I seemed to have lost my blog that was here! So this is a test......OK that worked so now I have to type it again. Before it was OK to cut and paste from a word doc.....it's have to wait till tomorrow.
Here goes again: Finally arrived at Mauritius. the trip from Cocos was long but basically uneventful weather wise. Some big 4 plus metre swells but we travelled well with them. We finally broke the gennaker altogether. the two main repairs held together well enough but the sail itself was poorly designed and the materials not really good enough. In the past we have not used it so continuously so the faults were not apparent till now. We'll order another for Cape Town. Because of gentling along the damaged sail we had to go further north to have a better sailing angle for the trip down to the island. It also caused us to lose some time and position with the other boats. The others like the Amels, the Oyster and the XP44 are serious ocean racing boats not like our comfy old cruiser. However, as the are cracking along at a 45 angle drinking soup out of straws and eating dehydrated meals with waves breaking ll over them, we are walking around upright, making lovely meals from scratch and bone dry 2 metres above the water! You can't have everything - whatever floats your boat. I'll unapologetically take the comfort end of the float!.
The skies were mostly clear for the first week and the sun set directly in front of us and the moon rose directly behind us. Beautiful! Reminded me of a time once when I was on the evening watch I had been looking at the Raymarine and instruments and casually glanced over my shoulder and got the fright of my life thinking that a tnaker or warship had a searchlight on us right behind but it was an enormous full moon! The last week we had a bit of rain here and there and more cloud. Each morning there were lots of flying fish on the decks of all sizes from tiny to about 18 inches. they are pretty neat to watch as whole schools of them go flying by. One night Pete and I were sitting at the helm and a big one flew right past our faces smaked into the winch and fell on the floor! the helm is about 2.5 m out of the water. We even found scales in the sail bag. At first we thought it was a good sign that they were escaping from predators (who we planed to catch) and they were obviously abundant, but changed our minds to the thinking that they must thing that we were the predator as we caught next to nothing. 3 mahi mahi strikes in one hour but only landed one the whole trip. It was a good size and fed us for a few meals. the last few days we were out of fresh fruit and vegetables so it was fish and chips. We were all pretty glad to see land after 15 1/2 days! I was dreaming about avocado and a glass of wine on an unmoving surface. Huw was hanging out for a fresh apple, Oscar wanted a croissant and Pete needed salad.
We arrived to be met by the earlier arrivals and the ARC guys with shots of the local rum and gift bags with more....that was the end of that day!
