience in the “big town” of Hellville, and the small and remote seaside and roadside villages in northwest Madagascar. I want to share with you and explain some of the sights, colour and vibrancy of the Malagasy people we experienced. Scenes of everyday activities in picturesque locations charmed, while fady (taboo) intrigued.

Hellville had a busy energy – down at the port the runners and touts, the taxi and ferry drivers compete endlessly for your business. Passenger numbers ebb and flow with each arriving and departing slow boat. Above the port the colonial architecture – decaying grandeur –nestles next to an avenue of ancient trees which leads to the shopping precinct. Uptown the shopping revolves around the covered market which sells fruit, vegetables, fish and meat. The old taxi’s – Renault 4s - are a novelty but the zebu carts and yellow Citroen really caught our attention.

Hellville a mix of the old and not so new

 Once off the main street of Hellville the housing stock is decidedly modest. Whether in town, a village or on the savannah houses are around 2 by 3 metres. Building materials (thatch, corrugated iron or concrete) and the presence, or not, of colours are points of economic difference. Features such as solar panels and satellite dishes are sure indicators of wealth in such a poor country. There is no running water in most houses, water must be collected from a nearby well or stand pipe. Cooking is done outside over charcoal.

Housing varies from primitive to modest

Madagascar still embraces the French tradition of closing for the midday heat from noon to 3 o’clock. In this climate the rhythm of the day begins at dawn then slows at noon, awakening early afternoon and then quietening as darkness falls. However economic circumstances dictate that many people still toil in the midday sun.

Upon the water fisherman float, paddle and sail for their daily catch. Once done, ashore many hands make light work as the sun heads towards its zenith. During the morning women gather for communal laundering and rejoice the availability of modern plastic basins to carry washing and other loads.

Toiling in the sun and shade

For some workers – the needleworkers of Nosy Komba - nearby shade means they can be on hand to sell their wares. However for others the midday sun is inescapable – unloading a cargo of rice is hard physical labour that must be done quickly. Only the fittest and those with the greatest stamina prevail!

Unloading rice is a really hot tough job

 For the Malagasy in coastal villages life moves to a different rhythm. The village market is a focus for both social and economic activity. In Analalava the market nestled under two magnificent mango trees, providing an oasis of shade as the temperature climbed. For us, in search of fruit and vegetables, there is little produce on offer at the end of the dry season. Beer is very cheap and there are many bars – hard to image there are any spare Ariary (cash) to dull the crushing hardship of subsistence living.

We were delighted to see a coastal sailing outrigger sail being repaired on shore. The crew worked in the open in the heat of the day – the glare from the sail had us quickly slide our sun-glasses on. The sailcloth was in need of repair and the boat crew stitched light-weight canvas to the nylon rope edge.

Villages and fady

Malagasy life is riven with tradition and fady (taboo). For us, a chance discovery of a cemetery in Boina Bay bought their traditions and fady closer. Malagasy visit their buried relatives yearly to lift their remains so they may be part of an annual feast. Many graves had signs of regular visitors – cooking pots with scorch marks on the bottom nestled amongst the stones. Other graves had modern concrete headstones - homemade and covered with personal graffiti and symbols. A string of grave-sites sat on the highest part of a sand-spit island, stretching some 500 metres. They stood high and saw-toothed in the landscape, small areas formed by the regular placement of large flat reef rocks. Fascinating!

Our other experience of fady was the giant baobab tree in Moramba Bay. This tree sits on Sacred Island in the middle of the bay. The tree had large shells, animal skulls and bones, and a small hearth at its base. We circled the tree using the well trodden path made by the many people who passed this way before us. In a landscape where trees are not sacred, this tree clearly was significant to the local population to have survived for its estimated 1500 years. We left wishing we knew more about this baobab.

