Welcome to Hannah’s Blog

Hannah has lived the past 5 1/2 yrs almost entirely on board a tallship and at sea somewhere on this planet. First, the Picton Castle, then The Eye Of the Wind and Mist Of Avalon. and though she may look like just one individual — she carries along with her on her travels her family, mentors, community and many, many friends scattered around the globe.

Hannah is dedicated to sailing, furthering her skills and all things sailor-ish and cannot imagine living any other way. We think she has a weakness for critters… don€™t be surprised to find a named walrus, dolphin or finned €œsomething -€™r -other€ following the ship, or perhaps an recovering albatross sporting a cast.

Location: 4° 17.2 S, 55° 44.0 E
Monday 12:00, 11.27.06

We have moved, but not too far. We are now anchored in Baie de la Raie on Curieuse Island at 4° 17.2 S, 55° 44.0 E . The island is named for the French frigate that discovered it. We have been “doing” the islands around Mahe. On Saturday, we had lunch at St. Anne in Victoria Bay and then on Sunday we sailed across the 30 miles to Praslin, and anchored off Anse Volber, just next to Chauve Souris (Bat) Island.

The Coco de Mer

Today we had a lovely outing ashore to the World Heritage site of Vallee de Mai, where they have saved a big area of Coco de Mer palms, which grow up to 50 meters high and produce nuts of up to 17 kilos. They are astounding. Photos will be soon up on the web site.

The nuts, besides being huge, also develop the shape of women’s buttocks, while the male plant appears to have an organ well bigger than an elephant, though, unlike the elephant, the Coco de Mer palm has small yellow flowers on its organ. We spent a marvelous two hours wandering in the park, feeling as if we were on a Hollywood set for a prehistoric movie.

These islands are granite, pinks and greys, rather like the islands of coastal Maine that I know well. It is strange to see familiar weathered granite shapes, but with palms clinging to the little soil instead of pine trees.

We will probably try another cove on Praslin tomorrow or perhaps over to La Digne, before returning to Port Victoria on Wednesday morning to get Willis ready for his plane to Singapore.

Hannah is cooking baked apples for desert tonight, with lots of local fresh vanilla in the stuffing. Yum!

All is well.

The end of the week

So, it is a Saturday afternoon and I thought I’d write some more into my blog to keep in touch. Seychelles is a cool place! I like it more and more! Today we sailed out to Sainte Anne island for lunch and a snorkel and swim. I took out Strika, our sea kayak for a paddle for the first time and had fun paddling her and even was able to ride on a couple of waves without tipping over. I remembered my father teaching me skiing, saying, “if you don’t fall, you didn’t try hard enough”… so in a way, I thought that if I didn’t tip over, I didn’t dare go far enough and ride the best waves… but it was only my first time, so maybe it is okay. Something amusing happened to me while snorkeling. A little yellow fish with black stripes must have thought that I was a fish and it kept on swimming right in front my mask the whole time I was in the water.It was only a couple of inches away from my eyes and turned with me every time I turned. I wanted to keep it as a pet, I got a little attached.

Last night in Victoria was great. I haven’t had this much fun in a long time. Hannah and I met an Indian historian who invited us into his house and showed us his amazing shell collection, taught us how to make art with food (like sculpting a face into a potato) and how to heal with food (a strictly vegetarian diet), he also read our palms… he is supposed to have esoteric powers… it was quite interesting! Then, we went to see Nacho Libre, a comedy that made us laugh… and then, we ended up at the Yacht club and at a local bar, called Level 3 where we made new friends. After that, we went on to a nouveau beaujolais party at the local Alliance Francaise (invited by a French girl we met earlier in the day) where we danced passionately until dawn to French and English and American disco music from the 80’s. It is wonderful to get to know people here, both locals and expats, they introduce us into their worlds and we feel more connected.

Being Saturday night, we are going out again. I am looking forward to it and it is fun to already have a
list of phone numbers to call on new friends to join us. It is easy to make friends with a smile.

Location: The Wharf, Port Victoria, Mahe, The Seychelles

The Schooner Maggie B is still docked at The Wharf in Port Victoria, Mahe, the Seychelles. We are comfortable, well protected and well supported and provisioned. But we are stuck in a Marina. We have a Hertz car to get into town and around the island. It has remained hot, muggy and intermittent rain, sometimes heavy. The Wharf, despite its rather pedestrian name, is a snappy hotel, restaurant and bar.

The Seychelles have made the interesting decision to focus only on the top end of the tourist trade. Camping out is illegal. There are no big hotels, one with 170 rooms is the biggest. They do not allow discount airlines to fly here and the tickets are going full blast and perhaps the whole bay will be paved over in ten years. Charts are useless as the islands change their shape daily. The Seychelles puts itself out as being rather environmental focused, but nobody talks of the impact of filling up the bay or dredging all the material for the new islands. The islands are used for sporting complexes, the new airport, subsidized housing and very high end condos. It must be very frustrating for someone with waterfront property and wake up to a new island with condos for rich Europeans in what used to be bay.

We are probably off Sunday to check out some of the nearby islands. We have tons of recommendations, but there are even more tons of regulations, with just about every nice anchorage a “marine park.” Good idea to protect things, but hard to work out where one can moor or anchor or go ashore, etc.

We will be back Wednesday, probably mooring at the Seychelles Yacht Club. Rather more in town and with the other yachties, but will need to row back and forth. Willis leaves for home by way of Singapore on Thursday, so we will probably head back out after that.

