Eight Days a Week, Welcome to Madagascar!….. 25 October 2012 (Eastern Hemisphere, +3 UTC) Dear F&F, Well we\’re here! 8 days, 10 hours and overall, a pretty nice trip. Friends Dave and Kathy on \”Sunflower\” should be here tomorrow afternoon and may be in for a blustery night according to the weather. There are two …
At The \”Top\”, Cap d\’ Ambre, Madagascar….. 25 October 2012 (Eastern Hemisphere +3 UTC) Dear F&F, Land Ho! at 5:30 local time, we spotted several hills ashore on Northern Madagascar from about 25 miles away. We\’ve flown the spinnaker all night and it was a lovely night and sail. The winds were from behind us …
A Slow Day….. 24 October 2012 (Eastern Hemisphere) Dear F&F, Yesterday was a slow one. It started out fast but then we hit a strong and unexpected \”head current\” which retarded our speed up to 2 knots for awhile! This along with the diminishing winds (as predicted), have slowed us considerably. Yesterday\’s run was a …
We\’re Getting Close….. 23 October 2012 (Eastern Hemisphere) Dear F&F, Last night was a beautiful sail. The seas at only 2 meters, long and pretty smooth. The wind has been around 17-20 knots just aft the port beam, but we\’re able to carry our genoa winged out to weather on the pole. We\’re starting to …
Thoughts from the West Indian Ocean….. 22 October 2012 (Eastern Hemisphere) Dear F&F, We left Los Angeles, California 5 years ago. So much has happened. Yesterday \”Beach House\” was literally half way round the world from where we started. Playing on the old riddle, \”How far can you run into the forest?\”…..\”Half way, as beyond …
Thoughts from the Mascarene Plateau….. 20 October 2012 (Eastern Hemisphere) Dear F&F, As I begin this blog, it\’s 6:45 a.m. local time and I\’ve just had to wipe the spray from the cockpit off the keyboard! It\’s a bit \”boisterous\” out here…:-) We\’ve had two reefs in the main and the staysail up since sunset …
What a difference a day makes!….. 19 October 2012 (Eastern Hemisphere) Dear F&F, We\’re just completing our second day at sea and surprisingly, we\’ll do around 170+ miles. I say surprisingly, because yesterday we had at least a one knot \”counter current\”. This is a phenomenon where the counter clockwise circulation of the Southern Hemisphere …
Photographs and Memories….. 18 October 2012 (Eastern Hemisphere) Dear F&F, We left Peros Banhos yesterday around 10:30 a.m. and had a slow but lovely sail all day. Just after mid-night (why is it always mid-night?…:-)) the wind came up a bit too strong for our sail plan and we changed the reacher out for the …
Peros Banhos….. 17 October 2012 (Eastern Hemisphere) Dear F&F, Well, we tried to leave Salomon yesterday and we did! However, there was virtually NO wind and as we were going right by Peros Banhos Atoll, so we stopped for the night. We anchored off the old pier (which is defunct); it no longer connects to …
Island Hike, Last nights super squall….. 14 October 2012 Dear F&F, As we are still waiting on our weather window, Nikki and I decided today to take a hike and see Ile Bodham. The island is about 1 1/2 miles long and a little over a quarter mile wide. We first went to find the …