Take a piece of New Zealand, drag it north into the tropics; drop in an eclectic mix of ethnicities, colours and shapes; add a twist of essence of France; top with a dollop of EU funding. What a place – proof that multi-ethnicity, multi-religion societies can truly function; a marvellous lesson one supposes for the mother country herself. Geologically a baby, still in early growth stages, this basalt island seems truly blessed.
Add now to this mix an ARC fleet overjoyed by the easy, short passage from Mauritius and its time to party. Cecilie’s farewell was an excuse to try to sink Paradise Found. Boat still floating but several rally participants were AWOL on Sunday morning. Hilarious and heartfelt – we all feel very lucky to be part of this. Yesterday we traversed the top of the volcano, and did some local market provisioning… all in guru-French…
Ahead, though, is the sailing leg billed as the hardest leg in the entire rally – the passage from Reunion to Richard’s Bay, and then around the bottom of South Africa to Cape Town. It is an infamous stretch of water – last night an ex-navy guy said “at its worst, it can be worse than the Horn”. Crikey! We’ve decided to leave early, sailing into a favourable weather window that will see us sail in a High pressure system as we cross from Madagascar to Richard’s Bay – to avoid the 60 foot waves that can be whipped up by Low pressure systems that come from the South West and fight the famous Agulhas current, which can run at 6 knots. We’ll even miss the Halloween party tonight, but then again, my liver is in crisis after the past few nights. Next stop South Africa!!
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