We are tied up next to a SuperYacht, the Northern Lights, which belongs to a Swedish family. It is off for Thailand on Monday. There is also a very famous yawl here, the Stormvogel. She is a highly successful Blue Water racer. They are off for the Mediterranean, the America Cup and all the Classic Regattas next season.

More photos coming to the web site.

All is well.

On being alive

I know I’ve been writing less and less into my blog lately, sorry about that to all of those who do follow my writings. I’ve actually been feeling quite well now for a while, very much alive somehow. We arrived to the Seychelles a couple of days ago and there is a wonderful swimming pool in the marina so I’ve been spending much of my free time there, sometimes forgetting that I am a human being. Swimming makes me feel free and light and strong. It feels like flying.

I have also been very stimulated intellectually, continually meeting fascinating people from all parts of the world… many from Africa and Australia… and my curiosity just grows. The more I learn, the more curious I become. I’ve been learning about languages and cultural perceptions and plants and animals and politics and economy… and everything seems to be connected somehow… this trip is better than being in school. I am feeling like a sponge, just taking in and taking in… What will I become at the end?

I now also have my ticket to go home on December 15th and to return to the Seychelles on January 7th; it will be great to be at home, I will just have to adjust to the snow and cold. Mail from and to the Seychelles seems reliable and fast (1 week) so our mailing address posted on the website is still the one to use. Stamps are gorgeous here, I’ll be sending out many postcards from here. Our plans for the upcoming three weeks are loose. We need to haul the boat to fix the engine problem but besides that, we will just be sailing around the many seychellois islands: lush and green and mountainous, full of flowers and birds. Check out our latest pictures online! The double rainbow is my favorite, it was so beautiful in real life over the water… the type of beauty that almost makes you cry. It is amazing to have been born once but feel that I am becoming more alive with each passing day stimulated by my environment and inner feelings. I don’t think it can ever stop now.

Location: 13° 24.4 S, 48° 17.1 E
Monday 12:00, 11.20.2006

The Schooner Maggie B is safely docked in “The Wharf Marina,” Port Victoria, Mahe, The Seychelles, at 4° 38.72 S 55° 28.6 E. Don’t be surprised if Google Maps puts us inland a bit. The Maps are not up to date. Here in the Seychelles, they make new islands all the time. Coming in here, my paper and electronic charts, both only six months old, said we sailed over solid ground. But all is dredged and reclaimed (?) and filled.

We limped our way in here, running only 1200 RPM as opposed to the max of 3700 because we just weren’t sure of the state of our shaft (cutlass) bearings. Certainly at one point they sounded as if a significant part of the Japanese Warrior Class’s girlfriends were killing themselves. But now is better for having a bunch of solidified plastic rope being cut off. Or something. We are going to be hauled out here this week and we’ll find out what is going on before we consider the long leg to Australia.

Port Victoria

Today was a whole new experience in clearing Customs, etc. We checked in with Port Victoria Port Control and were given a place (lat/long) to wait to be boarded. We arrived at about 10:30, as forecast when we checked in at 0800. And we waited and waited. Finally a rainstorm arrived and a pilot boat appeared with 12 Agents on board. Customs, Health, Immigration, Coast Guard, Captainerie, and who know who else. Lots of smiles. Ten copies of the Crew List With Official Stamp. And they were gone. Good? No. Tomorrow I have to make the rounds of all the same organizations with more copies of the crew lists, etc.

But the Seychelles look just beautiful and fun. Less hard core than Madagascar, less poor. They make money by selling fishing rights to all the fish in their area, to Spanish and Japanese fleets, and then requiring them to process their catch here in the Seychelles. 50% of their GNP! Sechellian oil, and probably just as likely to run out.

There are a bunch of new photos to come up on the web site tomorrow.

All is well.

Location: 5° 38.5 S, 53° 47.6 E
Sunday 12:00, 11.19.2006

At noon today the Maggie B was at 5° 38.5 S 53° 47.6 E underway from DesRoches Island to Port Victoria on Mahe, Seychelles. The wind is light and variable. We are motor sailing slowly, making about 4 knots with just 1200 RPM on the engine. Mahe is just 118 NM and we will be there Monday morning.

I spent a lot of time with a bread knife (serrated blade) and ice picks, diving on the prop, trying to get the burnt plastic fried remains of the rope out of the shaft. I remember the happy old days (OK, the water in Maine was cold) when once you cut the rope off, all was OK. Now the space age ropes fuse themselves into a solid black plastic that is almost indestructible. I’m afraid that we will have to get hauled (again!) in Mahe. The only way to be sure the shaft is clear and the bearings are OK is to pull the shaft. We seem to be getting satisfactory cooling for the shaft bearings at these reduced RPM’s. I don’t believe that I have fixed it, but perhaps some cooling water can now get through.

DesRoches

We sailed into DesRoches Island (named after Francois Julien DesRoches, governor of Mauritius from 1767 to 1772) on Friday night, slipping into the lagoon with the help of our forward-looking sonar. It was so strange to come in from big waves and weather, past a hidden reef (it was night), to anchor off an island barely visible in the inky black. We cleaned up a bit and rowed into the Five Star DesRoches Island Lodge, to be turned away from dinner by the manager who was appalled that people could “just show up” and expect to join them. But he did agree to allow us to have lunch and dinner the next day.

On Saturday we walked and snorkeled and ate marvelously. But we also discovered the DesRoches Island Mystery! Hannah, Willis and Bori had gone ahead to discover the village and check out the rumors of giant tortoises on the island. I had pressing business to finish my book, sitting under a palm tree.

One of us must go!

