Chatty log | Rodrigues to Mayotte

Rodrigues to Mayotte

22 November

Caroline: After the huge job of cleaning up the boat there are still so many last things to do. A visit to Shoals to say goodbye and pick up our frozen food, pick up a forecast at the met office, last shopping, clearing out. Our Rodriguan friends have been giving us food presents for the trip. James came by to wish us well and gave us yet more fruit and a kind of cake. Raul has given us a bag of mangos and Birgit baked us a big coconut cake. Jefferson came to play one last time with Cas and Alex and presented us with some eggs from their chickens. It's not so easy to say goodbye to Rodrigues after more than a month. The kids find it especially hard and are going to miss their new friends and Simba, Birgit's dog. At 5:30, only half an hour before sunset, we untie the lines, wave goodbye and set off through the channel. Finally, we're on our way again.

John: It feels weird to be setting ourselves at the mercy of the open sea again, especially with a new Cyclone developing to the NE. We've become land-lubbers, the sea no longer a familiar place to find ourselves. We struggle to regain the ship routine, no longer leaving things lying around to fall over, keeping an eye out for shipping and the weather, learning once again to move about the boat without hurting ourselves.

23 November

Caroline: Back to passage-making. Back to sleeping on the sofa in the main cabin. Getting up many times during the night to look around and check the radar. We've got just enough wind to sail with, although, to keep the sails from slapping we want the wind near the beam and have to head 20 degrees to starboard of the course we actually want. We've all lost our sea legs. Cannelle is puking all over the place, Alex looses a lunch over the side. But by the end of the afternoon everybody seems pretty much recovered and back into the passage groove. We're keeping a close eye on very intense cyclone Bento. The forecast is that it will start to head southwest. It's only moving at about 7 knots and still very far away.

John: Even though we have a thousand miles between us and Cyclone Bento, we know that it can reach us in 4 days if it moves SW and that it will likely develop phenomenal seas and very dangerous wind. We begin to scrutinise weather reports with great detail and enroll Matthias in Singapore to send us the Joint Typhoon Warning Centre reports that we can no longer access, away from the internet. Strange, that we should be sailing along so peacefully in mild wind and waves, the sky a brilliant blue with scattered cumulus clouds - seemingly so benign - when just a few days' travel away the sea is going mad.

24 November

Caroline: Progress is a little slow. We're not going to make Cargados Carajos (St. Brandon) before dark. When John is having a rest I decide to turn off the generator to make it quieter for him. Unfortunately, I forget that when the alternator is turned off the autopilot changes course a bit. This causes an accidental gybe. WHAM. BANG. CRACK! The sheet at the end of the boom catches the open aft hatch and tears it right off! I guess we're lucky the hatch doesn't get thrown overboard. Shit. Now we have a big hole in the deck and another job for John. And, of course, he's wide awake!

John: It looks like Bento is going to turn sufficiently southwards to give us no trouble, so we decide to make a stop at Cargados Carajos (St. Brendans). Meanwhile, Caro is sure to guard against my having too little to do... we now have a big gaping hole in the aft deck where the hatch used to be. I'll have to do something about that before we hit any serious weather!