Giant baobab

Malagasy life involves traveling to trade and purchase goods – from home to village and to market. We saw many people travel in various sized boats as well as shipping their cars. We loved the patchwork sails made from sarongs used on the small dug-outs with outrigger. And marveled at the over-loaded inter-island ferry/taxis – some you could hear coming because they passed their time with flamboyant singing and drumming. More amazing were the fleet of noisy roll on roll-off (ro-ro) vessels which plied between Hellville and Ankify – they often had cargo and/or passengers on the loading ramp. Lastly, are the slow boats – crammed with humanity and cargo as only the Malagasy know how to tolerate. We enjoyed watching these boats unload as people and layers of cargo were disgorged – sacks of rice, baskets of live chickens, plastic bags containing precious possessions, and a few suitcases.

Travel in Madagascar is not all romantic images. We encountered a number of people on the main east-west path through Ankarana National Park pushing their bikes 30 kilometres from their village to the (north-south) highway. Their bikes were their donkeys - carrying rice and other produce. They had little choice – there were no other roads. You hope they don’t puncture a tyre.

At the other end of the travel spectrum are the taxi-brousses – overloaded mini buses hauling cargo and luggage on the roof-top. Road travel in Madagascar is not measured in kilometres but hours. From Ankify to Deigo Suarez takes six hours with passengers sitting shoulder to shoulder for the entire journey. Gary describes our journey to Ankarana elsewhere.

Travel between villages

Inter-island ferry, aka slow boat

Lastly, our experience of Madagascar would not be complete without mentioning the children. Their curiosity shines through despite not understanding English. Many school-age children do not go to school, it is not compulsory and therefore many do not understand French only their local Malagasy dialect. Madagascar is a very young population and wherever you look an older child will care for or carry a younger child. At a young age they help with carrying water, pounding rice and other household chores. The girls also master the art of carrying loads on their heads quite young. Toys are few – homemade sailing boats and pull along toys – an active imagination will do.

Children playing and working

The school of life

We enjoyed Madagascar and encourage others to visit.

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Mud, Muck and lots of Fun in Madagascar - by Zeke

As we sailed into Honey River we were immediately greeted by the site of our good friends on Emily Grace.  Once our anchor was down we were hailed by VHF, “Mojombo, Mojombo, this is Emily Grace”.  We replied and Tom suggested we go with them up a river for half an hour in a dinghy, then on a four hour walk through some villages.

 Next morning at 7 o’clock Nina, Dad and I piled into the dingy.  Mum was not coming because she had not been too well.  We motored over in the dingy to Emily Grace where we had decided to meet.  At Emily Grace we suggested that Emily ride with us in our dinghy.  We formed up a convoy of three dinghies.

Poling over a sandbar.

The first stage of our trip was easy.

With everyone now ready we were off up the river.  The first ten minutes of the trip was nice as we semi-planed along.  Then our guide told us to slow down as we needed to avoid sand bars.  As we made our way further up river we were continuously lifting up the outboard to avoid rocks.  At one stage we had to man handle the dinghies over a bar of rocks.  As the river got smaller we had to just stop motoring and paddle.  Eventually the dinghies would go no further and our guide told us that we would have to walk the rest of the way.  Later someone from the village would bring the dinghies up to the town when the tide came in.

But then the mud! River bank ascending.

The thing we did not realize was that we had to wade straight up the river bed itself.  At one stage the mud was so thick that I could not move my feet, so I pulled my feet out of my shoes and made some head way in bare feet.  Several times I all most toppled side ways and the others were not having much luck either.  After ten minutes in the river we got to climb up a river bank which made lovely fart like noises. From there it was on to a track, but that was not the last of it.  Five minutes later we had to re-cross the river to the village.  After trying various techniques when climbing the river banks the most successful one was to run up the slope and believe me it works.

 Click above to see my developed technique

Our guide for the trip.

