Madagascar - Of Time and Tides in the Barren Islands
Off the west coast of Madagascar in the Mozambique Channel is a group of flat coral islands called The Barren Islands. Until 2000 they were uninhabited.
Off the west coast of Madagascar in the Mozambique Channel is a group of flat coral islands called The Barren Islands. Until 2000 they were uninhabited, as water is hard to find on the islands and there are few resources to sustain human settlement.
The island continent of Madagascar is a fascinating destination for the adventurous surfer or traveler
The islands are now inhabited year round by a contingent of the Vezo people, a tribal people of coastal Madagascar who sailed their distinctive, finely crafted boats from the mainland and fish for their living. They have dug wells on land to find water to drink and grow vegetables, making residence on the islands possible.
Arrival in the Barren Islands with all our stuff - surfboards and video gear to film an episode for French television.
We arrived in Antananarivo and started to make our arrangements to get to the coast, which is not easy. The west coast of Madagascar is remote, with bad roads in a country famous for bad roads and many bandit gangs engaged in rustling cattle in this dry ranching country.
Western Madagascar is Zebu cattle country - dry plains, ideal for grazing.
After a great deal of haggling over the price in French, we hired a series of taxi brousse (bush taxis) to reach the coast at the town of Maintirano, where we met the representatives of Blue Ventures, an NGO with a fisheries management programme in the Barren Islands.
There are loads of antique Renault and Citroen taxis plying the streets of the quirky capital city of Antananarivo
Blue Ventures has been working with the Vezo people on sustainable fishing practices for these remote islands and we would be traveling from Maintirano in one of their boats. They had brokered an arrangement for us with the Vezo to camp on one of the islands.
Beautiful sunrise somewhere in the vast open plains of western Madagascar
Making progress in a taxi brousse in western Madagascar
After several days of preparations in Maintirano, we left at sunrise with a fully-loaded boat, with all the fuel, food and water we would need to camp and surf for a week in the islands. Fortunately, the crossing was calm and we arrived in the late morning without getting anything too wet. We set up the tents in a grove of casuarina trees, for shade and wind protection.
The Last Chance Hotel in Western Madagascar
We had done a lot of research on possible surfing locations in the Islands and set out in earnest with the video crew the next morning. The critical factor in this area as with Madagascar as a whole, is the wind. Specifically, the relentless southeast tradewind that affects every wave in the area of these completely low and flat islands, so the earlier we can start on the calm mornings, the better.
Media camping in the Barren Islands of Madagascar centers around the generator, the only source of electricity. No electricity, no images.
The Barren Islands are a group of low-lying islands in the Mozambique Channel, surrounded by coral reefs
We found and surfed a series of reef waves over the next few days as the southwest groundswell faded to almost nothing, getting some good video footage and still images in the can. We had downloaded all the forecast data we could get while we had a signal on the mainland, but there was no phone or internet signal anywhere in the Barren Islands. We had to wait and see what might happen for more waves while we still had the food and fuel supplies to continue camping.
Erwan Simon from France, surfing in the Barren Islands of Madagascar
We reviewed again the 15 day forecast charts we had downloaded previously while on the mainland and there was another swell from the southwest forecasted to arrive in two days, but the longer-throw forecasts for the Indian Ocean are only 50% (or less) accurate.
Low tide conditions reveal an ocean of white sand, which in a few hours, will be completely covered at high tide
While waiting to see what might happen for waves, we focussed on tasks like gathering and stockpiling firewood to have our campsite running smoothly and exploring the island on foot. Not with the boat, to save limited outboard motor fuel, so we would have petrol if the forecast did verify and we did have more swell.
Beachcombing in the Barren Islands of Madagascar
We learned more about the Vezo people and why they had relocated to the harsh environment of the Barren Islands from the comparatively lush mainland of Madagascar. It seemed to have a lot to do with traditional “fady”, a set of ancestral rules governing spiritual and secular activities.
The Vezo believe that certain areas on the mainland are considered “fady” and they cannot live there, despite population pressures and clan rivalries motivating families to expand, so they decided to try to live full-time in the Barren Islands where there were no “fady” restrictions or constraints applying to the islands.
