HALF A WORLD AWAY ...

The Rev Bob Shepton

(The fourth installment in the chronicle of Dodo's Delight's circumnavigation. She is a 33ft Westerly Discus, sailed by the Rev Bob and a crew generally referred to as `the lads'.)

Pascua to Pitcairn

So that was the Pacific and Indian Oceans. It was rather a case of Been there, done that' as the lads would say. But it went like this ... Easter Island, or Isla da Pascua, we found an island of contrasts. On the one hand there was all the interest of its history. Who were the first inhabitants, and where did they come from? South America (Thor Heyerdahl) or Polynesia (Peter Thrower)? And why those huge statues, the maois, for which the island is so famous? And how were they transported? Theories abound but the bottom line is that nobody really knows. We spent a fascinating day at Rano Raraku, the old volcanic mountain where these statues were carved out of the living rock, and where many of them still remain standing or lying in various stages of completion and awaiting transportation by whatever means. We enjoyed the friendly and simple way of life, though here again we were intrigued by the contrasts. The fisherman, whom we considered ripped us off with his charges for ferrying our stores and diesel through the heavy surf in his dory (Rapa-nui was quickly re-named Rippoffa-nui), lived in a dark, dingy, dirty clapboard shanty. There are no other words for it, I am afraid. Yet there he was running a smart 4x4 vehicle, with a powerful 55hp outboard powering his fishing dory. He was not the only one, and it didn't seem to add up. We appreciated and admired the anchorage of Anakena with its golden sandy beach and line of moais standing sentinel behind. This is where Hotu Matua, the first king, had landed and set up his base -- he obviously knew a thing or two! And also where Thor Heyerdahl in 1956 had got Pedro Atan and his fellow `Long Ears' to re-erect the first moai to be put back on its platform, using the ancient methods -- or so it was claimed. And we were grateful for the comparatively reasonable rate for faxes and communications (we came down with a bump in Papeete later).

But against all this were the anchorages, or lack of them. The small harbour of Hango-Piko was closed to yachts, at least whilst we were there. Perhaps it was the same internecine strife that Willy Ker and Ann Fraser had witnessed so dramatically at close quarters when entering in Assent the previous year that had caused it to be closed? Though a more likely explanation was that a ship was unloading at the time and they needed the harbour for the lighters. But Hangaroa outside is just an open roadstead mightily exposed to the north-west. We nearly lost our main anchor and chain when it piped up strongly and we had to get out in a hurry. The chain caught on a coral head on the sea bed, so we had to buoy it and abandon and go round to Vinapu on the south coast, where we eventually hung off the stern of a Chilean naval vessel by kind permission when they saw we were having trouble getting our spare anchors to hold with limited chain. When we finally got back to Hangaroa from another anchorage, at Anakena, no buoys. The water was still murky from the previous strong onshore wind so after a brief look we returned to Anakena and came back the next day. Miraculously (it was Sunday, but then we had taken a GPS position at anchor previously!) the lads swimming in the water with masks located one of the fender buoys which had been pulled down below the water by the weight of chain, the other having floated away. It was with great relief that we managed to motor round unravelling the chain and get it all back up board.

By the time we left Pascua we had circumnavigated the island and tried all the likely anchorages at various times in search of shelter. In case it is of interest to future visitors: Vinapu on the south coast we found rocky and turbulent but better of course than Hangaroa in northerly winds; Hotuiti was a little better with some sand but a big incoming swell; Anakena had plenty of sand (and a big mooring buoy marked Armada de Chile, so no comment as to what we did) but was again untenable in northerly winds. Poor Scotty on joining us for the next leg had to walk two or three miles from the airport (especially extended as an emergency landing for the American space shuttle, which seemed rather incongruous) to Vinapu, and then undertake a very long, wet dinghy ride with all his gear to join the corkscrewing boat in the dark. I am afraid it was not long before the airline meals went over the side.

So it was some relief when it became time to go, but not before leaving our outboard propeller somewhere amongst the rocks when running in to clear from the Port Captain's office in the dark through the big swell. But, corkscrewing violently in the strong onshore wind and sea, and hanging off the end of a merchant ship this time, at 0315 on 24 May we slipped our lines and put to sea.

