masked arrays on objects arrays doesn't plot

Hi all,
I use a array with dtype=object for mixing datetime and float values, like:

···

##########################################
lionel[ETD-2006-01__PM2.5_DALTON]68>datas[0:5,]
Sortie[68]:
array(data =
[[2006-01-05 00:00:00 33.0 1e-20]
[2006-01-06 00:00:00 41.0 30.0]
[2006-01-07 00:00:00 20.0 16.0]
[2006-01-08 00:00:00 16.0 13.0]
[2006-01-09 00:00:00 18.0 15.0]],
      mask =
[[False False True]
[False False False]
[False False False]
[False False False]
[False False False]],
      fill_value=1e-20)
##########################################

but I get a error when I want to plot directly using
plot_date(date2num(datas[:,0]),datas[:,1]):

##########################################
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
exceptions.TypeError Traceback (most recent
call last)

/home/lionel/Etudes_Techniques/ETD-2006-01__PM2.5_DALTON/<ipython console>

/usr/lib/python2.4/site-packages/matplotlib/pylab.py in plot_date(*args,
**kwargs)
   2038 hold(h)
   2039 try:
-> 2040 ret = gca().plot_date(*args, **kwargs)
   2041 draw_if_interactive()
   2042 except:

/usr/lib/python2.4/site-packages/matplotlib/axes.py in plot_date(self, x, y,
fmt, tz, xdate, ydate, **kwargs)
   2159 if not self._hold: self.cla()
   2160
-> 2161 ret = self.plot(x, y, fmt, **kwargs)
   2162
   2163 if xdate:

/usr/lib/python2.4/site-packages/matplotlib/axes.py in plot(self, *args,
**kwargs)
   2121 if not self._hold: self.cla()
   2122 lines = []
-> 2123 for line in self._get_lines(*args, **d):
   2124 self.add_line(line)
   2125 lines.append(line)

/usr/lib/python2.4/site-packages/matplotlib/axes.py in _grab_next_args(self,
*args, **kwargs)
    308 if not is_string_like(remaining[2]):
    309 raise ValueError, 'third arg must be a format
string'
--> 310 yield self._plot_3_args(remaining, **kwargs)
    311 remaining=[]
    312 continue

/usr/lib/python2.4/site-packages/matplotlib/axes.py in _plot_3_args(self,
tup3, **kwargs)
    279 linestyle=linestyle, marker=marker,
    280 markerfacecolor=color,
--> 281 markeredgecolor=mec,
    282 )
    283 self.set_lineprops(ret, **kwargs)

/usr/lib/python2.4/site-packages/matplotlib/lines.py in __init__(self, xdata,
ydata, linewidth, linestyle, color, marker, markersize, markeredgewidth,
markeredgecolor, markerfacecolor, antialiased, dash_capstyle, solid_capstyle,
dash_joinstyle, solid_joinstyle, **kwargs)
    204 self.verticalOffset = None
    205
--> 206 self.set_data(xdata, ydata)
    207
    208 if not self._lineStyles.has_key(linestyle):

/usr/lib/python2.4/site-packages/matplotlib/lines.py in set_data(self, *args)
    280
    281 self._x = asarray(x, Float)
--> 282 self._y = asarray(y, Float)
    283
    284 self._logcache = None

/usr/lib/python2.4/site-packages/numpy/oldnumeric/functions.py in asarray(a,
typecode, dtype)
     82 def asarray(a, typecode=None, dtype=None):
     83 dtype = convtypecode2(typecode, dtype)
---> 84 return mu.array(a, dtype, copy=0)
     85
     86 def nonzero(a):

TypeError: array cannot be safely cast to required type
##########################################

but the line:
plot_date(date2num(datas[:,0]), ma.masked_values(datas[:,1].tolist() ,1.e-20))
works perfectly. Do I do something wrong?
thanks

--
Lionel Roubeyrie - lroubeyrie@...1068...
LIMAIR
http://www.limair.asso.fr