More Salvador

One day we went to a BBQ at Marcello’s house. He had a tree hut for the kids to play in that was his son’s. We had some great local lamb and fresh fruit and grilled local vegetables – a really fun, interesting day. On the way back to the Marina he took us to his Mother’s. She is an artist and has a neat home full of artworks. Most of the rest of our days so far have been broken into by workers arriving, somewhat haphazardly, to do the stainless steel work to reinforce the back poles and construct back stays. It is very good work though so we are happy. Most of the boats are still here waiting for sails etc but a couple have gone out in the bay for a few days and have advised some good places to visit when we check out of here on Tuesday. They are only a few hours away each and very tranquil and pretty with local villages to visit and so on – so we are looking forward to that after nearly two weeks here in a fairly grotty environment. I have put here some pics of prime waterfront real estate.....

Salvador

We arrived in Salvador at around 4.30 pm to a welcome from the other boats who had arrived before us. It is already very busy with the lead up to Carnaval! The Tourist Terminal where we all are is in an old derelict part of town. City blocks full of empty vandalised squatted in high rise buildings, both residential and office. We found out that most of them are heritage listed as they have some lovely old Portuguese colonial architecture but structurally now are too unsound to renovate – so goodness knows where you go from there!? It is all quite unsafe in general but now in particular because of all the extra people in for the 4 days of Carnaval. It is the largest street party in the world with 4 million people attending. 3 million usually live in Salvador out of 200 million in Brazil (125 mil of whom are Catholic) Lots of ethnic cross over between African slave descendants, local Indians and Portuguese. Hard to know where one starts and another finishes really. Even the churches and religious ceremonies have native religious influences. We went to one church that has 850 kilos of gold leaf on it’s interior all of which was sourced here and sent back to Portugal for beating and sent back and applied!! The old part of the town (Pelourhino) which is accessed by an elevator is quite cute and old with cobbled/paved streets and a mixture of old and newer hotels, cafes, restaurants intermixed with lots of souvenir craft shops and religious effigy shops. You can buy replica body parts to take to this particular church and have them hung up for curing of the affected part of your body……hmmmm. I have seen this elsewhere but had forgotten about it. Look here for photos in the next day or so....... The sponsors evening prize giving went well except the sponsors couldn't get there as they were stuck all night in Carnaval traffic. We all got our T shirts nevertheless. chat Eau Bleu got it's first ever award! Nothing to do with sailing however - for knowing how many steps there were in Jacob's Ladder on St Helena!

Carnaval – well what can I say…….wall to wall people and massive mack truck type things covered in speakers booming out fairly awful music from 6 pm to 6 am for about 6 nights but with the 4 middle nights being the biggies. You can hear it from all over the city. It is in three parts. The more sedate (if you can call it that, like a soccer stadium melee) is Pelhourino. Then the city and a beach area which are wild. I have this on the authority of Dustin and Galen who ventured out each night till 3 or 4 am and got sweated on, trampled on, peed on, nearly fornicated on (on a gay type night)pick pocketed (unsucessfully luckily) and deafened. The crowds are so thick that you cannot get your arms up or down. The streets are walled or have shop fronts so you just get more and more squeezed up. Pete and I decided it was not going to be our thing so went up to Pehourino before the crowds and came back down as they arrived which was quite exciting enough, thank you. At one stage there was a 2 mile long queue for the elevator! We found a couple of really quaint hotels with closed in court yards with splashy fountains and sat in them a bit. Thankfully it has now finished and the streets and shops are a little calmer.

We have discovered the nicer parts of town now. Big, clean -  massive  really - shopping malls – that interestingly don’t have supermarkets in them, they are elsewhere. The biggest problem is the language barrier.  No one speaks English. The Portuguese is a little different to the original according to our Portuguese boat people so my one year of Spanish is almost useless unless I can see it written down. At the hairdresser my data ran out for Google Translate so when I made a half inch gap with my fingers the guy though I meant leave half an inch! Oh well it grows. It is now quite dark salt and pepper – the first time it has been it’s own colour for at least 45 years! Look here for photos in the next couple of days.

My birthday! 60! Pete organised for us to go to a gem dealer. Mindy from Wayward Wind came with us. Super interesting. We heard lots about the local gem mining and discovered that the dark aqua marine is mined here, the only place in the world. We spent ages looking at trays and trays of gems and finally I chose an oval one for a ring and Mindy and I both got earrings. A very generous birthday present from Pete! Marcello, who is the local go to guy for everything turned up in the morning with a huge cake! So when it is cool tonight we will have the ARC people over for cake and champs. Out for lunch shortly. Thanks to Rupert and family and friends who have emailed calls etc so far! It’s looking like a great day already……There is a lot of Flemish blue and white tiling around the old town which is very pretty.

