The lodge were we were staying during our time in the Masoala Park was around 40 km away and only reachable by boat. And there was a further restriction on getting there: It was only possible to depart until 11’o clock as otherwise the sea was normally too rough. Since our hotel was only a couple of meters away from the place where we would get onto the boat we didn’t have to rush in the morning.
No this wasn’t our boat, this was a ferry which looked slightly overloaded or at least imbalanced.
This was our boat and the ride to our lodge in the park was nice and smooth and … wet. There were better places on the boat and worse ones but in the end everybody had received a good amount of sea water. The only person remaining dry was the captain. Since the temperatures were very comfortable it wasn’t really an issue … 
I have already mentioned a couple of times the rain we are expecting in the Masoala Park, so where are the clouds in the previous picture? I used countless hours and Photoshop to remove them from the picture … Just kidding. The sun was shining nicely. No rain to be seen throughout the day!
Our lodge was nicely located at the end of a small river alongside the shoreline. There are a number of lodges in the Masoala park but they are far enough apart so you don’t see each other.
The huts were just a few meters away from. Some trees around the huts were giving shade so you could sit outside without fully being in the sun. The first part of the hut was the sleeping room, while the second part was the bathroom and toilets.
There was also a main hut where we were having dinner outside. Technically spoken it was inside but since it had no windows it was still kind of outside. The interesting part was that even though there were quite a number of lights on during the night there were practically now flies around.
View from “the library” of the main hut.
Before sunset of the first day we did a small hike into the forest …
… and I spent some time taking pictures
Walking back on the beach.
“What is this”, somebody might ask? It shows another successful field repair by the famous N208PC repair crew. Uttermost care was taken to not tamper the stylish overall look of the hat!
Aerial view of “our” beach.
The water had a temperature which allowed you to stay there forever. So most of us took the chance to do some snorkelling during our stay.
On the second day we went into the primary (original) rain forest. Announced was a 3-4 hour walk. We wanted to search for the the red-ruffed lemurs which are endemic to Masoala.
At first it didn’t look too promising and our guides disappeared into the green bush in order to look for them.
But then there was quite some noise all around us and for up in the trees movement. “huh huh huh” from different places. They were obviously calling each other.
Eventually two of them were directly above us and we could observe them nicely.
The timing was perfect because soon after the sky opened up the and the forest earned its name.
Bit bottom of a tree
On the way back some of us decided to walk back instead of doing another boat ride. The trail is used by the locals as there were numerous small villages along the way.
Trying to get some cloths dried before the next rain. As those people know how things work here I would assume that no rain can be expected within the next few hours.
Baby swing, just that the baby is missing.
We also saw one man who was working on the finish of a boat. It is cut out of one tree.
According to our guide this takes up to two weeks depending on the size of the boat/trunk.
This is a smaller one and Georg is showing us that he is also able to operate the local boats. What he didn’t know when starting the ride was that the his boat had a substantial leak so soon he had to return in order to avoid getting the new gossip of the area.
On the first day the sunset wasn’t anything special as the horizon was covered by quite a number of clouds. On the second evening however we got nice colours and the photographer had to interrupt his sundowner for quite a while.
Two boats of fishermen are returning home.
When going to bed on the second night it didn’t look like there would be any rain in the next few hours. Obviously was not yet capable of predicting reliably the weather in this region as only 3 hours later I was woken up by a light splash of water into my face. The amount of water didn’t feel alarming and after not hearing any audible rain noise (mostly due to the sound from the ocean) I decided that this small drop did not require any further action. However soon after I got another splash and another one. This was definitely too much to go unchecked so I turn on my headlights to assess the overall situation. On the cover of laptop which was laying on the table next to my bed there were already some small lakes forming which would soon unit to a bigger one. My open bag had quite a bit of water and the necessaire which is by nature more used to wet condition had collected more water than during its previous lifetime. So everything was quickly moved under the bed. When returning into the bed I had to discover that certain parts had turned into a wadi which I luckily could work around by repositioning…
When cruising back most of us had learned from their previous experience and had something on which would not soak up too much water. We were prepared! Except that only few of us got some water this time.