On the island of Boddam in the Salomon group of the Chagos Archipelago, by British law and regulation, there are no people ashore—no cops, no preachers, no creeps. There’s no governmental presence at all, save for an occasional boatful of scientists on the misnamed Pacific Marlin that visits once a month to throw an ice cream party for any wayward sea gypsies who may have wandered in. The area is a British Indian Ocean Trust with a dark and complex history. While cruising-boat entry regulations continually change, it was paradise on Earth when we visited in 2003. 

There were three cruising boats anchored in the lagoon when we arrived: a German couple, a Scottish singlehander, and a couple of Brits, one of whom was a playwright and an expert on Henry Miller.

Of course, the odd Frenchman would occasionally wander in. 

The beauty of Boddam lies in what it lacks. There are no landsmen within 100 nautical miles, no dock, no airport, no heliport, no communications, no electricity, no drinkable water—just a million coconut palm trees and a lagoon full of fish attracted to the sound of a sizzling skillet. I didn’t believe such a place could still exist on Earth until I sailed in and saw it with my own eyes. Once I realized it did—that Chagos wasn’t a myth—we unexpectedly stayed for four delightful months.

It answered every Robinson Crusoe fantasy I’d ever had. 

There were eco-rules, of course, and we and our fellow sea gypsies followed them diligently. 

One of the rules was to take nothing from—nor leave nothing on—the isle. (There are 60 islands in the group, with only the distant US military base Diego Garcia being inhabited.)

While the inside of Boddam lagoon was flat-calm, the windward side of the island (about a half-hour hike to the west) was rough and windswept. Carolyn and I would visit each day—she to do her yoga, I to meditate on the book I was spewing. One day at high tide, a particularly large sea thundered up the beach, leaving behind an industrial wooden wire spool. I rolled it up the beach a tad. We often brought lunch with us. It made a nice table for food prep. (It took less than 60 seconds to catch a Celebes sweetlips or spotted grouper in Chagos, and the water was so clear that at 40 feet, you could pick your fish by yanking the hook away from the less tasty.)

Anyway, that same day I found a half-buried fishing net, and strung hammocks and hanging chairs by the table. Wood wasn’t a problem—the place was littered with it—but I didn’t bring fastenings ashore because it was against the rules. Instead, I lashed together our impromptu, God-given beach kitchen. Within the week, a large log was tossed onto the beach for us. Now we had a long seat for our musical parties. (I might be the only musician alive who sings Dylan songs worse than Bob.)

It was a wonderful day when the plastic bucket washed up. That made our dishwashing and fish filleting much easier.

While we mostly lashed things together, several planks washed ashore with nails and primitive spikes from Africa and India, so we had options. We built our own private Garden of Eden using only what the Good Lord provided daily. Clothes were frowned upon. Hell, it wasn’t even a sin; we were married.

Coconuts are, we discovered, aphrodisiacs. We drank their juice, ate their meat, burnt their husks to keep away the “mossies,” and used their shells as cups and bowls. We were in perfect balance. We didn’t even listen to the BBC. (This was before we had Pactor modems or satphones, thank gosh.)

Yes, fresh water was a problem. We didn’t have a watermaker. At one point, we had only 2 gallons of water and half an ocean to cross before reaching Madagascar. Nonetheless, “when you’re hungry, the fish will bite” is an old Goodlander saying, and it’s true. As the monsoon changed direction, it brought heavy rains, and our water tanks bulged. 

On our last day in Chagos, at precisely high tide, I took out my knife and cut all the strings with which I’d so carefully lashed together our little unplanned village. A wave swept in and carried away half of the small bits. We left it exactly as we discovered it, as if waking from a dream. 

It is a perfect memory of Paradise Found for us both. Of course, we’ve never made the mistake of returning there and shattering the perfection of our idyllic experience. But whenever I hear the word “perfect” bandied about, I think of those romantic moments in Chagos in my lover’s arms. 

Madagascar was wonderful too—but in an entirely different way. A fisherman with a canoe full of crabs, lobsters and fish (“Change, change!” was his only English word) came alongside and negotiated hard for two AA batteries. We discovered, a few days later, that he’d stylishly pierced them through his earlobes. Yeah, the Malagasy are quite fashion-conscious. I thought that one young construction worker was going to move his family from his current mud hovel and into a new cinder-block house he was building, but he immediately disabused me of the idea. 

“House?” he asked, confused. “This isn’t a house. I’m going to be in this world for only a few more years with that woman and our kids. This is my grave! And I’m going to be there for all eternity so, of course, I want it nice.”

How can you argue with that? 

One early morning while wandering the back alleys of Hell-Ville (very accurate, that name), we came across a hut that had a sign that read “Coffee Shop.” Inside was a sleeping family. Once awake, they were overjoyed to see us. 

“Yes, two cups of coffee, coming right up,” the man said as his fleet-of-foot wife ran one way and the kids another. 

We waited. The kids came back with sticks. The wife came back with something small in her pocket. The man returned with something in a sack. Everyone was eager and friendly. The bright-eyed kids were a joy. We bantered as the man dug a hole in the earthen floor, placed the kindling in, and used the precious matches his wife handed him to light the fire. Soon, the water would be boiling.

Well, first he had to slow-roast the ­coffee beans he’d just gathered in the sack. That brought us to late ­morning, which we didn’t mind because, hey, Madagascar moves at a slow pace. Around noon, his wife and children carried in a large wooden bowl and the heavy trunk of a palm tree. Huh? 

He placed the hot, roasted beans in the bowl, and then began slowly lifting and dropping the palm tree trunk onto the beans, smashing them to bits instead of grinding them. It was early afternoon by this point, and we were helping the kids with their 2+2 homework as the wife laboriously washed two tin cups (in front of us, so we’d see) with fresh water she’d carried on her head from a mountain stream. The kids were napping when their parents finally tossed the battered galvanized bucket of water on the fire to boil. Fairly quickly after that—well, certainly before the sun went down, anyway—we had our coffee. 

“Would you like another cup?” the husband asked hopefully. 

“No, no thanks,” I said hastily. “We’ll come back when we have more time.”