But was this Pacific sailing? It started conventionally enough with light south-easterly winds and sunshine the first day, but the next day was cloudy and the wind had gone round to north-east to north to north-west, and by the day after that right round to south-west with prolonged rain and winds up to force 7. Sailing on the wind with a nasty choppy sea, not quite what we had been led to expect! Lucky these lads were used to it, except for our new member Scotty who was definitely feeling the ill effects. And it continued like this off and on, and mainly on, for the next three thousand miles to Papeete, reaching a low point meantime when we spent three and half days beating against strong westerly winds to make but a hundred miles to close Pitcairn, itself a tiny dot in the ocean and dead downwind from us. I remember writing in the skipper's log sometime during this period, `Perhaps it is therapeutic to release one's feelings in print, for the Pacific has not been pacific for us. In fact it is really just the North Atlantic, only warmer! And it seems to behave like this back to front. The glass rises, grey stratus and strato-cumulus clouds cover the sky and the wind increases; the glass falls, the sky clears and the sun comes out, and sometimes the wind decreases. I know the weather systems are back to front in the Southern Hemisphere, but this is ridiculous! And why do the Routeing Charts tell such lies? The predominant wind for this time of year (May/June) is meant to be south-east. We have had variations of south-west and north-west most of the time, and have been on the wind for most of a month!' Of course it was all good character building stuff, but I suppose we were a bit caught out by the unexpectedness of it all. Foolish really, but we had even imagined we might get some fair winds in the Pacific after all those weeks on the wind from Antarctica.

But Pitcairn was well worth the effort required to reach it. As we took the last board in towards the shore and tried the engine again (it had been giving trouble) the wind lessened, the sun came out and we were able to anchor in blessed sand in Bounty Bay, where Fletcher Christian had finally anchored HMAV Bounty, and where it was destroyed by fire a few days later. The inhabitants (all fifty-one of them) were kindness itself, and of course there was all the interest of their history and the present lifestyle of the mutineers' descendants. "We are about a hundred years behind the times," said Charles Christian, "and that's good". In many ways they were, and it was: no television except via video machines, and the houses all tucked in amongst the trees and dense foliage. They were not particularly well built as far as we could see, but why bother? There was little money around (it's not really a money economy anyway) and the climate is temperate -- all you really need is a corrugated iron roof against the rains. The crew of Dodo's Delight made the mistake of challenging the island to volleyball and lost heavily, but as we had the local Seventh Day Adventist pastor on our side to make up the numbers, and it wasn't a Saturday, we blamed him. There is a flaw there somewhere but we'll let that pass.

To our surprise we were able to buy food and tins at reasonable (New Zealand) prices at the village store -- also run by the pastor -- and any of the abundant fruit that was not actually in someone's garden was free for the taking. And we had not realised until Pitcairn that to get bananas you cut down the whole tree, take your bunch of bananas and wait for the next tree to grow. In fact it would still be quite possible for folks there to be self-sufficient and to live by growing their own produce and fishing, and many still do, or almost -- the ease of buying at the store taking the edge of necessity away. They gave us a big fish just caught for our departure, and ladled fresh fruit upon us: bananas, oranges, grapefruit, paw-paw, and a Bligh breadfruit to try. But here I had to sympathize with the slaves of the West Indies who had rejected it! Strange to think that whole expedition was of no account anyway ...

Pitcairn to Papeete

After three days of this lush green ocean paradise we had to take our leave, for a passage of contrasts. It started in sunshine and with a pleasant breeze, `1100: Nice to be off the wind'. But it died in the evening and as we motored through the night we had continually and more and more frequently to bleed the engine's fuel system to keep it running. Another day's sailing, but when the wind died away again the next evening the skipper, even though he had in desperation trained the crew in the art, no longer had the energy for us to go on bleeding the fuel system through the night and we just let the boat drift. Later, after much research, we found the problem was due to the first fuel filter having become so clogged with the gunge stirred up by the rough seas of the previous passage that it would not let fuel through and was sucking air through the connections instead. Fortunately we had one filter element left and were able to cure the problem, for the time being at least.

We were able to make sail the next morning and the wind for a while had some east in it, but it became increasingly gusty and strong, and wet. Scotty for one was suffering again, `1000: Ugh! I hate this weather' -- but he had recovered somewhat by the evening, `2100: I feel good, yeh!'. (Oh well). Again the abiding memory of the passage was days and days of south-west and north-west winds, and sailing continually close-hauled. But we did enjoy three final days reaching and running up to Tahiti, even if it was quite choppy and the wind did get up to 42 knots. A rogue wave knocked the helmsman over in the cockpit and carried away the port life ring. There was an object lesson for us here, as when we turned round and motored back against the heavy sea we were able to see and recover the light eventually, but in the dark there was no chance of finding the life ring, which had become detached. Then by the west coast of Tahiti it all died away and we had to motor the last few miles to Papeete. This we overshot as the GPS did not marry up with our borrowed chart, but finally we negotiated the entrance and dropped anchor and took lines ashore in the dark, kindly aided by the skipper of the Swedish boat next door.

