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Duncan Murrell - A Whale of a Time

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Duncan Murrell - A Whale of a Time

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  • After leaving Antanambe I faced a 15 mile paddle across a stretch of unprotected ocean, with the biggest ocean swells that I had encountered. The waves generated by the steadily increasing wind were really daunting, especially as sometimes they seemed to be coming from two different directions. My kayak is very stable, but the deck was leaking quite a lot, so I had to keep stopping to pump the water out, and at the same time stop the kayak from being swung around broadside to the oncoming waves, which would have risked getting swamped and capsizing. Unfortunately the prevailing wind was from the SE, and because of my required course to get to the islands the waves were approaching too close to my beam.<br />
To counter this I had to keep tacking and trying to head to the east of the outer island to compensate for any drift. I also had to avoid running directly with the waves because they were so big that they would have washed over my stern or slewed me broadside to the wave, and an inevitable capsize! I had to maintain my concentration to keep the waves on the quarter. As I got closer to the islands I could see the massive breakers smashing onto the rocks; it was one of the most unnerving situations that I have ever been in. I was level with the closest island in the group and rather than trying to run with the waves I decided to go in reverse. The safest angle for any boat to handle big seas is to head into the swells and ride up over them; you offer the least resistance and can maintain the best possible control of your craft. I was allowing the oncoming waves to drive me backwards to where I wanted to go. My heart raced every time a monster wave bore down on me and I rode up and over it. It took a long time but I had no choice. When I was close enough, I could see a break in the coral reef protecting the islands, and I turned my stern into the waves, and surfed towards safety whilst glancing over my shoulder to brace my kayak with my paddle for each surging wave.
    Kayaking-Madagascar-journey24.jpg
  • Every time I passed any coastal communities in my kayak I attracted so much interest from the local people and especially the children, because I they had never ever seen a foreigner kayaking along the coast in Madagascar before.
    Kayaking-Madagascar-journey19.jpg
  • It was lovely paddling around the protected shallow lagoon between the three small islets of Nosy Atafana Marine Park but the currents were very strong. I observed a lot of fish in the sea in and around the islets.
    Kayaking-Madagascar-journey31.jpg
  • Inside the protective barrier of the islands and coral reefs there was a beautiful tranquil lagoon. Beyond the tranquillity the Indian Ocean was still hurling waves and creating explosions of spray. I wanted to investigate the biggest breaks on a huge outcrop of bare rock on the outer side of the islands. I clambered up on to the rock and watched the massive swells that had travelled thousands of miles across some of the most tempestuous seas on the planet colliding with a boulder the size of a house. It was an awesome spectacle of the power of the ocean. I took some dramatic photographs but wanted to capture the perfectly timed moment of maximum impact. I dashed out onto the rock to a position that I thought was out of reach of the waves and quickly retreated to avoid the spray. They seemed to be consistently hitting a maximum height but all of a sudden a monster wave crept in unnoticed from a slightly different angle and hit me from the side. I spun around to face it and was engulfed in a surging mass of energised water; it felt like being hit by a car! I was swept off my feet and desperately tried to arrest my slide towards the foaming cauldron below, and to protect my camera. I just managed to save myself from what could have been a desperate plight if I had been swept into the sea. I felt pain, and the first thing that I noticed was that my arm was badly scraped; then I could see that I was standing in a pool of blood. I lifted my foot up and winced at the sight of a huge gash; it was very painful and I couldn’t stand on it. The infected sores on my shins and feet were still causing me some discomfort, especially at night. I wasn’t looking forward to going to bed that night because I wasn’t expecting to be able to find any comfortable positions. When I hobbled back to camp I cleaned and dried my camera and lens, but that camera body and my essential wide-angle zoom lens were now out of commission.