Oh, Madagascar was a trip, all right. Just clearing in involved an elaborate scam that commenced in the police station (to lull us into a false sense of security). It involved five skillful actors on two different sets, one large, ruined World War II hospital, a dilapidated taxi, two hours, fake receipts, a very long walk back into town, and a ­distinguished-looking con man in a finely tailored Brooks Brothers suit. All to cleverly trick us out of 12 bucks. Damn, the greedy lengths some people will go to when they aren’t starring in a Disney film. (I’m too embarrassed to reveal the specific details of our gullibility—­perhaps on my deathbed.)

One of the reasons I was there was to get a picture of a rare and elusive lemur for a big-money magazine story I was writing. As we pulled our dinghy onto the beach under a tree so its shade would protect our camera equipment, it began to “rain” dozens of lemurs. I screamed at Carolyn, “Camera, camera, goddammit!” She frantically sorted out the photographic gear with the help of five or six screeching lemurs on her head and shoulders. (Yes, we got the shot.)

The strangest time was far up a tidal river, when an entire tribal family canoed out in search of cassette tapes. “Sure,” I said. “What type of music do you like?”

They looked confused. They had no cassette player. They wanted the tape inside the cassettes to make decorative ribbons and bows. Here’s what had happened. One brother had gotten a flat tire on his bike, and the other had lost a flip-flop, so they knew the gods were angry. Thus, they gathered their entire extended family together, had a huge family feast on Saturday, and dug up all their dead relatives from the front yard. With used toothbrushes, they cleaned the bones and then decorated them with bows before reburying them—thus assuring themselves of another year or two of good luck. 

Is everything about Madagascar equally fairy-tale-esque? Not quite. There’s a beach restaurant that many yachties go to upon arrival because the food is cheap and good. They anchor off the beach and come ashore at dusk for dinner. Usually, there’s a local fisherman there with his young sons. They have a kerosene light swaying on a pole at the bow of their boat. As the yachties take their seats, they see the fisherman going out to the reef to anchor and fish. The food is wonderful: course after course of extremely fresh seafood. Hell, they’re watching the very fisherman who caught their dinner out on the reef right now. See the swaying light! They stay far longer than intended as the owner showers them with rum. Local lads even do an impromptu fire dance on the beach as they depart, complete with firecrackers. 

Arriving back aboard their vessel, they find that it has been picked clean. What they didn’t notice during dinner was the fisherman placing that swaying light on a preset pole on the reef and going to their vessel directly in line with it to be invisible to them. And the whole thing being orchestrated and communicated by the restaurateur with his audio firecrackers and visual flames. Live and learn, I guess. 

Perhaps best of all is seldom-visited St. Helena, where Napoleon Bonaparte took the count. There’s no harbor, and it’s far too rough to land a dinghy on the beach. Instead, the officials pick you up on a bumboat with a sort of mini heliport aft that has a strong pole in its middle to catch as you leap aboard. (The deep anchorage is far too rough to come alongside.) On the quay is a giant swingset with the harbormaster standing beneath it. He’s a huge bear of a man with a bushy red beard and massive arms.

The crew ordered me to the pole as we hovered 40 feet off the dock. They told me to wait. They and the harbormaster watched the giant swells passing beneath us with intense interest. “No,” they said. “No.” “No.” “Maybe…Get ready…Now!”

At the apex of the 12-foot swell, the harbormaster swung out a giant hawser, which I grabbed at the same moment the bumboat disappeared out from under me. As I came swinging into the quay screaming, the burly harbormaster caught me in his arms and said calmly, “Welcome to St. Helena.” How cool of an island entrance is that?

Nobody on the island knows how old the local taxi is—only that it was used when it came to the island in 1926. Yes, we got drunk at Anne’s and sat and gammed at the nearby yellow (perfectly preserved) house that featured a faded photograph of Joshua Slocum doing the same, in the same house, on the same couch.

While on St. Helena, don’t give away any sports scores; their only international news in those days came from weekly VHS tapes of BBC World. Hint: If you want to sit on Bonaparte’s tiny deathbed, as I did, you have to make friends with the executive assistant at the French embassy. He’ll drive you out to the house in his dune buggy for a bottle of chilled champagne. 

I could go on forever. How can I leave out Borneo with Barry the gibbon (a small ape), who swings from the trees and into your rig, climbs down the ­forehatch, strolls boldly to the galley, searches it, finds the Joy dishwashing ­liquid, happily spins off its cap, ­chug-a-lugs all the soap, and then goes laughingly back into your rig, gleefully blowing bubbles from both ends. 

What’s my favorite isle? It is hard to say. Hopefully, my next.  

Carolyn and Fatty Goodlander are still “hard aground on their coffee grounds” off the Changi Sailing Club of Singapore.

The post Where Is Fatty Goodlander’s Favorite Island? appeared first on Cruising World.

“Plongée,” the man in the canoe said to me.

I flipped through the pages of my French sailor’s dictionary, hoping to stumble upon an explanation of what this man wanted. It had been years since we were in a French-speaking territory, and I was woefully unprepared to figure out he was talking about diving.

But I was motivated. In his small little dugout canoe was my prize for a successful negotiation: two large spiny lobsters and a moderate-size grouper. We had stumbled through delivery negotiations the day before.

“Langoustine?” he had asked me.

“Oui!”

He held his hands up: big or small?

“Gros.”

And then fingers: one, two, three?

“Deux.”

He nodded and sat in his canoe.

“Poisson?” I asked him.

And there we were, 12 hours later, and all that stood between me and a seafood extravaganza was my horrible French. I had no ariary, the local currency, and when I offered euros, he shook his head.

I stepped inside our 44-foot catamaran, Starry Horizons, a Fountaine Pajot Helia, and pulled out a few items from a designated “trading” bag. Prior to our arrival in Madagascar, cruising friends who had come before had advised us that the Malagasy people prefer trade over commerce.

I handed the man a few items, which he looked over—some he kept, some he gave back. “Plongée,” he said again, tapping an open hand on the surface of the water.

