EC-Rider Travels

Today was spent at sea and if we thought this meant ‘at leisure’ we could not have been more wrong – we had an action packed schedule of talks and even Ship Pilates or Shiplates (seated) with former ballet dancer, Wendy.

Our day started with a talk by Daniel Austen about Madagascar. Daniel is a naturalist, photographer and one of the worlds experts on Madagascar. He gave a fascinating talk on the origin of Madagascar and the reason is is such a unique haven for endemic flora and fauna.

Primarily it is due to its 88-million-years of isolation after it broke away from the ancient supercontinent of Pangaea, containing the African continent and the Indian subcontinent, and by the island’s relatively late colonisation by human settlers only 2,000 years ago. This resulted in an absence of major animal groups such as monkeys, cats, dog and bears, allowing other kinds of creatures to evolve. Over 90 percent of Madagascar’s reptiles, plants and mammals are endemic to Madagascar and exist nowhere else in the world. Amazing! He then whetted our appetite with a slideshow of what we might see when we got there.

We also had a fascinating talk from blue-eyed Tom, who is a bird expert and explained about the dangers of invasive animals and plants and the importance of protecting Madagascar’s unique ecosystem.

Amidst all this we had our Zodiac safety briefing as most of our landings will be, what is termed as, wet landings on a beach, via Zodiac. The hideous water-shoes Lucinda made me buy will be coming into their own and indeed seem to be all the rage on this boat!

We had a delicious lunch on the Lido Deck – outside on Deck 5 – which we decided was very much our preferred spot. Lunch is the most incredible buffet and dinner is a la carte. There is also tea of scones and cakes, and a full range of canapés before dinner if you can fit it in… it never ceased to amaze us how many of our compatriots could – where do they put it?

We also discovered Deck 6, where there were a number of lovely loungers and hardly anyone up there. With slight cabin fever (literally) Flavia, Lucinda and I did our nine laps around the deck being counted in by our lovely gay friends Robert and David – though the latter was snoozing – or had been ‘switched off’ as Robert claimed!

Later in the day, Daniel gave a second lecture on how Madagascar came to be, and, to be inhabited. He explained, it originated as part of the Gondwana supercontinent, its west coast forming, when Africa broke away from Gondwana around 165 million years ago. It eventually broke away from India about 88 million years ago, to become the world’s fourth largest island. The first settlers arrived less than 2,000 years ago, coming all the way from Borneo (almost 8,000km) by vinta boat. Arab traders arrived around 800-900 AD, when merchants began trading along the northern coast. Madagascar was colonised by the French in 1896 who unified the country under a single government. On June 26, 1960 Madagascar gained independence.

Their population of 27m has a very mixed heritage and their language is related to Malay and Fijian but closest to Ma’anyan from Borneo. Some words are derived from English due to the work of missionaries, French from their occupation and also Arabic and Swahili. There are 20+ ethnic groups in Madagascar, each with their own dialect. Merina dialect being the the most commonly used

After a quick shower we returned for the evening ‘recap’ which allowed some of the other members of the team: Dave, Fran, Guy, Grant and Ronny, to share their expertise on Reunionese mythology, bird surveying, vanilla pollination, bull shark attacks and white-tailed tropicbirds, respectively.

Feeling very well educated and just a little sun-kissed we had a quick supper and collapsed into bed – early rise tomorrow.