25 November

Caroline: It's 1:00 am when we round the outer edge of the reef. Cargados Carajos (St. Brandon) is a 30 mile long reef and part of Mauritius. Once in the shelter of the reef we carefully approach a low sandy island and drop the anchor when the depth reaches about 10 meters. Ah, peace and a good night sleep. Well, what's left of the night. We get woken up around 8:00 when a small motorboat comes alongside. It's a fisherman who looks after the southern part of the lagoon for the fishing company who leases it and he's come to check us out. We seem to be approved and he's fine with us being here. Ashore there are two quite large houses where fishermen live. Now, in the daylight we see low white sandy islands stretch out to the north as far as the eye can see. We decide to motor a few miles to the north and anchor near a pass between two islands where we might see some big fish. It's a beautiful spot with the different blues of the sky and water and the very white sandy beach. The guy from this morning happens to be fishing in the pass and on his way back stops by and gives us 3 snappers and a grouper. How wonderful. It turns out that we cannot eat the barracuda we've just caught ourselves because of the risk of ciguatera. Only smaller fish can be eaten safely. That's good to know! Later we go exploring ashore. The lovely white beach is endless and in the shrubby centre inhabited by numerous noddies and terns. They are very curious birds and come to check us out, hovering just a few meters from our heads. After the walk we motor the dinghy into the pass and drop over the side with our snorkelling gear. The kids also have their spearguns. We immediately spot a ray resting on the bottom. We get reallly close to it and it doesn't get disturbed. There are a lot of large parrot fish, batfishes, trevallies, and pretty little fish. We slowly drift back with the dinghy to Jocara. Jocara has attracted a huge number of remoras, there must be at least 20 of them. They get lucky that night when we throw all the leftovers from the fish we barbequed for dinner in the water.

John: Thank the heavens for GPs and C-map! we could never have dared make it in here in the dark without them both, though C-map looks to have a chart datum offset of maybe 300m to the west with a touch of north. But hey! what's 300m m between friends, when the best I could hope for ten years ago was 1 n.m. by sextant? After a great night's sleep it's tme to get the woodworking tools out...

26 November

Caroline: It's such a wonderful place we're staying another day to explore the beach. Today there's a lot more surf and the kids spend hours playing in the waves and building forts on the beach. John and I mess around taking pictures of the birds in flight. We also snorkel around Jocara to have a closer look at all these remoras. They're weird-looking fish with these footprints on top of their heads. Some of them come so close you can actually touch them. One wonders how they make a living when they're not attached to a big predator.

27 November

Alex: We're going to another island, gently navigating through the shallows. Then we got there, this small sandstrip with a few bushes and lots of birds.

Caroline: I had a wonderful time trying again to photograph these lovely small birds. This tiny island is a breeding place for the terns and noddies. There are many eggs and little chicks. Some noddies like to make 'nests' of some shells. The bright completely white tern seems to like to lay its egg in the crook of a dead tree. The terns with the black on the heads just have their eggs on the coral rubble. They don't seem too impressed by our visit, but neither do they seem too bothered. They fly off when we get too close, but quickly return when we move on.

28 November

Caroline: We wanted one more day exploring little islands before moving on, but it's not to be. It's a squally day and the first island we go to has no protection, neither has the second and by the time we're at the third and a tenable anchorage it's the end of the day.

John: A disappointment, such times are so precious and we were really looking forward to one more day in paradise with these birds before castng ourselves back out to sea for Madagascar. At least I have the aft hatch repaired, finally.

29 November

Caroline: Time to move on and head to the northern corner of Madagascar, which is 660 nm. By the time we got the boat ship shape it's noon. The weather is much nicer today and it starts out flat, so everybody can find their sealegs before it gets rougher again. Sometime in the afternoon I notice that the fishing rod is bent. When the guys check it out they see that all the line has been pulled out. The next hour John is working on pulling in a big fish. Finally, when it gets close we can see it's a marlin. Wow. It took the whole family to get it on board. Really tricky with that long pointy nose and when it's so big and lively. But we managed it. Unfortunately, I don't really like the taste of it and we've now got many kilos in the freezer!