As we set off on our walk our guide asked us in broken English how long we would like to walk for.  We replied that four hours would be good, so off we went.  On this walk we crossed three rivers twice. The wildlife consisted of six zebu, one snake and a couple of kingfishers.  We saw many houses and one village that had no one living there - our guide explained that these houses were occupied in the wet season when they grew rice.  The one ‘lived in’ village where we went to was our turning point.  At that village our friends gave out some clothes they had brought to give away.  We too had brought some clothes but Nina had failed to screw on the water bottle lid properly.  We could not bring ourselves to give away wet, soggy clothes.  We arrived back at the first village hot, tired and sweaty as there had been no clouds and hardly a breath of wind.  One of the villagers showed us to the dinghies.

A bus stop??

Two of the six zebu we saw.

We were not surprised at first to see water in our dinghy as we had climbed in and out many times.  Now that the tide was in we were able to set a good steady pace down river.  It soon became obvious that the water in the dinghy was getting in through a hole.  As it was only a slow leak we were not in any danger it was simply annoying.  As we were arriving back at the boat heavy clouds started to move in and it looked like rain.  It did rain and thunder and lightning joined the equation.

Me at the helm of our slowly sinking dinghy.

What a fun and adventurous life!

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A Malagassy Granite Quarry - by Gary

 Accounts of early pioneering life in Tasmania sometimes make reference to the high value placed on those convicts who possessed skills in quarrying and dressing stone, rendering it suitable for use in construction.  I reckon the present day granite quarry we saw in Nosy Komba must utilize very similar techniques to those employed by some of Australia’s earliest pioneers.

The Blacksmith Shop: the guy in the red shirt is turning up the heat in
this fire with a little hand driven air pump, getting blunt chisel tips red hot.

The Anvil:  when the chisels are hot enough they are worked
with a hammer and handy ‘anvil’ to reestablish a good point.

The Quarry Face:  This guy is using a chisel to make small holes in the rock
about 35mm in diameter and about 75mm deep and at about 250mm centres.

The Machine:  this guy is driving wedges down a line of holes (as created in the previous photo) to fracture this rock.

 Bang!

In the vertical rock face above you can see a line of wedge holes
 that have already been worked to fracture the rock.  A line of holes
in the horizontal face contain wedges that were being driven.

This is the guy working the line of wedges in the previous photo – in between sledge hammer blows he would carefully study the rock face and ‘sound’ it with light hammer taps.  He would also put a bit of water in each wedge hole (not sure why). You can see (in section) an older line of wedge holes at the top of the vertical face behind him.

This is the result they are looking for – a nice clean, even fracture .

Amazing work.

 Finished Product: roughly dressed building blocks 

Boys about Zeke’s age are hefting the finished blocks from the quarry down to the waterfront. 

Here blocks are being stockpiled on the beach for shipment across to Nosy Be (by sailboat of course).

Some of the work crew badly wanted me to take this group shot – as you can see, they are pretty fit and healthy specimens.

  

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Ankarana National Park - by Gary

While in Nosy Be’s Crater Bay we tagged along with the crew of Emily Grace on a four-day visit to Ankarana National Park.  Ankarana’s 18 thousand hectares encompasses the Ankarana Massif, a high ridge of exposed limestone cut by forested gorges, canyons, caves and underground rivers and surrounded by lower lying areas of light scrub and forest.  With such a range of habitats it provides refuge for a wide variety of flora and fauna.  We particularly wanted to see lemurs, chameleons and baobabs, and we got ticks on all three, but got to see and learn about much, much more.

Getting there was half the fun, and involved a 6:30 am dinghy trip ashore, a walk into the nearest village, a taxi to the port at Hellville, a power boat ride to the mainland at Ankify, then a 3.5 hr van ride to the park boundary.

At the boundary we walked to our accommodation at Goulam Lodge, and there met our guide Joachim.  Joachim assisted us pay our park fees and, as required by law, accompanied us for each of our three day-walks within the park.  His wit, intelligence, excellent grasp of English and in-depth knowledge of the park ensured we had a great visit.

We were off!  In Madagascar you can have a taxi to yourself (expensive) – or go ‘collective’ – the cheaper option.  No prizes for guessing which way we went.  There were ten of us in this tiny car to Hellville!

