Getaway Magazine, September 2008
Click here to download the original pdf article

It's not a long flight from Johannesburg to one of the strangest and most idyllic islands on earth. Don Pinnock spent a week kayaking northern Madagscar from a mother-dhow named Salama Tsara. There are still places in the world - but not many - where the tides roll coconuts up deserted, palm-fringed beaches and ghost crabs scuttle unmolested by humans. You can still sail tropical seas bedded on riotous-coloured coral gardens where vessels - unchanged in thousands of years - use only the wind in their canvas sails.You may find villages of stilted, palm-woven houses, little touched by tourism, where women in bright kangas cook barracuda, cassava and Spanish mackerel on charcoal braziers, or plait each other's hair while their men fish from dugout canoes. But you'll not find them easily. However, if you have the right vessel and a local captain who knows where to look - and you don't expect room service and a flush toilet - these scenes so redolent of tropical paradise, recorded by the likes of Captain Cook 250 years ago, can be discovered among the scattered islands of northern Madagascar. We sailed one day on the lateen-rigged dhow, Salama Tsara, from the ominously-named port of Hell-Ville on Nosy Be (nosy means island in Malagasy), picking our way between pirogues, outrigger canoes, rust-bucket steamers and trading schooners, and setting a course for the satellite island of Nosy Komba. The breeze filled the single sail which billowed and pointed skywards, its sheets creaking in their chocks. Lashed to the deck was a shoal of sea kayaks, down below lurked a box of snorkelling equipment and in the galley Eliaan, the cook, was busy preparing a lunch of prawn paella, fresh cucumber salad and fire-baked bread. The possibility of an extraordinary adventure hung in the air.
 

Land of lemurs

Around 165 million years before we ran our canvas up the mast, Madagascar set sail from Gondwanaland at a time when dinosaurs roamed the earth. Primitive mammals were just emerging from reptilian ancestors, so we must assume the odd creatures now inhabiting the island rafted out from Africa, India and South America on clumps of drifting vegetation. Given the size of the chameleons and iguanas, maybe some of the dinosaurs came with the package.

Lemurs, for which Madagascar is justly famous, are an ancient order of primates that are monkey-like but have kitten fur and endearing, foxy faces. They arrived on the island and, with few predators, evolved into around 50 species, each with its speciality and niche. The oddest, the aye-aye, has a long, ET-like middle finger for digging out grubs.

Because of its isolation and the fact that Madagascar is geologically the world's oldest island, almost everything is endemic, volcanic, bizarre or just plain odd. Slash-and-burn agriculture has unfortunately turned large areas into wastelands, but the islet of Nosy Komba is decidedly verdant.

We anchored nearby, dropped the kayaks into the bath-warm, turquoise water and were soon slicing along with dense green forest beyond our left-hand blades. There was an outrigger off to the seaward side and a yellow beach up ahead. Beyond it were frond-clad huts. As we ran the kayaks up the sand, a pretty young woman in a bright yellow kanga waved and called "Mbalatsara" in greeting. It was the sort of scene filmmakers invent, but which nobody really believes exists.  That evening, over Three Horse beers and a spectacular spread of barracuda, calamari, prawns, zebu steaks (from a type of ox) and rice, I discovered something about the rather eccentric characters who'd put the trip together. Ross Murray is a lawyer who fell out of love with law and started a river-rafting company, then a boating supplier outfit. But he was a fish meant for bigger seas, so he built a yacht with the help of his buddy, Mark Gibson, and tried to figure out how to sail it while on the way to southern Madagascar. He clearly needed some help and was introduced to Mohamed Bakary, who'd spent four years at dental school but right then was a yacht pilot. He joined Ross at Tulear and instruction began.

A year and a half later, the lessons had turned into a rip-roaring adventure round the Indian Ocean. But when Ross decided enough was enough, Mohamed asked where that left him. So they dreamed up a sea-based charter business among the beautiful northwest islands of Madagascar. But that required a boat. Ross put up the money and Mohamed was left to oversee the building of a modest pirogue. Mohamed had grander ideas, however, and when Ross returned he found the hull of a fair-sized motor dhow with cabin and flush loo taking shape.

And so it was that a sturdy vessel named Salama Djema (the name means 'hello fine') was soon testing the waters (see Getaway, November 2005). But doing charters in these seas, you cannot fail to notice the grace and beauty of passing dhows constructed to ancient and tested blueprints. Ross decided that was what he wanted, so construction of the second vessel began in Hell-Ville. Unlike the traditional vessels, this one had a deck, cushions to lounge on fore and aft and, of course, a flush loo.

The gaggle of sea kayaks belonged to Mark Gibson. As a former Springbok yachtsman, he knew a good sea when he saw one and had fallen for Madagascar. He started Kayak Madagascar Journeys and his sporty craft were also on their maiden voyage.

We overnighted in neat, palm-woven bungalows and, next morning, went strolling around the village. There were beautiful crafts for sale in the market and we wound our way through narrow lanes which had never seen mechanical transport.