St Helena to Salvador

The sailing to Salvador was excellent but for a few days of no wind and motoring we wing on winged all the way. We’re steadily getting 7, 8, and 10 k out of 11, 12 and 15 k wind (apparent) excellent…The boat turned into gym – Galen found a yoga spot and Dustin did push ups every day and made a weight out of Pete’s dive weights and a spare winch handle. We celebrated Australia Day with 2 honorary new Australians! Broke our sailing and drinking rule with a beer with a pie for lunch and rum toasts. Played Men at Work loudly and flattened the batteries! We caught two big mahi mahi just as we were running out of meals (due to the longer than expected passage with light winds) so that helped out. I made up two crosswords on the way – one an 84 question boating terminology one and a World ARC question one for the Aretha kids. Quite hard work really – but I tried them out on the guy sand they work. I’ll try to put one up here for anyone to try.

St Helena

We all went on the ARC tour of the island for the day. All very interesting. We visited Napoleon’s tomb (although he is not there any longer – the French dug him up some time ago and took him to France to be a hero rather than a bad guy in St H) We went to his prison/house but couldn’t take photos inside. Lots of portraits of him in his better times. He lived in his place for many years with his faithful valet and a couple of his generals. Under constant guard where ever he went, must have been galling after his romp all over Europe. The island from the sea just looks like a very inhospitable rock but the interior is extremely lush and evidently receives a lot of rain. We couldn’t believe that they don’t grow more of their own produce here instead of relying on shipments from Cape Town. It seems that the young people don’t want to stay or farm and the older people are dying out. We went to High Knoll Fort. We all wished we could go back to being 10 years old! It’s a ruin really but with underground tunnels and dungeons and parapets – all open and accessible to anyone! What a magic playground!  We drove to the Govenor’s mansion and saw their big old tortoise. The new airport has a runway that ends off a cliff! No going back there! We took a fake photo of Pete on the top of Jacob’s ladder pretending he climbed it.(600 plus steps nearly vertical!)  It was originally built to haul goods up to and down from the top of the cliff. That evening the St Helena Yacht Club hosted a Braii (BBQ) at sunset right on the waterfront at their club rooms. Very hospitable of them and lots of fun. Three guys turned up tonight to weld the stainless cracks for us. Luckily they were on the island working on the new airport! We also have some container tie down straps in place until we can get the poles refabricated. The ferry ride to and from the boats is wild! You can’t take your own dinghy because of the swell. So you call up the ferry on channel 16 (sometimes he responds sometimes not!) then to get ashore you have to grab knotted ropes and Tarzan swing onto the dock!

This day we all went out on two boats to look for whale sharks! We headed back the way we arrived looking out for their tail fins that show above the water as they bask around swallowing plankton. Sure enough there they were! Only eight people are allowed in at once and no closer than 3 metres. It was a bit hard to stay far away as they sort of move towards you with no fear! We were on the smaller boat with only eight of us so we went in each time we found one.  To use a very overworked word – awesome! Pete took some good GoPro footage that I have lifted some frames from.

Spent a day in the town trying to get internet and doing last minute top up shopping – not very successful due to limited supplies for the whole island. Galen and Dustin actually climbed Jacob’s ladder! We left the island at 5.15 to head for Salvador.

Cape Town to St Helena

6 Jan - We had a bad start on leaving with the genoa sheets getting stuck on the fuel cans and under a kayak – neither of which has ever happened before! Anyway we sailed off with sails flying. By evening the weather was way up and poor Galen was on his first ever sail on his first ever watch with 42 plus winds and 4 metre breaking swells! We reefed everything and sat it out for 4 days! Quite uncomfortable but safe enough. After that we sailed downwind very well on good trade winds with our new gennaker out and the genoa winged out. All very easy to use after our old sail – a two man job to set up! One drama – of course – during the bad weather the bilge pump on the starboard side kept coming on with the small amount of water slopping wildly about in the bilge so Pete turned it of temporarily to stop the motor burning out. Of course at that moment the salt water rinse hose let go and flooded the bilge! We caught that OK but it had flooded the two water maker pumps! So we were on water rations for a day and a half till Pete tried the water maker again and found that the main pump had survived! He and Galen spent the better part of the day swapping the air con pump over and we had a water maker again! Whew! We have all been going to knot school and doing competitive knotting – we all know about 15 knots now….

We caught a couple of small mahi mahi and had sashimi and steaks for dinner one night. E sailed most nights with a clear sky and full moon – very beautiful. All we could see of St Helena was a low strip of land and cloud above that eventually revealed itself to be a very rugged coastline with near vertical rocky cliffs straight into the sea. As we approached the township of St Helena we passed Rupert’s Bay the only other landing spot on the island with a fort on the headland. No way was Napoleon getting rescued or escaping from here! The only possible way to get to and from here is by boat up until soon, as there is an airport being built that will open for freight in May 2016 and eventually passengers too.