John: After a poor night's rest, I head back to my pit after lunch to get some rest. A little while later, I hear Alex above my head, all excited, saying there may be a fish on the line. Caro has noticed one rod is a 'bit bent over'. No kidding! the starboard rod is bent over horizontally, the line all pulled out to the very bitter end knot that secures it all to the reel. The clicker on this reel no longer works, so no-one noticed the strike. I am staring down at the tiniest of knots that is all that still connects Jocara to 500m of line and lure, a mix of 200 lb braided spiderline and 130 lb test monofilament with a green/yellow octopus plug on the end (armed with a single small triple hook). I eagerly wind in a few turns to at least wrap something around the reel before the knot parts. It's tough! There's a big fish on the end of this one. I'm highly motivated, not only to get the fish, but to recover a lot of expensive gear! Turn by tortuous turn, I reel the monster in. Caro & Casper get the Genoa in and head further downwind to slow Jocara down. Then they have a go to relieve me at the rod, but can't make any significant progress against the fish pulling line back out. By the time I get to the monofilament section, the joining knot safely on the reel, I'm already exhausted, my fingers are bursting blisters, my arm muscles on fire. I can already feel the bruises on my thighs and gut where I'm bracing the rod (we don't have a fighting belt). This really is a big one. Casper and Alex are eagerly running around, getting plasters, knives, gaffs, whatever I ask for. Then we see our first glimpse of the fish - a sharp pectoral fin cutting like a knife through the water. Could it be? Yes, it's a Marlin! A real, live, kicking and thrashing Marlin! Oh my! how on earth are we to deal with this magnificent fish? He's been dragged so many miles by now he's still struggling, but exhausted. When he sees the boat, he makes a break for it, peeling off hard-earned metres of line. I patiently reel him back in, careful not to apply too much drag on the clutch, keeping his head up to prevent him from sounding. With the knot to the steel leader, I've probably only got around 90 lb of strength in the line. Each time I get him on a short lead I hand the rod to Casper, who manfully leads him up the starboard side. Each time the fish struggles and pulls off enough line that he falls astern, out of reach of my short gaff. He's huge! I call for my speargun to get a second line into him. He's too exhausted to make it now if we release him, and I haven't even got close to getting the lure out of his bill. Casper hands over to Caro, and we get the fish alongside, close enough for a shot. The spear rockets out, and disappears! The retaining line snapped! (later we find a neat hole in the fish's sail). Eventually, we get two gaffs into him and pin him to the side. Casper bravely takes on the job of running a line around him with a slip knot. Finally, using the main mast winch, we hoist him on board. No small operation; a big Marlin can do some wicked damage on deck with that rapier-like bill. He's magnificent; 2.6m long and over 40 kg, I'd guess. I cannot even lift half of him off the deck. it takes two of us to drag him. He has a magnificent sail, deep blue with brown spots. But time is short, sunset is an hour away. Casper and I work like demons to get him gutted and sliced into steaks before dark (in between my fixing the boom vang that just broke, again). We're feeling both sad and elated. Sad to take such a magnificent creature, elated to have landed such a store of great fish for our fridge and freezer. We cut 4 huge steaks for tonight, then another 6 sections of about 4 kg each for the freezer. I've never caught a fish I couldn't even lift before! By the time we are finished the brighter stars are visible.

30 November

Caroline: I'm exhausted again after one night at sea. I was up and down all night first for a ship and then for squalls. During the day I take naps to catch up. Our heading during the night was way of track. We cannot go directly downwind, because with the wind on the stern the genoa doesn't fill. We gybe and take the foresail in and use the inner foresail instead which is easier to fill. This way we loose a little speed, but we make a much better heading.

John: Another tough, broken night's rest. We're back to the old problem of how to run her downwind. Genoa alone; needs to much wind angle off the stern to keep filled. Main alone; very poorly balanced (hard on the autopilot and gets out of hand too easily) and underpowered in light air. Both; impossble except on a reach up to a light beat. We need a pole, but it should be at least 7.5m. That means it has to telescope for storage, and that's expensive. Would you believe US$1500? Not in our budget and out of our range. Then we need a boom vang replacement. I'm designing one with spring shock-absorbers that could also act as a topping lift, if I can get it built at reasonable cost. It won't be simple to machine.

1 December

Caroline: On we go, slowly ticking off the miles.

John: I feel like I've been run over by a truck this morning - bruises everywhere. The stantions are also giving out; the rust at the point where the lifeline wire goes through has weakened them too much and now one on the port side nad broken in two. I splint this one up with a piece of stainless tubing and some hose clamps, but there's a limit to how many I can patch up this way. What with the increased water accumulating in tha aft bilge (stern gland?), the inneffective bilge pumps to clear it (one clogged, the other leaking), the new vibrations in the shaft (bearings on the way out?) running rigging failures... there's a lot to make me concerned and keep me up at night. These light winds and slamming sails put a lot of stain on the gear. Still, I'm at least relieved to be heading out of the prime cyclone belt.