I then headed down the island road towards the village, to admire the birds and spiders and lizards. As I was walking down the totally deserted road, a figure in camouflage carrying an AK-47 appeared from a bush about 50 yards away and started to walk on a converging path. What to do? He looked in excellent shape and clearly could outrun me even if I had a head start, and anyway, he had the gun! So I continued until we intersected. I was not relieved to see two knives, a pistol and extra ammo. The AK-47 was not raised, but his finger was on the trigger. We talked in French. He said that he was with a Seychelles Army Commando Unit, based in Mahe, but he had been sent out to DesRoches on a special mission. What special mission? “Pout tuer un boeuf.” What — I became unsure of my French. Yes, there was a wild steer on the island that had been terrorizing the locals as well as the Lodge guests and the Manager had complained to the government: “It is him or me — one must go!” (Love the French!). So a Commando was sent out licensed to kill. He was to stay until he succeeded. The island had once supported 900 cattle and all but two were removed. One had been killed a year ago and this last steer is now both canny and grumpy. The Manager confirmed the story and said that his chef was in readiness to celebrate victory with a barbecue.

Location: 6° 25.4 S, 53° 24.7 E
Friday 12:00, 11.17.2006

The Schooner Maggie B was at 6° 25.4 S, 53° 24.7 E at noon today. The wind has been light and variable. Last night during my watch, midnight to 0300, I was able to move the boat exactly three nautical miles. With no engine, you take what you gets. As I write this (@1500), though, we are making 8.5 knots in a fresh SE’erly, with rain clouds all around.

At noon we were 46 NM from Desroches Island, home of the famous Deroches Island Lodge. We hope to anchor in their lagoon for tonight and Saturday night, and attempt to clear up the problems we have with our propeller shaft. They have a top diving operation, so I should be able to get a tank and poke around for a bit. Our ETA is about sunset. Hopefully we will be able to slip into the lagoon. Our first real trial of the forward-looking sonar. It will also be our first sailing anchorage.

Properly we are not supposed to land anywhere before we clear in Port Victoria, Mahe, but I’m taking the opinion that this is a “safety of the vessel” issue, and anyway, hopefully it won’t come up. We hope to eat ashore tonight at the lodge!

From Desroches to Mahe is another about 120 NM, which we’ll do from Sunday afternoon to Monday morning.

We are back in the midst of flights and flights of flying fish. Last night I cleared about a dozen from the decks, some alive, most dead.

All is well.

Location: 7° 21.0 S, 52° 46.0 E
Thursday 12:00, 11.16.2006

The Schooner Maggie B was at 7° 21.0 S 52° 46.0 E at noon on November 16th. We are slopping around in very light SE’erlies, with intermittent rain. The seas are 2-3 meters and irregular in adverse tidal/current flow. In front of rain showers the wind picks up to 10-12 knots, which drives us along fine, then it rains in a biblical fashion (all our water tanks are full now!), then the wind dies out for a bit. This is typical weather as the SE’erly trades meet the ITCZ (Inter Tropic Convergence Zone). Normally, we would motor when the boat speed is less than four knots, but now we have fewer options as we don’t know if the shaft bearings will work for five minutes or five days, and I want to save power for when we really need it, like arrival in Port Victoria, Mahe.

Through Nigel Irens’ good offices, we have a contact in Mahe, who is in charge of a company which is agents for port activities. They have sent me information on how to get ready to be boarded by Sechellian Officials on arrival. Among other things, they say we will need:

1. 6 copies of Crew Lists
2. 3 copies of Crew Effects Declaration
3. 3 copies of ship’s stores
4. 3 copies of IMO Health Declaration
5. 3 copies of Certificate of Registry
6. 2 Declarations that we have no firearms
7. 3 copies of last 10 Ports of Call

I am panicking a bit that they might try to take away our lovely South African Wine. Perhaps I’ll declare it “medicinal.” “Ship’s Stores” is also a bit scary. Will they take all our food? And what are “Crew Effects?” Ah, well, I’m sure it will be fine. The Seychelles have apparently done a lovely job of protecting their environment and I’m sure it will be sensible.

We are just off of Saint Francois Island, part of the Alphonse group. There is supposedly the one of the best resorts in the world on Alphonse, which is apparently the #1 spot on the planet for fly fishing for bonefish. I wonder what the guests, who pay $600 per night for a standard room, are thinking in the downpours? Probably happy that they are not on the schooner making its way past them…

All is well.

Impressions of Madagascar

On November 13th we left the lush, green mountains of Madagascar slowly sinking to our stern in the sunset. I can not separate one day from another in the week that we spent here, they’ve melted into fantastic memories….

Snorkeling with green turtles and thousands of coral dwelling fish on Nosy Tanikely, watching children play while we were eating Banana Flambe at cafe Lemuriens, and feeding the lemurs on Nosy Komba, the colourful baskets and beautiful smiles of the ladies selling there lace and embroidered table cloths and bed spreads in Hell-Ville. Admiring the 1960’s Renauats driving under the massive, ancient mango trees as we ate improbably good pastries at the Oasis Cafe, Astrix comics plastered on the table at the Nandipo Bar, the chaotic waterfront in Hell-Ville when the ferry comes to off-load everybody and their chicken, And wizzing around in the afternoon of our last day on a rented skooter with Willis and Bori, with the smell of ylang-ylang, mango and Zebu all around, shouting Bella Char to the amused Malagasy walking along the side of the road.