Finally, I pulled out a snorkel mask, and he became excited. With a big smile, he accepted the mask and handed me over his catch.

I was proud of myself; it was our first morning in Madagascar, and I’d just had a successful interaction with a local and acquired some delicious seafood.

My husband, David, and I had come over the top of the island from the Seychelles, a passage that had taken us a little less than four days, and the previous night had been a whopper. Cap d’Ambre had proved to be challenging, with the swells and currents hitting us in the black of night. Starry Horizons climbed up waves, barely making any speed over the ground, before surfing down the other side at 10 knots.

We’d hastily thrown on both engines and cut toward the shore—land that we couldn’t see under the cover of clouds and a new moon. The chop and wind lasted longer than we thought it would, even while trying to tuck in along the shore to get under its lee. Finally, we dropped anchor at Nosy Mitsio, a small island off the northwest coast, where we were well-protected and not alone; three other cruising boats were in the anchorage just off the village.

This was our first true glimpse of Madagascar. It was dry and brown with sparse vegetation, and cows—or maybe zebu, the horned and humped cattle— wandered along the shore.

Since we hadn’t officially cleared in yet, we rested and moved on quickly, taking a day to sail down to Nosy Be, the hub for sailing activity in Madagascar, and one of the busiest tourist centers in the country.

Madagascar, once known at the Malagasy Republic, has always intrigued me. Even before other sailors had told me that the island nation was on their list of favorite places, I pictured it as an opportunity to explore a world completely different from my own. We were on the home stretch of our own circumnavigation, and had been to many places where the cultures were vastly different from ours. But these places didn’t seem as authentic. For instance, tourists flock to Thailand by the millions (35 million in 2017), whereas Madagascar, only slightly larger than Thailand, saw fewer than 100,000 tourists in the same year.

There’s a reason: It’s hard to get there, and once you reach the former French colony, travel within the country is a challenge too. A majority of the roads (some estimate 90 percent) are unpaved and wash out during the rainy season. Trains and buses are cheap but cramped and unreliable.

Travelers can overcome these difficulties by visiting Nosy Be, however. It’s a small island on the northwest coast. Direct flights arrive from Europe, bypassing the capital, Antananarivo, and there are a variety of activities available when you get there, whether as a tourist or cruiser.

Touring the Town

We arrived at Hell-Ville, the capital of Nosy Be, with vague advice from friends to “find Jimmy with the red hat.” And despite the thick traffic of tour boats, ferries and traditional Malagasy dhow fishing boats, we did find him. It turns out that he’s at the dock every morning keeping an eye out for the few sailboats that wander into Hell-Ville’s unattractive port to complete their formalities.

Jimmy spent all day with us. We visited the required offices, paid fees and filled out paperwork. He took us to the ATM, where we stuffed our wallets full of 20,000 ariary bills, each the equivalent of $5 back home in the US. With our newfound cash, we bought a SIM card, connected to the internet, and then hired a tuk-tuk to take us shopping at a store called Shampion, which was stuffed with French imports. I had thought that Madagascar would be one of the harder places to provision based on its economy, but happily, I was wrong; the shelves were full of Western foods.

Besides Bio- and Carrefour-branded items, I found Tsara Malagasy dark chocolate. At no other time in my life have I experienced such a startling departure from a familiar taste. Malagasy chocolate is rich and fruity, made of a bean variety rarely grown elsewhere.

Next, Jimmy took us to the Hell-Ville Market, a building stuffed to the gills with local food. I bought small shelled peanuts, roasted and salted to perfection; smoked and dried bananas that are ubiquitous to French territories; and giant, succulent Malagasy tiger shrimp, caught that morning by the local fishermen. (I avoided the red hunks of zebu meat that were sitting out and covered with flies.)

When our day with Jimmy was done, we’d paid officials over $200 to visit Nosy Be. Without negotiating, we also paid Jimmy his requested fee, a paltry amount for spending the entire day with us. We’d done the same with our tuk-tuk driver and at each stall at the market. The prices were low, the economic gap wide, and I gratefully handed over the fees.

Settling In

Sailors in Madagascar learn to time their days with the breeze: offshore in the morning, onshore in the afternoon. In between, it’s either dead-calm or the breeze is light. We chose afternoon to move to Nosy Komba, an island 6 miles southeast of Hell-Ville. We raised sails and coasted along in 7 knots of wind, dodging the traffic in and out of Hell-Ville. By sunset, we were anchored on the northeast side of the island, fairly unprotected from the swell but next to our buddy boat and friends Kimi and Trevor, who had been in Madagascar for more than a month.

In the morning, the four of us went to the park-ranger office in the village and hired a guide to take us on an ambitious trip to the top of the island. Our ranger, John, grabbed a fistful of bananas before we started the climb.

As we walked, John told us about the local village, and we passed through stalls where women sell hand-carved wooden lemurs or traditionally woven linens. Most were unattended because it was still early.

John stopped us. “Look,” he said, pointing to the tree. “We have company.”

Climbing through the branches were lemurs. The females—the bosses—were brown; the males, black.

“Stand right here,” he directed me, “and turn around.”

A moment later, I was startled when a small weight hit my shoulder from behind. My cheek brushed against delicate fur, and out of the corner of my eye, I saw an inquisitive face and a paw reaching out for John’s offered banana.

We all took turns standing by the tree as lemurs leaped onto our heads, shoulders or backs, and climbed down our arms. They were lighter than we expected, and softer. Several of the females had babies clinging to their bellies, with large round eyes staring at us.

When the bananas were gone, so were the lemurs.

“In the rainy season, when the fruits are ripe, they don’t come to feed with us. There’s too much good food for them in the trees,” John told us as we continued on up the path.

Then John stopped us again five minutes later. He pointed to a small tree just to the left of the trail, and I strained my eyes trying to see what he saw. As happens when viewing an autostereogram, my eyes adjusted, and a chameleon appeared in the leaves before me. And then I saw them everywhere. The others saw them too, and we watched their tall but extremely narrow bodies as they slowly, haltingly climbed the branches.