2 December

John: We have a new system to balance the kids' proclivity for playing computer games and our preferences for them to read, practise music and do schoolwork. They are to 'earn' hours by doing things we prefer them to do, which they may then 'spend' playing computer games. This time bank allows no overfrafts! Negative time is not recognised! The kids succesfully petition to watch three episodes of 'Futurama', a very generous and highly-perceptive gift from our dear friend Liz in Singapore before we left. By 21:00 I'm fading rapidly and need to crash. Still, as I lie restlessly in the aft cabin I listen to the sickening crashing of the staysail car and mainsail boom as we roll and pitch the air out of the sails in these light winds. When Caroline comes to call me at 22:30 I'm not asleep, unheard of under normal circumstances. Caro wants to gybe; it seems a good idea to improve our track to head more northward. I get dressed (I need to go out on deck to detach the preventer), get my lenses in (always a pain at sea in the middle of the night) and don a harness and tether (as is our usual practise at night). Preventer off, I work the main sheet in to prepare for the gybe. Over she goes, nice and smoothly, followed by a rapid pay-out of sheet to steady the mainsail under the new course. Caro puts the steering on autopilot, or thinks she does. Unfortunately, the autopilot does not engage and before Caro can catch the boat she's gybed back across the wind. Damn! I'm angry, having worked to minimise the strain of the gybe, then to have the boom crash back over like that. While I'm pouting, Caro still holds the wheel hard over as she was doing to try and avoid the accidental gybe, with the effect that we execute a second uncontrolled gybe. This time the boom vang has had enough, and the lower block explodes. So, now I have some messing about fitting cannibalised parts to produce a makeshift replacement. The old block would not have lasted long anyway. We seem to be going better on this tack, and now I'm awake, so I decide to finish off last night's bottle of South African Chardonnay and read a little before retiring, again.

3 December

John: A better night's sleep, thank goodness. I'm up at 06:00 this morning, Caroline grabbing some much-needed rest on the pilot berth (her usual haunt at sea), Casper in his lair and Alex asleep in the cockpit. The day dawns overcast, but quickly clears to develop into a bright, hot morning. The wind and sea have got up in the night, the floor was strewn with various items this morning, including the 'Bohemian Rhapsody', our much-needed PC laptop that gives us Sailmail and C-map access. Thank the Gods it still works. Amazing. This may be one of the times of day I enjoy most; when the boat is quiet apart from the sounds of the water rushing along the hull and the creaks of the running rigging. If only I could silence the annoying electronic buzzing of the autopilot hydraulic pumps... but Jocara wouldn't sail well downwind on a wind-piloted system.

4 December

Caroline: Enough! There just isn't enough wind to properly sail. When we're only making just over 3 knots we cannot stand it anymore and start the engine. It's noisy, but at least we can move in the right direction. It's a fabulous sundown, a delicate green blue sky with a towering cloud highway turning a shade of red I haven't seen before. A booby turns up entertaining us with its attempts to land on top of the mast. Of course it doesn't manage, but it's hilarious to watch. Then John discovers that the track on the boom is peeling off. Do the problems ever end? He lashes it up with some line for now.

