The Third largest Reef System in the World!

I woke this morning with no new information from the tour operator in Antananarivo, so I packed up and headed to breakfast.  But, when we met up with Joushia, we learned that the issue had been fixed.  The hotel was running a plug to my cabin, and all of the previously scheduled activities were back in place.  Maybe I should have just gotten with him to begin with.  Of the two, Joushia seems to be the one capable of (or willing to) sorting out issues with accommodations.

So, after breakfast, we headed to the docks, where we would catch a speed ferry to Anakao, across the St. Augustin Bay.  The ferry is the easiest and fastest way to get to Anakao because there are few bridges across the Onilahy River.  Definitely a unique boarding situation!  When the boat came in, the passengers coming from Anakao and their luggage were brought to the platform by zebu cart!!

For us, they brought out a small tractor and loaded us all and our baggage into a wagon.  When we got to Anakao, we were supposed to get off on the beach in front of our hotel.  We didn't know that and were waiting for another platform or even just somebody to tell us what hotel we were at.  We pulled in to this welcoming committee and watched a lot of supplies being off-loaded from the boat, but no passengers got off.

So, we took an extra trip along the coast until we got back to the first stop, where our welcoming committee returned to the beach, grabbed our bags, and took us to our cabins.  While I was getting settled in, the owner came in and lectured me about giving such short notice of needing a plug.  I went right back at him and made sure to  let him know that I gave that information to the tour provider back in January when I booked the tour.  That it wasn't my fault he didn't bother to communicate that to the hotel owner or book a hotel that had the facilities I required.  He and I came to terms that I appreciated his efforts to make sure I got a plug, but his anger was misplaced, leaving us both frustrated with the tour operator in Antananarivo.  Once we got that ironed out, the owner of the hotel was pretty cool.  The hotel was rustic, with bucket-flush toilets (and a big barrel of sea water for flushing) and bucket showers with pots of water in sun ovens to get hot water.

After getting settled in and learning how everything functions, including washing out some clothes and hanging them to dry, it was time to eat.  I headed to the restaurant and got some fruit and learned about the excursions that were available.  It took some time to figure out how it worked, so I just hung at the restaurant, looking at the water and resting. (It is uphill in soft sand, hard to walk, to get from the beach to my cabin.)  It is beautiful here, and we were treated to a lovely sunset before dinner.

The next morning, after a lovely night's sleep, chasing down my clean and dry underwear that had blown around overnight, and a good breakfast, I headed down to the beach with my waterproof camera.  Doing the snorkeling excursion was Susan and I along with a gentleman from Australia and a couple from Belgium.  We had all met between dinner last night and breakfast this morning.  A group of fun people for snorkeling and exploring the island of Nosy Ve.  We boarded two lakana (outrigger canoes) and headed out to Androka National Park and the portion of the reef located in the Mozambique Channel Marine Ecoregion.  

This is the third largest reef system in the world, right behind the Great Barrier Reef off the coast of Australia and the Mesoamerican Reef off the Yucatan Peninsula to Honduras.  I was happily surprised to learn that it is also a very healthy reef!  Unfortunately, my little Fuji underwater camera decided to choose this trip to be the one where it would start leaking.  Fortunately, the leak didn't prevent it from working and didn't reach the SD card or battery.  It just clouded the lens and made it almost impossible to see what I was shooting.  I was looking for an excuse to replace it, and I guess this is it.  Anyway, I apologize for the lack of quality in these pictures, but I got the best I could given that I was mostly guessing where I was shooting!

And my selfie!

While we were snorkeling, a couple of the guides went spear fishing and caught the fish they would cook on Nosy Ve Island to feed us for lunch!  Again, sorry for the haziness.  I pulled as much haze as I could out of them in post processing, but there was fog on the inside of the lens.

While the guides cooked our lunch, we all took a walk around the island.  It was very lovely, though barren in several spots.  I mean, it is a very small island, approximately 5x2 km (2.5x1 mi).  It is also the only home of the red-tailed tropic bird.  Remember when I said a bad picture is better than no picture?  Well...  I can't see it in the picture, but he has a little red thread-like tail that I could see with my eyes!  If you run this one through a Google image search, please don't be fooled.  This is definitely NOT an albatross!  It's just a really bad picture!

It was a wonderful day!  Took an interesting bucket shower when we returned.  Then, had a good time hanging out and chilling before dinner and slept like a rock again!