Dustin and Galen have turned out to be great guys. Tons of fun and very respectful of the boat and all our things. Ready, willing and able, turn up on time for their night watches etc – great altogether…..Both have done their part to save the day! Dustin: spotted cracks in the big stainless steel poles that hold up the top of the boat! – they may have been developing over a while as there was rust evidence but were hidden under the jack lines (see pics). Galen saved the dinghy: We had arrived at the mooring in St H on sunset and picked up two quite difficult buoys that had no lines on them using the dinghy. Then we opened a few drinks and sat up forward congratulating ourselves, and as quite often happens – pride goes before a fall – Galen noticed our dinghy bobbing off towards the rocks! He and Dustin valiantly tried to get the two of them on to a one man kayak! After several capsizes Galen swam for it. He got on board then realised he didn’t know how to start it, so rowed until Dustin caught him up on the kayak. Pete and I sat on the boat and laughed at it all – (once it appeared that all was well).

Leaving Cape Town

We're off this morning at 11.00 after refuelling at 10.00. The weather is good in the bay so we should be able to use out new sail till nightfall. The winds then pick up to 25k or so we'll put the main out with reef one and the genoa for the night. Dustin and Galen are safely on board and we're all looking forward to getting going. A few of the other boats are still under gong some form of work - delayed because of Xmas and New Year but should be out in the next few days. The trip to St Helena should take just under 14 days with good trade winds right behind us - but you know weather forecasting.....!!! I'll pit up trip photos when we arrive.

Happy New Year!

Since I last wrote Pete and I have been to another wine tasting! This time we took 2 days up in Stellenbosch and had a personal driver and tour of 4 wineries - a very different experience compared with the bus tour variety. Our driver John was very informed on African history as well as the current post apartheid situation and politics - extremely interesting. Each winery took us to a special tasting room and at Fairview we tried their own cheeses made on the estate to compliment their wines - bought some. At Waterford we tried their own chocolates with the appropriate wines - bought some! The countryside was lovely and varied, part of the Pirates of the Carribean were filmed here and we passed prate ships in afield! Our little boutique hotel very nice - a restored former residence of an early Dutch family, Coopermanhuis. Stellenbosch is a university town as well as wineries and tourists so is quite busy but very cute. LOTS of security everywhere though. A person on every corner! There is a shop called Oom Samie which is famous for selling everything anyone could just about ever think of! rabbits feet to dried droppings to jam and dolls.....

We are really enjoying being at the V and A Waterfront. a very clean safe marina and a walk or dinghy ride to the Malls and cafes/restaurants. So far we've eaten ostrich, springbok, gemsbok and eland. The nearby beaches are lovely and quite built up with a strange mix of European architecture with a African/ Moorish influence somehow. They compete with each other as to which is the least windy and therefor the more valuable real estate! LOTS of security everywhere again! Razor wine glinting in the sunshine. Seriously - there is not a house, shop, carpark, wall or entrance that is not topped with spikes, razor wire (strands and coils), electric fencing and has a security guard either publically or privately employed. it rather spoils the whole effect really. If you lived here you would have to get used to it and be constantly looking over your shoulder. It appears it's mostly street and drug gang related along with poverty of course. We feel very fortunate to be who we are.....there are huge slum areas just out of Cape Town like Soweto- miles and miles of leaning up corrugated iron sheds (all with satellite dishes). the government built homes for thousands and thousands of the people and less than 20% of them are still occupied by the intended residents - they sold them or rented them out and moved back to the slums! today the rand went down again, the government is embroiled in a bribery scandal and 6 whole towns nearly got their power shut off for not paying the bill, and the trains were all late due to "theft and vandalism".!

New Year was a braii (BBQ) on the marina and was great fun. We all took our plates and ate on Makena, the 62 foot Lagoon - about 50 of us and room to spare - a huge huge boat! I set my sore knee back a few days pole dancing (with clothes on!)

We now have a new gennaker on it's own permanent furler so we no longer have to put it away each use and Pete and I can use it on our own....we went for a test sail the other day with the sail maker and it was brilliant - what a difference! We were all so nervous of the old one in the end and were reluctant to use it - not much point in that.  Whan we were at a restaurant a few weeks back the young waiter was telling us that he had moved to CT from Johanesberg so as to be near the water and learn to sail with a view to getting his papers and doing yacht deliveries. After another meal there we invited him to look at the boat and the result is that he is joining us from CT all the way to St Lucia! We also have Dustin arriving tonight to sail with us to Salvador. He had been following us on the ARC tracker and emailed to ask how we found the boat etc as he is planning to buy one the same. after a few emails we suggested he may like a long test sail and he jumped at it. So we are all crewed up now again. Dustin is 34 and Galen 24 and both seem fit and well, eat anything and generally able. Dustin has sailing experience and Galen is KEEN.