Papeete is a large, sophisticated, and very expensive French city with fast moving traffic, plonked down on a Polynesian island and seemingly staffed mainly by French-speaking Polynesians. But we were able to relax after our passage, some too excessively I'm afraid, and the skipper walked miles through the hard unforgiving streets buying necessary items of equipment and trying to find FRAM filters for the engine, without success. But we stocked with diesel and water and did a preliminary food shop, and miraculously found a gas filling station that was able to fill all our disparate types of gas bottles (except for the Brazilian, of course, which are way out). This meant we `had' to go to Moorea for the weekend as we could not collect them till the Monday, and so we enjoyed two days at anchor by a palm strewn beach, in clear blue water. It was a hard life again!

Papeete to Fiji

We returned reluctantly to collect our gas bottles and to clear, post our final mail and do a big shop at the supermarket for food for the next extended passage. We left that evening and a night, a day and a night with mainly following winds (at last) took us to Bora Bora, the so-called Pearl of the Pacific. Personally I thought it was rather over-rated, with its somewhat twee thatched huts built or perhaps cleaned up for the tourists, but it was pleasant and sunny, and certainly the island with its central volcanic peak and fringing coral reef and turquoise blue water was impressive. We enjoyed swimming and snorkelling by the beaches and nearby reefs, and took the opportunity to careen the boat with buckets and weights suspended from the boom in order to fill a small hole in the gel on the waterline which we had not seen before. For some reason we then had to take ourselves off to the local yacht club on the second night, instead of staying in a pleasant isolated anchorage. Obviously a sign of the generation gap! But at least we were able to fill with water there, and next morning after clearing with the local gendarmarie (who had lost our green form, but it didn't seem to matter), and final posting and shopping, we took our departure at 1240 on 1 July bound for Fiji. The lads informed me wryly on the way out that we were missing the Bastille celebrations that very night, but maybe after Papeete that was no bad thing ...

At last for eight days we enjoyed trade wind sailing with the wind from south-east or east -- and then (what a grouch this man is) I came to the conclusion I didn't really like it anyway! Personally I have always felt the two most difficult points of sailing are beating and running, and trade wind sailing is running. The boat rolls violently from side to side, or so we found, and the sails frap and crack which can't be doing them any good at all (as I found when I had to sew them up again), especially when the wind is light and so is easily rolled out by the swell. But on the other hand the boat was more or less on an even keel, and we were making fast progress.

There was a small hiccup when the wind died away and we had to motor for most of the day, but it returned in the evening and suddenly it was one reef, two, three in quick succession as the wind increased rapidly. For three consecutive nights the wind came in strongly at about that time, for some reason. But we were trade wind sailing again, and took the Lakemba Pass through the Lau group of islands. We went through at night even though there were no lights, but everything showed up on the radar and there were no problems. A pleasant day and night took us across the Koro Sea, and into Suva harbour the next evening as darkness fell. There was a brief unscheduled stop on a coral reef inside the harbour -- again the GPS and the chart did not quite marry up, and occulting lights are easily confused with flashing -- but the rising tide with a kedge anchor and a friendly local fishing boat soon had us off, and we anchored off the Royal Suva Yacht Club in the dark without further mishap. So that was Easter Island to Fiji, and we reckoned we were half way round.

We liked Fiji immensely. Warm, friendly people, beautiful coral islands all around, a temperate climate, not too hot but sunny and warm especially on the west side, and most things at a reasonable price. Of course there are tensions underneath between the Indian population and the indigenous Fijians, and crime and muggings are on the increase, but to me at least this was the real gem of the Pacific as seen so far. We spent a week anchored off the Royal Suva Yacht Club sorting things out and stocking up, and were fortunate enough to meet David Lewis in his Gryphon there, hearing a little about his recent practical studies of ancient Polynesian navigational methods. We then moved round to Lautoka via the offlying island of Mbenga, nearly putting ourselves on it's hidden enclosing reef during a windy morning approach. Here we were taken to visit the chief of the nearby village by `the son of the chief', driving flat-out past coral reefs in his dory -- quite an experience -- to present our kava and be given freedom of movement in the neighbourhood through the accompanying ceremony. At Lautoka we spent some time at the Neisau marina, perhaps a somewhat glorified term but so far as I know only boatyard in Fiji with facilities for lifting out at fairly reasonable rates. We eschewed the privilege as we had heard of scrubbing posts in Darwin.

