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 French boats here, both cats and French Flagged. The islands just to the West of here, Mayotte, Grand Comoro, Europa (and a few others) are actually part of the French Polynesian Department. The second language on Madagascar is French, the first is pronounced \”Malagash\” (Malay).
The trip over the top was pretty good overall. Our strategy was to drop the spinnaker 5 miles before the point and take in a single reef in the main in case the winds accelerated at the point. They did slightly. It was good we dropped the spinnaker sooner than later as we had a winch over-ride and it took a few minutes to get it squared away. There were a few bumps at Ilot du Nord, but no too bad. We approached at about a 40 degree angle to the island from the south, picking up the very nice landmark of Cape Andre Lighthouse (just SE of Cap d\’Ambre). This kept us out of the current streaming over the top of the island from west to east. Our west going current was giving us a 2 knot push, which became a 1 knot shove when we got right to the very top. The adverse current stayed with us for about 3 more miles, but the seas were flat (no swell). The wind stayed strong at 20-28 knots and we blast reached down the back of the island with the single reefed main and staysail. The wind stayed with us the entire 40 miles to the anchorage, mostly from the port quarter. A few weird adverse currents, but again, no worries.
We\’re pretty tired as I\’m sure you can imagine, so we wanted to stop in the lovely Andranoamby Bay and get rested tonight. We\’ve 65 miles to go tomorrow if we push on all the way to Sakitia Island; a resort island next to Nose Be. There is a restaurant/bar and advise on \”checking in\”. As this is a very poor country and very third world, we have to be prepared for implied bribes. We shall see.
So, \”we\’re here\”….write us,
KIT, Scott and Navigator Nik…..