    Kayaking-Madagascar-journey28.jpg
  • I was discovering how unpredictable the weather is along the coast of Madagascar and got caught in a few bad squalls including one on the afternoon of my 50th birthday. I paddled back to the mainland from Nosy Boraha and camped on the long spit that extends out into the channel. Shortly after setting off the next day I had the next mishap; the wooden rudder yoke of my kayak broke, making it virtually impossible to steer my kayak in the big ocean swells and get ashore without capsizing in the surf. I had heard the usual surfeit of shark attack stories involving tiger sharks along the east coast so I decided to err on the side of caution and not enter the water to attempt a repair so I had to try to do it by crawling along the back deck of the kayak and reaching out with extended arms. As I was doing it the kayak was drifting ever near the breaking surf on the steep beach, and waves were swamping the cockpit, so I had to keep crawling back into the cockpit to pump out the water. Eventually, with my arms fully extended and frequent duckings of my head underwater, I was able to make a splint for the broken yoke using some wooden cooking utensils all held together with tape, straps and cable ties. It wasn’t a moment too soon as my kayak was just about to be swept ashore into the pounding surf! But that wasn’t the end of the day’s mishaps because when I got back into the kayak I realized that I had omitted to secure my paddle and it had been swept away by the waves! Fortunately I always carry a spare paddle and I spent the rest of the day paddling around the area trying to find the lost paddle but to no avail. Everything just kept going from bad to worse, and I was less than a month into my trip.
    Kayaking-Madagascar-journey15.jpg
  • Kayaking-Madagascar-journey26.jpg
  • After leaving Antanambe I faced a 15 mile paddle across a stretch of unprotected ocean, with the biggest ocean swells that I had encountered. The waves generated by the steadily increasing wind were really daunting, especially as sometimes they seemed to be coming from two different directions. My kayak is very stable, but the deck was leaking quite a lot, so I had to keep stopping to pump the water out, and at the same time stop the kayak from being swung around broadside to the oncoming waves, which would have risked getting swamped and capsizing. Unfortunately the prevailing wind was from the SE, and because of my required course to get to the islands the waves were approaching too close to my beam.<br />
To counter this I had to keep tacking and trying to head to the east of the outer island to compensate for any drift. I also had to avoid running directly with the waves because they were so big that they would have washed over my stern or slewed me broadside to the wave, and an inevitable capsize! I had to maintain my concentration to keep the waves on the quarter. As I got closer to the islands I could see the massive breakers smashing onto the rocks; it was one of the most unnerving situations that I have ever been in. I was level with the closest island in the group and rather than trying to run with the waves I decided to go in reverse. The safest angle for any boat to handle big seas is to head into the swells and ride up over them; you offer the least resistance and can maintain the best possible control of your craft. I was allowing the oncoming waves to drive me backwards to where I wanted to go. My heart raced every time a monster wave bore down on me and I rode up and over it. It took a long time but I had no choice. When I was close enough, I could see a break in the coral reef protecting the islands, and I turned my stern into the waves, and surfed towards safety whilst glancing over my shoulder to brace my kayak with my paddle for each surging wave.
    Kayaking-Madagascar-journey25.jpg
  • Kayaking-Madagascar-journey29.jpg
  • Kayaking-Madagascar-journey27.jpg
  • Kayaking-Madagascar-journey30.jpg
  • Kayaking-Madagascar-journey32.jpg
  • This was the first little town that I had arrived at for some distance. Antanambe is a gateway town to Mananara Nord National Park. The people there were very inquisitive and friendly, particularly in this little shop where I enjoyed a refreshing cup of tea from a thermos with some snacks. I remember startling a small boy on the beach when I first arrived. He was playing with a football in the shallows and when he saw me he was so startled that he ran away and left his ball behind: it was if he had seen a ghost or an alien.
    Kayaking-Madagascar-journey21.jpg
  • My next destination was to attempt to get out to Nosy Atafana, a small group of three islands surrounded by a coral reef just to the north of Antanambe, that constitutes one of only four protected marine parks in Madagascar. I was able to buy some fresh supplies at Antanambe for the trip. It was the first time that I had actually seen any of the fish species that were on sale in the market. Most of the marine habitats that I had observed along the way so far were very sparsely populated with fish.
    Kayaking-Madagascar-journey22.jpg
  • My next destination was to attempt to get out to Nosy Atafana, a small group of three islands surrounded by a coral reef just to the north of Antanambe, that constitutes one of only four protected marine parks in Madagascar. I was able to buy some fresh supplies at Antanambe for the trip. It was the first time that I had actually seen any of the fish species that were on sale in the market. Most of the marine habitats that I had observed along the way so far were very sparsely populated with fish.
    Kayaking-Madagascar-journey23.jpg