We made a crew change here which involved my eldest daughter and a friend joining us, by special concession and with no financial support from the Trust. Some of us visited Viseisei, reputed to be the oldest inhabited village in Fiji and the place where the first Christian missionaries had landed. We went out to the beautiful Mamanuthas, got our anchor caught in coral again at night when asked to move from in front of an expensive hotel on Vomo `in case it upset the clients' that we were anchored off for free (no comment), enjoyed a day at an idyllic island, waited for our radio to be returned from repair (without success), victualled, bunkered, cleared and all too soon were sailing and motoring out by way of the Malolo Passage for Vanuatu.

Fiji to Vanuatu

It was a rather strong introduction to ocean sailing for the girls. The wind was from astern again and they definitely went off that ancient Celtic greeting, `May the wind be always at your back'! It was fine for the first day and there was even some conventional smooth trade wind sailing at force 3-4, but then it increased steadily to force 5-6, 6-7 and built a big sea. Not only was the rolling violent, but frankly for those not used to it it was frightening, especially at night, though as one remarked `I am not sure whether it's worse or better at night when you can hear it but not see it'. But it bowled us along at a great rate and we took four and a half days for 561 miles to Port Vila.

If Fiji was a gem, Vanuatu was near to an earthly paradise. Green islands with white sandy beaches; a warm, shy, friendly, gentle people, pleased to be ni-Vanuatu (Vanuatu means `our land') able to speak English, and both land and people unspoilt by tourism -- as yet. To see a Big Namba walking down the main street of Luganville dressed only in a brief loincloth and bone through his nose certainly concentrates the mind. And there were comparatively few boats around, at least when the Europa fleet (whom we had first encountered in Suva), had departed from Port Vila. The skipper and mate took the opportunity to do a scuba diving course at very reasonable cost whilst in Vila, and then later did a deep dive at Santo on the USS President Coolidge, sunk by one of their own mines at the entrance to the channel in 1942. This was reputed to be `the biggest and deepest wreck accessible to divers in all the world' -- and she didn't come from Texas! It certainly was interesting, with the jeeps and trucks and tracked vehicles still in the holds, not to mention the odd rifle and bottle (bottle?), and it was made even more interesting when the skipper ran out of air at 60ft on the way up. This led to all sorts of technical manoeuvres sharing spare regulators and tanks and getting to another spare tank so the poor old man could go on breathing, especially as the safety/decompression stops were still to come. It was nice to know the techniques learnt in training worked in practice!

A strong night sail with a following wind but sheltered sea took us to Ambryn Island where we anchored off Craig Point. Here we found two villages side by side, one Catholic and the other Protestant, separated by a barbed wire fence (which fortunately turned out to be there to keep the animals separate, not the people). Rather nice to have your baptistry font formed from a huge sea-shell, as we found in the Catholic church. Hoards of children followed the Pied Piperesses of Dodo's Delight in the Protestant village, and I was intrigued to see an illustrated project by one of the children on the wall of the village school describing Captain Cook's visit to the islands in the 1700s. And there across the water from the window of the school was Malekula, where people still live today in exactly the same way as they did then. Perhaps they would not have eaten us if we had visited, but we were not about to try it and were not allowed to go there anyway.

A gentle night sail brought us to Santo, where we found dazzling white beaches fringed with palm trees and lapped by turquoise blue green water, still unspoilt by commercial tourism. We anchored 50 metres off the final beach (the only boat there, of course) but eventually `You'd better come back, folks, time to sail to Australia'.