As we climbed, we saw a ground boa, various lizards and insects, and we passed a religious memorial and cemetery for French soldiers. At the top, overlooking Nosy Be, we found a bamboo shack on a manicured plot of land. The lawn was dotted with picnic tables and the view was spectacular, the flat-calm waters around the islands reflected the clouds above. At the shack, a young man sold beverages. John ordered a hot lemongrass tea, while the rest of us asked for cold lemon juice; Trevor got his with a shot of local rum.

Dhows and Dugouts

Back in Nosy Be, we anchored in Crater Bay off the yacht club. In the morning, we sipped our wake-up beverages and watched the local fishermen. All day, every day, they paddled by in dugout canoes to lay out fishing nets before hauling up shimmering silver fish by the hundreds. Meanwhile, traditional Malagasy dhows glided around us, with their patched sails making use of the light winds.

“What exactly are we doing on the tour today?” David asked me.

I shrugged. “I’m not sure. Lokobe Park, I think?” It’s the top attraction in Nosy Be, according to Trip Advisor, which meant we could expect an adventure.

Our guide, Achim, picked us and Kimi up at the yacht club, and we headed off to the other side of the island. The road was mostly unpaved, and our big van bumped along, passing men and zebu plowing fields together, and ylang-ylang trees bowing down in vast groves.

In Ambatozavary, a small village, Achim changed out our driver for one of the men from the village, a local guide named Joe. It seemed as though the whole village was there, and everyone walked down to the beach, through the mangroves and mud, to where outrigger canoes were anchored. The local school children stripped down, swam out and brought in the boats.

Joe and Achim instructed us—the only tourists—to climb into a canoe, and Achim handed us a paddle. We set off before the other boats were loaded.

After 20 minutes, I asked Achim, “How far are we paddling?”

He pointed vaguely out over the horizon. “Across the channel.” The next island was more than 10 miles away, and I was glad I’d kept up a workout routine while sailing.

We took turns paddling, but Joe and Achim were our ringers, rowing strongly and steering us around the reefs. Before long, boats started to fly by; not just the outrigger canoes we’d left behind, but also small powerboats with tourists. Some even towed canoes behind them.

To our relief, our guides steered our canoe to the beach after about 45 minutes—our destination was not the distant island. We disembarked and set about exploring the Lokobe National Park. Joe led us on a walk through the forest, where we spotted tree boas, leaf-tailed geckos and more lemurs. These lemurs were feeding on jackfruit, sticking their heads into the insides of the fruit from beneath and feasting.

When we returned, lunch—a variety of Malagasy dishes—was prepared: green mango salad, crab curry, and bananas cooked in coconut milk. When the meal was over, we were given time to wander through nearby handicraft stalls selling ylang-ylang oil, carved wooden lemurs and traditional woven linens. Then it was back to the outrigger for our paddle back.

To finish our day, we took the easy walk to the top of Mont Passot and watched the sun set over the crater lakes. Sunsets in Madagascar were exceptionally beautiful. The air quality was clear, and we could see mountains 50 miles away as the sun turned a deep red and dropped behind the islands.

Many Stars

We had one last adventure in store for us in Nosy Be. With our other cruising friends Carlos and Linda, we hired a dive shop to take us out to look for whale sharks. David and I have tried, unsuccessfully, to swim with them for years in various places around the world, and this time, we were exceptionally lucky. Our captain pointed the motorized outrigger toward open water, and a young boy climbed up on the bow to spot. The boy scanned the surface of the water looking for schools of jumping tuna. Whale sharks don’t eat tuna, but the tuna feed on smaller fish, which, in turn, feed on plankton. Where you find leaping tuna chasing their food, you’ll find whale sharks too, basking and sweeping up the plankton in their wide mouths.

We spotted the first school of tuna and approached. A whale shark was just below the surface of the water, and with the crystal-clear view, we could see his constellation-riddled hide. After all, the Malagasy name for whale sharks is marokintana, which translates to “many stars.”

“Go,” our guide said quietly, and we slipped into the water less elegantly than we’d have liked. The shark floated diagonally, its mouth on the surface while surrounded by beams of sunlight. It tolerated a few moments of our attention but then moved on.

Our guides had a tough job trying to predict where the whale sharks would be found. They tried to drop us in the water where we wouldn’t disturb the fish too much, but also near where they expected the whale shark to swim in order to maximize our time with each one. By the end of the day, we’d been in and out of the water dozens of times, and some whale sharks approached close to inspect us, while others veered off quickly. We were euphoric, having finally taken that amazing swim we’d dreamed of for years.

Sailing On

Our time in Nosy Be had come to an end. We had an ambitious few months ahead of us: crossing the Mozambique Channel and sailing around South Africa. As do most cruisers, we made our way down the west coast of the big island, ducking into protected waters and making progress toward the narrowest part of the Mozambique Channel.

The sailing was an exercise in frustration. The morning wind was light and from forward of the beam. It died midday, then picked back up again from the opposite direction.

When we arrived in Honey River, only our friends Carlos and Linda were there, but as the day progressed, the charter boats filed in. Still, there was plenty of room for everyone.

A small village sits on the north shore, and it was possible to buy the namesake honey there. I went ashore with Linda, who speaks French—a good thing because the locals didn’t speak English. At one shop, we agreed to the price, and the woman started to fill our jars with honey from a jerry can. Around her sat a collection of 1.4-liter plastic bottles of honey, which I belatedly realized were a better price. But our deal had been struck.

She poured the sweet liquid into my jar through a sieve, and when it was full, she lifted the sieve and licked the drop of honey off the bottom before placing it in a bin. There were certainly no health inspectors around!

Linda and I visited the library and donated school supplies. The kids swarmed around us. They are used to cruisers and charter guests popping in with gifts, and they have learned to be persistent. They asked for books, candies, even the hats and sunglasses off our heads, and we eventually had to shoo them away. Honey bought, donations made and village explored, we returned to our boats.

Our next stop, with Carlos and Linda following, was the beautiful island of Antanimora. This is typically the last stop for charters, and for some reason, when we arrived in the afternoon, the vacationers were all anchored on the north side of the little sand spit that stretches out at low tide. The wind blows from the north later in the day, so they were experiencing a rigorous chop. We ducked under the south side of the spit, and even when the wind shifted in the morning, the anchorage wasn’t too bad.

