150 miles out from Port Louis

S/V Galatea update
Neil Scott
Fri 5 Jun 2015 09:50
Hi all,

As of noon Friday,we are 150 miles out from Mauritius. We have had a couple of really good sailing days with 15 to 20 knot winds, smooth seas and essentially no squalls. This has made for comfortable and reasonably speedy sailing conditions, somewhat reminiscent of Dan and my sleigh ride crossing from San Francisco to the Marquesas back in 2011. True trade wind conditions, replete with clear starry nights made that much more pleasant for sailing by the nice, full moon.

We were hoping to get into Port Louis by late Saturday afternoon, but unfortunately this might not happen. The weather update we received yesterday calls for significantly reduced winds from Friday midday through sunday midday and this, with our "almost no diesel" situation, will make for a very slow last 150 miles - a like distance we would easily have covered at the speeds we have enjoyed in the past 24 hours.

So, we will test our light wind/heavy boat sailing skills and try to get there asap. After checking into customs etc we will make a decision as to whether to leave the boat in Mauritius, or to move on to Reunion.

A few Galatea fans have pointed out the lack of position updates to the google earth map at the Galatea diary. After numerous attempts to rectify the problem, it looks like the phone has reset itself, so hopefully you will now be able to see where we are at.

Otherwise, all is well on Galatea.

Neil, Mike and Chris

- S/V Galatea
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