Today we had hoped to rent a nice covered boat to cruise around the island of Sainte Marie.  Unfortunately, this didn’t happen.  First, nobody would cruise up the eastern side of the island in the open Indian Ocean, saying it was too dangerous, but that we could tour the other side.  This would have been fine, but they didn’t have any boats with a top, which meant we would not have any protection from either sun or rain, and we would have to share with 6 other people who had also asked to do the same thing.  Who would have thought that boats would be so hard to find on an island populated around tourism, and we’re not even in the high tourist season–I think there are more vacant cabins here than occupied ones at the moment?

In the end, we decided to stay around the resort for the day and relax.  This turned out to be a very good decision, as we found out some interesting news later in the day during dinner.  It would seem that the boat they had offered us, ran into some misfortune!  Nothing tragic, but the boat did break down way out in the channel and they had to call in a tow boat to get everyone safely back into shore and end the tour early.  So not only are boats difficult to find here, but apparently the boats they do have are not in the best condition.

Our day around the hotel was relaxing.  We spent a lot of time swimming, enjoyed a nice lunch, spent some more time swimming, enjoyed a nice dinner, had another game of pool, and then it was time for bed.

The food here at the Soanambo has been fabulous.  I had a wonderful seafood pasta plate for lunch today.  My dinner was an incredible peppercorn zebu steak that was cooked to perfection.

I didn’t take many pictures today, but here are a few…

Dave’s lunch.  Dinner was even better, but I didn’t get a photo…

This might be tomorrow’s lunch wandering around the guest cabins?

I spotted this crab on the pathway at night on the way back to our cabin…

We awoke at 4:45 this morning to get ready to leave for the airport for our flight to Ile Sainte Marie.  Nadine and I plus her family accounted for 7 of the 12 passengers on this flight, so we had lots of room on the 72-seat ATR plane.

Like other flights in Madagascar, this one is not very far; only about 325 km when measuring a straight line distance.  Total flight time would be about 50 minutes.

Below is a close-up map of Ile Sainte Marie.

One bit of good news is that Cyclone Clovis seems to have taken a turn and moved further to the south than expected, so our weather here is fantastic.  It seems we successfully dodged another storm.
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Ile Sainte Marie is an island just off the east coast of Madagascar (but still part of Madagascar) in the Indian Ocean.  The island itself is about 50 km from top to bottom, but no more than about 6 km across at its widest point.  We would arrive at the airport, which is located on the ocean at the extreme southern end of the island.

The girls are excited about the trip…
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Here are some photos from the plane just before landing…

Below is a photo from the plane just after landing.

Once inside the terminal building, we headed back outside and waited for the porters to gather our luggage and bring them to the van to take us to the hotel.

Here are some pictures of our plane…

Just outside the terminal building, our hotel has a small building of its own to greet it’s guests as they arrive.  They provide a nice lounge to relax in while waiting for luggage.  I just can’t figure out what is taking them so long to get our luggage.  There were only 12 people on the plane, so how long can it take?

Looking back at the airport terminal from the hotel lounge…

Dave waiting in the lounge for the luggage…

Here’s a map of Ile Sainte Marie.  You can see our hotel, the Soanambo Hotel shown near the bottom of the island, not far from the airport.

Once our luggage was loaded into the hotel van, we headed for the Soanambo Hotel, which is only a couple of kilometres from the airport.

Here we are on the main road up the island of Sainte Marie.

We arrived at our hotel and checked in.  It is a very nice place, and below are a few photos.

Here is the pier across the lagoon, as seen from the restaurant.

This image is looking up the beach.  Our cabin would be a fair walk up the beach.

Looking back at the restaurant from the pier…

Drinking fresh coconuts upon arrival…

At this point, I stopped taking photos for the day, so I don’t have any more to post.

In the afternoon, we took a taxi up the road to the village.  It was about 7 km of very bad roads.  Not much of a town really.  This is a very small island, and the resorts are the main reason anybody is here.
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Later that evening we had a swim in the pool, a very nice dinner by the water and a game of pool before going to bed.