Location: 21° 33.6 S, 39° 47.7 E
Tuesday 12:00, 10.31.2006

Happy Halloween! It seems impossible that exactly a year ago I was wandering the streets of Halifax dressed as a dead Napoleonic Wars Naval Lieutenant. Probably no costumes tonight.

The Schooner Maggie B was at 21° 33.6 S, 39° 47.7 E at noon today. We are undersail, underway from Bassas d’India to Nose Be in Madagascar. It is about 690 NM to Nose Be. We are about 100 NM off the coast of Madagascar, angling in towards the westerly hump of the island. The wind is about 12 knots on the nose and dying out so we will be motoring soon. We have gone 1623 NM since Cape Town.

Last night we had a lovely party on board the Maggie B together with the crew of the Aerandir (from the Lord of the Rings?). They are doing shark research. Chris and Monique, who own the boat, work out of Simons Town in False Bay, the White Shark Capital of the World, taking tourists out to see the Great Whites eat baby seals, while they do serious research on the side. Their web site is Apex Predators. Chris and Monique stayed on Aerandir, but sent over their crew of five, together with a present of five kilos of just caught sushi grade tuna.

Their crew included: Reiner (“I am not a German, I am Namibian”), who is an ecologist researching Hawksbill turtles; Kim, his girlfriend and another researcher; Guy, a big South African Dutchman, who is Captain of the ship; Greg, a rocket scientist from San Diego (his company is building a plasma engine for the manned trip to Mars) who is the acting ship’s engineer; and Shamus, an Irish cameraman documenting their work.

We had such a fine evening, perfect weather for sitting outside in the cockpit. It was by far the best party for miles around. In fact, we were the only people for a hundred miles, except for Chris and Monique, who turned in early. The crew of the Aerandir was thrilled to be on the Maggie B because their boat is dry and they had been out for three weeks. We were well supplied, which was good because the crowd was thirsty.

Some glimpses of the fine evening: Hannah starting the singing off by leading us in Barrett’s Privateers (“I’m a broken man on a Halifax pier”). Shamus, an uncharacteristically shy non-singing Irishman, though not so shy that he didn’t (unsuccessfully) proposition Bori and Hannah — and they argued over the question of who he asked first. Guy singing a sad Dutch song, repeatedly, but with a different translation each time. Reiner telling me how we can get into Aldabra, the UNESCO World Heritage site with 100,000 Giant Indian Ocean Tortoises, where he used to work. Guy telling the tale of the Santiago, one of the many ships to run aground on Bassas d’India, and how it has been documented that over 2000 people have died on the reefs that were producing huge breakers only 600 feet away. Me forgetting the last verse of Janis Joplin’s “Mercedes Benz” (I got it now — “Oh, Lord, won’t you buy me a night on the town, I’m counting on you, Lord, please don’t let me down. Prove that you love me and buy the first round, etc.).

We should be in Hellville, the capital of Nose Be, November 4th or 5th. Hellville is named after a French Admiral, not the after effects of the local rum. The main street was named Cours de Hell (Highway to Hell), and a street sign is still up, painted on the side of the Catholic Church.

All is well.

News from an atoll in the Indian ocean

As I write to you, dear friends, three sharks are circling around our boat. Frank is out there kayaking and for now, I choose to stay down below, listen to a violin concerto, drink coffee and write. My head has been filled with poetry ever since we got here. Where? Not so sure. Technically, we are at Bassas da India, an atoll in the middle of the Mozambique channel, but truly, with the senses of a simple mortal human being, it feels like another world, in the middle of nowhere. It feels like a place where anything could be possible.

I feel like being in a dream and being given a pen, and told, “now, write something beautiful.” I don’t even know where to start. My senses are overwhelmed. It feels like touching the bottom of the ocean or reaching the top of the sky, a breathless moment with no more relativity, nothing to measure things against, only our memories and the surrounding objects. We have started taking malaria pills since we’ll soon be in Madagascar. I don’t think I’ve had hallucinations yet, as one of the side effects of the pill along with other types of mental disorder, nonetheless, I find it hard to wrap my mind around our current experience. I keep on imagining the planet Earth and seeing us, like a little dot in the big blue somewhere on the southwestern hemisphere, but to be sincere, geography, physics and most hard sciences partially escape me in this situation and somehow I trust more my senses or my imagination that make me think of the starry night as a warm blanket enveloping us and making us feel safe in the darkness and our smallness floating on these waters.