A year ago

I’ve been slightly seasick again since we left Madagascar and I am still feeling a little disoriented under the almost equatorial sun so I can’t write much today but I wanted to stop for a moment and remember that just a year ago, November 15, 2005, was the day when Frank took me to Covey Island Boatworks in Petite Riviere, Nova Scotia, for the first time and I was introduced to the Maggie B on a Tuesday afternoon. She was then nothing but a sculptural masterpiece looking somewhat like a future sailboat and the people working on it were strangers to me. Now, the Maggie B is happily sailing on the Indian ocean after several thousands of miles on different seas, cold and warm, and some the people who were strangers to me then, became good friends. Much has happened since, more than I can express right now but I’ve been waiting for this day… to say that today, it has been a year… and it has been a good year, full of adventures I never ever imagined. I am left breathless, remembering…

Location: 13° 24.4 S, 48° 17.1 E
Tuesday 12:00, 11.14.2006

The Schooner Maggie B got underway from Nosy Be, Madagascar about noon on Monday, and by noon Tuesday, November 14, was at 11° 21.2 S, 48° 52.6 E. We are about 45 miles north of the very northernmost tip of Madagascar, and about 564 NM from Mahe, Seychelles. The SE’erlies have filled in and we are making 6.3 knots close hauled, heading about for Mahe.

We are in the grips of the South Equatorial Current, which is pushing us West of course, but it should trouble us for only a hundred miles or so.

This morning about 1000, we got jumped by a very black rain squall. We quickly took in the fore, partially furled the jib and put one reef in the main before it hit, but in the end it only produced about 30 knots of wind, so we soon had the jib shaken out and the fore back up with one reef. The squall did provide torrential rain, though, and as we had not had time to tightly furl the reef in the main, a big swimming pool formed in the bunt of the sail, and we got about 20 buckets of perfectly fresh rain water transferred into our tanks. Showers tonight!

The bigger news is that the main shaft bearing for the engine, where it goes through the hull from the engine to the prop, seems to be failing. Last night, while motor sailing under only 2000 revolutions it started to make a horrible metal-on-metal noise. We shut down and troubleshot as best we could, but now are waiting on advice from Covey Island, the builders. So again, like in Natal, Brazil, we have a great engine, but can’t really put it to use….

Our suspicion as to what has happened is that we have had some lines around the prop from time to time, and I suspect one has fused in and somehow restricted cooling of the shaft bearing. We shall see.

The joke (or punishment?) is that we had been considering going by Aldabra Island, which is highly restricted for yachts, and saying that we had a failure and needed to stay a day or so for repairs. Now we actually have a serious failure, but the only responsible thing to do is to head for Mahe and the serious technical support there. We will be passing the Farquhar Islands on the way to Mahe, and I briefly imagined trouble shooting our problem while anchored in a lovely lagoon. But then I read the Cruising Guide, which talks of the only way in through the marvelously-named 25 Franc Passage as having tidal bores of up to eight knots with coral heads all around. No thanks!

All is (pretty) well.

Location: 13° 24.4 S, 48° 17.1 E
Saturday 12:00, 11.11.2006

The schooner Maggie B is back in Nosy Be at 13° 24.4S 48° 17.1. We are getting supplies including food and diesel, with the hope of leaving for the Seychelles on Monday. Sunday was the theory, but you can only clear in or out on weekdays.

The weather remains hot and humid, but the wind blows fair for the Seychelles.

There should be a bunch more photos up on the web site this evening. Particularly interesting are some of the local boats. These sail boats aren’t for the tourist trade, nor do they belong just to the poorest fishermen. They are the backbone on commerce here, moving people and goods from island to island, as well fishing. It is usual to see 30-50 working sail out in the morning.

We had a very hard day today to get 60 gallons of diesel on board. The taxis are the ridiculously small Renaults of the 1950’s. Imagine the back compartment full of 35 gallons of diesel in various non-descript jerry cans. Then they have to be carried down to the pier then down a slippery ramp to the Reep, then rowed out, then carefully poured in the tank, then back and do it again.

But the big story of the day is about another boat in the anchorage here. There are only ten cruisers here, so we noticed it early on, a well-kept blue sloop with a prominent fleur-de-lys on the bow. The German owner was found four months ago with his head cut off with one blow of a sword, and placed in his lap! The Police arrested the Swiss-German owner of a nearby boat, and put him in the local jail. But the German Police came out and tested the DNA of some of the blood of the dead man and it did not match the Swiss-German’s, so he was released after three months. Reportedly, the Swiss-German uses his boat as a rum-runner, filling his water tanks with Malagash rum and sailing to one of the French islands for trade. Local gossip is that the headless sailor had gotten seriously behind in his bills for recreational drugs, a situation not well tolerated in most jurisdictions.

All is well for now.

Island Hopping in Madagascar

I haven’t written since Bassas da India in the Mozambique channel, I know, but it’s been really hot and hard to sit by the computer to write. Also, since I’ve been told that my blogs are too dreamy, so I’ve been mostly just dreaming to myself…

We arrived to Nosy Be, Madagascar, Monday morning, five days ago and it’s been like going back to the past. As we came in, all the other sailboats were these beautiful wooden outriggers that probably didn’t change in design for centuries. As we checked in to get our visas, all the paperwork got done either hand written or typed, on what we would consider, a really old typewriter, a lot older than what my 99 year-old grandfather used in Hungary! All the officers have about 12 stamps in front of them and they stamp everything and several times. Getting a registered mail sent out by the post office was also quite amusing. Besides holding up the line for about 15 minutes, the operation involved three people working on my one letter: a woman getting it officially weighted (three times and opening her eyes as wide as if she was seeing a huge spider), a man writing all kinds of things in a very old yellowed book with a red pen in one hand and a blue in the other, and a third lady putting stickers onto the letter and into two different books using glue from a tube. Granted, I was also involved. I had to fill out several forms and sign them. The post office itself is pretty much in ruins, I’ll try to get a picture of it to put online. All of this was in Nosy Be, supposedly one of the most modern places in Madagascar.