5 December

Caroline: Alex's birthday today. Around sunrise, Cape Amber, the northern tip of Madagascar, turns up on the radar. The wind starts picking up and we let out the genoa. As we start heeling the engine quits by itself. Now what?! It turns out we've run out of fuel and we still have jerry's of extra fuel on deck. It's a beautiful piece of coastline and we're feasting our eyes on it. Alex is unwrapping his present when the fishing rod announces there's something on the line. A small fish this time, one we've never seen before. We release it because we're just not sure we can eat it or if there's ciguatera around here. The land looks old and barren and empty. We're slowly making our way down the coast while John is busy bleeding the engine quickly so we can turn into a bay to find an anchorage. Then dolphins turn up, a whole group of them. They're spinner dolphins and they show us their spinning. What a birthday present! When we start the engine and get some speed up a bunch of them come to swim in the bowwave. Wonderful. After a while they leave, but when we turn into the bay we see a small group of bottlenose dolphins. When we're anchoring Alex looses a piece from his present overboard which slowly sinks to the bottom. Poor thing is really upset, so Cas and I have a dive to try and recover it. We cannot find it, almost get lost ourselves in the silty muddy water when Casper kicks up big clouds. John has a go too and after an extensive search finds the missing piece. Good job. He's also repaired the boom track. At the end of the day we get treated to another spectacular sunset. Colours I've not seen before. The landscape too is different. It's also empty of human beings, there's not a single little boat in this big bay. The land is very dry and half the trees look dead. It kind of feels like we've gone millions of years back in time.

6 December

Caroline: We sail 40 n.m. down the coast in light changeable winds. We want to motor as little as possible now we only have about 10 hours of motoring left to get us to Mayotte. We have to motor for a little while, though, to get us to an anchorage in time before dark. The whole day we don't see a sign of life, not the tiniest fishing boat. At the island we anchor we see a little boat and a tent on the beach. It's incredibly primitive and a man in shorts waves to us. The anchorage is exposed to the wind but it will do.

7 December

Caroline: Unfortunately, during the night when the wind stopped a swell came in and we started rolling badly. Not a very good night sleep. Today's John's birthday which we'll celebrate with exploring and a fudge brownie made by Casper. We anchor in another rolly bay, near a spectacular rock resembling a big canine. Casper spends hours looking for shellfish and his catch is a few oysters we don't dare to eat. Alex has a great time climbing all over the rocks. John and I have a walk on the beach and watch the kids. A wonderful relaxed afternoon in a beautiful place. Mid-afternoon we start looking for a good anchorage, discovering that there's a swell both from the north and the south. There are no anchorages that can protect us from both! We find the best we can, a bay in what looks like a half caldera. It's a nice place for a snorkel. Alex fishes with the little casting rod and somehow gets the hook stuck on the bottom. John snorkels 12 meters down to the bottom to find the hook is attached to a snapper that's in a hole! Alex has caught his first fish, a beautiful red snapper. Now Casper is very highly motivated to catch something too. He goes out with his speargun, and John as a buddy, and comes back proudly with a small lobster. I'm not sure how I feel about being surrounded by 3 hunters. It's great to get fresh fish, but I'm not wild about the killing.

8 December

Caroline: It's time to get on our way to Mayotte. We're not looking forward to it, because our weather info shows not much wind and without fuel it might take a long time to do the 180 miles. On our way out we pass close by another island that starts looking more and more attractive. It has a cave and a sanddune and a gorgeous looking bay protected by a huge colourful rock. We cannot pass it without exploring and in goes the anchor again. We all don our snorkelling gear and swim to the beach. The cave is not very deep but quite picturesque. The kids absolutely love the steep sand hill, scrambling up and rolling down. John and I scramble up another hill under some trees to find higher ground for a look around. We want to get some good pictures. The views are too big and surrounding, it's hard to capture it. You've got to be here and experience it. We really feel we have to get going and snorkel back to the boat. On the way we lose Alex who's frightened of the jellyfish and turns back to the beach. There are a lot of them and he has reason to be frightened. He seems to be very sensitve to their stings, developing rashes and welts where he's been stung. The rest of us are back on the boat wondering what Alex will do now. He walks to the end of the beach, crosses the shallow water to the big rock and enters the water nearest the boat. Now he has to swim only a short distance through deeper water where there are less jelly fish. Smart kid. So, finally, we get on our way to Mayotte. Well .... The little wind is coming from the direction we need to go. Our heading is way off our track and to the southwest. Oh well.