After breakfast, Linda and I set off on a girls-only adventure. The island has a prominent hill, and, we thought, surely there would be a trail. We walked through the village, Linda asking in French about a path up it. The Malagasy people looked at us as though we were crazy. Finally, we met an older gentleman, who beckoned to us to follow him. We were joined by two younger men, who introduced themselves as the crew of one of the fishing boats. Their English was excellent, and our local guide’s English was good enough for me as he led us up a beaten path, pointing out medicinal plants and an ancient burial site.

After 90 minutes, slipping and sliding on the tall grass, we made it to the top. Below us stretched the whole island: the sand spit pointing straight out, and our two boats bobbing in the anchorage to our right. I pulled out my phone, and the five of us made a short video, in which our guide enthusiastically whooped and hollered for our achievement.

Back at the dinghy, he graciously asked for a tip, which we gave him, and then he explained that the village needed medicine, especially for digestion troubles. I had some over-the-counter pills in my small first-aid kit, and he was thankful when I pressed them into his hands.

Off to See the Giants

We departed the next morning for our last big stop in Madagascar. We sadly said goodbye to Carlos and Linda, and spent two days sailing to Moramba Bay, a popular cruiser hangout. The river had a narrow entrance that feeds into a big natural harbor, wide enough to fit a dozen boats, but mostly we had it to ourselves.

Throughout the day, several dugout canoes approached us, offering to trade limes and bananas for milk, clothes or medicine. But the draw to Moramba Bay for sailors is access to another famous Malagasy resident: the baobab tree. From our boat we could already see dozens. Following our friends’ directions, we drove our dinghy as close to shore as we could, anchored, and slogged through the calf-high water and mud to the beach, where we followed trails and found ourselves standing among the giants. The baobabs are distinctive, with their wide trunks devoid of branches for hundreds of feet before a cluster of foliage at the top.

We stayed for days, and when we departed Moramba Bay, it was with trepidation of the many trials that lay ahead. South of us, there were few protected anchorages, and then the treacherous Mozambique Channel. And behind us, we were leaving a country so different from our own, but one filled with opportunities we would have never found elsewhere.

Chartering in Madagascar

Chartering in Madagascar is a tiny industry, but exploring Nosy Be on a charter boat can be greatly rewarding. There are a limited number of boats in the charter market, meaning guests can find themselves completely alone if they desire.

The charter companies are based out of the Yacht Club De Nosy Be in Crater Bay. The marina is the only place to plug into electricity and top up water tanks. Provisioning from Crater Bay is best at Leader Price, a 30-minute drive from the marina, though local fruits and vegetables are freshest at the roadside stalls or in Hell-Ville at the market.

The peak time to charter is winter—May through October—when the temperature is cooler and the weather more consistent. The summer is monsoon season, and rainstorms become more frequent while the temperature peaks. Cyclones are active from December to March.

Various itineraries are available, from four to 14 days. Anchoring is easy, and winds are often light, making for comfortable, lazy sailing. The four-day itinerary covers the nearby Mitisio Islands, just north of Nosy Be. Longer itineraries include much of our route sailing south down the coast.

The spectacular wildlife, above and below the water, plus the friendly people and stunning geography will make a charter in Madagascar the memory of a lifetime.

Charter companies operating in Nosy Be include:

Dream Yacht Charters (dreamyachtcharters.com)

East Africa Yacht Charters (eastafricayachtcharters.com)

Madavoile (madavoile.com)

Ulysse Explorer (ulyssexplorer.com)

Amy Alton and her husband, David, finished their circumnavigation in March 2020. Her stories of adventure and advice are available at outchasingstars.com.

The post The Magic of Cruising Madagascar appeared first on Cruising World.

Paradise is a word we cruising ­sailors often hear bandied about, as if ­purchasing a boat magically allows a sea gypsy to gain some mythical state of perfection. Not true.

Sailing into a watery Shangri-La isn’t easy. By the time most people learn its ­lat/long, it’s paradise no more. Besides, one person’s Eden is another’s hell. Some sailors love deserted Chagos, others revel in the decadence of Monte Carlo’s bustling waterfront. And locations are no more static and stable than the people judging them. Landfalls often evolve, grow, ­wander down wrong tangents, and right themselves like wayward children.

All of which is why I hesitate to say Rodrigues is currently the finest ­cruising destination on Earth. Instead, I’ll just say it is my own personal paradise-of-the-moment. Why? First, it is seldom visited by yachties, and thus, familiarity hasn’t bred contempt. Every local you meet knows you’re off a boat and is interested in your journey. It is, along with Mauritius, an ­independent country. This means it is not threatened by the paleness of your skin or your wealth, and the locals are doing quite well, thank you. And, it is cozy. There is only one harbor, Port Mathurin, with room for six or so boats.

In Rodrigues, they don’t see a sailor as a floating ATM. In fact, docking right downtown is free, as is potable water. There is no one single item on the entire island marketed specifically toward voyagers. In the port, service is sans cost. There’s even a friendly night watchman who checks your lines for chafe while you party ashore.

Crime is almost nonexistent (there is zero violence), and visiting vessels tied to shore or anchored out are seldom locked up. Even your unattended dinghy is completely safe. The only time our Caribe inflatable was moved was for its own ­protection during a particularly low tide.

And, there is no official corruption. Numerous indexes say it is the most ­honest place in Africa, if you can call ­someplace 1,600 miles due east of Mozambique part of Africa. (Rodrigues is also 800 miles east of Madagascar.)

Of course, no waterfront can be ­paradise without a watering hole, and Madame Marcel’s is the finest bar I’ve walked into since stepping foot in Le Select on St. Barts in the 1970s. The bartender is beloved by all. Not only are the drinks ridiculously cheap, he feeds his customers so many free hors d’oeuvres that few patrons leave the fist-banged premises for a formal dinner elsewhere. My favorites are the spicy ­sausages and the hot pork chunks.