Our time in Durban was well spent. The city has slowly filled up with meaning. It didn’t mean anything more than a big South African city, a place we would go to and look forward to receiving mail. I am so glad we made this last stop in Africa and through new friends, my appreciation for and understanding of the continent grew in a way I can hardly describe with words. We saw markets with half-dried bones and skeletons and once used-to-be animals and bark and rocks and exotic flora and fauna we’ve never encountered before. The people in this market wore white or dark terracotta face paint derived from a wetted soft stone. It all looked magical but smelled quite scary. We did not buy our fruits and vegetables there. We got the chance to have many great conversations with our new friends from this part of the world and gained a more real image of life here, and finally, I think for some moments, we crossed over the borders of being just tourists and we became a little more. After all, we spent over a month in South Africa. My heart is full of unforgettable moments: my first rowing lesson in a double scull in the harbour is one of them as are the many images, sounds and smells now carved into my memory that will always remind me of “Africa in the summer” as a friend of ours said one night with a smile that is impossible to forget. Needless to say, standing in the bow, I cried as we sailed out of Durban, a little like when we left Lunenburg harbour on March 28th. But isn’t life about being in the moment?

Still, I just can’t forget so many things and here and now, everything is possible. Maybe time travel? Certainly a place from which to reflect, to linger in moments that have moved us, moments that emerge from dreams made in the middle of the ocean. Maybe in five or six days we will be in Nosy Be, an island off the northwestern coast of Madagascar. I am learning Malagasy and can’t wait to see the nature there and meet people. I’ll be in touch and will write more if I can focus my mind that is now overflowing. I hope these words still make sense to you. This is how I am living this experience. At night I watch the shooting stars.

Location: 21° 31.7 S, 39° 40 E
Monday 12:00, 10.30.2006

Well we moved today, but not far. We are on the other side of the atoll, at 21° 31.7S, 39° 40.0E. When we woke up this morning we found that the wind had picked up to about 15 knots from the NE and was kicking up a bit of a sea and pushing us uncomfortably close to the reef, where the 2-3 meter waves were breaking with much ado.

As seems to happen sometimes, we made a bit of a thrash of it. I always anchor with a float attached to the front of the anchor to mark the anchor’s position, and to aid in its retrieval if it gets stuck under coral or whatever. The tide had come in and the anchor buoy was hidden underwater. As the anchor came up, we searched for the buoy. The prop found it first, immobilizing the engine just as we needed it most to avoid going ashore. The anchor, of course, was also immobilized by the retrieval line tightly attached to the prop. Willis immediately jumped in, knife in teeth and cut the line free of the anchor. I rushed up to set the anchor before we went ashore. As I was about to drop it, I notice that Willis was attempting to reboard the Maggie B by climbing the anchor chain. I believe that I said something relatively emphatically impolite, to suggest that he use the midships ladder as I had something else to use the chain for.

We re-anchored promptly and then Willis and I took turns pulling and cutting the turns off the prop, which was accomplished with some difficulty due to Maggie’s stern working hard to bash our heads in when we came up for air.

After all that excitement, we had a peaceful motor around the island to rejoin the shark researchers in their catamaran, Aerandir, on the peaceful leeward side of the island. This is a lovely spot with the breeze off the atoll. The anchor is in 35 feet of water and we are only 200 feet of chain away in 70 feet of water. We do have the sound and fury of 3-4 meter Southerly swells lifting us up and breaking on the reef which is only about 500-600 feet away. We are going to stand anchor watches tonight because a wind shift could have us in the surf zone, which would be a bad idea.