Merry Christmas friends and family!

We're off to a hotel for a Christmas lunch then there's a shindig on the dock with all the ARC people! Hope everyone out there is well and happy and has a great day - cheers!

It was a lovely meal in a very nice linen table cloth, loads of waiters and tiny very rich coursesrestaurant called Dash in the Victoria Hotel. The dock party was fun and in full swing on Aretha when we joined in after lunch. We ended up on our boat for wine and cheese. A big day for food and drink.

Wine Tasting - uh oh...

All the ARC boats (well the crew I mean) went off to a wine tasting at Ayama Vineyards. It was organised by the yacht Ayama who contacted the winery people years ago when they were naming their boat and did a google search on the name and came up with the vineyard! It was a wonderful afternoon with great hospitality shown to us and lovely wine. We all tasted heaps and ordered even more heaps! the neighbouring wine maker also came over with his organic wines that were wonderful too. The estate was beautiful with wonderful views. they are an Italian couple who came here about over 10 years ago and bought the vineyard. They have about 40 people who live and work there - a bit feudal suspect. There was a pool and they have an 8 year old son so the kids had a great time too - especially Oscar who sneaked a few at the very end (say no more!) They delivered the wine down to the marina a few days later by truck. It was almost embarrassing going over in the dinghy to bring it on board! We had 9 dozen, and it was by no means the largest order. I had to sit on top of 18 boxes on the way back!  So much for Pete's big position on no glass bottles on board because of weight! A couple of tastings and it went overboard....Naturally we had to have a nice little lunch to try a bottle (or two) out. Pics soon - internet slow today

11 December

Oscar left today. We got up nice and early and got first in line at baggage check in. Mark had done the formalities for the airline for an unaccompanied minor. Then immigration decided that due tointernational custody issues and the kids running off to join Isis that they needed certified letters from both parents allowing him to travel from SA to Australia to be with his mother! Well, it was 6.30am in Luxembourg and 4.30 rush hour on Friday in Melbourne! Anyway after a fairly tense hour and a half we got it all done and he left!   Bye Osc.....

Cape Town

We arrived here on Sunday 6th. On the way after Port Elizabeth (where we did see what was probably a very nice beach area to the south with apartment buildings and malls etc) we stopped at Mossel Bay. Partly for fuel as they wouldn't supply yachts at PE unless you somehow went to a service station with jerry cans! and partly because the wind got up a bit early. We had wanted to down wind sail but the days when it was in the right direction it was up to 30 knots and with our patched old gennaker it wasn't worth it. So one night at Mossel Bay then down to Pringle Bay for one night. Both very nice looking towns where it would have been OK to linger but Oscar has a leave date from Cape Town now so we thought we'd better move along. Little drama leaving PE -  we went to get our ships papers and passports for checking out only to find they we're not to be found! Working back we sorted out what had happened - we'd checked in then gone upstairs to the bar (as you do). Oscar went back to the boat as it was his turn to cook and Pete and I, irresponsibly but predicably stayed on for another wine or two and left the bag leaning up against the window! Luckily the restaurant was not open that night and we were last there. The bar lady found it the next morning when she opened up! We left Mossel Bay early in the morning in quite heavy fog. We were able to use our automatic fog horn that works through the radio and a speaker up the mast. (Up until now it had only been used to yell silly things to friends on the marina). Even so we set a fog watch front and sides and still had a close call with an inflatable that was haring around in the fog for some reason.... We saw lots and lots of seals, dolphins rounding up fish and thousands of sea birds diving for them, even a couple of killer whales. The fog continued almost all the way to Cape of Good Hope when it suddenly vanished and we had a fantastic trip in with Table Mountain looking stunning as the back drop to Cape Town. the marina in the Victoria and Alfred (not Albert interestingly) waterfront is very clean, well organised and civilised - what a nice change! Very strange immigration form asking to list stowaways....see pics

We are now settled in to the Marina and have cleaned the boat - absolutely filthy after the manages loader at PE dumped clouds of manganese on us. Had to get it off with oxalic acid - we now have very clean feet! the are lots and lots of seals in the marina a and a few sea lions. They just lie around on their backs only barely bothering to get out of the way of boats coming and going. Oscar leaves tomorrow morning after 3 months and one week with us and crossing the Indian Ocean. We'll miss his happy face and awful singing! He's excited to be going to see his family after so long.

