A Trip to Socotra

I believe that basically there are two answers to this question: the scouting of new windsurfing frontiers (hopefully a new windsurf “Mecca” on the other side of the world), but also the attraction for what is not well defined, what is unknown but just round the corner… the curiosity to discover an area almost unknown to me.
“….and why not the people living there?”, you could also ask me….and actually by just being in contact with them during two weeks there I had the possibility to discover so many amazing landscapes as is the number of stones that Socotra is made of …… In fact it was nice to discover that, all the way down to the last square centimetre, they cover the entire island 350 square meters in surface! In short, the island is a huge rock covered by stones.

Socotra Wind Conditions

For what concerns ... , you know what I am referring to, it has been frustrating to verify that what was reported by the different weather forecast web sites had even been underestimated: I mean “triple arrows” (wind map symbols…) from SW consistently for 3 over months a year; by “constant” I mean everyday, night and day. As a matter of fact Socotra, even if it’s part of Yemen is located off the coast of Somalia (less that an hour of flight), and from June until September it is literally besieged by the monsoon, that blows endlessly from the south-eastern quadrant, accelerating along the Somali coast, and finally popping out from the “Horn” of Africa , exactly where Socotra along a few other small islands is located, that are effectively excluded for the entire season from any commercial sea activity, suspended due to the inaccessibility of the sea .
The only way to reach Socotra are two weekly flights, on Monday from Sana’a (Yemen's capital) and on Wednesday from Aden (second largest city in terms of size), that serve the island and provide, during this season, the necessary staff, and include a few “curious” or “not too well informed” tourists.

                     Old Sana’a by night

Belonging to the “curious” group there were three people, Emanuele, Lara and myself …… together with two “coffins” 65 kg each, dragged from Milan to Rome by car, and then all the way up to Sana'a and finally Hadibo arising both trouble and curiosity at the check in desks with the local authorities and bystanders (other difficulties with the airlines were promptly solved by paying considerable sums of money at the check-in desk in the different airports traversed during the trip … but this is a far too old story …). Inside the travel bags there were two wave boards, 80 and 66 litres, 3 sails, 5.3 – 4.7 – 4.2, 3 masts, two booms (and all the necessary kit to challenge the conditions and repair possible boards damages), but above all a lot of pure windsurfer’s “instinct”, looking forward to get into action.

Three local guides were the key persons for the island tour, becoming our fellow adventurers throughout our stay, alternating themselves in these two weeks and making themselves available, without any limitation, to try and satisfy our wishes, modifying the agreed upon program, in order to reach and explore areas that we considered more suitable for windsurfing.

We began by Saad, driving a Toyota Land Cruiser that showed over 135.000 km, and employing Fuaed as navigator, interpreter and P.R., to explore the west coast, pushing ourself offroad, without any mercy for our back and bottom. We reached places such as Shoab and Qalansiyah, 5 or 6 hours away from Hadibo and were able to set foot on bays surrounded by inaccessible and steep coast lines, where the wind, blowing strictly side off, was sweeping at over 50 knots (record measure was 86!) in stormy whirls, forming sharp and over2 meters high waves (at Shoab), that were slowed down by the wind, that I would classify as furious and extremely gusty and was decapitating the lip, atomising it in an unbelievable water spray.

   Shoab Bay

Here my first attempt took place , in front of the village of Shoab and … of a babies joyful audience, including the chief of the village ….(how embarrassing !) .. 20 minutes of “stop and go” (because of the irregularity of the conditions), to be able to ride only three waves and understanding that it would have not so been bad had the wind been more constant and had the gusts not snatched the boom off my hands and made me lose control of the the board …(that evening the village chief punished me and let me eat just bread and water….sigh!).

Just reaching the East coast has been a rewarding trip, we found ourself faced with the sea and the vertical black walls of rock, facading the turquoise bays below. Travelling to the “North Coast” meant other breathtaking sights, where each rise was hiding behind new landscapes and colours, the wide views of red rocks changing into dark and overhanging walls, tormented by caves, and then into dunes of sand as white as talcum powder.