Once we set the anchor, I jumped in to check it. I have never jumped out of the water faster as a 10-12 foot White Tip shark cruised by just beneath me. We then had a peaceful lunch (Salad Nicoise) and Hannah decided to go for a swim afterwards. She had a religious experience — Walking on Water — as three sharks showed up to check her out (Father, Son and Holy Ghost?). So no more swimming. I then decided to try out the new surf kayak “Strika.” I felt perfectly confident. Then I dumped. Then Hannah’s sharks came to see what the fuss was about. I got back in, but was pretty shaky, which I’m sure was the Malaria medicine. I decided to paddle over to the other boat, with the three sharks as escort. As I was about half way over I noticed that they were actively chumming their sharks, and it just seemed to be a better idea to go back to the Maggie B and curl up in the cabin with a good book.

Off to Nose Be tomorrow.

All is well.

Location: 21° 28.2 S, 39° 44.4 E
Sunday 12:00, 10.29.2006

The Schooner Maggie B is safely anchored at Bassas d’India at 21° 28.2 S, 39° 44.4 E. Do not be alarmed if this appears to put us aground on the Google Map. The charts here are about two miles off (details, details). No wonder there are so many wrecks along the reef.

This is an atoll totally out in the middle of nowhere. At high tide it is all underwater (except for the wrecks). The water is incredibly clear. We anchored in 50 feet of water and could clearly see the bottom.

As we came around we were hailed by another boat. It turns out they are shark researchers and film crew. Gulp, wonder why they are here? As we were feeling our way around to perhaps try the entrance, Hannah (high up in the rigging with Polaroid glasses) saw two big sea turtles and then a nice little Hammerhead shark, who came over to check us out. We found the entrance, or at least an entrance, but the water was so clear that it looked about 10 inches deep. We passed it by. Perhaps we will explore tomorrow in the Reep, carrying portable GPS so that we can send in better positions.

Last night was marvelous for all watches. The moon as a guide for the early watches, then Orion for me and Sirius, the Dog Star, to guide Hannah. Lots of shooting stars.

We saw some very strange Humpback whale behavior. Two whales were motionless vertically with their tails sticking out of the water, but the tails were bent back 90 degrees so that the white underside was facing straight up. They stayed in that position for five minutes or so, and only stopped because they were perhaps disturbed by us. A singing position?

We will probably stay here for all of tomorrow and then be off for Madagascar on Monday the 30th.

All is well.

Location: 23° 23.9 S, 37° 00 E
Saturday 12:00, 10.28.2006

The Schooner Maggie B was at 23° 23.9 S, 37° 00 E at noon on October 28th. We are booming along at a boat speed of 9 kts, with a speed over the ground of 9.4. This is the perfect point of sail for the Maggie B — 20 knots of wind on the beam. We will be at Bassas d’India at about dawn tomorrow.

We did 195 NM from noon yesterday, not bad for “going the wrong way” up the Mozambique Channel.

It is warm again, with the sea water up to 78 degrees (25C) and the air is warm enough for bathing suits on watch during the day.
It is about 880 NM to Nose Be. We have gone 1398 since Cape Town.

The patterns on a boat sailing 24/7 are very interesting. We all have two three hour watches a day: Frank 12-3; Hannah 3-6; Willis 6-9; and Bori 9-12. It seems as if each thinks that their watch is the easiest, but in any case three on and nine off is pretty light duty. Of course everybody’s sleep patterns are different. At any given time one to three of us (hopefully never four!) are asleep. We all make a big effort to be up together for the mid-day meal. With this schedule, it is easy to get eight hours of sleep a day – just not all at the same time. It seems to take one’s body two to three days to accept the change, but then there is plenty of energy all around.

Off duty time is for ship work: cleaning, polishing, vacuuming, food prep, stitching, making fancy work, repairs, systems maintenance, and planning. Plus personal work: emails, reading, letter writing, watching videos (our laptops play DVD’s very well). Half the books we are reading are closely ship related such as The East African Pilot, or Brandt’s Madagascar, or Pilote Cotier des Seychelles.

Where we are headed is definitely navigationally complicated. You would think that with GPS and radar all would be easy, but every storm reconfigures sand banks which stretch up to 30 miles off the Madagascar coast. Buoys are non-existent. Even the position of Bassas d’India varies by two miles on different charts and reference books. Somewhat tough with it only six miles across and the highest point two meters (except for the, gulp, ship wrecks).

