Madagascar & Aldabra Expedition: Adventuring in Nosy Tanikely & Nosy Be

We spent yesterday at sea making our way north. We filled our day with lectures, music, and even managed to get to the gym. Our first stop was Nosy Tanikely, an uninhabited marine reserve island with a lovely beach and a small lighthouse. I joined a guided nature walk and was rewarded with some lemur sightings and some closeups of some beautiful chameleons.

That afternoon, we arrived in Nosy Be and about 30 of us set out for an afternoon adventure. After a short bus ride through the countryside we arrived at a small beach and boarded our pirogues: hand carved wooden dugout canoes with a double outrigger. We had five people in ours, three of us from the Ship, one of the guides, and our “driver”. We used hand-carved wooden paddles. We paddled for about 40 minutes to get to the beach landing where we set off on a jungle hike.

Here we were rewarded with sightings of two new lemur species, the Black lemurs and the nocturnal Sportive lemur (we saw just one little guy who peeked out of his resting place, likely perturbed and having his slumber interrupted). We also spotted a couple more amazing chameleons and a tiny little frog.

As the jungle hike was wrapping up the sky darkened, and it started pouring out. We ran for cover but got totally drenched in the process. We sat down at a lovely prepared table for a snack of some local treats and then started the trip back. Since we really couldn’t get any wetter at that point, the rain really didn’t matter. We got back to the Ship at about 7 pm and there was a lively local group performing.