The Wild Coast

Aptly named the Wild Coast if you get the weather wrong and end up with southerlies against the Aghulus Current that runs at 6 knots from the north creating 100 foot waves! We got our weather just right and made it from Richards bay to Port Elizabeth in just over 2 days. A little drama before we left though when we had to refuel. We couldn't go onto the normal dock as there were boats moored there (!) and had to back up to a concrete wall. We filled up and of course the boat was heavier and we stick fast on the mud and had to get dragged off by the South African Police!  Anyway the trip was easy with us motoring most of the way with the current achieving 12 knots!  Lovely sunsets again - they benefit from some pollution and dust from the land! We are staying  at the Algoa Yacht Club marina - very old and un maintained like a lot of things here. As we had forgotten to take the keys for the Zululand Yacht Club back we decided to get a taxi to town to the Post Office to mail them back. Well - that was an experience. We had been advised to walk nowhere not even in the daytime. We felt quite unsafe and very conspicuous and once we had got a stamp (no shop in the PO where you could buy and envelope or anything) and walked through town we hurried back in a cab to the Yacht Club. We had thought of having lunch in town but nothing looked safe, edible or clean. I kept my handbag under my shirt under my arm and Pete and Oscar kept their hands in their pockets. Some interesting signs as you can see in the pics! Maybe there is a nicer part of the Port but we didn't find it. Lots of heavy security everywhere. it's quite sad really for a country quite like Australia in may geographical ways, rich in resources and a great coastline similar weather etc. Just a very different colonial history and current political situation. We leave tomorrow morning for a straight run to cape Town - about 3 days.

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Leaving Zululand

We plan to leave tomorrow midday. We'd have liked to have gone earlier but need fuel and it's too windy today. We'll try to get all the way to Port Elizabeth in one go. the locals tell us that after this last day of southerly wind that the seas will still be high so we'll see. the other boats that left on Monday seem to have made good progress. Poor Garlix got hit by lightening in Durban and have lost all electrics, electronics etc. They have carried on though using a hand held GPS, mobile phone and Ayama as a navigation pilot. Very brave. Hand helming all the way to Capetown! Hugur may be back in the water today, they had big leaks around the rudder on both sides letting in mountains of water! We all suffered to one degree or another coming south of Madagascar.....most of the mono hulls took on water, Mindy from Wayward wind actually wrang out her mattress upon arrival, Aretha nearly lost their forestays when they noticed the stainless steel swage unravelling and had to fly a rigger up from Cape Town to meet them here..However we all survived.

Oscar has met a local lad, Ethan and has stayed over a few nights. They've been out to look at his horse and sailed together in Ethan's sailing school boat. He's a keen sailor and is competing in the state championships in a few weeks. We did all our provisioning for the next few weeks yesterday so we're set to go.

Richard's Bay

it's very hot here today - 36 degrees. The repairs to the boat means that the air con isn't working so we've been to the Mall today where it's cool. Oscar is at the movies for the same reason. It will be better with the sun down. Yesterday we took Oscar to a medical centre to have a thorn removed from his foot. He stood on one at his safari and it only partly came out and was still sore and nasty looking. After a local anesthetic and some digging a very nice doctor got it out without too much trouble. We couldn't believe our eyes when the bill came to 385 rand!!! $38.50!!! Pete and I immediately made appointments for skin checks! Really everything is super cheap here. We've found what we think is the best sushi in the world at the Tuzi Gazi waterfront. Been twice now! Some of the other boats will leave in a weather window on Monday. it's very critical to get it right on this coast as the wind against the very strong current makes for truly enormous waves and you don't want to get caught out. One stretch from Durban to East London has absolutely nowhere to put in. The Yacht Club bar is hosting lots of informal weather meetings amongst us all

South Africa - "not for sissies"!

They have T shirts that say this! Well, it's a bit wild here.......Zululand yacht Club hosted a welcome night that featured a welcome Zulu dance - very impressed, but then there was an impala pooh spitting competition. I'm not kidding! Needless to say I did not have a go but Oscar did and a few intrepid ARC people. it was the real deal. Oscar thought it may have been a plastic pellet till he squashed one to see. The yacht club is a little distance from the shopping Mall and the other Waterfront but the taxis (and everything else) are  really cheap so we may not get a car. The South African rand is 10 to our 1 dollar and the hourly wage for general workers is R14.00!! We've got Zulus all over the boat cleaning a and polishing. South African wine and beer is very nice and super cheap. We have trouble getting up to the R50 for a round to use the eftpos minimum. We are happily abusing the situation! The repair guys have started so all is going well. The area round here is a mixture of very nice residential with high walls, lots of barbed wire and pictures of armed security response and snarling dogs - then dodgy looking shanty towns. The Boardwalk Mall is super but there is armed security at most shop doors and no loiterers. The chandlery at the yacht club even has a grill door where you have to be buzzed in and out. We've been advised not to go out at night or stray off the main roads. Things are a bit broken down here with little or no maintenance of infrastructure. 4 out of 6 of the local  people we have met have plans to move to NZ or Australia with many of their friends and relatives already gone. Zululand Yacht Club's wifi is down because someone dug up the cable and stole it! Oscar went off to a safari park for two nights with the Cravens and Mindi and came back raving! They saw so many animals really close up and even had monkeys trash the girl's room! They were is glamping type tents. There are monkeys at the yacht club too and you have to be careful what you leave lying around on deck and to shut hatches as they have worked out how to get in!