Hopefully we will be playing in the lagoon tomorrow (plus doing ship repairs that can only be done in calm water).

All is well.

Location: 25° 23.3 S, 34° 12.9 E
Friday 12:00, 10.27.2006

The Schooner Maggie B’s noon position on 27 October was 25° 23.3S 34° 12.9E. The wind is currently 190 degrees at 10 and we are making boat speed of 6.1 knots and 6.7 knots over the ground with a favorable back current.

Bassas d’India is 383 NM, Nose Be is 1110. We ahve come 1203 since Cape Town. We are about 25 miles off the coast at Xai-Xai, Mozambique.

The wind has been up and down, with small rain squalls marching through. As I write this (1500), we are doing hull speed (10 knots) with a half knot of favorable current. Excellent!

Last night we started out towards Bassas d’India, but got about 35 miles off shore and the wind and waves were making up a bit and a big electrical storm we lighting up the sky to the South, so we did the prudent thing and jibed in towards Inhaca and Maputo. Now we are tracking along at full speed towards Bassas d’India. We round the corner near Inhambane in 70 miles, when we will fully enter the Mozambique Channel.

This unsettled weather apparently is typical of the time between the end of the SE Trades and the start of the NE Trades. We will do our best to exploit every change and then anchor in somewhere if it is too tough.

We are getting ready to start on our malaria meds in preparation for Nose Be. Supposedly they produce strange psychiatric effects in some people. I hope that the crew will not have to tie me to the mast like Odysseus’s crew.

Hannah is making apple crisp for us this afternoon! Yum!! It will more than make up for her spilling powder all over the floor of the bathroom, which tracked up the boat worse that a scene from CSI with ultraviolet light.

All is well.

Location: 27° 44.7 S, 32° 38.2 E
Thursday 12:00, 10.26.2006

The Schooner Maggie B’s noon position on October 26th was 27° 44.7S, 32° 38.2 E. At noon we were motorsailing in a light southerly, along the wild coast of Swaziland, in the St. Lucia Marine Reserve. We have gone 1009 NM since Cape Town and have 1317 to go to Nose Be, Madagascar.

The plan had been to work our way close in to the coast, up until we were able to make a dash across. Things have changed a bit. We now have a smart SW’er, 220 degrees M at 23-30 knots. This is perfect weather to cross. We now (1600) are on a beam reach for Bassas d’India, which is about two days or 500 NM away. With luck, we will be able to ride this low, first a SW’erly and then from the SE, as it passes us to the East, before the NE’erly returns. We are doing 9-10 knots. Adverse current is only 1/2-3/4 of a knot, just the same as inshore. While this sets up the possibility of big waves with wind against current, the current is relatively modest at this point and the SW’erly has not had enough time to blow up much in the way of waves. We are closely watching the wind speed and direction as well as the barometric pressure.

Bassas d’India is at 21° 27S, 39° 42E. A large reef encloses a shallow lagoon full of coral heads making for a six-miles-across translucent green pool in the bright blue ocean. The diving is reported to be fantastic, if you like sharks, which are prolific. The lagoon is also famous for the number of ancient and modern shipwrecks! The names along the coast have changed from Anglo or Portuguese to fully African. So no more Simon’s Town or Port Elizabeth or Richards Bay. Now it is Maputo and Inhambane and Sihangwana.

While Hannah is the champion for whale breaching, Bori has maxed out in a new category: moths. Last night during Bori’s watch (2100-midnight) we were totally swarmed by moths. They looked rather like Monarch butterflies, but acted like moths. We have photos to uplink. There were not hundreds, not thousands, but tens of thousands. Everywhere. To turn a headlamp on was to get mobbed, to turn this computer on was to lose the screen.

All is well.

Off to Nose Be, Wednesday 12:00, 10.25.2006

Just about exactly at noon on 25 October, the Schooner Maggie B cast off her lines from the Durban Marina Fuel Dock, underway for Nose Be, Madagascar. We have a light SE’erly and the prospect of rain. We are headed about NE, going up the coast, trying to take advantage of any favorable back current.