Who attends nightly services at Madame Marcel’s? In short, everyone. It is a very small island. The head of Immigration holds court in one corner, the local fishermen in another. While the decor is Formica and cinderblock, the warmth of its rainbow-hued customers are like a U.N. meeting for happy rummies.

Despite the fact that I no longer drink alcohol, I couldn’t help but peek in. Wasn’t that Kathy and Serge of the Flamingo 42 Raison d’ Etre, who we last saw in Great Cruz, St. John, in 1995? And the famous Duck Dancers, Laurent and Marie of Roger Rover, were there too, as were those crazy Aussie lads Rhys and Trevor of the 27-footer Liberdade, drawing a picture of their upcoming rudder repair on the back of a napkin.

I don’t mean that Rodrigues is totally focused on libation. Food counts too, and there’s no lack of world-class eateries. Formerly a French outpost, its chefs have incorporated all the tastes of Europe with the earthy hotness of African cuisine. It’s mighty tasty, even by the jaded standards of a gourmet called His Fatness. Our two favorite French restaurants were Le Marlin Bleu on English Beach and La Cambuse on Rue Francois Leguat.

Needless to say, the local rum is cheap, plentiful, and nearly as powerful as the local trade winds, which often gust over gale force in the winter month of August. The harbor offers 360-degree protection against the swell; its water is crystal clear, and there is plenty of flow-through, ­especially at high tide.

Navigation-wise, arrival at Rodrigues is a tad tricky. The range on the chart leads you right over the reef, which certainly cuts down visits by greenhorns, especially since most electronic charts are inaccurate as well. I’d advise that you approach in daylight with the sun over your shoulder and you’ll have no problem finding your way into the harbor.

Like any paradise, Rodrigues has its share of wonderful waterfront wackos, like Tugboat Harry of Alison, who spins yarns and hustles the laundry service his hardworking wife provides the harbor.

Ashore, the zany German ex-pat Birgit acts as the Pied Piper to local disabled children. This amazing woman is as close to a saint as we’ve met since India. Birgit came aboard our boat, Ganesh, for lunch and stayed until dinner, regaling us with bizarre stories of polar bears, ­Euro-radicalism, and an exemplary lifetime of selfless public service.

“I came to Rodrigues 19 years ago,” said Birgit, “and I knew it was paradise the moment my foot touched the ground. My husband and I eventually started chartering a sport-fishing vessel. I’ve cherished each day since our arrival.”

That evening we went to a local hotel to see some native dancing, and one of the handsome men looked familiar. “It’s the health inspector who boarded us via the government launch,” Carolyn whispered to me.

Rodrigues is the type of place that accepts you as a local after a few days. The heart of the culture is the busy ­marketplace on Saturday mornings, where all 40,000 residents gather as families to laugh, chat and embrace.

I haven’t even mentioned Rodrigues’ most famous ex-resident, the dodo bird. The island was thick with them when discovered in 1528, but the last of the tasty-but-flightless birds was eaten in the late 1600s. The local tugboat is named Solitaire, after the dodo’s close cousin, which was both slightly less tasty but smarter. Sadly, the giant tortoises also succumbed to the dining-room table. There were an estimated 250,000 when the island was discovered, but the indigenous population today is zero, though some close relatives have been imported in hopes of recolonization.

The best part of Rodrigues is, besides its amazing ­ethnic diversity, that locals are so culturally homogeneous. The island seems like one big family bursting with love and hope. Part of the reason for this happy state of affairs is, I think, because so many ­cultural events are communal.

Take Anna, the monthly supply boat, for example. A sizable percent of the population shows up to watch it dock. The police direct ­traffic when she arrives and ­manage to snarl the few cars into a knot. All the yachts have to leave the harbor so the supply boat can maneuver. Strolling roti makers ply their wares, and all the tiny retail shops have micro sales in anticipation of the arrival of new stock. Each of the market vendors await the lowering of Anna’s gangplank. Port officials bustle around, and the local pilot and Tugboat Harry shamelessly preen.

As the boat approaches, an overeager forklift driver does doughnuts of exuberance on the dock. Then, when the cargo hatches are finally lifted by the deck cranes, a cheer goes up. During our visit, rumor had it there was a new shipment of ladies high heels aboard, and many of the local beauties were praying it was so.

The librarian was there too, hoping the semiannual book order had arrived at last, as was the Catholic priest, clutching his Bible as if to bless the whole noisy mess, along with the restaurateurs, fishermen, construction workers, and even the local kids who had, once again, eaten the island out of bonbons.

Some merchants don’t even bother unpacking their newly arrived wares. Instead, they allow their excited patrons to immediately paw through it on the sidewalk. By the end of the day, the entire island is exhausted from overeating, overspending, and just having too much family fun. They yawn and make their way back home, already dreaming of the excitement that the next month’s supply boat will bring.

No, perfection is a word that should never be used to describe a person or place. It’s the wrong yardstick to hoist against any human endeavor. But on Rodrigues, time seems to stand still. It’s an island that feels outside the realm of Brexit, Donald Trump and the Kardashians.

Later that evening, Carolyn and I were tucked tiredly in the corner of our cockpit ­listening to the church choir practice ashore. Their ­singing floated across the harbor, seemingly levitating both our hearts and our vessel. “Nice,” said Carolyn as she yawned. “Very,” I replied.

“Today was perfect,” she said, and traced a finger on my jaw. “Must we leave, Fatty?”

I said nothing. She knew we couldn’t stay. Paradise can be glimpsed only briefly, like a rare bird with bright plumage flitting across the harbor.

“The only way to keep this priceless moment priceless,” I whispered, “is to sail away. Perfection can never be in the past; it lives only in the future, just over the horizon — a heavenly promise ­momentarily glimpsed.” “Are you happy?” she asked. I chuckled in response. “Me too,” she said.

Cap’n Fatty and Carolyn have wrapped up travels in Africa and are Caribbean-bound.

The post Destination Rodrigues appeared first on Cruising World.