Huw left us on Monday. He has decided that life with Laura is preferable to sailing with us! (she didn't like the sailing )It's been great having him with us this past 7 months and we'll miss him. He will now be walking/hiking round the world  instead.

Crossed the whole Indian Ocean! Nearly intact.....

We left Reunion as planned after refuelling at 9am. All of us heading south to be able to use the winds caused by an expected low to sail west. Got involved in a contrary current that had us motoring to get out of it and using more fuel than expected. We finally got out of that only to run in to very unexpected high winds and huge seas! The forecast was for 20 knots and we had gusts up to 42! Wouldn't you love to have a job where up to 40% variation on prediction up or down is acceptable and when you get it hopelessly wrong you still have a job the next day? We've all decided not to come back as dolphins and birds but weather forecasters! Anyway during all this at 5.30 am with both sails on reef 2 a huge freak wave hit us on the port side as we were just coming up out of a trough....there was a huge crack sound and everything not nailed down in the saloon ended up on the floor, Pete's model helicopter flew off it's velcro and hit Huw in the temple. Luckily because of the weather we were all up on watch or standby. Oscar got a terrible shock and went a bit cold and funny so we wrapped him all up and got him in a bedspread to come right. Huw took over the helm with an icepack and pain killers while Pete and I discovered the main cabin bulkhead was completely broken! Vertically and horizontally! We spent the next 4 hours bracing the breaks with ply and screws to make it safe. Luckily no leaks but the cabinets, floor and ceiling panels are out of alignment. The weather remained bad for another 24 hours and the boat survived OK so we were confident of getting to Richard's Bay in one piece. The next day broke calm, sunny and no wind - can you believe it. We then had to hurry up and beat another weather system to get past the Aghullus Current just off the South African coast. Refuelling from jerry cans at sea is not easy, fun or clean. We calculated the distance and diesel down to the last drop and made it OK. We did fly our repaired gennaker which went beautifully and furled really well.  Richards Bay is on of South Africa's biggest and busiest ports - there was quite a bit of shipping to avoid on the way past Madagascar. The wave also tore one of  the trampolines from the hull!

We are now at the Zulu Land Yacht Club (how's that for a name) which is a bit basic but has all the necessary repairers and chandlery. Our insurance company has been brilliant and had a surveyor there the next day for us. It looks like we will be here a bit longer than planned, maybe 10 days. Yesterday we went on a safari to the Hluhluwe Imfolozi Game Park (try pronouncing that), it was all day and we saw all the animals - lions (at a distance) rhinos just off the track, giraffe and elephant actually on the track plus warthogs, impala, wildebeest etc. Very good. there was a picnic lunch and one of the BBQs had been sat on by an elephant and was all crooked. The animals certainly don't seem to be worried by the vehicles and people but they are definitely wild and not tame. Three elephants got on three sides of our truck at one point and that was a bit scary especially when the biggest one started to flap it's ears!.

More Reunion

We've now explored a few towns and been on a trip to the mountains. Pete and I went to St Gilles le Bains and had a lovely lunch in a sea side café where they train chefs. Nothing very training about the food - it was delicious. We drove as far as St Leu then came back to the boat for dinner. The next morning was an early start for the mountains. We all decided to go to the crater called Cilaos. The road once we left the coast was incredibly steep and winding with hairpin after hairpin but beautifully engineered. A few tunnels that we felt could almost not accommodate the car width then amazingly we saw large tourist buses going through. The trip in was about 2 hours of very tiring quite strenuous driving for Pete who arrived quite shattered. The locals whizz around cutting the corners and quite a few parts are one lane, toot your horn, give way etc. We all commented that is wasn't unlike driving in the alps. We explored around the town of Cilaos - not very big, so we wondered whatever it was that caused such a hugely expensive road to be built to it. There were not loads of touristy things except mountain walks and the area is famous for a certain type of embroidery which has a society of women who keep the techinique saved - it's very detailed and pretty. Pete and I looked in the museum and saw that work being done. I still haven't found out what justified the road but suspect it could just be that a few people wanted to live there at a time when there was plenty of money for civil engineering ...? The island is funded by France so who knows.. We had a birthday lunch as it was Huw's birthday. The trip back was steeply down (obviously) and poor Pete collapsed with a few beers immediately upon returning.