Our current goal is Nose Be on the NW tip of Madagascar. We hope also to stop by Bassas d’India on the way. The NE’erlies are just coming in, so we may have to wait them out from time to time at anchor somewhere along the coast, though once we get past Inhambane in Mozambique, the coast is North/South so a NE’er that had only a bit extra East in it would be fine.

South Africa has managed to edge out Brazil in a tough race to have the most difficult and stupid port clearance system. To be fair, it did only take three hours, but it was stuff that could have been done in 15 minutes without sacrificing anything except for a few excess, useless bureaucrats. Here are the steps:

1. Pay your marina bill
2. Get letter from marina, having them ask that you might leave
3. Get receipt for money paid
4. Go to Port Control (two miles) and fill out “flight plan” — three pages which include questions like “What frequencies can you receive on your Single Side Band Radio?”
5. Get Clearance Certificate from Port Control
6. Go to Immigration (15 miles — all crew must come) Submit Crew List
7. Passports reviewed and stamped
8. Fill out Request to Leave
9. Fill out Departure Report
10. Get Immigration Clearance Certificate
11. Go to Customs (12 miles). Fill out another Departure Report. Questions include “State name of Approved Container handler.”
12. Fill out “Report Outbound”
13. Get asked for Safety Certificate and Skipper’s Competency Certificate, but point out that it does not apply to foreign vessels (yet!).
14. Get Customs Certificate of Clearance.
15. Return to Port Control (two miles). Everything is stamped and get permission to leave.
16. Return to Marina. You have 36 hours to leave or you get to do it again.

We have a new addition to our equipment, a lovely little single surf kayak. It is made by a Durban company named Stealth (www.stealthpp.co.za). It is about 22 feet long and 1 1/2 wide. It should be quite fun. Reepicheep sniffed a bit when it came on board, but hopefully they will be friends.

We filled up with diesel for the first time since Salvador. We took about 250 gallons while covering 4800 miles, for both main engine and genset. We carry a total of 325 gallons. Seamarine Services, the fuel dock at the Durban Marina, proved that there are still pirates active in South Africa. They managed to put 216 gallons in a tank that only holds 200, they added 5% to the already high price when I used a credit card and they refused to sell gas without VAT (14%), even though I had all my clearance papers, claiming that it couldn’t be done, though it is routinely done in Cape Town, Simonstown, Knysna and Richards Bay. Grrrr.

All is well.

Sunday in Durban
10.22.2006

The Maggie B is still taking up the International Pier. We have the usual pattern of repairs and resupply going on. We all are conscious that while we probably will not be a long time at sea on the next leg, that there isn’t the prospect of First World resupply until Australia.

Our current plans are to leave with the next Westerly, which should come through on Wednesday. The winds are shifting now and the Northeasterly is coming in, which would make it very hard to get up to the Seychelles. It also will bring Typhoons to this area of the world, so we really need to get moving. The Seychelles are north of the typhoon tracks for the last 40 years, so we should be safe there. This is the end of the typhoon season for the Northern Indian Ocean and the start for the Southern Indian Ocean.

We plan to stay close to the African continent as we go north until we get about even with Southwestern Madagascar, then cross over when we get a favorable breeze. The cycles seem to be every four or five days. If we get a big NE’erly against us, we’ll just anchor along the coast. The West Coast of Madagascar has the positives of being out of the current and being very beautiful. It has the disadvantage of being poorly charted, unbuoyed and full of reefs. We plan to stop at Nose Be (Big Island) on the NW tip of the island for a bit, and then head for the Seychelles.

One stop we also hope to make is Bassas d’India. It is out in the middle of the Mozambique Channel — a deserted atoll with perfect diving and fishing. It is associated with Europa Island, also “owned” by France, which has a two man weather station.

We are rigging the Maggie B with a forward-looking sonar to help us find our way around places like Bassas d’India and the West Coast of Madagascar. It is by a company called Interphase and is undoubtedly a civilian knock-off of military technology. It will supposedly show you the contour of the ocean bottom up to 1000 feet ahead of you. It will be cool if it works. We are getting a mounting built so that we can drop it in when we get into sketchy water.

