This morning we anchored in the Harbor of a town called Hell-Ville which is on an Island called Nosy Be in the country of Madagascar. The name of the island, Nosy Be means big island in Malagasy, one of the two local languages, the other being French. The port is small and does not have docking facilities for a ship the size of the Sirena so once again we used some of the ships life boats to transport people to shore. As you will see from the photos below there was a welcome party on the wharf giving a demonstration of local dancing.

At the dock it was out of the life boats and into local water taxis for an 8km ride to a different island, this one called Nosy Komba which in Malagasy means Island of the Lemurs and not surprisingly that was the point of the visit, to walk through the islands jungle interacting with the local Lemur population.

We spent a hot and humid couple of hours walking through the Lemur Park on a well made trail interacting with, and trying to photograph, the Lemurs, learning about the Cocoa plant, and getting a brief glimpse of a Chameleon

According to wikikpedia the village on Nosy Komba has a population of about 4000 and it seemed that every one of those people was in the business of making, and trying to sell us, souvenirs/handicrafts. I must admit that I found the constant solicitations "to buy ..." a combination of annoying but mostly embarrassing. Embarrassing at the small income they make for so much effort. I was pleased to hear from our guides that the village is paid by the guiding company for the privildge of taking tourists to the island.