This is nothing but cultural shock. People here have beautiful and sincere smiles, I like it so much, it feels good. If you smile at them, they smile and stare at you in a pleasant deep way, that is rarely the case in our western cultures.

We’ve been island hopping for the last few days: swimming, snorkeling, hiking and eating lots of “banane flambee”. What a paradise! Yesterday, Willis and I hiked the highest mountain on Nosy Komba and it was amazing. A snake once crossed our path so I jumped back but it let us go through as did the many zebus on the mountain side. We met young girls carrying drinking water and they gave us flowers that smelled heavenly, I almost felt drunken by them. Ylang-ylang trees grew by our path and we saw lots of lemurs playing in the tall tropical vegetation. The views from the top were great and it felt so good to hike. We probably walked 17-minute miles, we were flying up on the steep path, excited to be surrounded by trees and wildlife. The lizards and chameleons are also very cool.

Tomorrow, we will get provisions in Hellville for our week-long passage to the Seychelles. We’ll be sailing out on Sunday morning and we’ll probably arrive onto Mahe island by the 19th or 20th of November. Time is going by fast, it will soon be Christmas. Good news: if all goes well, I’ll be able to be with my family in Hungary for the holidays. I can’t wait. It will be quite a change going from a tropical place into the snow.

I hope all is well with all of you! Remember that you can also write to me directly onto the boat at frankblair@uuplus.com if you wish to. It is nice to stay in touch. I’ll write more in a couple of days!

Location: 13° 26.5 S, 48° 21.1 E
Thursday 12:00, 11.09.2006

The Schooner Maggie B is now happily moored at Nosy Komba (Lemur Island) at 13° 26.5 S, 48° 21.1E, just a few miles from Nosy Be. It is much more peaceful, with only three cruising boats in the harbor and not much in the way of comings and goings. We have come 2377 NM from Cape Town. Aldabra Island (World Heritage site in the Seychelles) is just 268 NM away and Mahe, the capitol of the Seychelles is 676 NM.

People talk of the smells of the East. It is so much with us now. The galley, in fact the whole boat, smells of vanilla since we bought a big handful for $5. We also have lots of fresh ginger and new garlic for perfume, as well as the ylang ylang we bought for presents and the citronella perfume/anti-mosquito oil. From ashore there is the smoke of charcoal from all the cooking fires as well as the complex dense humid smells from the forest. Enchanting.

We have become a bit concerned about water.

There is “town” water in Nosy Be, but everyone says not to take it. The cruising guides said that Nosy Komba is the place to get water, but now that we are here, the locals say that it has been dry and that they have none to spare. Indeed we saw a group of perhaps a dozen women gathered around the one tap that was working. We had been a bit profligate with water (not to name names, but some people were taking two showers a day, and looong ones). We can make water as long as the watermaker is OK and we still have a lot, but there will be none from “outside” until Mahe. So the pressure pump is turned off and we are washing with Dr. Bronners (special soap) in the ocean before a fresh water rinse off. Of course, as I write this, it is raining hard. I suppose we should be collecting from the awning.

Getting diesel will also be a bit of an effort that we are saving for Saturday. No hoses to the pier, so Anderson (our Malagash contact) is rounding up all the Jerry cans he can find as well as our 10 gallons worth, and will borrow a truck to go to the nearest filling station, and we will row them out to the Maggie B, fill up and then do it again.
For boat work we are scraping weed off the hull and patching and sealing a few spots. One life line chafed through at one of the gates and Hannah had a new splice and eye back in it in a jiffy.

We are planning to spend much of tomorrow at Tane Kely (also know as Nine Pin) which supposedly has terrific snorkeling, then back to Nosy Be Friday night for the Rendezvous des Marins and Malagasy dancing.

All is well.

Location: 13° 24.4 S, 48° 17.1 E
Monday 12:00, 11.06.2006

We are safely at anchor in Hellville, the main harbor of Nosy Be, at 13° 24.4 S, 48° 17.1 E. It is a small but active commercial port and there are about a dozen other cruisers at anchor here. We saw some harbors nearby with a greater concentration of sailboats, so this is clearly where you shop, clear customs and get diesel, then go somewhere else for fun.

Speaking of clearing customs, it was a breeze.

The East Indian Pilot and Nigel Calder have it wrong. Everyone was friendly and quick. There wasn’t even a hint of extra fees or bribes, we got receipts for everything and it was fairly inexpensive. The local currency is the Ariary, which is 2000 to the dollar. Health clearance was $12, each visa was $15, Police clearance of the boat $7, and a month long cruising permit was $24. I will write the authors and update them, though there is a Presidential election coming up and perhaps all will change.

I kept saying “We sure aren’t in Kansas any more!”

Nose Be is very exotic. The faces are very variable — one quite Arab, the next Somali, the next Congolese, the next Polynesian. The taxis are tiny dead Renaults with Mercedes trucks and zebu (humped cattle) carts thrown in.
We rendezvoused with Anderson, who was a great help checking in. I’m sure he earned a week’s salary just this morning. It is so strange to connect with him just from a chance conversation in Martinique with another sailor.

As with most ex-French colonies, the food is very good. Hannah had her first octopus for lunch today and enjoyed it. Willis and I tested out the local beer, Three Horses. Strange name, why not three lemur? We are going to try our best to balance high speed city life (think Rendezvous des Marins Disco) with the outdoors (think Hannah with a baby lemur).