Then we took a high speed ferry (the expensive option this time!) to the
mainland town of Ankify.  You can see a man boarding the slow boat carrying
a headboard for a bed – very slow boat when you need to take a bed huh?

At Ankify we boarded one of these vans – normally designed to carry 12 people (4 rows of three) we had 21 of us aboard – but I think that was a pretty light load out of consideration for us foreigners.  Luggage, as you can see, goes on top.

We stopped for many roadside vendors selling all kinds of regional
specialties including these platters, roasted cashews, dried banana etc, etc.

A river bridge had washed out – and while a new one was under construction
traffic was diverted over on this temporary ford.  Everybody had to get out
and walk (except us foreigners!).

Villages along the way are meager.  They earn some cash by breaking up rock (with a hammer!) to make aggregate for concrete and road construction (see pile of unprocessed rock centre and finished aggregate under tree).

Finally in the early afternoon we arrived at the park boundary and our
accommodation for three nights.  With Zeke and Nina is Emily – she is
eleven, from Massachusetts, and is a really “neat, swell” kid.

Our bungalow!  It had a toilet and shower, but no running water (supplied in
 buckets from an adjacent well), and had electricity for a couple of hours each night.

Some of the staff, preparing our evening meal on these ubiquitous little steel fabricated fireplaces. 

Our first foray into the park was made in the late afternoon/early evening of the day of our arrival.  Here Joachim (red shirt) is explaining a karst feature – a large sinkhole.

 As the evening gathered around us we saw our first lemurs.  This is the 
Crowned Lemur, one of at least 10 species found in the park.

In the twilight we descended into this sinkhole, partially climbing out the other side to enter a bat infested cave with stored human remains (this picture was taken at the cave’s entrance).  Included on our ticket was a specific prohibition (a ‘fady’) against engaging in sex in the cave – so we didn’t!

On the walk back to the lodge we saw this chameleon fast asleep.  
By this time we were feeling pretty tired ourselves. 

The next day we saw lots of chameleons (their skin has three separate layers that can be turned ‘on’ or ‘off’, allowing them to assume a wide range of colours). 

Madagascar also has many species of geckos.  Here are a male and female of ...hmmm the green stripey kind.  

This was a beauty! – a Leaf Gecko.

We walked up a hill and gazed over the surrounding scrub and forest towards the Ankarana Massif.  The areas of bare limestone are known in Madagascar as ‘tsingy’.  You can see gorges slicing through the tsingy.

We had an excellent picnic lunch next to this freshwater lake. Lakes are a rare occurrence in this country, this one has crocodiles in it – but we didn’t see any.  Otherwise we might have provided them with an excellent picnic lunch.  The park is reputed to contain the world’s only cave dwelling crocodiles – but we didn’t see them either.  In the background are Tom and Kim (Emily’s parents) along with Simon (our assistant guide).

 

On our last day in the park we walked to this amazing sinkhole... 

... in the wet season three separate rivers plunge their raging waters into it, to travel underground and reemerge on the surface about thirty kilometres away.

 Then we left the forest and walked out onto the tsingy. 

It is an amazing landscape, dry, waterless, and full of not dead but 
deciduous trees and shrubs.  Highly adapted to this environment, 
they lose their leaves in the dry season. 

 Just to assure us they weren’t dead, some of the trees were in blossom. 

There were fascinating smaller plants like this miniature baobab looking thing (although Kim was informed it was something entirely different).

 It is a rather inhospitable looking place...

 ... but cut by deep, cool, shady gorges.

We crossed one on this bridge!

 It was scary (looks terrified doesn’t he?).

Each and every rock of the tsingy has been delicately sculpted. 

On the way back we passed ‘The Big Baobab’, the largest in the park. 

... and finished the day with a picnic, surrounded by lemurs. 

Go away!

This is Vicki’s favourite – just check out that magnificent feather boa of a tail! 

We really want to thank the crew of Emily Grace for having us along – we had a fabulous time!

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