The
sail loft in Hell-Ville had offered to complete our repair in a day
if we could drop it off early morning. David was at the motorbike
shop with the main sail when they opened at 7.30am. We'd organised
the bike and paperwork yesterday afternoon so he was good to go and
arrived at the loft as they opened at 8am.
He
came back to the marina to pick me up for a day of island touring.
Our plan was to circumnavigate Nosy Be in a clockwise direct, so
turning away from Hell-Ville. We rode up the west coast with views
out to Nosy Sakatia, turned at the NW corner and arrived at the turn
off to Mont Passot. At 326m this is the highest point of the island
with the road running past half a dozen of the crater lakes. There
are resident freshwater crocs in the lakes and in some the animals
are protected by a local fady.
At the end of the road is a gate, a car park and a ticket booth.
Guides are available to take you the last few hundred metres to a
viewing platform and to show you the walks. |
| view from Mont Passot |
 |
| ylang-ylang distillery |
From
Mont Passot we continued clockwise along the much quieter northern
road. There are still potholes to avoid and areas without tarmac to
slow down for. The vegetation is less altered here and the view
across to Nosy Mitsio fine. We passed smiling faces, waving
children, villages, a ylang-ylang distillery and the island airport
with a very expensive private Lear jet parked outside.
 |
| ylang-ylang tree |
Coming
into Hell-Ville at just after 2 o'clock we had time for a leisurely
lunch at Oasis restaurant. We made a quick stop at the wet market to
buy fresh vegetables and were back at Profil sail loft at the
appointed 4 o'clock to collect our sail. The lady who had been
working on it all day hadn't quite finished so we were offered chairs
to relax and watched her running, working the sail to finish.
We
weren't in a hurry so it was nice to be able to see the repairs –
they'd found more stitching that was failing, some small holes where
the fabric rubbed going in and out of the mast, repaired the tear,
restitched the seam and replaced and restitiched the leech line. We
were very happy with the work.
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