Time to Share

Have been home from travels for about six months now, and have done quite a bit of reflecting on the adventures I have enjoyed with various travel partners from my wife, to relatives, to best friends. I think now it is time to share some of these interesting and colorful events with others.

Many have heard Earl or Doug and myself unfolding some of these stories over the brass rail at the local pub. Now we take the next step...and document them for posterity. As I was told on the last adventure to Africa...I tend to "mansize" things. I'm sure as you read these charming events, it would not even enter your imagination that any of the following events would have been exaggerated.

Follow to hear the stories of:

Thousands of Cockroaches
Shampoo of Bats
Russian Sheep Hearders
Hippopotomus Trails
Lenin's Tomb
"Green" Under Rembrandt

and many, many more.

HOME AT LAST

After about 36 hours of traveling, canceled flights, and delays, we arrived back in Boston about 6PM on February 24th. We spent the past few days in Tana buying the odd trinket or so and trying to avoid any political turmoil. I gotta say that traveling in a country whilst they are having a coup d'etat is quite an experience. And when you stand out like a sore thumb as a "Vahaza" (foreigner) does in Madagascar (skin color), it makes things all the more interesting. On Saturday night there was a curfew posted in the whole country for 8PM. There was a "manifestation" or opposition political demonstration scheduled to occur in the afternoon. At about a quarter to 8 all the power in the city went off. We were at our hotel and did not know what was to occur. We watched out the windows and listened for anything abnormal.

Turned out the government shut the power as a method to disburse the crowds. No problems occurred.

I met several new friends on this trip from all over the world. I lost some 40 pounds and got a wonderful tan. I got to spend over half of the "bad part" of winter as a beach bum living in a grass hut on the coast of the Mozambique Channel in the Indian Ocean. After 22 years of running a company, this was an ideal way to "decompress", "debrief", "chill out", or whatever other terms may be appropriate.

Madagascar is an incredibly interesting destination to visit. Unfortunately they have not saved their history in the form of museums or the like. Doug and I went to the main museum in the ex-prime ministers palace, which along with the Rova or Queens Palace, were torched in 1995 with severe damage. The Rove is still under reconstruction. The only real items left in the museum were colonial items from the French and English ruling days. By the way we were the only two in the museum and they had to turn the lights on for us. With 18 ethnic "tribes" that continue to not get along so well, the history is something you have to really reach for. When one tribe overrunns another they simply burn and destroy what is gained and so goes the history.

For interesting reading there is a tale of a 17th century shipwrecked sailor named Robert Drury who was held captive by various kingdoms in Madagascar for over fifteen years. He was 14 or so at the time of the shipwreck.His tale is thought to possible be the original Robinson Crusoe story.
Look it up.

I wish those I met and all the Malagasy well, and hope to return to the island next year.

Here are some photos to enjoy. More are on Facebook. Go to facebook and look me up at slhuss@gmail.com and We can get you access.

Steve Huss

Back in Tana

Doug and I arrived in Antananarivo this morning after an uneventful flight...that is if you disregard the being taken into the back office to pay the baggage overweight charge, the fact of absolutely no security screening to get on the plane, and the fact the flight left 20 minutes before the scheduled departure time.

It's a little cooler here in Tana. 80°F when we landed at 11AM. Dave Raza was at the airport to pick us up, a drive around tour of Tana, a brief stop for Doug at the Madagascar artesans outlet mall...it must come from Kathy and Bevs side... High pressure sales anyway..."Messieur...come into my shop...I give you a special price..."

Anyway we are in Tana...the heart of the rebellion and proposed civil war. Looks pretty quiet to us. You see a few military in the street with weapons slung over their shoulder, and we have had our passports checked by the gendarme, but feel no threat. There is a nationwide curfew at 8PM every night.

Dava took us by Al Harris' house and we spent a few minutes visiting with him...he's one of the originators of Blue Ventures. Lives in Tana and is working on his PHD on coral growth. Very nice guy, and worthwhile to stop by and say hi.

Tomorrow we are off to the east and north to see the Indri lemers and the east coast and Indian Ocean. Dave will drop us back at the airport the evening of the 23rd.

No photos today as I have technological issues with computer/camera cables.

Photos I hope

Cyclone forced this "Butre" or large boat up on shore. Instead of as we would calling insurance or otherwise, the entire village came out and pushed and pushed, several swam to the anchor and moved it out...certainly looked as an uphill battle. The wind and the waves were breaking over the boat. Lucky no one gor hurt...then a great cheer as the boat began to break free of its sand foothold and gradually moved back out to deeper waters. Truly an impressive site of the village working as one against a threat to their livelihood. Not something you would typically see at home.

The cyclone forced us out of our reed huts for one night as we weren't sure they could handle the storm. They did tho... no issues. We were out of the water 6 days. Morombe, a village 40 miles up the coast, was pretty well levelled. I have a short video of this that I will put on when I get home. Takes way to long to upload from here.

Yesterday was supposed to be the official day the "new" president and his administration took office. "old president would not allow. New president claims he has 80% of the military with him. Gets exciting to travel these days. Planning on only spending as much time in Antananarivo as necessary. Home in 6 days. Cheers!

Fish Belts and Benthic PIT's (Point Intersect Transect)

So we would dive each day at 6AM, 9AM, and 11AM. BV has 50 reef sites they are monitoring. Each site has stakes that are 10 meters apart in several locations up to 10 sets per site. On these stakes you place a 10 meter tape, and then swim the tape and write each type of benthic material every 20 centimeters (called a PIT)... such as hard coral and whether the hard coral was massive, digitate, encrusting, or foliose, soft coral, hydroids, sponges, tunicates, zooanthids, etc. Your dive buddy would swim along behind and inspect a 5 meter wide swath along the tape for invertabrates such as different types of urchins, sea cucumbers, or crown of thorn starfish.

