Day 19 Baie De St Augustin Madagascar
Misterx
Fri 29 Nov 2024 06:28
29/11/24
9:00 am
Day 19
Baie de St Augustin - Madagascar
DTD to Richard's Bay SA tbc#
Another eventful day on board yesterday, you wouldn't believe it being stuck as we are but it really feels like there is something going on all the time.
We had a visit from the beach boys, selling milk, goats milk, and a few scrawny looking vegs... we had a little chat which was interesting. Later on a very well dressed delegation from the village turned up with a headed note paper letter stating in very proper administrative French, complete with decrees numbers, and duly rubber stamped, that any vessel in the bay in front of the village would incur a mooring fee of 5,000 ariary for a tourist boat and 500,000 ariary for a cruise ship! It was not clear if this was a daily fee, so we ended up giving them 20 US dollars and they went away happy. Hopefully this will cover the whole of our stay here.
Our neighbour's anchor/ chain disentanglement kept us on the edge of our seat a good part of the day. The locals came to the rescue with 2 pirogues, 8 people in total, 4 divers taking it in turn going down to follow the chain, 2 in charge of the paddles, and 2 young girls in colourful dresses, one yellow and the other blue. They both enjoyed the ride by the look of things. Took less than an hour to bring back the anchor from the depth of the sea. Huge cheers, waving of paddles and punching the air to celebrate the raising of the 20kg anchor. I did get a bit worried then the beach boys set it at the bow of one of the pirogue. Its nose dipped noticeably and a bucket had to be passed down to bail out. It was reset pretty quickly. And preparation were made for our friend to depart to the nearest port, 2 hours away, a bit of maintenance was required before contemplating setting sail to South Africa. The beach boys came back to assist him with this and he was on his way by mid afternoon. We watched his progress on the AIS and he was well tucked up in port before dark and more importantly before the wind and waves kicked up.
A very full day indeed, as per my to do list, I cleaned the cooker and sorted out the easy access provisions. Making sure that we would be ready for a speedy departure, made lunch and cleaned up. The day had been beautiful up till 4 pm, we watched the clouds gather on the horizon and by 5pm, the skies were laden, 50 shades of grey and the wind was increasing rapidly. Of course this meant that the waves height and frequency increased too. And then the rain started lashing out! Most pirogues had disappeared from the bay and the village looked deserted, everyone sheltering indoors. Now and again you would hear a whoop of exhilaration as a pirogue would scream past, with a man swinging from the bit of wood keeping the sail up! With wind up to 30knots and waves of over 2m, and the boat rolling and pitching, we decided to have an anchor watch, just in case. The waves crashing on the cliff in front of us was indeed a bit disturbing, especially when you could hear it above the din of he wind!
As it turned out, the worse of it was gone through by 10pm. The wind dropped, the stars came back out and all we had to contend with was the waves. By midnight everyone was tucked up in bed with teddy and we didn't hear a peep from the anchor alarm!