01 June 2014

Motoring last night seemed to stimulate the wind and there was soon lots of it, up to 25 knots at one point under a big bank of cloud but more usually 20 and 22 knots. This became established toward morning, easing a little sometimes and strengthening others depending on the type of cloud cover and it hasn’t wavered all day. We had a little rain but not enough to wash off the salt over the boat. This has done our speed a power of good; sailing under goose-winged and poled out jib and genoa Gryphon has been charging through the southern swell touching 12.3 knots when surfing down one particularly big wave but generally pushing 7- 8 knots which feels fast and is a noisy business.

Having had twelve days at sea so far and seen only one ship it has been a shock to suddenly see several of them. We are in a transit area for the South Africa to Singapore and Western Australia routes. Our AIS radar is set at 32 miles so we know they are there before we can see them on the horizon, and then we can follow their tracks. One came very close this afternoon, Chris had called them up on VHF when they were 4 miles off to ensure they were aware of us and they were but they still came within two miles which we feel is quite close enough.

Thanks to this more consistent wind we are expecting to make landfall at Rodriguez tomorrow afternoon (day 15) at about 16:00. It is a very small volcanic island, only half a mile wide but mountainous with high peaks so we will see it for a long time before arrival which will be tantalising. We are so thankful that we will be arriving in daylight as the advice is not to try entering the harbour after dark; it is a tricky reef bound entrance and the harbour lights are apparently confusing so we would have had to heave-to somewhere off the island, not a relishing prospect. As it is we are hoping that we will be in time to be cleared in by Customs, Immigration, Harbour Master and Health who come out to the yacht otherwise we shall have to wait until Tuesday and will be confined to the boat in the meantime. Perhaps not too bad, we can recover some of the sleep we have been missing.