Cruising

We got to the island of Nosy Be at the end of September and our first anchorage was Sakatia island on the west coast. There's a South African couple living there that have sailed this area for a long while called Des and Nel. We met up with them and they gave us the low down on what goes on about the place with immigration formalities, security ect and a good bit of info on the Mozambique Channel and coast. Very nice people who off course liked to chat over a couple of beers which is always good with us! We then went down to Hellville the main town on the island and officially checked in and got our visa ect, all went relatively smoothe, well sort of... Nothing has a set price here, everyone wants a little something and when you can't talk Malagash or French you end up paying a little more because you basically just can't argue as you start running out of hand signals! All good though, went to the bank and did a load of shopping at the supermarket and stocked back up on a few necessities including the local beer. 

We left the same afternoon for Crater Bay just north and that is were all the action for yachties is. There is a yacht club of sorts there with a good bar and does great pizza. There's also fresh water available at a small price and the people running it are all super friendly bunch. A lot of French about that I think have been in the area for a long time and maybe do a few charters ect to get by. There was a good few boats also that we had met up with in the last year so it was a pretty social time hanging out at the bar in the afternoons for a couple of coldies. Our friend Marcia celebrated her birthday there and had a party which was great fun and the night ending at a local disco tech with a little bit of dancing!

Then it was off to a couple of the small islands around there for a few days hanging out and relaxing and doing a few little boat jobs and then heading back to Crater bay for a final top up of fresh water and a few more supplies.

We then went accross to Russian Bay but the wind was very light and we ended up motoring for a couple of hours but also managed to catch a couple of nice mackerel. Was a nice spot in a huge sheltered bay but for some reason the swell gets in there and we rolled like mad all night so decided to leave the next day. Our friends on Kantala told us of an island around the corner with Lemures so we went for a look. Definitelly not disappointed as they were jumping like mad everywhere! Ha was crazy, Julie in heaven as they also climbed all over you in hope of a bannana! Really nice guy there who spoke good English and showed us around feeding them the bananas. 

We just anchored there a couple of hours and then left for an overnight sail to Moromba Bay. There is normally a good sea breeze from the west and we had a great sail for the 100 or so miles there arriving just after lunch to see  our Finnish friends there on Ever After and KasteHelmi. We caught another couple of mackerel on the way so we had a BBQ on the beach and I took my Xmas present which is a mini fish smoker along, delicious thank you Emma and James!!

This place is like the Kimberly's in Australia. Big Boab trees, granite gorges, sheltered water and loads of places to anchor, beautiful. We stayed a week. Locals really friendly, would occasionally come over to trade stuff but mainly just sail on past with a wave, not bothered. There's boats sailing everywhere. Little kids sailing there own dugouts going fishing and hanging out with their mates. The people here have nothing, living VERY basic life but happy out and healthy. Lots of mud crabs, crayfish and off course fish but not a lot of rain so the landscape is very dry so not a lot of vegetables I'm guessing. KasteHelmi has a beautiful sheltered cockpit, Maila standing under the shelter was very unfortunate to have a jumping mackerel of about 6kg come flying through a little gap in the curtain and hit her in the back of the head opening it up quite bad. Heikki managed to do some good doctoring and fixed her up and her sense of humor still high so all ended not too bad but I'm sure she was very sore. The chances of that happenning??!

From there we did another overnight sail 80nm south to were we are now, Katsepy. Not a bad spot but nothing special. We went into Mujunga by ferry and did some shopping for veges ect and get credit for the internet. Now we are waiting for a weather window to cross the Mozambique Channel. We won't get a perfect run I'm sure but it's not looking great to leave but we will see. We're ready to leave now anyway when the time comes, hopefully in the next couple of days.

Our thoughts on Madagascar for people coming here.....it's great! There's a lot of bad stories going around and I'm sure some are true. But these things happen mainly in the busier ports were there's always crime in cities. Diego Suarez seems to be a big one to avoid if you don't want stuff stolen, we didn't go but just from what we have heard. We saw no trouble and only met very friendly people everywhere we went. The people are super poor but happy and live of the land. Because they have no money to buy stuff there is very little rubbish, it's amazing not seeing plastic everywhere, it's great.

Our only regret is not having more time to spend here, I think 3 months would be perfect amount of time. There's a lot to see from the top of west coast to Nosey Be and that's were we would have liked to spend longer.