Vanuatu to Darwin

A pleasant night sail took us across Big Bay to Cape Cumberland at the north-west corner of Epiritu Santo, where we were careful to avoid two underwater seamounts in the night just in case they might have risen further since the chart was printed. And so out to open sea again, where we rolled for eight days towards the Torres Strait. The trades blew consistently at force 5-7 and, boy, did we roll. But the sea never built as high as on the way from Fiji to Vila, though this latter point was debated from time to time by the crew. A school of porpoises visited one day and Wilson Petrels returned with their intriguing darting, dipping, scooping flight over the water. It was a strange thing, but from Antarctica almost to Easter Island we had Wilson Petrels, Cape Petrels, terns, shearwaters and mighty albatrosses accompanying us every day. Not the huge wandering albatrosses but big enough (`B52s' -- no soul these lads) and they stayed with us right into the 30øs of latitude. But across the Pacific we saw hardly a seabird or dolphin. Strange place.

On the evening of the eighth day the wind moderated to force 4 and we could run on twins more comfortably. Was this trade wind sailing? And so up past the coast of Papua New Guinea with its impressive mountain range inland showing above the cloud cover, past Eastern Fields and Portlock reefs in the night, and so into Torres Strait in the morning by the Bligh entrance.

Torres Strait demanded more detailed pilotage, but with GPS it presented no real problems, especially as we anchored off one of the many islands on the first night to get an uninterrupted eight hours for a change. There was the odd wreck perched high and dry on a reef as a reminder not to relax too much, but in fact it gave beautiful sailing in a strong breeze, in sunshine, in protected waters, past green and sandy islands fringed by turquoise coral sea. We were even on a beam reach some of the time, unheard of on this boat for thousands of miles (or so it seemed). Then a very strong contrary tide and little wind in the Prince of Wales Channel on the second night eventually allowed us out into the Arafura Sea.

This proved hard work, due to the wind dying away from time to time and never quite allowing us to lay the course with the sail plan necessary to keep moving. A moment of concern two miles off Cape Wessel when the water changed colour and the echo-sounder suddenly and genuinely showed l0ft (the charts are rather vague in these parts!). And then there was hardly any wind at all in the approaches to Darwin and the Clarence Strait, but by gently coaxing the engine (`Big Donk' was choosing to display electrical and fresh water pump problems) we made it through the night to anchor off Darwin at 0300 on 17 September.

So that was the Pacific? Not too impressed really -- though I do realise that to traverse through the Pacific islands from one side to the other in six months is not really the way to do it. But it did provide an unexpected challenge, and after all we don't want them to enjoy it, do we?

Darwin was hot, very hot and humid, friendly, and in the end we lifted out properly to work on the boat. We had started on the west side in Fannie Bay where there is a brand new marina whose facilities are still under construction. The one night we spent there was very pleasant but more expensive than the Duckpond marina round the corner. We also tried anchoring off the Darwin Sailing Club but were defeated by the tremendous tidal range which necessitated a long dinghy ride in and quite a carry at low water, so we went round to Frances Bay (did Darwin have two daughters, Frances and Fannie?) and anchored off the more welcoming Dinah Cruising Association. We could also get very good meals at reasonable prices from the little shack there.

In spite of the fact that all the Europa boats were again in town and most seemed to be lifting out, we managed to squeeze into the Sadgrove boatyard and worked very hard for five days making good the topsides and the odd knock on the keel, anti-fouling, and generally re-furbishing the boat after 22,000 miles. We then lay to a mooring in the river estuary outside and three of us took the opportunity of going off to `do' the Kakadu and Litchfield national parks. This seemed to involve a lot of swimming in rock pools, which I suppose was a novelty for Australians with their fresh and saltwater crocodiles everywhere else, but it was also very interesting with the aboriginal cave paintings, bird life, and the escarpment and geology of the region generally. What an incredible land Australia is!

We also struck lucky because an old boy of the school had risen to the dizzy heights of manager of the Plaza hotel in Darwin. The lads enjoyed two nights sleep in luxury whilst the skipper was away in the Kakadu (rats!) and we were treated to a slap up meal on our penultimate night. The skipper also had a bath -- the first since the Falklands, l4,000 miles back. History doesn't relate whether he had taken a wash in between.

We went back round the corner to clear Customs at Cullen Bay, and as we tied up I happened to look down and noticed a small hole or break in one of the wires in the starboard aft lower, near the Stalok fitting at the bottom this time. What is it with these aft lowers? This one had been renewed in March after the Antarctic mishap and had only done 14,000 miles. Could the cold of that region have anything to do with these rigging failures, I wondered? But here was a crisis, or so it appeared. How to renew it? But on enquiry we found the Yacht Shop along the road were also riggers and I was able to get two aft lowers cut to size and made up with an eye on the spot, and we used the Stalok terminals at the bottom from the old ones. It only necessitated a delay of a few hours in the end, though it did mean we had to motor out against a foul tide, as well as the headwind, on departure.

