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Location: 13° 24.4 S, 48° 17.1 E
Saturday 12:00, 11.11.2006
The schooner Maggie B is back in Nosy Be at 13° 24.4S 48° 17.1. We are getting supplies including food and diesel, with the hope of leaving for the Seychelles on Monday. Sunday was the theory, but you can only clear in or out on weekdays.
The weather remains hot and humid, but the wind blows fair for the Seychelles.
There should be a bunch more photos up on the web site this evening. Particularly interesting are some of the local boats. These sail boats aren’t for the tourist trade, nor do they belong just to the poorest fishermen. They are the backbone on commerce here, moving people and goods from island to island, as well fishing. It is usual to see 30-50 working sail out in the morning.
We had a very hard day today to get 60 gallons of diesel on board. The taxis are the ridiculously small Renaults of the 1950’s. Imagine the back compartment full of 35 gallons of diesel in various non-descript jerry cans. Then they have to be carried down to the pier then down a slippery ramp to the Reep, then rowed out, then carefully poured in the tank, then back and do it again.
But the big story of the day is about another boat in the anchorage here. There are only ten cruisers here, so we noticed it early on, a well-kept blue sloop with a prominent fleur-de-lys on the bow. The German owner was found four months ago with his head cut off with one blow of a sword, and placed in his lap! The Police arrested the Swiss-German owner of a nearby boat, and put him in the local jail. But the German Police came out and tested the DNA of some of the blood of the dead man and it did not match the Swiss-German’s, so he was released after three months. Reportedly, the Swiss-German uses his boat as a rum-runner, filling his water tanks with Malagash rum and sailing to one of the French islands for trade. Local gossip is that the headless sailor had gotten seriously behind in his bills for recreational drugs, a situation not well tolerated in most jurisdictions.
All is well for now.