Once all the benthic PIT's were done you did a fish belt which was to run a tape of 20 meters and leave it for 5 minutes. Then you come back and swim the tape writing all of the fish species and numbers of each in a 5 meter wide by 5 meter high swath. This list could be as few as a few species or as many as 25-30 or more species. In order to perform these surveys you had to pass a series of in water and computer tests on both benthic and fish identification. We had to learn how to positively identify 151 species of fish. These tests took a good two weeks to master, but all but one passed all the tests. It seemed for a while that you could never complete them, but soon it became second nature. Then you would find yoursezlf diving and naming everything you saw as you dove. Pretty cool.

Each dive we'd try to complete at least two fish belts or two PIT's. It requires 10 dives to complete a site, and each of the 50 sites is surveyed once per year. The data is entered in spreadsheets and transmitted to London where it is analyzed and reports are drawn up showing reef health and recovery if it had been damaged by overfishing or coral bleaching.

This picture shows a sulphur damsel and a yellow face butterfly fish. The second photo is a black backed butterfly.

Visibility on the dives varied due to weather and location of the site. On a good day viz was 30 meters or so, and a bad day it was 5-10 meters. We sat out for one week due to a cyclone hitting the area.

Overall I got in some 50-60 dives including one dive to 30 meters and one night dive. Average dives were in the 15 meter range and lasted 45 minutes. The night dive was particularly spectacular with lots of large unicorn fish, squid, shrimp and more. Getting attacked by a squid was really exciting and made me laugh pretty hard...almost spit out my regulator.

Other great sites were large schools of young yellow tail barracuda, swimming through shoals of hundereds of fish, crocodile fish, octopus, large gorgonian fans and the list goes on and on. No one on this trip saw any sharks...which was too bad as I think most if not all hoped to. We did run across 5 bottle nosed dolphins one day. Tried to swim with them, but they would have none of that and swam off. It was also amazing to see giant clams withe their gorgeous blue and pink colors inside, and various shells such as tritons and cowries alive and in their native habitat.

When you were not scheduled for a particular dive you were usually shore marshall or boat marshall which was part of the safety group for each dive. As boat marshall you assist the boat driver in monitoring the divers locations, log vital information for each diver(there were six on each dive), and handle the satellite phone and GPS in case of emergency. As shore marshall you monitored the other satellite phone and were on call for diver emergencies.

Local Pirogue

The boats the use are pirogues (pronounced peerog). At 5-6 AM the entire group of men from the village leave in their pirogue for a day of fishing. They use line by hand with a wooden lure, nets, and spears. I spoke with several about the catch. One man who was an eco guide in my class fished all day and caught two emperors (I had him point them out in the fish book). To me that sounded as if a frustrating day. Another went out with 6 men in two Pirogues with the big net. They cought 50 kilos of sargents...a small fish in the damsel family. They sold these immediately on return to the village for 600 ariary per kilo or 30,000 ariary. This equates to 15 US dollars...or 2.50 per man for the day of fishing. We are told that on average a Vezo fisherman make about 5000 ariary per day fishing...so this is right on average. Preety meager life for what seems like alot of hard work in the hot sun. But they know of no other life.

As they explained to me, they fish when they want, eat when they want, drink when they want, and sleep. This is the life of the Vezo. The women fish, or glean the shoreline for shellfish and octopus. They are not allowed to dive or go fishing in the pirogues. Only the men do this. In addition the women do all the other task functions of wood gathering, water retrieval, managing the kids ( of which most have alot). The average life span is some 34-36 years for men I am told. The President of the Velondriake and I had drinks at an epibar one evening. The Velondriake is a group of 25 villages enjoined to try to conserve the regions fishing assets and to try to attain other methods of generating income. He is a white haired nahooda (village elder) of 34 years of age. Needless to say the Vezo men I came into contact with were much impressed with the fact that I was of 53 years and still running up and down the steps carrying heavy dive gear and diving. Most if they make it beyond 40 years are retired and resigned to sitting in the shade playing dominoes in the afternoon before beginning their evening beer.

We spent much time in the village as the market was there, a store which has soup to nuts...including hardware nuts. I only saw one varmint

run by... a rat I think. Usually all huts are small dirt floor reed huts of a size of maybe 6X10 feet.

Very simple living.

Doug underwater

Certified at last! Congratulations Doug!

Doug got in 6 or 8 dives. Once I got him to stop flailing his arms and legs like he was drowning he became much more comfortable. I think he had a good time learning to dive...tho the trip is kind of whirl wind for him; Just after he got here we learned if the insurrection and the coup attempt here in Madagascar. Just when you thought is was safe to travel again... Oh well... we're not in Kansas anymore.

Reefs were pretty amazing. I did one night dive on a reef site called 007. We were at about 15 meters for 45 minutes at 3:30AM. About 5 meters off the bottom I noticed some squid;;;4-5 of them in a shoal. I swam up and they left quickly... but then one returned. I shined my torch on it. It was about 8-9 inches long without counting tentacles. It was maybe 1-2 feet in front of me. It curled up its tentacles and began this mesmerizing color change and feathering of its pectoral fins. It was an abdsolutely fantastic and otherworldly site. Then all of a sudden it rushed into my chest with the force of a slight blow, let go a swath of ink, and disappeared. It startled me so I jumped back aénd began laughing almost to spit out my regulator. Turning around I found most of my dive group of six right there watching the entire event. Certainly one of the highlights of my trip.