Darwin to Cocos Keeling

And so out again into the Arafura Sea. Up by Bathurst Island we passed some curious patches on the water coming downwind towards us. They were like suspended sandbanks, but no change of depth showed on the echo-sounder when we passed through. Could they be patches of chemicals discharged from a ship, perhaps? Further on by the Sahul Bank we did indeed find that it had risen in one spot into a sizeable sandy island, not marked on our not-too-ancient chart. It must have arisen fairly recently as there was no vegetation on it at all as far as we could see, simply an island of pure white sand. We were glad we had not come upon it by night.

For the first 850 miles on this passage we were looking for wind: it comprised subtle sailing, feathering in light airs and using the engine when it all got too much (or too little -- 3 or 4 knots of wind, under 2 knots of boat speed) or gave up altogether. We used the engine for an unprecedented 109 hours, often at low revs to conserve fuel and with sails up to use the apparent wind so generated, but at least it kept us moving. I was thankful we had obtained a number of spare jerry cans in the Falklands for extra fuel ready for the high pressure of Antarctica. Then on the evening of the ninth day a breeze came in from the south-west and then south. A Low had at last built over the north-west of Australia, and the wind only became the expected south-east trades from a High towards the end of the passage. But now we were romping along on close, beam (could this be true?) and broad reaches, only turning to roll violently downwind again two days out from Cocos Keeling. As always, it seemed, we found ourselves approaching in the dark, and crept by moonlight into the anchorage behind Direction Island on radar and echo-sounder.

Cocos Keeling was indeed the unspoilt tropical island paradise that it is reputed to be, and all the plaudits written about it in these pages in the past hold good. Of course we had to start off on the wrong foot: the lads in their exuberance and delight at waking up to this paradise in the morning sunshine had jumped into the water and gone for a swim. They were last seen making for the shore of this deserted island, and of course the Quarantine Officer chose that moment to arrive. As they seem especially strict about this sort of thing in Australia -- we had already been `buzzed' by spotter planes and chatted to, very politely, by a patrol boat on the way to Darwin and again to here -- he was not best pleased!

Cocos, believed to be the biggest atoll in the world, is such a paradise that it might seem almost churlish to introduce a note of caution. Again (a personal opinion) the Australian authorities seem rather over cautious in not allowing you to take your boat through what appear to be well marked channels to Home Island or West Island. This makes the logistics of loading considerable quantities of fuel and water from these islands some distance away via a small rubber dinghy and the ferries something of a nightmare. It took four full days to water and bunker the boat, and I certainly know the dinghy ride to and from Home Island very well indeed by now! I gather it is a little (but not much) easier at Christmas Island, which we did not visit.

However the skipper and mate did take the opportunity to do two reef dives (the dive school was run by the Quarantine Officer, but I had bought some gear off him so by then all was well) which proved fascinating. A personal reaction: `if you don't believe in God, dive on a coral reef'! An apparently infinite variety of brightly coloured fish big and small, and such a wide variety of types of coral rock, which surprised me in my ignorance. And to think a coral polyp is only 1 centimetre long. The museum on Home Island also proved well worth a visit -- in between dinghy rides! That old Scottish seafaring family (of course) certainly had the place sown up, even printing their own money at one stage. And yet I could not help noticing that there were those amongst the Malay population who seemed still to prefer the old regime to the new, which is perhaps surprising considering that the Australian government is certainly pouring a lot of money into the island for little return that we could see, now that copra is uneconomical to export. Some friends on an Australian boat wondered why they were doing it!

Cocos Keeling to Mauritius

But all good things come to an end, and it became time to move on. We hung our sign beneath Sherpa Bill and Blackjack's, Lone Rival's also being in evidence on a neighbouring tree. John and Fay Garety in Subtle had already departed for the `Ho Cochin Trail', as we dubbed it, so we bade farewell to our Australian friends on Paroo and with a flock of frigate birds wheeling high in the sky above, we took our departure into the Indian Ocean once more -- via the `right' way this time (our friend the Quarantine Officer again -- bless him).

Light airs at first, and then east and north-east winds before the south-east trades proper. A slight hiccup a few days later when we had to motor for sixteen hours between two weather systems, then suddenly a black line of cloud and, from slopping around in 0-4 knots of wind, we were up to 22 knots without warning, reefing and rolling the headsail in earnest. Two days were spent on watch in waterproofs under grey skies -- in the Indian Ocean! Then back to normal -- south-east trades, blue sky and the hot sunshine. The skipper ground his teeth (no challenge!), the lads loved it!

