Back in the Mozambique Channel!

Well we left nearly 24 hrs ago and have been motoring for nearly 20hrs of that in an oily slick of water with a left over southerly swell. Have just got the motor ticking over using 2ltrs an hour and we are doing 6 knots with the help of the current so we are happy with that. Forecast for more light winds the next few days but you never know we might get to sail sometimes with some luck! Will just keep heading south while the weather is good and see were we end up, at this stage the weather is turning bad about the 5th so we should get a good run out of it especially if we keep getting 130-150nm days.
Our 1300 pos is 18.52s 37.52e approx 200nm NE of Bazaruto and 670nm to Richards Bay SA.
Maybe with some luck we might catch a fish:)

Birthday Forecast!

Well it's been a great couple of days waiting for the weather to change. We had dinner the other night over on Mantra. Helen cooked us a beautiful prawn pasta with flans for desert, Spectacular! Then we hosted on Sunflower last night, I cooked a vege Sri Lankan curry, Julie made a beetroot curry and a dhal with papadums and Helen made some fresh pita breads and it all went down with bottles of champagne, white and red wine! Doing it tough once again on the high seas!
We also moved yesterday to Casuarina island just 3 miles south and it's a lot better. We were rolling like mad at the other island as the swell seems to wrap around and hit you side on but it's fine here. Luckily Julie can speak Portuguese and we met some fishermen here and they are very happy bunch, not the cannibals we thought after all! Nope they eat turtles here but not too many we think as there seems to be a lot around that we have seen. Anyway we gave them a few old shirts and they were very appreciative and even offered us a turtle! We declined there offer, Julie saying she likes to see them swimming and they looked at her like she was mad!
Then this morning I downloaded a very promising forecast for favourable winds for at least the next 5 days, looking better to leave tomorrow but I think we will make a head start this afternoon to get as far south as we can while the weather is good, may be a couple of days of motoring but should still be enough wind to sail most of the time after tomorrow we are hoping, as long as it's not strong southerlies like it has been we are happy!
Julie has just baked me a very nice looking cake and we will go over the Mantra after to cut it and blow out the candles, great birthday:)
Maybe the next time around we can stop and have a proper look up the African coast, I think it would be amazing.

Well we haven't been eaten so that's always a good thing. We had a very rolly night last night at anchor, big cross swell wasn't too comfy. Then this morning while we were doing an oil change we heard a big call out for Sunflower! To our surprise it was Mantra, a couple called Helen and Gordon from Glasgow who we had met in Thailand nearly two years ago. We are going over there for dinner tonight which should be very nice.
We have seen 2 guys on the beach this morning looking out at us, they were wearing green old clothes, can't work out if they work for a national park or are some kinda army!
So now we have neighbours and have only a 50/50 chance of being eaten...
Ha, all good on the fine ship Sunflower!

Mozambique!!

Ha we arrived at Ilha Epidendron just after day break this morning 17*05.05s 39*07.08e and the Navionics charts all seemed spot on. We anchored about 250m of the N side of the island with a long sandy beach. The islands only a tad over .5nm long but offers good protection from SW-SE winds anchoring in 9m on sand.
We haven't done any research at all on Mozambique really except for a couple of spots to stop incase of bad weather 300+nm south but don't know much about the country or people.
We could smell smoke from the island just as we arrived but not since and haven't seen anyone on the island but did see some old footprints which is a bit strange and now Julieta is convinced there are cannibals living on there! If you haven't heard from us in a couple of days we may have been eaten:)

Illas Primeiras Saturday 25-10

The sea now is almost like glass with just a couple of knots of breeze behind us. We are literally doing 3.5-4 kts with the current alone. The forecast for Sunday night till Wednesday morning is for 15-20kt headwinds and into this current I don't expect it to be very comfy to say the least. So we have spotted some islands about 5 mile off the Mozambique coast called Illas Primeiras and we will go and hang behind them for a couple of days and wait until we can carry on south. Plan to arrive at daylight tomorrow.
Looks like there isn't much around on the mainland there close so hopefully it might be good fishing and that can keep us busy for a couple of days.
Been pretty uneventful here just rolling around cooking bananas, watching episodes of Seinfeild and taking it pretty easy as now there is no rush at all and it's good to just be cruising in the current without having to motor.
Up until last night we were pushing at least half a knot of current the whole way but now it should hopefully be with us all the way until Richards Bay.
Our midday position is 16*42s 40*37e about 40nm off Mozambique coast and 90nm from the islands and doing 4.5kts and the cabin is getting hot! There's a few ships around also heading up and down the coast.

24th of october Friday

Motoring with very little wind doing 5kts. Panic over as freezer has started to work once again as it gave up for a couple of days after that bad weather, we can have Cuba Libres with ice once again. Irish stew in pressure cooker last night wasn't too bad either.
We have made about 200nm good since leaving and have about 100miles to go until we should see some good current helping us off the Mozambique coast.
Midday pos 16*0.000s 42*38.000e
KasteHelmi still in sight.
Forecast for light winds until Sunday still showing so might be more noisy motoring.