We play a game on Momo, our Mason 43. When we arrive in a new place, we throw out our first impressions before we have time to build up anything else. Before we establish any rhythm or create any lasting feelings. Then, after spending a few months in the place, we compare notes to see how our early impressions have deepened or changed. In Indonesia, our crew of four — my husband, Bernie, daughters Lola and Jana, and me — arrived in the Kai Islands after spending 10 years in the Pacific. We noted our early impressions in the log: “Gentle, active, smiling, loud, curious, welcoming, photo-obsessed, smoking, Islamic.”

Then, after nearly two years in Southeast Asia, we arrived on the other side of the Indian Ocean in what felt like the other side of the world.

“Bustling, colorful, uninhibited, sails, dusty, poor, welcoming, bright, edgy, energetic, red dirt, thrumming, loud,” I wrote in the log when we arrived in Madagascar.

Even before we arrived, we could smell Madagascar from offshore: the hint of burning wood and grass, something green, something else faintly sickening and almost sweet. Something mysterious, something ancient — but new to us. We snapped photos of our colorful first impressions: dancing women and children, drumming men and boys. Embroidered tablecloths and post-colonial police stations. Friendly lemurs that reminded us of Madagascar, the animated movie, and curious chameleons. Ebony zebu herded along dusty red roads. Silvery fish drying in the subtropical sun. Fishing kids and sailing skiffs.

But there was more to Madagascar, more than we’d understand even if we stayed on a while.

Just east of Mozambique, Madagascar is the fourth-largest island in the world. Its culture is a delightful convergence of Europe, Africa and the Middle East, as evidenced by the gourmet French meals, baked goods, mélange of rum drinks, vibrant materials for both traditional and modern dress, and the combination of French and local Malagasy language. A fleet of sailing dhows scatter up and down the coastline daily, triangular sails set against the rising and setting sun, reminiscent of traditional Arab sailing vessels.

In Madagascar we found lemurs, ylang-ylang, distilled rum, vanilla, dancing, late-night revelry, lazy mornings and lavish lunches.

We arrived in late August after 25 days’ sailing from Sumatra. We were originally headed for Rodrigues, but had changed our plan midcourse when the Indian Ocean got a little too rowdy. The weather maps showed more intense wind and waves to the southwest, so we bore away 30 degrees. By the time we rounded Cap d’Ambre, Madagascar’s northern tip, and began the comparably softer sailing down the protected northwest coast toward the island of Nosy Be, we were happy to have made the change in course. We were sorry to miss Rodrigues and had added an extra 500 miles to our passage, but who can complain when you drop anchor after more than 3,000 miles in a town called Hell-Ville? We just had to chuckle.

One of the first things we noticed when we set the hook in Hell-Ville, as the city of Andoany is commonly known, is that it’s a sailing world. We quickly discovered that the people of coastal Madagascar rely on the local breezes to bring them out into the bay and back again. Madagascar is out of the trade winds, so the breezes are land- and sea-based. The wooden dhows we saw had no motors — a stark contrast to the lineup of Yamahas we’d seen in Mexico. We didn’t hear boats vroom-vrooming or tuk-tuking by; instead they sailed in and out of the crowded anchorages at all hours of the morning and night. If the late-night breeze petered out, they dropped anchor until morning. Many nights I watched a dhow ghost past our hull, close enough to reach out and touch, before pulling quietly into the shallows.

Some of the dhows we saw fished locally in and around Hell-Ville and returned each day. Others fished around their villages and dried the catch on large wooden racks, bringing their goods to the city for sale. Some larger boats sailed around the main anchorages of Nosy Be with tourists on board, ferrying them to nearby island resorts. All of the boats we saw relied on the wind and the wind alone.

In the mornings, we sat on our bow with our coffee, watching the line of boats sail out; in the evenings, we did the same, watching the line of boats sail in. It was easy to feel the breath and rhythm of the place from the glassy anchorage. Nosy Be inhaled and exhaled with the offshore and onshore breeze.

During the first few days of our stay in Hell-Ville, a music festival got riotously underway. The festival kicked off with a parade that noisily marched by a bar where we were lunching with a few other visiting cruisers. We followed the crowd along the waterfront road to a very large field with a main stage and a perimeter lined with makeshift bars and restaurants. Women prepared food in the back; children played out front. A girl selling cupcakes made her rounds; a boy balancing a plate of bread smiled sweetly. The parade participants were called to the stage to perform again and receive congratulations or possibly awards; we couldn’t tell because no one in our group spoke Malagasy. We learned quickly how to go with the flow. We drank local beer and a soda that tasted like bubble gum; then, over the ensuing days, we drank more beer and avoided the bubble-gum soda. Some of us even danced.

We were met by an outwardly open attitude during those festival days. A light celebratory feeling permeated the air. In cafes, people chatted with us from the next table over, reaching out to shake hands with our children. “I’m playing in the bar two doors down,” an elegant and commanding woman we met told us one afternoon. “Here’s my number!” Didia, it turned out, is from Nosy Be but now lives in Paris; she was back in town for the big music festival.

We never did make it to see Didia sing, but the music raged on for four days and nights. Some nights we just enjoyed the driving percussion and heavy bass thrum of the salegy rhythms from the bow of Momo. Nightclubs and bars overflowed with gyrating men and women, and the field we had visited on the first day was filled each night with partygoers, with the mood building to the climax on the last night as Madagascar’s top salegy performer, Wawa, took the stage. To one side of the field was another field: the designated latrine. I didn’t go there myself, but reports from my husband and friends made me glad I never had to. We could only assume that the field is well fertilized by the end of each of these community festivals.

Shortly after the festival, we set sail to explore other nearby islands and villages. We laughed each time we pulled up our anchor and sailed in and out of anchorages, thinking back to our early days on our engineless Triton in the Chesapeake. Back then, we had come to grips with sailing in and out of tight places by necessity. Now we did it because it was fun. Unlike in Southeast Asia, where we drifted many an afternoon or night, we could almost always sail in Madagascar from one island anchorage to the next. The breeze was predictable and steady. The pattern was easy: In the mornings, when there was little wind, we readied the boat, gathered groceries or completed last-minute chores. Then, by midday, when the westerly breeze filled in, we pulled up the anchor and set sail for a new anchorage on the next island over. The next destination was never very far. Within 40 miles of Nosy Be, we found a dozen good anchorages with clear water for snorkeling and diving, beaches for roaming and playing, and villages for visiting and socializing.