9 December

Caroline: We seem to be heading to Nosy Be instead of Mayotte. In the morning we still have 132 miles to go. In the afternoon I see we still have 133 miles to go! It turns out the current is against us too. This is so frustrating.

10 December

Caroline: I'm not very good at this. I hate not going in the right direction. We're spending a lot of time messing with the sails trying to get some speed out of them. But there's so little wind ... In the evening it dies completely and we're just drifting. We make the best of it and experiment with casting for squid. We've got the spreader light on to attact marine life and the guys take turns casting outside the circle of light. Alex gets some interest from a good-looking squid but it won't strike his prawn lure. After we give up we notice the slightest breeze and start working the sails again. Just enough wind to have steerage.

11 December

John: Wow! We've arrived! We had pretty much resigned ourselves to spending today bobbing around out at sea, but as of halfway through the night we found ourselves creaming along at a great clip, lining up to pass through the reef in the morning so we'll be at anchor in good time. Being so short on fuel, we decide to hold the sails until we have to use the engine. The leading marks line up perfectly, the visibility is good, so we elect to sail right in to the lagoon and proceed to tack up the inside until almost at Dzaoudzi. Spectacular peaks and islets, greens and blues. Ashore, a mix of European white faces and richly-endowed, curvaceaous dark women with yellow-painted faces - the image of beauty. The little 'yacht club' is a friendly and informal shack with the usual collection of lost Foreign-Legion cruisers; wiry, far-off gazes, tatty shorts and T-shirts over skin long-overexposed to sun. A small yard sits next door, full of various sailing craft of all types and materials quietly rotting away or waiting for parts and repairs.

Caroline: What a beautiful island. Green and lumpy, surrounded by a reef with protected water on the inside. It's Saturday afternoon and too late to finish clearing in, but never mind, we're all ashore checking out Dzaoudzi and the little yacht club. I'm very pleased to see they have a washing machine.

12 December

John: I spend most of the day working on the generator, but in the end it still runs exactly the same way; too hot, too little salt water flow. Nothing seems to go right for me today. Even the coals go out when I try and bar-b-que some Mahi-Mahi steaks. Finally, the coals reluctantly glow and the Mahi-Mahi turns out great - with Caro's marinade poured over them on the hot coals to smoke them under the cover. After dinner Casper, Alex and I stir ourselves to go ashore to the 'yacht club' to see 'The Blue Planet - Antarctica'. It is absolutely fabulous, and redeems the day.

13 December

John: I'm exhausted! Just walking around town getting the paperwork done, then finally finding the bank in l'Abbattoir and learning that they won't give me any money on my Visa or Amex... I have to put the card in the ATM and use my (non-existant, or at least I don't now it) passnumber. I can just about afford a loaf of bread (Eur 1.2) and four legs of bar-b-qued chicken (bought from a well-endowed african lady with yellow-painted face at the jetty) for the hungry horde on board to have lunch.

14 December

John: Our second outboard has quit in a cloud of steam. Probably the impeller. Rats! We all took the ferry (a bargain at 0.75 Euro return) to Mamoudzi today and found a supermarket that takes Visa! Wow! We can eat! And eat well! Caro and I spent two hours generating an order worth US$1400 on the Port Supply website that we couldn't complete because it would not let us change the mailing address. Life's little frustrations. Coming back in the dark, we wait almost an hour for a ferry, and were all exhausted. But we do have some yummy stuff to eat.

15 December

John: So today I got to schlep a 25 kg cylinder of LPG halfway across town to fill our Jocara tank and I visited Mamoudzi again to try and get our Port Supply order through while Caro ploughed through several washing-machine loads of filthy clothes and the kids played in the shallows by the 'yacht club'. After 25 minutes on the Cyber Cafe computer I gave up. The web is not as foolproof as we'd like; I keep getting damaged pages and cannot confirm our order. Time to email West Marine and have them process it by hand. Thank goodness for Sailmail! Fresh fruit turns out to be quite cheap at the Mamoudzi ferry jetty; Eur 1 for 5 mangoes, Eur 1.50 for a hand of bananas and Eur 2 for 3 pineapples. I also changed our last US$200 into Euros, getting only Eur 156, the last actual money we have. Everything else has to go on Visa...