I have some great photos which I will post to the site as soon as Bori (our Internet junkie) hunts down the best site.

All is well.

Location: anchored off Nosy Saba
Sunday 12:00, 11.05.2006

We spent a lovely peaceful Sunday anchored off Nosy Saba. Now (1830) we are underway for a 90 NM night passage, planning to arrive Nosy Be tomorrow morning about 0900. Why travel at night? We’re good at it, and why not? It will give all day to play paper chase with the Nosy Be bureaucrats.

When we got anchored last night, we settled in to have a little party, celebrating the arrival with Hannah’s chocolate cake. The cake was very nautical as the pitching of the boat had set it in rather a wave. The evening was perfect with Hannah discovering that dark rum went very well with our tropic fruit drink, Frank testing the South African wine, making sure it was still good in another country, Willis drinking all the cold beer, and Bori acting as designated driver.

I slept on deck as the temperature was perfect. Waking at 0300 to check the anchor and pee, I was surprised to see large birds flying quite close to the boat. With the light on them, I was even more surprised to see that they were crow-sized bats (fruit bats?) somehow attracted to the boat. It was rather like Hitchcock’s “The Birds” but creepier. I woke the crew so that they could get a good sense that we weren’t in Kansas any more.

During the day we snorkeled all around and saw wonderful fish. Then I took the Reep to row around the island (it is about 3/4 by 2 NM) and Hannah, Bori and Willis went to walk over it. I got some marvelous photos and saw two turtles. The three met a construction watchman and saw the site of a future rustic hotel. The watchman gave then some coconut milk and announced that there were exactly 15 lemurs on the island, but very hard to see.

As we raised the sails just after sunset we were greeted by the marvelous full moon, which will light our way to Nosy Be.

All is well.

Location: 14° 39 S, 46° 54 E
Saturday 12:00, 11.04.2006

The Schooner Maggie B was at 14° 39 S, 46° 54 E Nosy Saba is 46 NM away and Hellville, Nosy Be is 110 NM. We have come 1268 NM from Durban and 2236 NM from Cape Town. We are motor sailing with a light Westerly.

By the time most read this, we should be safely anchored off the beach at Nosy Saba, the “almost perfect island” (Bradt Travel Guide); “stunningly beautiful” (East Africa Pilot). We should arrive just in time for sunset, ready for rum and Cokes and a piece of the chocolate cake that Hannah is making while I try to concentrate on typing. We plan to stay there for all day tomorrow (Sunday), then leave Sunday evening for the 90 NM trip to Nose Be, with the plan to arrive at about 9-10 AM to check into Madagascar, hopefully with the help of Anderson Jaomanina.

We rigged our collapsible Bimini sunshade today for the first time in a while. The sun was just too much of a killer.

One fascinating story about this area concerns the area called Russian Bay, which is between Nosy Saba and Nosy Be. In 1905, a Russian warship named the Vlotny was sent out to harass Japanese ships as part of the Russo-Japanese War. The officers and crew got to Madagascar and decided that both war and Russia weren’t near as interesting as Madagascar girls. Sort of like the Bounty mutiny, but as if Bligh went along with it. The ship hid in the bay, emerging twice to pirate trading vessels in the Mozambique Channel before they ran out of coke for the boilers. They then built a Ural-style dormitory in Andassy Be, and settled in as fishermen, trading off parts of their vessel. The last one lived to 1936 and they are buried in a section of the local cemetery.

One integral piece of equipment for night watches is the iPod. We all have one, with lots of trading where we have the music either on disc or burned into a computer. What we are listening to: Frank - Bob Dylan, Modern Times and Kate Melua, Piece by Piece; Bori - Indigo Girls and Chopin; Willis - books on tape - Julien Stockwin, Kydd and J.R.R. Tolkein, The Hobbit; Hannah - Irish Descendants and David Usher.

All is well.

Australia before Christmas? Strategic Advice from John Leavitt of Commanders’ Weather

Let me start by repeating the old adage that “normals” are just the average of the extremes.

1) How safe is The Maggie B from typhoons in Mahe, Seychelles over the Christmas holidays?

Although the South Indian tropical season peaks from December through March, Mahe at 4-5s, 55-56e is north of most of the exposure to these systems. US Navy data indicate that north of 5s,in the 5 deg box 0-5s and 55-60e, exposure to a tropical storm or tropical cyclone is about 1% per year, (regardless of month) but with highest probability in Dec and Jan. At 5-10s and both 55-60e and 50-55e, exposure rises to about 4-5% in eachof December and January. As these storms typically form closer to the equator and move on some type of WSW or SW track, near or north of 5s what exposure exists is virtually always to storms in their formative stages (close to the 35kt trigger for the above probabilities). In addition, one of the near-real time tools for forecasting tropical activity is the Madden-Julian oscillation (or MJO) which is a fairly complicated statistical assessment which correlates to favorability for tropical activity, and which changes fairly slowly, on a scale of months or seasons.

Recently, the MJO has been negative in this part of the world, correlating with quieter than normal convection and tropical activity. All of that being said, it appears that the odds are fairly low of a tropical problemin any given location over a period of several weeks or a month. But we can never say the chances are zero.

2) How do we get from Mahe to Australia in January?