Each island we stopped at was more memorable than the last. At picturesque Nosy Sakatia, northwest of Nosy Be, whales gently meandered through the pass and cruiser kids splashed from one boat to the next. In the well-protected and roomy Baie des Russes (also known as Russian Bay or Ambavatory Bay), sailors gathered for barbecues and even two birthday parties. Lemurs were everywhere on the small island of Nosy Iranja and came to greet us almost as soon as we’d set foot onshore. We made a day stop at Nosy Tanikely, where the crystal waters and diversity of life around the coral reef beckon divers from around the world.

We picked up some of our favorite local carvings and crafts and soaked up the hospitality of the restaurants of Nosy Komba, and topped up from a water source offered by Yolanda’s, a cruiser-friendly local eatery right on the beach. In Honey River, we were given a small dried fish, which locals use as an exfoliator (we think, based on the broken French and gesturing). We hung this most peculiar keepsake on Momo to remind ourselves of this generous villager who insisted he offer a gift (perhaps as compensation for having to deny our enthusiastic request for honey).

At Crater Bay, the cruising hub of northwest Madagascar, we were welcomed at the yacht club for a Sunday pig roast, a weeknight pizza and the Rugby World Cup, which we enthusiastically watched with sailors from Australia, South Africa and our beloved New Zealand.

We stopped in the archipelago Nosy Mitsio, only 30 miles north of Nosy Be but far from the noise. With beautiful bays both east and west (and a couple of small villages), the largest island of Mitsio offered plenty to explore, and we found fantastic harbors for swimming at the nearby surrounding islands.

But even as we sailed from anchorage to anchorage, smiling and dancing our way through each new encounter, and even as we snapped photos that captured the vibrancy of Madagascar, I realized we couldn’t photograph the underlying cultural rhythms and tones. Poverty begets petty crime and sometimes more dramatic instances of violence on the island, and there is an inevitable clash of the thriving local culture and a strong expat community (which seem to exist, for the most part, in relative peace).

We couldn’t photograph the way we skirted the edges of dirty streets lined with tenement housing and pulled our daughters in close as we wandered home late at night, holding hands and making sure no one strayed from the group. We accepted local help when it came to extending our visas (and quickly came to understand the tipping system for the man who knows a man who knows a man) but sensed we should decline the offer to travel inland, overnight, with cash in hand for an expensive payoff to help expedite the visas. We understood the need to be cautious about the two different money systems still in operation, and the pitfalls of being gullible foreigners. We traded first-world clothing and tools for bananas, mangoes and other local goods, and strived to be curious visitors and good guests.

And even though we danced with late-night partygoers and felt the vibe, I couldn’t lay it down precisely on the page, or even capture it with a Nikon. We found Madagascar to be playful, edgy, smart, witty, friendly, maybe a little too friendly, welcoming, forward, salacious and — sometimes — dangerous, too.

We documented fishermen and sailing dhows, wildlife and roadside activity, and the outwardly colorful culture. If we had stayed longer in that mysterious and welcoming country, we might have been able to say more about complex cultural undercurrents and countercurrents. In the meantime, we decided to stick around the region to explore Tanzania, Mozambique and Kenya. We’ll see how our first impressions deepen and change in the coming months. There’s plenty to take in. And there’s plenty of wind, too.

Michelle Elvy is a writer, editor and manuscript assessor, originally from the Chesapeake and based in New Zealand’s Bay of Islands. She has lived aboard her sailboat for more than 12 years and is currently exploring Kenya, Tanzania and Mozambique.

The post First Impressions: Madagascar appeared first on Cruising World.

After we sailed halfway around the world from Vancouver, British Columbia, our arrivalin Madagascar was a revelation. In most places we’ve traveled, the fact that my husband,Evan, and I sailed there, from so far away, on our own 40-foot Meander catamaran,with a kid and a cat, has earned puzzled laughter and questions about pirates, stormsand kitty litter. But in Madagascar, international sailboats are taken in stride — of course we’dsailed Ceilydh there. Why would we travel any other way?

At sunrise the dhows slip out of Crater Bay, past anchored boats, on the first whispers ofwind. As the breeze fills in, the huge sails billow and strain against the willowy tree-trunkmasts. Filled with all manner of passengers and goods (fruit, chickens, granite stones), theships set off with whoops and hollers from the crew, crossing the wide bays on the sort of d \ependable breeze that makesmotors seem like a foolish investment.

While the local boats are assleek and graceful as any moderncruising boat, that’s where thesimilarity ends. Without a sailmakerlogo in sight, the squareandlateen-rigged sails are sewnfrom canvas or rice sacks andpatched with old cloth. Keepingwith the DIY theme, the riggingis more likely to have been collectedfrom the forest than foundin a hardware store — sails are seton long yards of lashed-togetherbranches.

Even the hulls are hand-hewn.We watched several boats beingbuilt in villages and marveled atthe use of hollowed logs, galvanizednails, tree pitch and motoroil. Suddenly the fact that onecrewmember was always assignedthe task of bailing made sense.While cruisers are masters ofingenuity (we had assisted in aremote Indian Ocean rescue inwhich palm coir was used as astructural material to rebuild abroken rudder), Madagascar wasa reminder of a simpler type ofsailing. We think Ceilydh is relativelyfast for a fully loaded cruisingcat, but more than once wewere left in the wake of a dhowthat seemed to be flying morerips than sail. When one dhowdid need help, all that was requiredwas a length of rope (discardedby us as too old), and theywere off again moments later.

Madagascar is a place wherethe Age of Sail never ended. Eventhe boats with engines seldomuse them. Instead, when windsare light, they ghost along, chattingwith nearby crews and laughing(with the universal smugnessof true sailors) when we, in a misguidedhurry to be somewhereelse, turned on our engine.

Read more about sailing in Madagascar here.

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