Day 9: Ile De Madeline

Today Corey, Ben (from next door) and I went to the Madeline islands which are a pair of islands off the coast of Senegal about 4km from Dakar. They are protected as a national park, so we had to go to the parks office and hire them to take us in a boat out to the island. Apparently part of their jobs is maintaining the pristine condition of the island so they had to come along to watch us and the island. It was weird because there were so many and they were armed with AK-47s….hm…anyways.
No one lives on the island and the only manmade structures on it are the remnants of a missionary’s house built in the 17th century and a guard tower that the national parks service use. There is no fresh water source anywhere on the island so what survives here is either a plant or a bird. This park is a refuge for many migratory sea birds and is one of the only places to have dwarf baobab trees (which are the giant trees with short limbs that are all over Senegal.
They have a local legend in Dakar that dates back to the time when the Lebu people (a tribe that has lived in the Dakar area for hundreds of years) discovered and settled in the area. The story goes that each of the four islands that surround Dakar (Madeline, Goree, Yoff, and N’Gor) has a spirit inhabiting them. One is a male spirit and the other three are female; the male spirit and one of the female spirits made living on their island impossible because they didn’t want to be disturbed. The Lebu made sacrifices to the islands which allowed them to communicate with the spirits that lived there. The spirits were pleased with the Lebu people and pledged to protect them for as long as they inhabited the area. “He who lives is saved” the word for this expression sounds like Da-ka which is where the name Dakar comes from. To this day the people still believe that they are the only ones that can speak to the spirits and they make sacrifices to them. A French missionary tried to build a house and grow things on the island in the 17th century but according to the Lebu, the male spirit killed everything he tried to grow.
We continued our tour of the island and saw the wreckage of a Senegalese fishing ship that had recently sunk in a storm and was being broken against the rocks. We also saw white breasted cormorants, black kites and black shouldered kites (which are rare and are only there because it’s mating season.
The Island is in the shape of a horse shoe with a little lagoon in the center. It’s breath takingly beautiful. The water was so clear you could peer over the edge of the rocky cliffs and see 15ft down to the floor below. The water was a little cold but the three of us took turns snorkeling around and looking at all the colorful fish and sea life. We saw a barracuda with bright blue spots stalking a school of bait fish, bright purple & red crabs, sea urchins with 9inch spines and several other types of vibrantly colored fish. We spent the rest of the day lounging on the little beach and swimming.