We’re presuming that you are interested in getting to either Perth or to SE Australia (Sydney, Melbourne or even Brisbane) which would suggest a passage along the S coast, as opposed to choosing an initial destination in the north. Brynn and I favor your third option of heading for the westerlies and then going across. There are several reasons for this. First, the geographical probability of problems with the trades on any northern route are considerable, as at any given time you could expect a swath of 10-15 degrees of latitude, from typically from 10-15s down to around 25s where there would be a substantial and nearly continual headwind component. If not, the alternative on the northern side of the trades would be doldrums, with little wind, and what there is is not necessarilyfrom a favorable direction.

Tropicals are a concern, especially for NW Australia and the Timor Sea, if you head that way, and January-February is about the height of the season there. Incidentally, the MJO is not as protective there this season, although the phases typically progress westto east around the tropics over time. We would favor heading SE from Mahe, or a ways E and then SE to avoid the highest frequency tropical areas of the SW indian Ocean, which are near Mauritius, to a waypoint at 30-35s depending on where you get into the westerllies when the time comes, and then east to southern Australia.

3) Is Bali an “no go” in January - February?

Never say never. Bali is not particulary prone to tropicals, as they typically stay over the S/SE half of the North Australian Basin, even through you would be in peak season. Much of the problem is getting there (reference the comments above regarding trades and doldrums) but it mightnot be as bad to consider a route north of the ITCZ where prevailing winds are more NE/NNE in winter, unless too stormy. Approaching the Malay Peninsula and Indonesia, prevailing winds go more NW in winter. The other problem is, after Bali, where do you go next, as the probable routes, around NW Austrailia toward Perth, or through the Torres Strait and past Cairns both pass through the heart of tropical cyclone regions from Deember through April.

We can address details of all of these as you progress with your planning.

John Leavitt

Location: 15° 44.3 S, 44° 08.1 E
Friday 12:00, 11.03.2006

At noon today, the Schooner Maggie B was at 15° 44.3 S 44° 08.1 E. We are doggedly motoring into a light headwind, through somewhat choppy waves. We are 289 miles from Nosy Be and have come 2062 NM from Cape Town. There is about 1/3 knot of adverse current.

Today is a big day for us astronomically as the sun is right over us at 15° 06 S (OK, it was 38 miles north at noon). We are in some ways now heading “into winter” the same as our family and friends in the northern hemisphere. It will be strange to have the sun back in the southern sky again.

We haven’t quite decided on our first Madagascar landfall. At current VMG (velocity made good) towards Nosy Be, we would arrive at approximately 0500 on November 5th. There are some wonderful islands South of Nosy Be, and currently we are making for them, specifically Nosy Saba, which the East Africa Pilot describes as: “stunningly beautiful….beautifully clear water…large game fish….pleasant walking….plenty of wildlife.” But, then there is the lure of Nosy Be and “the boisterous discotheque at La Vieux Port — Rendezvous des Marins. There you will be educated in the wild art of Malagasy dancing until 0800 or so the next morning.” Decisions, decisions.

The one island that we won’t be stopping at is Nosy Lava (Long Island), which is the site of Madagascar’s maximum security prison. It became particularly famous in yachting circles in 1993 when two murderers broke out, killed the crew of the yacht Magic Carpet, and sailed to the mainland.

Separately on the web site, I have posted the latest information from Commanders Weather, when I asked for strategic advice. With the marvelous complexity of Madagascar in front of us and then the beauty of the Seychelles not far after that, the chances of making Australia (Perth?) in time for Christmas home leave, seem remote. So I asked Commanders three questions: 1) is it safe to leave the Maggie B over Christmas in the Seychelles (safe from typhoons, that is), 2) what is the best way to get to Australia from the Seychelles, and 3) any chance of going by Bali on the way to Australia. Their answer is very interesting and fits with my planning: 1) Yes, 2) like from Brazil to Cape Town, go south and pick up the westerlies and 3) no.

Yesterday at lunch we continued our poetry readings (I forgot to post it). Hannah read John Masefield’s excellent “Sea Fever.” A future shipmate, Robert Farrar, added to the discussion with an emailed copy of Octavio Paz’s marvelous “Towards the Poem,” which I read. Today Bori read Thackeray’s delicious “The Ballad of Bouillabaisse,” which made us salivate even though we were having a perfect meal of chicken breasts poached in white wine with onions and carrots.

We will be at some Nosy by the 5th.

All is well.

Location: 17° 35.4 S, 42° 30.0 E
Thursday 12:00, 11.02.2006

Today at noon, Schooner Maggie B was at 17° 35.4 S, 42° 30.3 E about 30 NM south of Juan de Nova, a French island off the coast of Madagascar. We are sailing along nicely now on a close reach in 10-12 knot NNW’erly, making 6.25 knots through the water and 7.4 speed over the ground with the current.

Hellville, Nose Be is 419 miles away and we have come 1916 NM since Cape Town.

The barometer has fallen a bit to 1009, enough to remind us that the weather can change here quickly, though not enough to yet be of a concern.

Back in May, when we were in Cul de Sac des Marins, Martinique, Yvon, Captain of the beautiful yawl Darwin Sound, gave us the name of a former shipmate, Anderson Jaomanina, from Madagascar, and encouraged us to track him down when we got to this part of the world. Happily we were finally able to make contact and he will be meeting us at the pier in Nosy Be, to introduce us to the delights of Madagascar and perhaps to sail with us for a bit. Anderson should be of significant use because the East Africa Pilot says, “Nosy Be is famous for the determination and cunning shown by port officials in pursuit of bribes and fictitious port charges.”