16 December

John: We learn from West Marine that they cannot activate our saved order, we have to send them a separate list of items... Sometimes, quite a lot actually, my cruising life seems to consist of working day and night up to my armpits in diesel and grease in beautiful, exotic locations. The beach beckons, the palms wave, the crystal waters sparkle invitingly, and I swelter on deck wrestling with outboards, like today, or maybe down below in stifling heat upside down in the bilge under a greasy engine. It's worse than working in Siberia. The temptation of what lies just a stone's throw away increases the pain of what I'm missing. If I wanted to spend my life being a mechanic, why on earth do I choose to do it this way when I could be in a nice air-conditioned workshop being paid for my time? Cruising's a funny business. After a days' labour the outboard still doesn't work (even with a new impeller) but I think maybe I can fix it tomorrow. You see, even when I'm down and feeling hard-done-by, all it takes is the dawn of a new day and I'm back on my feet again...

17 December

Caroline: Never mind the outboard and all the other stuff. We've got fresh food and want to take a few days to explore around the island. However, it's such a rainy day, it's never dry long enough to take the awning down. We hang out on board all day. The kids have their beds on the coach roof under the awning and make a kind of tent. I immerse myself in a book.

John: Yeah, right, so I work on the outboard another couple of hours and find that the impeller's working fine, there's something else beyond my meagre understanding that needs fixing... It will just have to do as it is and we'll use it gently until either it blows up completely or I find someone who CAN fix it! the rain is a pain, but still, smooching around under the awning in comparative comfort having a lazy day is therapeutic and makes a welcome change for a day. We have made it over to Mamoudzi to send an email order to Port Supply; hopefully that's the end of that ordering saga. Now we begin the 'waiting for the packages' phase.

18 December

Caroline: It's sunny again. It takes a few hours to clear up and take the awnings down, but then we're on our way. First stop is just a few miles away. We've heard there are lemurs on Ile Bouzy that are fed by some people. We find the right place and there are hundreds of lemurs! They're pretty cute with their orange eyes and long fluffy tails. They are fed just a little bit. That way they come back every day and can be studied, but they remain independent. They live in family groups and we saw some babies too. When you have some banana with you they are really friendly and even come on your shoulder to get at it. After lemur looking we sail further south to a marine reserve and tie up to a mooring buoy in a pretty bay.

John: A great day, messing around exploring the southern islands in the lagoon and especially visiting the Lemur station. Days like this are what we had in mind when we planned this cruise! I get to take a 'holiday' from fixing things for a change, and we all get to do some fun stuff. Mayotte is a place we could easily spend a couple of months in, messing around exploring. Why is it always so hard to carve out enough time for this 'good stuff' in between all the fixing and work?

19 December

Caroline: Before breakfast we're in the water to snorkel to the beach. There are some nice coral areas with loads of little fish. On the beach we find some enormous trees. They're bigger around than any tree I've seen (except the Redwoods in the US) and are a type of baobab were told. The 3 guys with their arms wide don't even make it halfway around the trunk. After snorkeling back to the boat John and I get some scrapers and start attacking the growth on the hull. Now the water is warmer again she's growing quite a layer of green algae again. It's hard work. Alex is getting free diving lessons from Casper and learning quickly . He is managing to snorkel down to 7 meters. A quick lunch and we're off to a tiny sandy island that is supposed be surrounded by an excellent reef. Unfortunately, it must have changed because the coral is all rubble. On we go to the edge of the outside reef. It's difficult to find a good anchorage for Jocara and the outside looks to steep and tricky. We would need a good dinghy with trustworthy outboard to get to the good places, but we cannot at the moment. We anchor on the inside, but here too the reef looks a bit beaten up. Late afternoon we tie up to a mooring ball again, just around the corner from last night. We can see that the reef here looks promising.