Nature plays

laid down on smooth and plumbed vertical walls, black as the coal….. and in the middle of this dryness, as for a play or a joke by mother nature, a gush of sweet water springing from the above mountain.
The water, streaming among the dunes, creates a green carpet of grass and some timid vegetation – in that occasion used by our guides as the place to prepare the sunset pray, using the spring water to carry out the purification washing and grass as carpet to prostrate themselves in the direction of Mecca, professing their creed. I can guarantee you that thinking back of that mystic moment in such austere context, still make me shiver.

                         On the way to Ras Irisseyl

Ras Irisseyl, the most eastside settlement of the island, is located nearby a promontory where the Indian Ocean, pushed by the monsoon, shows itself in a foaming sight made of waves breaking on rocks spread everywhere(a huge boiling pot…); this is in contrast with the Arabic sea (down wind) stretched by a fetch, that, mysteriously passing over this promontory double its intensity, creating an area of calm water, highlighting the colours of the sandy sea bottom.
In this area is located one of the most important harbours of the island North coast, where rows of boats aligned on the beach wait for better periods to resume to reach the open sea.

  Boats waiting for better weather           

Fishing, actually the primary source for Socotra people, never stops, just changes technique: in this periods is performed throwing the fishing lines everywhere from beaches and cliffs, with really amazing results.

Ras Irisseyl

The richness of the sea around the island is surprising for wildlife, giving the impression to swim in an aquarium to anyone would dive in.
On the North Shore is located one of the many caves of which the island full of, deep and dark (we walked inside for one hour), sprinkled by stalactites and stalagmites and many limestone deposits, giving the impression of a gothic ambient.
A completely different impression we get from Noget, a name obtained by crippling the English word “no good” and reserved to the South coast of Socotra, almost always behind a cloak of clouds carried by the monsoon, that raise the humidity because of the much lower wind (not more than 25 knots [nodi o km/h ?] from SW) and sometime because of some weak rain (that looks like the small drops produced by the fog in Val Padana-Milan region). This climate create the perfect environment for mosquitoes, that here could transmit the malaria. We get official answer by the Yemen Department of Health, that we contacted to plan the entire trip, assuring us that this risk is in general not present, even less when there is strong wind….. Indeed we did not see even the shade of one mosquito; notwithstanding the above, we decided to follow the recommendations that we found in many web sites regarding advised preventing treatments against malaria, typhus, diphtheria and tetanus. A part from the health issue, Nuget looks like as an arid alluvial plain, that divides the more interior mountains from the sea, alternating of stony and sandy ground. For sure it was the part of the island we liked less, probably for the monotony of the landscapes too much flat and repeating. Also along the coast, for the part we saw, there are few beaches with clear water and accessible because of the restless sea (the SW monsoon crash on-shore side almost the complete South coast) and of its strong current, of which we have been promptly informed by Fuaed. Swimming close to Sero we have found an off-shore side current of about 4 - 5 knots at one meter from the shore. This is probably due to the fact the monsoon creates a current that goes back along the coast of Somalia and comes out from the Africa Horn, where it founds the Socotra South coast that deviate the flow to East direction.
A coast where there are big waves, I do say “big”, mainly in direction of Bidhola, on of the many fishermen settlement along South coast.

Roaming around along South coast, I found a spot where to put the board into the water in Mahfirhin, a village located in East direction, where the plain get narrow, bending against the internal mountains up to exhaust together with the road (going forward walking along the coast vertically on the sea you can reach Ras Iriseil in three days). But coming back to the spot, close to Mahfirhin the coast, for the above mentioned reasons produce a right wave (sometimes also a little left, yes, a true mess-up…) as the pure “Adriatic sea” style, with degrading sea bottom, a heaps of breaking waves to have to pass through (so many to make me lose heart to go far off shore because of too long distance), “side – off” wind and “out-side” inconvenient current, that in case of rig failure….. I really did not like it. We stopped there for three days and I sailed the half of the spot with 5.3 or 4.7 and the 80 litres, riding 2,5 – 3 m waves at 300, 400 meters far away from the shore, without going further off-shore on the much bigger ones, because an exit channel was completely missing, therefore risking to find out one mast high breaking waves on my face at 600-700 m far away from the beach.
Everything together with a grey sky, the riptide and being completely alone in the water (except for a turtle peeping out from the sea foams), did not light me up that filling to make those moments just unforgettable.