A creature suddenly thudded onto my shoulder, then another. I found myself staring into the cute, wide-eyed faces of two wild lemurs. They were, a local guide explained, fady and therefore sacred, so had no fear of humans. Fady is a taboo system so complex that neighbouring villages and even close neighbours don't necessarily share it. Perhaps eating pork is fady, or digging a grave with a spade which does not have a loose handle is fady (not too much contact between the living and the dead). In some areas it's fady to hand an egg to someone, it must first be put on the ground. In many areas it's fady to work in the rice fields on Thursdays, or work at all on Tuesdays.

Certain places are also fady and all over Madagascar you will see trees or rocks lovingly cloaked in bright cloth, or bowls full of money beside certain objects.
A close relative of fady is vintana, which cuts up time into good and bad times to do things, which means people might suddenly stop what they're doing and sit down for an hour or two. But some things are generally agreed by all to be fady, like chameleons and the lemurs which, right then, had climbed onto my hat.

Next morning we paddled across the calm sea to Tanikely, a marine reserve island which sports a lighthouse designed by Gustave Eiffel (it must get lonely so far from home). Some large hawksbill turtles passed us and the water was so clear they seemed to be flying. After lazing around staring at the coral and all its iridescent denizens, we upped anchor and headed for Russian Bay. It was named for some sailors from that country who hid up in the well-protected bay during the 1905 Russian-Japanese war, waiting for something to shoot at. They brooded under waving palms, swam in tropical waters and, no doubt, had fun with dusky maidens. Pretty soon they decided they were damned if they were ever going home. The last sailor died there in 1936, probably smiling.

Island of dramatic sunsets

The crew popped up a row of dome tents under the palms and I took a walk along the beach. A family had a few huts some way up and as I approached a pirogue paddled out. A young man was repairing a net cast over a frame and, further along, was the hull of a gently rotting dhow and a mangrove forest. When I strolled back, the net man was strumming a home-made guitar with a faraway look in his eyes. It was tempting to hopelessly romanticise a life that seemed to be so utterly idyllic. Next stop was Nosy Iranja, a blip of an island connected to an even smaller one by a sand spit, which provided a unique kayaking experience. At high tide waves were breaking across the shallow sand from both sides. We were able to surf towards a zone of mad, flying white water and right into a wave coming from the other side. Then we'd simply turn round and surf right back again. We headed back as evening fell. The sea was mercurial silver under a sky smeared with orange brushstrokes of high cirrus across the deepening blue. Overhead, seeming to come out of the sun, were flying-fox bats the size of eagles. It was surreal. The next morning we visited a nearby village. Kids danced to their own internal music and we stopped to chat to a man who was building a nine-metre pirogue with nothing but a hand adze, a rusty saw and an exceedingly worn drill brace. He offered to sell it, fully kitted with sails, for R7 000. It was tempting. When we got back the spring tide had forced an evacuation of our camp site to higher ground. The calm sea clearly had teeth. Late that night I zipped my way out of the tent and stood on the beach looking up at the Milky Way. The sea was so calm the stars were reflected in the water. In one of those ah-ha! moments, I understood the great spiral of our immense galaxy from the tip of its out-flung arms to the sparkling phosphorescence at my feet. I composed a poem in homage, but in the morning I'd forgotten it.

Return to Hell

The dhow trip ended back in Hell-Ville and, just then, it was well named. After nothing but the gentle slosh of waves and the sigh of the breeze in palms, the cacophony that greeted us was painful. The quay was crowded with piratical porters eager to grab any unattended baggage and lead you to some questionable flop-house. We had to fight to retain our possessions up the slipway. Despite a three-week power failure (we think we have problems in South Africa!) commerce was in full swing, accompanied by the roar and clatter of seldom-serviced vehicles dodging between crude wagons pulled by patient zebus. We fled to the nearby village of Ambatoloaka for lunch, then paddled across to Nosy Sakatia. In a private bay, on the veranda of a guesthouse named Sakatia Towers run by ex-East London pharmacist John Sheppard, peace finally returned. Rather like Mohamed and his pirogue that turned into a dhow, John began building a few rooms that became a sizeable residence. There we rediscovered the pleasure of a shower and real beds. John's meals were enough to put on any kilos lost while paddling. So we ate and snorkelled and roasted in the tropical sun. Finally, under a sign that read "Do not disturb the owner - he is already disturbed," we gathered our collective willpower for a flight from paradise, watching the gentle waves roll coconuts up the beach. Back home, just then, snow was falling.
Exploring Ankarana One of the most mysterious places on an already strange island is Ankarana. It's a limestone massif of tsingy (sharp, weathered pinnacles), surrounded by lemur-filled forest and penetrated by caves, underground rivers and yawning canyons. It's part of the Montagne d'Ambre Reserve complex and has several camp sites and bungalows from which you can explore. The pockets of forest are home to about 10 species of lemur and many more species of chameleon.  Our trip there was organised by Heriloza Hughes and involved a boat trip from Hell-Ville on Nosy Be, then a minibus ride to Ankarana. We stayed in rustic but very comfortable palm-leaf huts and ate at an open-air restaurant nearby. Our guide, Nirina Razanaparany, spoke good English and knew the names of everything in three languages, including Latin.