.On Thurday Huw wanted to stay around the port for internet reasons and Oscar had a watching movies with the Aretha Kids date and football with a local boy called Joseph who lives on a boat here with his Dad. Pete and I decided to go to the east side of the island and quickly found out why it is so green compared with the west. It rains! We gave up just past St Denis and turned back for the dry side and had lunch in St Paul. The coast road around these parts is right up against near vertical walls of rock which have miles and miles of mesh and netting keeping the rocks from hitting the cars. It is all so dangerous and costly that there is a new road being built out over the sea, it will be 4 lanes and have to be wave and cyclone proof will take years to build and cost a fortune. Poor France! That night there was a Halloween party for the ARC people at the DoDo Restaurant. The kids all trick or treated the boats and ended up with stupid amounts of sugar!  Everyone entered into the spirit and dressed up. Luckily Oscar, Pete and I found by accident a costume shop in St Paul right by where we were on Tuesday so we were well kitted out. Peter from Wayward Wind came in drag so our Pete obliged him with a waltz. Unfortunately my photo did not turn out but I'll try to get one. Oscar managed to look dreadful!

Today is our last day and we have provisioned and got the boat ready. A part arrived for the generator at the eleventh hour and has been installed. The skippers briefing is in half an hour. There is some concern over the weather at the bottom of Madagascar, but apparently it is normal at that point to get some land effect off that island so the plan is to stay a couple of hundred nautical miles off the coast. The thing to really watch out for is the wind against current just off the South African coast by Richard's Bay. We can easily stand off and wait for a favourable wind to cross the current if need be.

Just sitting at the fuel dock waiting for it to open so we can get going. this leg is not called a competition leg because they want to let everyone make sensible decisions regarding the weather but the tracker is still on for you to see where we all are..

Bye for now........

Reunion

Arrived here after a very easy sail and motor overnight. Didn't use the repaired gennaker as we'll save it for the next leg. We are all tied up alongside a concrete wharf in the hardstand end of the marina so it's a bit dirty and noisy. We've had the welcome drinks and got maps (on the app) and a car and are ready to explore. Yesterday was the ARC organised tour to the main big volcano here that is currently in an active phase with lava and everything! Because of this though, the walking trials are closed so we didn't see any of that. Very impressive and rugged mountains (volcanoes) and huge deep ravines that carve down the mountain sides to the coast. The island is only a few millions of years old so the terrain is still sharp angles and the coast and fringing reef in their infancy (in world creation terms). We looked at one of the craters, a lava flow and had lunch. Today Pete, Oscar and I went to Saint Paul to look around and find an Orange phone shop for a sim card for Oscar. It is a nice little coastal town with cute cafes and bars, and an ice cream shop with a massive range of ice creams and sorbets. Reunion is a French prefecture of France so everything is very French - wonderful cheese and wine selections in the supermarkets and a lovely European feel to things but with a laid back island vibe. We're very impressed. I can definitely feel a revisit here one day coming on. (is that real English or just a fourex beer jingle?)

Final Mauritius

I have finally been able to get photos up for the past two blogs. Today we leave at 2pm. This morning there was a multi faith blessing of the fleet which I missed cos I was doing this. It's a days sail of 130 nm. So just one overnight then 5 days stop. Talk then.... By the way have a look at the wine menu pic and spot the funny thing..

More Mauritius

Thursday: We all walked into the big fruit and vegetable market in Port Louis and got some supplies. Very busy with a good range of food but very busy, noisy and god knows what we were walking in!  Also very cheap. Oscar caught up with the Craven kids from Aretha who were very pleased to see him!

.Friday : Pete and I organised a rental car. Huw didn't want to share in it so he stayed around the waterfront and Oscar decided to have a lay day. Pete and I ventured out with two maps. One from the car company and one from the tourist office. They didn't match each other and didn't bear much relation to the actual roads! So we got quite lost. Ended up in the south around Marebourg which is where the airport is. It reminded us of Lombok as it seems to be the Muslim/Hindu end of things but with Catholic churches here and there amongst the temples and mosques. the building were old and shabby and the newer ones looked partly finished. The people had moved in to the finished bit and just left the rest! Bits of rusty reinforcing sticking out of the concrete with washing strung up from them and external stairs going nowhere sort of thing. It looked more like don't care than particularly poor.(I'm going to put up a series of pics of these at the end of Mauritius blog for anyone who is interested.) All the people were clean and well dressed but the sides of the roads and homes were a mess. It seems funny that someone in charge cares enough to make all the telephone towers be disguised as palm trees but doesn't care about the rest of the environment. Another example - in amongst loads of street rubbish (corrugated iron sheets, old tyres, plastic bags, wrecked furniture) there would be a brand new blue powder coated steel mesh recycling cage for plastic bottles....weird.

That evening was Happy Hour for the ARC people at the Le Suffren Hotel. John and Joyce from Star Blazer told us about an app for getting around.