In order to stay on a broad reach, faster and more comfortable than running in this boat, perhaps we went too far south. We fell into another calm but the `Dalek' (weatherfax) showed isobars closer together to the north, so we coaxed the boat for two days in light airs on a broad reach on the other tack, followed by running, up towards the north-west. We were now sheeting the reefed mainsail in hard amidships as a steadying sail, but still she rolled with much frapping and crashing of the twin foresails in the swell with too little wind. But sure enough here was the wind, and we were able once again to turn onto a broad reach and romp towards Mauritius.

There were two anomalies on this passage which might be worth a mention, if only as information and by way of comparison for those doing this passage in the future. The first was the weatherfax. We had purchased it second-hand from an Australian family in Suva to warn us in case of a little too much wind in these parts at this time of year. But from 70E onwards, just where you most need the information, we found an amorphous gap. Darwin, good old faithful Darwin, had given us splendid maps up to this point, but then... We tried Diego Garcia, which was fine if you were climbing the Himalayas, still fighting the Gulf War or even sailing in the Red Sea, but not a lot of use if you were sailing 500 miles to the south. However we did learn what Reverse Printing means -- are there other sailors out there as technologically inept, or is it just me? Pretoria gave us a splendid chart of a huge typhoon over the central Mongolian steppe in Asia, St Dennis just produced fuzz, and Nairobi (after reams of paper depicting cloud cover and upper wind speeds) did eventually plop out a synoptic chart, which was all we had wanted in the first place. Obviously the times there had changed from those in my fairly recent Admiralty List of Radio Signals, Vol 3.

The second anomaly was the almost total absence of wildlife on this passage. From Darwin to Cocos we had enjoyed terns, shearwaters, gannets, boobies and even the occasional frigate bird. Dolphins gambolled round the boat from time to time, one school containing great numbers, including family groupings of parents and children. Two whales blew nonchalantly to port. But on this passage the ocean seemed swept bare -- just the occasional single tropic bird or shearwater and one brief visit by a few dolphins. A single whale, perhaps, and that was it. Where had they all gone?

So we sped past Rodriguez early one morning, and two days later were approaching Mauritius, its mountains visible well ahead. We ran before again to round the island to the north, and reached past Round Island and between Flat Island and Gunners Quoin in a stiff breeze before making our way down to Port Louis to clear in. Unfortunately you can no longer do this in Grand Baie as formerly.

Mauritius was great, but more because my wife Kate, a friend, and some family of one of the lads came out to join us on holiday. Otherwise it was very pleasant but a little touristy, and the diving was quite murky compared to Cocos. But we `did' the island tour including the coloured sands (Bill and Hazel Perkes were right -- not a patch on Alum Bay), the huge water lilies in the gardens with the monuments to their famous Prime Minister with the unpronounceable names, and the bird sanctuary which was impressive with the odd panther and tigress thrown in. I had never seen a pure white peacock preening before, nor such huge turtles (birds?). An early cyclone, Albertine, did considerable damage to Rodriguez 360 miles away but then sped off south rather than west to Mauritius, so our enforced calculated risk paid off -- or this prayer works!

Mauritius to South Africa

Back in Port Louis there was some delay as we waited for Immigration to come in the early morning as promised, but we even eventually got away at 1020 on 1O December. For us the problem at this time of year was not too much wind -- the cyclone season in Mauritius officially begins on 15 December, I believe -- but too little. Or rather it was erratic. A spanking breeze gave a beam reach to clear Mauritius and took us down past Reunion in the night -- we did not call in as it was French and we had already suffered French prices in Tahiti -- but then the wind gradually lessened so that two days later we were motoring, both through lack of wind and to keep a reasonable course. Fourteen hours of motoring and it rained, and I mean rained, for eight and a half hours non-stop. The last time we had precipitation like that was in Antarctica, and then it was a snow storm! But the breeze came in again and we charged along for three days. Then seventeen hours of motoring, and so it went on.

None of this would have mattered, well not so much, but Christmas was looming and the lads were desperate to in. Eventually we cut our losses and aimed, after much chopping and changing of minds, for Richards Bay rather than our original destination of Durban. Quite a breezy last night with an awkward sea, and a very strange choppy, pyramidal type of sea in the Aghulas current when the wind died away completely in the early hours. But we made Richards Bay at 1500 on Christmas Eve and were cleared in that afternoon.