Mahfirhin

Foward in Mahfirhin

On the contrary I found absolutely unforgettable the hospitality by the local families that, besides to provide us an house to stay, they satisfied our hunger with home made bread (each family cook it for its own consume) and tea served before and after dinner, as come digestive. In the same way it seems that in the whole island there is a marked hospitality and a strong solidarity, going much further from the Koran’s precepts, that originate to multi generation large families (as they say for lack of anything less, “the unity makes the force”). It was usually very pleasant the evening company, having the male families members visiting us: all young guys and boys between 12 and 20 years hold, very curious, but so composed and shy.
As usual during these meetings, around a steaming tea an a dim gas lamp light, we were been told about so many fishing stories, in which also sharks were protagonists, but also about something more serious, such as the inadequate sanitary organization (that has to front the lack of financial resources from the Government and personnel), the foreign policy events or the female figure in their apparently so masculine social web.
On the contrary what is really working is the monitoring of the territorial and commercial activities in the exploitation of island primary resources (we have to remind that fishing is the main living resource for Socotra people), so that on the island there is a dedicated centre (SCPD) that collect, store and process the data regarding all the activities, creating protection and education project for the community. Faued is the chief of Marine Bureau, he organizes scientific diving for foreign biologists, but also instruction campaigns in the schools with the purpose to stimulate the naturalistic consciousness of younger people.
All these show how prudent is the approach of Socotra people to the industrial world, to the development, how much they take into consideration the environment that supports their life and their willingness to go, even slowly, in the right direction by using their own human and territorial resources.
This way to approach the reality was made even more evident to our occidental eyes because of their pride in living and perpetuating their dreams and hopes.

Relax and meditation around Die Hambry

Endemic Flora

On the way to Ras Irisseyl

Just thank to those convivial evening meetings with Saad, Fuaed e Samy, in which a feeling of natural harmony were present, our staying in the island have become a life experience, a pleasure for everybody to know each other, to exchange ideas and experiences, because of a curiousness that got everybody closer both as persons and as representatives of cultures, that at the end are not so different for habitudes and usages.

Friendship…, a discreet and sensed friendship, this I would say it is most correct way to define the relationship settled during those two weeks with our adventure fellows, that keenly drove us to raking around each corner of the island to make us find our so dreamed “chimera”.

        Mistery dune near Hadibo

Considering the scope of the trip, we did not found our chimera where we thought it was logic to find it (behind a wave, in the wind or in an unforgettable secret spot). Contrarily we realized to have landed on it since from the first day, to have lived of it and lost it after two weeks. But we have understood this just later on.

A land where the different elements meet each other and make strong contrasts, where the hardest rock merges with the sand, where the muddy and boiling sea opposes with the one more calm and clear, where the vegetation grows against all my own knowledge, opening breaches where it grows, where the sunny, warm and dry climate of the North coast changes into the more humid on the South, through an colder highland, blanked by clouds (there are 2000 meters high peaks), where different cultures have faced, compared and exchanged each other, but never merged. A land where smiling people, their availability and apparent breeziness face against a so hard and strict conditions, where the distance separates the different villages, but you can anyhow feel the community, where since ever men and women are divided by different roles and duties in front of the society, where different religions have met each other but the faith has remained unchanged, where the willingness to grow up does not anyone rights and the nature, but is considered the a value, that they know how to maintain not to destroy themselves. An archaic wind overhangs on all these, the winds archetype, compressed by the mountains, following down and swirling.
I could further tell about many other aspects each other in contrast, that have made Socotra a fair harbour, both a clashing and meeting land, nice and ugly, so particular and so unique, that you must face and put under discussion even your own soul.
To loose yourself in the loneliness of a landscape or of a beach, having the wind not allowing even one breath and unmanning you, it is so easy as to feel just afterward happy and in harmony, in front of a dolphins brood close to the shore – this is the magic of Socotra, the key of a trip that takes to the root of the life and of yourself, to our and other people life essentials. It is up to us to go into or to remain on the verge like spectators.

From left to right, Arrigo, Lara and Emanuele

Article and pictures by Arrigo Romani.

Opening and windsurf photography by Emanuele Bonazzi.

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