Saturday: Went out to the Jumbo shopping centre to do some supermarket shopping. Oscar came with us and bought a wallet. He and Huw tried to watch some World Cup rugby but the other guys had all gone off for the night at a Yacht Club to watch it and they couldn't find anywhere local with it on TV. Pete and I decided to walk into town, Port Louis itself, to get a roti but after dark it was Pretty terrible and a bit dangerous seeming. We came back to the waterfront to the Labourdonnais Hotel for dinner . Very nice and 5 star. The waterfront part of Port Louis is quite new and very nice with a couple of large malls one with a craft market upstairs and many international brand stores. There are two underpasses into town where the change is remarkable. Ghastly decrepit old building but right next door to huge glass office towers.

Sunday: Pete and I went out in the car all day. We couldn't persuade Oscar into coming as there was more rugby on in the afternoon again! this time we had the map app which once downloaded for free showed where you are and nearly all the streets correctly! We went to Bois Cherie tea plantation and di the tour and museum and ended up with a very nice lunch in the lovely old mansion overlooking all the plantings. Then we went to St Aubin where they make an very smooth agricultural rum - a few tastings and purchase there! After that with no trouble at all thanks ot the app but no thanks to the local signage we found Rochester Falls. Very pretty and lovely and cool but a bit challenging on the terrain after a few rums! We also found a huge shopping centre at Bagatelle - all the super doper international brand clothing stores and a couple of good supermarkets. Also a Trader Joe's type food hall. good for our final shop before Reunion. The rugby was the Scotland Australia game that we won by one goal. Oscar was the only Australian in the Keg and Marlin so great fun for him. We offered to let him put up our boxing kangaroo flag but he didn't for some reason.

Monday: This was the organised ARC tour day. We all (Huw and Oscar finally left the waterfront) went off in three buses to a sugar plantation and shop and factory (more rum tasting!) It feels like I'm being followed around by More Park and Bundaberg, Cane everywhere on the low lands, cane trash on the boat and getting stuck behind cane trucks! It's much the same latitude here so when we all went to the botanic gardens and everyone is oohing and aaahing over mango trees I'm thinking yaaaawn. But we had a very interesting informative and amusing guide so it was fun. The gardens were huge and very well maintained and laid out. We also visited the Chateau Labourdonnais which whilst it's not a very big by chateau standards was pretty impressive considering everything had to come by ship from Europe. The restoration was very complex and extensive due to general neglect and cyclone damage.. Along the way we had a very enjoyable lunch - put a group of yachties down by a bar and ......

Tuesday: this was mostly dedicated to sewing the ripped sail! Joyce very kindly volunteers herself and a good old very sturdy sewing machine and we all worked on it. Pete took tme out to fix up a bit of a rudder problem caused by the Brisbane "rudder mechanics". there was not only the tears to sew but lots of little rips caused by it going over the lifelines trying to get it furled last time. So lots of sticky sail repair patches too. it's going to be the funniest looking sail on the high seas, But if it gets us to Richards Bay who cares. We won't need it down to Cape Town. Pete, Oscar and I all had haircuts. An interesting experience in the washing- they lie you down on a low contoured bed and your head ends up about table height on a sort of wooden washboard. The person then either stands up or scoots around the end on a wheelie stool and somehow you don't get a stiff neck or water anywhere in your eyes down your collar etc. Much more ergonomically nice than the usual version of things for both parties. Take up a bit more room though, but having said that when I think of the elaborate big cushioned massage things lots of Australian salons use - maybe not. On the subject, I've decided to let my hair go to whatever is natural for it these days (salt and pepper I expect) to see what happens. Interestingly if I think back over the last 40 years of hairdressers giving the impression that if I didn't get in there every 5 weeks pronto I'd be grey at my desk by lunchtime the next day - well it's taking months and months and months and still not there.

The Caudan Waterfront hosted a welcome/farewell thank you party for us which was very nice with some local dancers and lots of nibbles and then dinner. Terrible photos I'm sorry - should have taken my proper camera.

Wednesday: We all put in another few hours on the sail hand stitching over some of the sticky repair tape. Oscar Pete and I then went to Bagatelle to the Mall of Mauritus to do our supermarket shopping. It's very a quite impressive landscape with the huge vocanic mountains rising up unexpectedly from flat coastal lands. Lots of great walks all through them but we've run out of time . Both Pete and I would like to come back sometime when the boat is in a marina somewhere for hurricane months and really have a good look around and visit the neighbouring Rodrigues Island too. My French is quite good enough for here where everyone speaks English and French and a tourist version of Franglaise! they even drive on "our" side of the road. it may be a bit different in Reunion where there is no English spoken to speak of.

We had a skippers briefing that afternoon which turned into a huge tanoa bowl (that Dagma and Yens have carted around from Fiji) of rum punch and nibbles. After they had finished with the room that we have commandeered for a sail repair loft for the past 3 days, Pete and I stayed up till 11pm sewing an old length of sheet (rope) onto the luff of the gennaker to try to give it something a bit better to furl onto - we'll see on that.

Finally at Mauritius

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!