Posts
April 10-12
Madagascar – Day 11-13
I wish I could tell you that since I signed off on the 9th that we had an on time safe flight to Antananarivo, the capital of Madagascar before heading for the jungles, but we didn’t. If you remember, Granny and I were waiting for our flight in a bug infested terminal and some chick nearly got bit by a bat. Then it started raining in the air terminal. Well, from there things went from lousy to horrible. A massive thunderstorm started and went on for at least 2 hours. When I say we experienced torrential rain, I mean the clouds were dumping buckets of water. Our plane ended up being two hours late. Meanwhile, (we didn’t know it) our luggage was outside in the storm getting soaked waiting for the flight to arrive. Then when we finally took off two hours late, our short flight to Antananarivo became an adventure of its own. Our 737 got tossed around as if it was a Cessna in a hurricane and the plane got struck by lightning not once, but three memorable times! So, at 1 A
M when we finally arrived in Antananarivo, we were exhausted, beaten and received our two bags completely soaked. Everything we own is drenched. What sucks is, NOTHING DRYS HERE. Oh well, we could be getting snowed on in Victor, Idaho!
Things have been better since the flight. We headed inland to Andisibe National Park. We hired a cool taxi/tour driver that I highly recommend named Jimmy Eliniaina Rabarison (jimmyblume_07@yahoo.fr) and he took us to the park for two days. Jimmy works with the Jenman Safari tour that lined us up at Sakatia Island last week. Anyhow, this isn’t a fish story so I’ll be brief, but you can’t come to Madagascar and not see the lemurs. Lemurs (monkey like creatures but not monkeys) are only found in Madagascar and Andisibe is home to many species of lemur.
On the way to the National Park Jimmy took us
to see chameleons at a chameleon refuge. We saw the wild one yesterday at Sakatia, but at this refuge we saw about 20 different species that we could never just find on our own. Some were very well camouflaged by color while other had not only colors like their surroundings but they even looked like leaves, trees branches and even bark. It was unreal and well worth seeing. Chameleons might be one of the coolest looking creatures we’ve ever checked out. Enjoy the photos.
Once at the park we settled in at the Vakona Forest Lodge on the outskirts of Andisibe National Park and spent a day and a half hiking and checking out lemurs. We saw five different species includ
ing the Indri Indri’s the rarest and largest of all lemurs. Getting to see them is lucky. We weren’t just lucky but we got close to a group of four and as they navigated the trees above we stumbled through the jungle below and enjoyed them for over an hour before they vanished into the rainforest. Before this experience happened I would have told you seeing lemurs was no big deal, but this experience with the Indri Indri’s was spectacular. Absolutely memorable!
We’ve since traveled back to Antananarivo and st
aying at the IC Hotel a few blocks from the airport. First thing in the morning we begin the final leg of our Madagascar trip, true relaxation at Isle St Marie. Look on the north east side of Madagascar for a sliver of an island. Talk about being in the middle of nowhere, this should be it. And geographically, it should be great fishing.
Madagascar – Day 11-13
I wish I could tell you that since I signed off on the 9th that we had an on time safe flight to Antananarivo, the capital of Madagascar before heading for the jungles, but we didn’t. If you remember, Granny and I were waiting for our flight in a bug infested terminal and some chick nearly got bit by a bat. Then it started raining in the air terminal. Well, from there things went from lousy to horrible. A massive thunderstorm started and went on for at least 2 hours. When I say we experienced torrential rain, I mean the clouds were dumping buckets of water. Our plane ended up being two hours late. Meanwhile, (we didn’t know it) our luggage was outside in the storm getting soaked waiting for the flight to arrive. Then when we finally took off two hours late, our short flight to Antananarivo became an adventure of its own. Our 737 got tossed around as if it was a Cessna in a hurricane and the plane got struck by lightning not once, but three memorable times! So, at 1 AM when we finally arrived in Antananarivo, we were exhausted, beaten and received our two bags completely soaked. Everything we own is drenched. What sucks is, NOTHING DRYS HERE. Oh well, we could be getting snowed on in Victor, Idaho! Things have been better since the flight. We headed inland to Andisibe National Park. We hired a cool taxi/tour driver that I highly recommend named Jimmy Eliniaina Rabarison (jimmyblume_07@yahoo.fr) and he took us to the park for two days. Jimmy works with the Jenman Safari tour that lined us up at Sakatia Island last week. Anyhow, this isn’t a fish story so I’ll be brief, but you can’t come to Madagascar and not see the lemurs. Lemurs (monkey like creatures but not monkeys) are only found in Madagascar and Andisibe is home to many species of lemur.
On the way to the National Park Jimmy took us
to see chameleons at a chameleon refuge. We saw the wild one yesterday at Sakatia, but at this refuge we saw about 20 different species that we could never just find on our own. Some were very well camouflaged by color while other had not only colors like their surroundings but they even looked like leaves, trees branches and even bark. It was unreal and well worth seeing. Chameleons might be one of the coolest looking creatures we’ve ever checked out. Enjoy the photos. Once at the park we settled in at the Vakona Forest Lodge on the outskirts of Andisibe National Park and spent a day and a half hiking and checking out lemurs. We saw five different species includ
ing the Indri Indri’s the rarest and largest of all lemurs. Getting to see them is lucky. We weren’t just lucky but we got close to a group of four and as they navigated the trees above we stumbled through the jungle below and enjoyed them for over an hour before they vanished into the rainforest. Before this experience happened I would have told you seeing lemurs was no big deal, but this experience with the Indri Indri’s was spectacular. Absolutely memorable! We’ve since traveled back to Antananarivo and st
aying at the IC Hotel a few blocks from the airport. First thing in the morning we begin the final leg of our Madagascar trip, true relaxation at Isle St Marie. Look on the north east side of Madagascar for a sliver of an island. Talk about being in the middle of nowhere, this should be it. And geographically, it should be great fishing. 