It has been fascinating comparing Cape Town with Durban.

They are both about the same size and have lovely, active harbors. But they are very much at different stages of development. Durban’s city center has essentially been abandoned by most whites and most of the money. The city center is deserted and dangerous at night. The yacht clubs and a tiny strip of land is OK. Redevelopment is taking place slowly out towards the beaches, but “fun place to stroll at night like the Cape Town Waterfront?” Forget it.

Yesterday was lovely.

We took an all-crew surf school with a marvelous instructor. John was maybe 50-60 but hadn’t aged a day since he was 19. The surf was terrible (trashy 2-3 meter shore breaks due to an Easterly wind) but he got almost all of us up on long boards with no more damage than nasal salt water douches. That evening we hit the Gateway Mall (biggest in Africa) and saw the iMax film called “Roar” about a pride of lions in Botswana. The girls cried when the old king was driven out. Then dinner at our new favorite restaurant, Bean Bag Bingo, which is right next to a boutique hotel called, quaintly (?), La Bordello. Then to bed/bunk early so as to be fresh for today when the wind was to shift to the west and the low tide was at 9:30 AM, the time for the best surf. We are considering adding a surf kayak to the Maggie B’s equipment. I’m sure that the Reepicheep’s feelings will not be hurt.

All is well.

Life in Durban

It is a Sunday morning and I am taking it easy: writing, reading and preparing for our new departure in a couple of days. Now, the plan is that we will be sailing out towards Noisey Be in northwestern Madagascar around Wednesday, October 25th, if the winds agree with our desire. Sometimes Frank says that if we don’t get the right winds, we will just go straight to Australia but I think we will still try to go to Madagascar and to the Seychelles…but nothing is for sure in this adventure. So, for all those who want to write real letters, Frank will probably post an address for the Seychelles, but we might only be there before Christmas. Snail mail is really slow coming to and from this part of the world: at least two weeks in both directions, but please don’t give up if you feel like writing. The other day, I was a little disheartened to find out how long mail took and a nice lady at the Point Yacht Club reception told me: “sweatheart, this is Africa”… For the least, I do hope that many of you have been or will soon be getting my cards and letters!
Durban is quite an interesting city with the highest Indian population outside of India, mostly blacks (Zulu), Afrikaners, and some white people, definitely the minority. Signs are written in English, Afrikaans and Zulu. In Cape Town and Knysna, the black people mostly spoke Xhosa. I am glad to be able to differentiate Xhosa, Zulu and Afrikaans, but I haven’t learned much of either language yet, it would be nice. It is not easy though to go up to people since there is a certain factor of danger… the poor people always check out my shoes when I run, so I try to run faster, but some neighborhoods are not at all safe here. We don’t go there.

Besides meeting some really welcoming and interesting people at both the Royal Natal and the Point Yacht Club, we’ve done some fascinating things in the city. The Indian market full of spices and colours was an eye-opener to the varieties of spices and roots and foods we didn’t even know existed. The Zulu art is beautiful, I especially like all the joyful bead necklaces and bracelets. We saw a beautiful Imax movie on life in the Kalahari desert in Botswana about lions, elephants, zebras and springboks, went to Ushaka Marine World with a nice aquarium and a fun dolphin show, and the best of all, for me at least, was surfing school. I’ve never surfed before and did manage to get up twice on the board: what an amazing feeling it is to be sliding on top of a wave! Now, I really want to learn.

As always, we’ve checked out some wonderful restaurants and bars and tasted local specialities and we also had a cocktail party onboard that was quite fun. Monday and Tuesday, we will be busy getting the boat ready, buying provisions and saying goodbye to our new friends. If we do go to Noisey Be, it should be a trip of about 10 days, but I will try to be writing underway and I am sure, Frank will, too. I think starting from now until Australia, we will be in small places, which I prefer, but internet access will surely be scarce. I will just write into my blog and send you postcards and letters.
Thinking of all of you, feel free to write back through the website, ask questions if you want to. Tell me about life where you are! Help me stay connected!