One navigational difficulty in this part of the world is the names of places. It seems very usual to have a particular town with at least three different names, the official Malagasy, the French name from the period of occupation, and the Portuguese “discovery” name. So Diego Suarez is also Antsiranana; Fort Dauphin is Taolagnano. Most towns start with An- or Am- which means “the place where” and Island is Nosy, which comes first. Imagine looking up in an alphabetical list of towns where 2/3’s are An-something, or finding an island where the format is “Island Long” rather than “Long Island” so it is Nosy This and Nosy That. Sigh. Relax.

Bori made a lovely Tortilla de Patates for lunch. It is a very traditional Spanish dish, made with potatoes cooked slowly in olive oil with garlic, eggs and onions. Total yum!

All is well.

Getting close to the shores of Madagascar

It is the 2nd of November today but I don’t know what day of the week it is. I can find out from my agenda but it is funny how we loose track of the days out here. Time somehow seems suspended on the water. Still, it goes on, I hear. Hannah’s family told us that all the leaves have now fallen in Nova Scotia. I still remember them being so light green in March when we sailed out from Lunenburg and now they are gone. Already? And my mother said they have predicted snow for the weekend in Hungary.

It is a little confusing to be a sailor.

My life has been different this last year. The natural cycle of the year that I have gotten used to for 27 years has gotten messed up in my 28th year. A year ago, I haven’t even arrived to Nova Scotia but I was on my way, this adventure with the Maggie B, not always on the water, will celebrate its first anniversary soon as far as my part goes. March 28th was around the first nice spring week in Lunenburg after a Canadian winter (not too harsh judged by the locals, still lots of snow onboard)… and spring hasn’t even really started when we arrived into summer in Bermuda and ever since, it seems as though it has been summer!!! It is November now and I’ve been wearing sunscreen since April and now, it is getting even hotter. This is what life is like close to the equator. It takes less time to get dressed and undressed but I miss the changing seasons. Really, to understand time, I need other references, like distance traveled from Barbados to Brazil or from Durban to Juan de Nova where we are now, or looking in the mirror and seeing myself wearing a pony tail and I remembering leaving Canada with short hair. Those things make sense because they remain changing no matter where we are on the planet. The wind blows, the boat moves, time goes, hair grows. They don’t care about where the equator is.

So, needless to say, it’s been hot and humid lately but the nights are beautiful and full of stars. Today, against the heat, I did prepare “una tortilla de patatas”, a Spanish potato and egg tortilla, baked in lots of olive oil for a long time on slow heat… and it didn’t break too badly when I flipped it. I was inspired by passionate Spanish guitar music I listened to on my watch last night. It is fun to cook and try to have things as perfect as possible on a boat. We have time to concentrate so I am perfecting my cooking skills.

But it is great to be a sailor…

Frank and I had a great conversation this morning about why it is great to be a sailor. I’ve been learning Malagasy this morning as well as studying how cyclones and typhoons are created. Then, I read about Swahili time, how their days start at 6h and end at 18h and their nights start at 18h and end at 6h… there are so many differences, so many codes to understand when one travels. We need to understand the weather, navigation, sail setting, geography, physics, speak the language of the country we are visiting, attempt to understand the culture… there is no end to our learning. Sailing is like human ecology, everything seems to be related somehow. It is hard to hang on sometimes. I need to surround myself by stable, non-changing things and emotional bonds in order to be able to embrace all that is new.

In about three days we will be in Hellville, Nosy Be, it seems like a relaxed but exciting place with much to discover. I project myself onto a cafe terrace and I will look at the sea while I write postcards by the mango trees.

Location: 19° 35.3 S, 40° 48.0 E
Wednesday 12:00, 11.01.2006

At noon on November 1st, the Schooner Maggie B was at 19° 35.3 S, 40° 48.0 E. She was slipping along at 6.3 knots in an easy 10-12 knot NW’er, heading for a turn off the hump of Madagascar, near the French Island of Joan de Nova. We have gone 1761 NM since Cape Town and have 569 to go to Hellville, Nose Be.

It has become hot and muggy and we are looking forward to the beaches of Madagascar almost as much as the lemurs.

Today was one of those very, very routine days at sea that makes the life of a sailor comfortable and steady. Being a quiet day, I called for “The Hat” which means four jobs on slips of paper in a hat, to be chosen by all at random. Vacuum, wash floors, wash verticals, and, everybody’s favorite: The Head and Shower. Hannah chose the short straw, so she was rewarded at lunch with the tiniest flying fish as a main course. The rest of the meal was fresh tuna marinated over night in soy sauce, lemon juice and ginger, followed by stir fry shrimp, onions and peppers over rice. Yum!

Willis and I had been separating trash by the rail and had made a bit of a mess. I got a bucket on a rope to wash it down and caught a wave just wrong and it was snatched out of my hands. I called for All Hands and we did Man Overboard drill. The chart plotter was marvelous to be able to immediately retrace our path within yards. Even so it was astonishing how quickly a bright red floating bucket can disappear. Hannah was on the foredeck with the boat hook looking like Queeg Queg the harpooner in the bow of Starbucks’ boat, all of us being guided by Bori for the final approach. Hannah got it on the first pass and the bucket will live on to do another lifetime of wash downs.

Bori has been given the responsibility of reading a poem a day to us (we have lots of books of poetry on board). Yesterday she read Fernando Pessoa’s “The Tobacco Shop.” It was met with only limited enthusiasm from Frank and Willis, and led to the discussion of what poetry should be. I believe that Pessoa must have been crippled by a bad translator. Today I read Sasha Moorsom’s “Jewels in My Hand’ (”I hold dead friends like jewels in my hand”) to some success, at least with Willis, the self-described cynical lawyer. No doubt poetry slams will be next!

All is well.