Johannesburg, South Africa
After four hours of dodging huge thunderheads across the Mozambique Channel, at 7 PM we landed at Nosy Be, Madagascar airport. It was dark and drizzly. Immigration and customs started chaotic but once we figured out what line to be in things went fairly smooth. The only scare was that our bags were the last two to come off the belt. But everything seems to be in tact so let the fishing trip begin. 
organized our accommodations for this trip on the internet. She starts us at this bed and breakfast called 
appears very few people have electricity either. We finally stopped at what turned out to be a remote beach on a lagoon. From the dark came a couple voices. These guys were obviously from Sakatia Towers and they grabbed our bags and we followed them down a trail to a beach tripping and stubbing our toes most of the way. Then we waded out knee deep to a boat. The surf was rolling gently, but enough to soak us to the waist. We were already exhausted from travel so we could barely raise our wet legs aboard this boat. Off we went into the darkness of the ocean headed for the remote island of Sakatia. 
another pitch black beach. There was a glimmer of light on a hill above the beach but all I remember was my flip flops sticking to the mucky bottom under the swooshing waves. Finally the ground firmed up and we walked up five minutes of steps. There it was, the light from a porch and a man holding a pair of welcome drinks. The 55 hour journey from Victor, Idaho to 
room with enough mosquito netting to entangle myself badly if I have too many brews, and a view of the Indian Ocean and mainland Madagascar that is breath taking. 
how low but I can tell you now it was low. Today we had a fluctuation from low to high of about 18 feet! The terrain is basically very calm sea with rugged slippery rocks covered in razor sharp oyster-looking shells. You can wade in the water but with care. There are gorgeous corals everywhere and spiny black sea urchins that could ruin a trip in a heartbeat. I tossed a yellow and red 
little snapper of specie I’ll need to look up later, but that was it. Despite the lack of fish eating my fly, the corals are swarming with tropical reef fish. I saw plenty of colorful ones and many were blue. 
boat fishing average over $500 a day. That’s because the only thing offered is blue water fishing. Madagascar is newly famous for its billfishing. Blue water fishing is always very expensive because of gas and boat quality. Regardless of whether or not it’s worth it, Granny and I can’t afford that kind of money so I was prepared to haggle. Our goal was to negotiate three days of guided fishing for around $1000. It took me two seconds to realize George likes to haggle also. And to make a long story short, George and I settled on four days of fishing, a mix of inshore and offshore for $1200 US cash. That puts us over our budget but what the heck. I’ll paint more when I get 
home and Granny can work some overtime. I reluctantly gave George $600 up front. I hate doing that in foreign country but I can’t blame him for wanting it. He needs to organize his boat, get fuel etc. We are scheduled to meet him at 7:30 AM tomorrow. He says he’s seen a fly rod and he has a plan. I’ve heard that before so Granny and I are just mentally prepared for an adventure. We spent the rest of our day fishing the rocks while the tide rolled back in. I stuck to the same rig and while Granny checked out the cool crabs and shells of the tide pools I landed one more new species. It was a mono fish, nothing spectacular but a new one. We also played with a squid that attacked my fly every time I cast. Then catching me by surprise, a decent sized grouper nailed my Clouser and escaped by tangling me in the coral. That led to my first swim of the trip to retrieve my fly line. The last thing I need is to lose a fly line on the first day. After fishing we chilled out on our room porch with a tall cold beer. Then we headed back up to the main porch. Granny was walking a good distance ahead and laughed when she noticed the camp help put a fake snake on our walk. I thought it was pretty funny too. You can’t scare the Americans we thought. But then the snake moved. It was a 6 foot long tree boa that started slithering along with us as if he too was headed for dinner. Granny and I don’t mind even big snakes. We have neat snake stories from previous travels in Africa that prepared us for life with snakes. Our first reaction now is to keep it quiet as you never know how the camp help will react. We don’t want them to see the snake 
because we don’t want them to kill it, which unfortunately is often the case with locals and snakes. We simply observed the stunning creature until he finally left the walk and disappeared into the thick jungle. Then I went back to our room to close the door! At dinner I asked our camp host Frankie if there were snakes around. He said no and the other helpers chirped in. “No there are no snakes on the island”. I knew this would be their answer. It always is no matter where you go on the planet. All camps, hotels and lodges want their place to be known as “snake free” environments. That’s about when I flipped on my digital camera and showed them some of our pictures and asked them what it was. You should have seen the looks on their faces! Let’s just say there were a few shrieks. There are snakes here and I could tell one dude sees them all the time. In fact he recognized this snake and started telling stories of the cats he’s eaten around camp. Ok, I’m exhausted. It’s been a remarkable first day and I rambled on too long. But that’s traveling in a cool place. Every day is full of surprises.