For the Vezo people, their elegant sailing boats are the center of their culture
On the day the waves were supposed to be the biggest on our possibly outdated long-term charts, we could see small waves breaking at our “indicator” wave, which had been flat for several days. If there were small waves breaking here, it meant there would be bigger waves on the more exposed parts of the reefs that surround the Barren Islands.
Sam Bleakley from the UK on one of the better days of waves in the Barren Islands
We set out in the boat for a right reef break we had surfed when the swell was small. We pulled up to see two meters of fresh southwest swell in a light southeast wind. The video crew were stoked to get some footage in bigger waves and we surfed all morning in perfect conditions, at a spot that most likely had never been surfed before our arrival in the Barren Islands.
Sam Bleakley from the UK, surfing in the Indian Ocean
Erwan Simon from France, surfing in the Indian Ocean
Emiliano Cataldi, surfing in the Indian Ocean
We had our eye on a wave on the Madagascar mainland, a left point wave that was inaccessible by road. It was impossible to drive there even with an offroad 4x4, as there were simply no roads in the area.
The left point on mainland Madagascar, inaccessible by road, was a short trip across the Mozambique Channel from the Barren Islands
While it would make sense to try and access this wave from the mainland, it was actually more efficient to do so from the Barren Islands, as it was a shorter boat trip than from any starting point on the west coast of the mainland. Thanks to our frugal use of gasoline, there was still quite a bit of fuel in the 200 liter barrel we had brought over from the mainland. We calculated carefully and determined we had enough petrol available to make a trip to this left point on the mainland and back to the campsite in the Barren Islands in one day.
The left point featured waves breaking for hundreds of meters to the north
The left point was small, but had great shape - just needs a stronger swell
With no electricity at night other than from our generator, everyone was usually asleep in their tent by 9pm, making waking up early in the predawn darkness easy. We had some coffee with hot water from the night before, then packed the boat with boards, cameras and extra water and some food, in case something went wrong.
It was an uneventful two-hour trip to the mainland, with a beautiful sunrise behind the mountains. We navigated to the southeast by compass and GPS, landing on shore to the north of the main point, where the waves had dissipated most of their energy.
Sam Bleakley, going left in the Indian Ocean
We hiked up the beach to a clearing in front of the point, where we made a day camp under some shade trees with food and water for later. Despite the remote location, it was clear the area was accessed regularly as there were several recent campfires and the mandatory empty plastic water bottles and other plastic litter scattered around the area. People do come here; yes, but there was no evidence of anyone surfing, but that would certainly be possible.
We surfed all morning in great conditions, long head-high lefts down the point towards the distant lagoon, so long that it was more efficient to get out of the water at the end of the wave and walk back up the beach than paddle.
The videographers ranged the point, getting good angles from various locations along the shoreline. We had to be conservative with batteries, as there was no recharging anywhere around here, no electricity available until we got back to our generator in the Barren Islands.
Vezo fishermen, preparing their nets at sunset as they do most of their fishing at night
Emiliano Cataldi from Rome, Italy, surfing in the Indian Ocean
We packed up and left the point in the late afternoon, with plenty of time to get across the Indian Ocean to our campsite in the Barren Islands before nightfall. After a few more days in the islands, it was time to go back to the mainland as per our calculations; we were running short of food, bottled water and petrol for the outboard engines.
The island continent of Madagascar is as big as California and has limitless possibilities for adventure
Sam Bleakley, surfing in the clean water of the Indian Ocean, far offshore from western Madagascar
We had enough to make the four-hour trip back to the mainland at Maintirano, that was about it and we did not want to run out of fuel while still out in the Indian Ocean in a heavily-laden open boat!
Emiliano Cataldi, surfing in the Barren Islands of Madagascar
We said our goodbyes to the Vezo people, having come to admire their fierce resilience and adaptability in living in such an inhospitable place and knowing there are people out there in this world who do things on their own terms, living wild and living free. We gave them most of our remaining supplies of water and food.
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