Ce la vie!

Well you all know our French is pretty shit but we are trying with different degrees of success. Unlike the French the Madagascar people find our attempts very entertaining and even try to help us along, bless them! We are now doing a bit of a tour around the area around Nose Be and mainland Madagascar. We visited the island of Sakatia, Russian Bay and Iranja where we had the most amazing time. We arrived early morning before the SW winds start picking up and while having a cup of coffee onboard of Nero, with Bob and Glenda, Russell say something very big floating by the boat. We had heard about whale sharks in the area but were unsure about what it was as it looked and moved like a shark. Russ jumped in the water straight away, Glenda and I scrambled onto the dinghy to catch up and oh my God it was a 6 meter whale shark! We jumped in the water and swam with this gentle giant for about 10 minutes. It turned around a few times to break up out and once it had satisfied its curiosity it left us there catching our breaths and laughing like kids, it was awesome! The day after we where in the water snorkelling when we spotted 2 massive turtles, probably 1.5 meters long (from head to the massive thick tail it has) by a meter wide. John from the boat Dancyn, who is a marine biologist, said they where Loggerhead turtles. He rode one of them for a while even! Just another one of those magic moments we will cherish forever! Now we are in a very calm and flat anchorage just across from Nose Be on the mainland after a 20 miles kite sail. Just lovely. Russ is fixing the back of the port rudder that broke during our Chagos to Madagascar crossing while i clean some of my latest additions to the forever growing shell collection. Loving it! It's life alright!

MADAGASCAR

We still can not comprehend the fact that we have arrived in Madagascar. Its stuff of childhood dreams! We already saw Lemurs and are on the lookout for chamaleons. People are beautiful inside and out we fell great here although some safety measures are required in bigger and or touristic places. So far so good. Clearance procedures are easy and officials insist in saying the 1st month is free even when they give you a bill of nz$10 to pay, oh well, our French is pretty bad so i will blame on that. The local produce is fabulous and the meat splendid (oh how we missed red meat!). The local rum has provide us with some lovely nights and sore mornings but we love it. They have the most amazing sailing canoes and trade boats (up to 30 ft) with triangular lanteen sails, no engines. All taking full advantage of the land/sea breeze effect. A sight not to be forgotten. Carbon footprint of these people is as close to zero and civilized as you can get. We have visited some very remove villages in the north west, traded with the locals for food and other goodies. You would be surprised how many bananas you can get for an empty plastic water bottle! All in all things are pretty amazing really. We have another 30 of paradise before we are hoisting our sails seriously again to attack another serious piece of water: the Mozambique Channel to Sth Africa.

Chagos time

Did we say that Chagos is amazing? Yeah We thought so... Ok will tell you why apart from the fact that there are no inhabitants to these islands: pristine water (although on the chilly side), fish that are bigger than the fish books tell you they can get (e.g. Coral trout- delicious), coconut crabs crawling all over the place, stunning shells, turtles totally unafraid of you, birds that simply ignore your presence, amazing coral and diversity of fish. Ok the sharks are a bit freaky but its quite suprising how you get used to their sight. However we must say that on our last few days there a few tiger sharks (probably the most violent species of shark) showed up inside the lagoon in the shallow water (5 to 3 meters deep) to check and snack on a dead Beaked whale that was washed over the reef into the lagoon! So the big guys were out there all the time we just dont see them! We checked them out from our dinghy and they were longer (10 to 12ft) then our dinghy but not as wide. We know that for sure because Russ almost ran over one! Just unreal shit you guys, pardon my french... Well the BBQ on the BIOT (the British authorities in Chagos) boat was a highlight too and we were treated very well thanks to our connection to Captain Bob our ex-tenant in NZ and ex-captain of the boat. If you are reading this Bob, thanks for putting a word for us, those guys really like you and showed us a great time. Weather wise we arrived on a particular windy phase which brought constant 25 knots for 15 days. But we were well sheltered. The only shame is that with big seas we had quite few opportunities to dive the outside walls and pass. The current was quite fierce too so it was out of our league really so we did most of our snorkelling inside the lagoon. I didnt spear fish as it is illegal but with so many sharks around it was too risky. Plus the fishing was good and easy so no need but oh so tempting! We ended up staying for about 25 days as the winds calmed down a a great weather window came up to shoot across to Madagascar. We could not have dreamed of better conditions we where trully blessed. We covered 1540 miles in 8 days and 5 hours. 3 days of over 200 miles days. Our last 48 hours were a bit rougher with the last 5 hours as we approached Cape D'Ambre on the northern tip of Madagascar being particularly nasty as expected: 4 to 5 meters rough seas with 30 to 40 knot winds. We had only the storm jia up for steerage, 3 ropes dragging behind us to slow us down and Russ was doing what he could to avoid us surfing too much. It was intense but we felt safe even when a massive wave broke right on top of us causing the boat to get as close to broaching as I want to get, although Russ dismissed as only water... But the most amazing thing was watching a humpback whale travelling upwind like a massive sports boat, taking off on waves and crashing down. It was an amazing sunny day which made our approach even more special. Once around the Cape the seas flatten immediatly and only the wind lingers allowing us to anchor straight away for a well deserted good sleep looking at the lighthouse. We were in Madagascar...