Mozambique Channel

Well unfortunately for this passage you can be waiting a long time for a perfect weather window, basically I dont think it really happens. The winds are variable, from all over the place sometimes light others blowing a gale. So you just have to wait and get one that doesn't look too bad and may have lighter winds were you may have to motor for some of the time before the next southerly "Buster"comes. The other obstacle is the Agulhas current. This races down the Mozambique coast from North to South apparently getting to speeds 3-4kts. This is were it can get tricky if your caught in a southerly blow with the current against it and massive waves form so you have to go inside the 200m contour were there's no current. But also in the middle of the Channel there are massive canyons that spin the current around all over the place but luckily for us we have internet means of seeing were they are, hopefully:) and when you do get in it and the weather in favourable you're laughing!
So just pick what looks like a reasonable 8 day forecast and go for it! That's what we and the 2 Finnish boats have done as it looks like we he fully won't get too strong a southerlies when we hit the other side of the channel.
So we left yesterday morning with the strong tide helping us as there was no wind so we motored until lunch. Then it came in from the west, exactly were we wanted to go. So it was a very long night bashing to windward 50degrees off course on each tack with 20-25kts over the deck with 2 reefs and the staysail just plugging away. Then about 3am it finally went SSW and we could head west and make some ground. We have been sailing nice since 8am with full sail again making good progress!
Our midday position is 15*16.000s 44*16.000e
140nm sailed since leaving but only 100nm made good until the first waypoint. 1052nm to SA.
Weather is fine now and we can stop eating noodles!

Cruising

We got to the island of Nosy Be at the end of September and our first anchorage was Sakatia island on the west coast. There's a South African couple living there that have sailed this area for a long while called Des and Nel. We met up with them and they gave us the low down on what goes on about the place with immigration formalities, security ect and a good bit of info on the Mozambique Channel and coast. Very nice people who off course liked to chat over a couple of beers which is always good with us! We then went down to Hellville the main town on the island and officially checked in and got our visa ect, all went relatively smoothe, well sort of... Nothing has a set price here, everyone wants a little something and when you can't talk Malagash or French you end up paying a little more because you basically just can't argue as you start running out of hand signals! All good though, went to the bank and did a load of shopping at the supermarket and stocked back up on a few necessities including the local beer. 

We left the same afternoon for Crater Bay just north and that is were all the action for yachties is. There is a yacht club of sorts there with a good bar and does great pizza. There's also fresh water available at a small price and the people running it are all super friendly bunch. A lot of French about that I think have been in the area for a long time and maybe do a few charters ect to get by. There was a good few boats also that we had met up with in the last year so it was a pretty social time hanging out at the bar in the afternoons for a couple of coldies. Our friend Marcia celebrated her birthday there and had a party which was great fun and the night ending at a local disco tech with a little bit of dancing!

Then it was off to a couple of the small islands around there for a few days hanging out and relaxing and doing a few little boat jobs and then heading back to Crater bay for a final top up of fresh water and a few more supplies.

We then went accross to Russian Bay but the wind was very light and we ended up motoring for a couple of hours but also managed to catch a couple of nice mackerel. Was a nice spot in a huge sheltered bay but for some reason the swell gets in there and we rolled like mad all night so decided to leave the next day. Our friends on Kantala told us of an island around the corner with Lemures so we went for a look. Definitelly not disappointed as they were jumping like mad everywhere! Ha was crazy, Julie in heaven as they also climbed all over you in hope of a bannana! Really nice guy there who spoke good English and showed us around feeding them the bananas. 

We just anchored there a couple of hours and then left for an overnight sail to Moromba Bay. There is normally a good sea breeze from the west and we had a great sail for the 100 or so miles there arriving just after lunch to see  our Finnish friends there on Ever After and KasteHelmi. We caught another couple of mackerel on the way so we had a BBQ on the beach and I took my Xmas present which is a mini fish smoker along, delicious thank you Emma and James!!

This place is like the Kimberly's in Australia. Big Boab trees, granite gorges, sheltered water and loads of places to anchor, beautiful. We stayed a week. Locals really friendly, would occasionally come over to trade stuff but mainly just sail on past with a wave, not bothered. There's boats sailing everywhere. Little kids sailing there own dugouts going fishing and hanging out with their mates. The people here have nothing, living VERY basic life but happy out and healthy. Lots of mud crabs, crayfish and off course fish but not a lot of rain so the landscape is very dry so not a lot of vegetables I'm guessing. KasteHelmi has a beautiful sheltered cockpit, Maila standing under the shelter was very unfortunate to have a jumping mackerel of about 6kg come flying through a little gap in the curtain and hit her in the back of the head opening it up quite bad. Heikki managed to do some good doctoring and fixed her up and her sense of humor still high so all ended not too bad but I'm sure she was very sore. The chances of that happenning??!

From there we did another overnight sail 80nm south to were we are now, Katsepy. Not a bad spot but nothing special. We went into Mujunga by ferry and did some shopping for veges ect and get credit for the internet. Now we are waiting for a weather window to cross the Mozambique Channel. We won't get a perfect run I'm sure but it's not looking great to leave but we will see. We're ready to leave now anyway when the time comes, hopefully in the next couple of days.

Our thoughts on Madagascar for people coming here.....it's great! There's a lot of bad stories going around and I'm sure some are true. But these things happen mainly in the busier ports were there's always crime in cities. Diego Suarez seems to be a big one to avoid if you don't want stuff stolen, we didn't go but just from what we have heard. We saw no trouble and only met very friendly people everywhere we went. The people are super poor but happy and live of the land. Because they have no money to buy stuff there is very little rubbish, it's amazing not seeing plastic everywhere, it's great.

Our only regret is not having more time to spend here, I think 3 months would be perfect amount of time. There's a lot to see from the top of west coast to Nosey Be and that's were we would have liked to spend longer.