Isle Saint Marie

A group of locals fishing.

The beautiful coastline.

A poisonous beaked sea snake in the shallows.

The normal mode of transport.

Lynn and Graham and I meet on the road.

Talking about fishing techniques with a local fisherman.

Street scenes in Ambodifotatra.

The young ones in our group at sunset.

The group shot at the end of the trip.

Saturday, November 18^th.

Last night seven of us had decided to go kayaking at another island, but this morning Florien wasn't feeling well, so we booked off the kayaking and I rented a scooter to ride the island. Graham and Lynette had done the same. It turns out that the kayaking is at the island where I have booked a three day extension and so has Florien, Graham and Lynette. So we will go there tomorrow instead.

Isle Saint Marie is about 53 km long and our hotel is about 8 km from the southern end. So I waited for my scooter to arrive and then rode north. The town of Ambodifotatra where the port is about five kilometres from the hotel. I rode through there and kept going. The ride was great, it felt great to be on two wheels again. The scooter was not powerful but still it was nice to be on a motorized two wheeler. The scenery was nice too. I rode past little villages, fishing boats, and beautiful tropical beaches. I rode almost to the northern most point but had used over half the tank of gas and decided I needed to return as there are no petrol stations up there (in fact there is only one real station on the island, but there are a couple of spots where you can buy a two litre pop bottle full of fuel).

As I rode back I stopped at a little cove beach and waded in the water. I noticed a sea snake in the shallows and I think all sea snakes are poisonous so I decided not to go in. As I stood there watching it, a group of about 30 local women and children walked past me on the beach. I waved and smiled and they returned both. After they got past me they stood on a little raised area looking at the water like they had seen something. So I decided to go there and see what they were looking at. As I got there they entered the water in a circle and talked for a bit before beating the water with branches to drive any fish into a net that others were holding. I don't think they caught much but it was interesting to watch.

Shortly after that Graham and Lynn came past me from the north. They stopped and they told me that they had gotten a flat tire just north of there. They had not reached the north end either. They pushed the bike for a bit before a local man came to their aid and patched the tire. Now they were heading back. I decided to ride behind them and make sure they were okay. We stopped at a couple of scenic spots and talked to a local fisherman. But about half way back the tire went flat again, so I took Lynn on my bike and Graham rode his carefully back. We eventually got back to the hotel where he dumped his. We had lunch at the hotel and then I went for a short swim in the very warm ocean.

After that I took the bike and rode back into the town to buy some more lychee. When I got back I ate about half of them.

We had our last group dinner tonight. This is it, after three weeks together bouncing over the incredibly bad roads of Madagascar we are splitting up. Geoff and Gillian have to get up at 4:30 to catch a ferry and then the bus back to Tana (a total of 15 hours travelling time). Graham, Lynn, Florien and I are leaving for a different island as an extension to this trip. The rest are flying back to Tana in the afternoon. We had a good dinner and lots of laughs. During and after dinner their were three local musicians playing traditional music for our entertainment. We were all amazed when Patrick went and joined them playing acoustic guitar.

We were all really sad to say goodbye to Patrick. He is an amazing young man and a passionate guide. We all learned a lot about his country thanks to him. He made a really nice speech to us about how much he enjoyed our group and about sustainable tourism and what it means to the future of his country. We took a group photo before everyone headed off to bed. Florien, Adrien, Patrick and a hotel employee named Bosco headed off to an outdoor music concert somewhere on the island.

I woke up about three with an upset stomach and Florien came back about a half hour later. They had a great time at the concert but poor Patrick had to stay up as he had promised to take Geoff and Gilliam to the ferry.