I have to say I would not recommend it. A quiet, pleasant place it was, and the Reverend got to church on Christmas Day and the lads got to several drinks parties, so honour was satisfied there somewhere. We had a splendid Christmas dinner together on the boat even if the main course was corned beef, but with Yorkshire pudding, and with Kate's excellent Christmas pudding and brandy butter for `afters'. But the nearest town was five miles away, and the clearance procedures were horrendous. These involved a borrowed bike ride to the town (taxis were comparatively expensive, we thought) to find and clear Immigration, then Customs, even though we were only planning to go down to Durban. For some reason they would not come down to us. But fortunately the very helpful Marine Services office just by the small boat harbour were able to issue a Harbour Revenue Office slip themselves, rather than having to find that office too, and also saved us another bike ride to the signals station another five miles away by faxing our `flight plan' (I always thought I was sailing) to them instead. It really did all seem rather excessive.

Also, Richards Bay is a conservative white enclave into which more whites are moving, I suppose out of feelings of greater security, and where black people are still wont to be referred to as kaffirs. I really did not like this attitude, and I was glad to find that the lads didn't either.

Owing to the delays of clearing we missed the wind and had to wait another two days. But at 0250 on 30 December we slipped from the quay to catch a weather window on the advice of some new-found South African friends also going to Durban. A hard beat to begin with against a south wind and a lumpy sea with wind against current, but at least we were lee-bowing the Aghulas current on whatever tack. It seems that as long as you can keep the boat intact the current will take you down to where you want to go! In fact the wind gradually went round and then died away in the afternoon, so we motored the last twenty miles still helped by the current. Durban looked rather picturesque, tastefully lit up as we approached, and reminded me of a bigger version of Weymouth in Dorset with its harbour tucked off to port of the waterfront, guarded by a hill on its port side. But there the resemblance ended...

Durban was huge! The lads loved it! We saw the New Year in at the Point Yacht Club, and watched `hundreds' of red parachute flares being fired off by yachts in the harbour. Old stock presumably! The next day the whole Zulu tribe, or so it appeared, took over the beach and the lads contended they were the only whites around, except for some police. Great -- to our knowledge the first time it had been allowed in the new South Africa. But then the day after, panic: a weather window had at last arrived and the forecast was for it to stay for a while. This had not happened for some time; we dropped everything, cleared the Harbour Authority (the only requirement this time), bought some stores, motored out of the harbour and then sailed away from the coast to let the Aghulas current take us.

Sometimes we sailed, sometimes we motored; sometimes we broad reached, sometimes we ran. Sometimes we were whisked along at 7, 8, 9 knots, sometimes we lost the current and were back to 5 knots. Off Cape St Francis appropriately enough (how did he get out here?) the wild life predominated -- Cape Gannets and dark Petrels, and the albatrosses returned with that majestic glide over the water with almost no touch of wing. Magnificent -- we had not seen them since the passage rounding the Horn. Also at Cape St Francis the wind began to head us and we chose to go out to sea. This proved a wise decision as we picked up the very strong current again and sped along, but we did have a mini-gale from for'ard approaching the Aghulas Bank, and then a proper one on the Bank just to keep us on our toes. We were still on the wind next day round Cape Aghulas, but we were on the wind round Cape Horn so this was only proper. And the sea remained reasonable. But then we could gradually bear away for the Cape of Good Hope, which was just as well as the mainsail had torn at the leach and the wind got up again the next night. We put in a third reef above the tear, and by now we were reaching and running anyway. Finally we turned on the motor when the wind became flukey by Table Mountain, and so into Cape Town.

Now for the home run...

* In late March a card reached Wrestler from Dodo's Delight, postmarked `St Helena, 24 February' (the island has no airport, thus no airmail). It told of `a difficult flukey passage, in contrast to Bill and Hazel's', including an unexpected gybe `which should enliven the next account!'. They hope to reach the Azores in April and be home around June.

(7813 words)

SHEPTON ADD:

* Regretfully `pressure of space' dictates that the next installment of Dodo's circumnavigation, from Darwin to South Africa via Cocos Keeling and Mauritius, must wait for the autumn issue. At present (mid-April) Bob and the Lads are in the Azores, having visited St Helena en route, and hope to be home within a month or so.