20 December

John: Well, it turns out the reef is not as good as the place we found first of all, yesterday. Even so, there's much to see and many species of little fish unfamiliar to us, or at least a little different in colouring than the ones we're used to. We get Alex fired up to do an Open Water Scuba Diver course and become a certified diver. Suddenly he's really motivated and is working over the manual and CD-ROM with an enthusiasm normally only reserved for games and Pasta. He picks up the material with amazing speed, very proud of himself when he gets no errors on the quiz and immediately devastated if he gets anything wrong - even quicker to explain how it was that it turned out that way. Oh my; So quick to learn, such high standards for his own performance (and then for others), so self-righteous and voluble with a powerful tongue. Seen this before, have we?

21 December

John: Just one more day playing around the marine reserve, then we'll head back to Dzaoudzi to see if and when our package of spares is due to arrive, ready to check out and head for Tanzania. Alex is doing very well in his OWD course, having completed Confined Water 1 with me yesterday, and Open Water Dive 1 today. He's feeling comfortable enough to stop me and point out my failings in how I fin when I'm supposed to be teaching him! Meanwhile, I get some playing in with the Sony F828 and Ikelite underwater housing. I think I'm beginning to get the hang of it... I may even get some reasonable photos soon.

Caroline: I could spend a week just in this little bay, exploring all the coral bommies and getting to know the fish. We already know exactly where a big octopus has its lair. Alex has started his Junior Open Water Diver course and did his first dive today. He's doing really well and enjoying it enormously. There is so much to see.

22 December

John: Just one more morning snorkel to a bommie... the one with the swim-through and the clouds of tiny fish we dove on yesterday. Then we motor back up to Dzaoudzi (a miracle there was fuel enough in the tank to do so) and picked up a vacant mooring close in to the shore and yacht club, very convenient (although the locals tell us it's not heavy enough for our boat except in very light air). Caro and I took off on the ferry to Mamoudzi to do our provisioning shop. A mere 245 Euros later, bowed under full rucksacks and towing a big bag and box-on-wheels, we made our way back to the boat. the DHL office says our West Marine stuff is already in Mayotte and that we can do the customs clearing tomorrow. We also convinced an ATM machine to cough up 300 Euros in cash. hope its enough to get us through Zanzibar... The kids struck out on their own to play in the water race that sets on a full tide as the marsh floods, with their friend Julian from a neighbouring boat. They need the space.

23 December

John: So, up at 06:30 this mornig to get some work done on the website, enjoying my morning Spinelli coffee and quiet before the kids stir and while Caroline is revelling in her morning sleep, the time she rests best. The heat and light get me up, it dawns around 05:30 here. There's always so much to get done, especially getting ready to leave a place, when there's trips to the bank, post office, CD-ROMS to prepare, clearing out formalities to perform, provisioning, bunkering... Then again, there's always a lot to do when arriving in a place, too. It seems we only have any time at all when at sea, and then we're not always feeling up to much. Right now I'm concerned that there's no wind at all predicted for our passage NW to Zanzibar, a leg of 600 n.m., and we can hardly motor it all, especially with diesel at 0.9 Euros a litre! Alex and I attempt to get fuel using our large jerry cans in the dinghy, but the station by the dock is closed (thought the sign says it's opening time). So instead we set off for the DHL office and airport (to clear customs on the shipment) and spend a wonderful few hours walking the roads, seeing the people, chewing the fat. We make up some jokes about the cows and bats we see along the way, good-'ol father-son bonding stuff. We get back 5 hours later with 2/3 of the shipment, the remaining package will arrive 'mañana'. Oops. wrong language, but you know what I mean.

24 December

John: So today's the day, right? We have a 'Rendez-Vous' with the fuel man at 07:30 - I shall go over alone, the rest of the family being still in bed at that hour. Then maybe clear out with he Port Captain, Immigration and Customs, pick up the last package from DHL, last-minute shopping (our last baguettes?) get the awning down and packed, boat seaworthy, cleaned up, stowed, diesel siphoned into the tanks... should be off by dark, right?