We have been ashore now for nearly five weeks, time flies.  Much has changed, and yet not much has happened.  We have lost both our crew.  Chris left onboard a boat bound for the USVI and Livia flew back to Sweden on the repatriation flight.  We miss them both. 

The inverter, now in our lounge, is still dead.  We are hopeful that we might be able to get a new board shipped out to mend it.  However SA is still in lockdown and it doesn’t look hopeful that it will change in the next two weeks.  The MV Helena will load and depart Cape Town around 14th May, my parent’s wedding anniversary and also the day I passed my driving test.  It will have essentials, ie food and hopefully, beer but that is not certain, it will not have electrical components.  So, end of June is the earliest we can expect parts. 

There are other jobs to do on the boat, but I haven’t started on them yet. I need to be more focused and get on with them. 

We continue to race, difficult with such different boats, but we have fun.  The 21st May is St Helena day so we hope to get a few of the local boats out too.
Gill is enjoying her job, only two days a week and not well paid but fun.  It also means she is one step closer to scarce food stuffs. 

I have reworked our plan to sail home.  We have now missed the window to get through the hurricane belt, June to October.  So our plan is to leave here as the world opens up, head to Brazil and work up the coast to Trinidad.  There we will haul the boat and fly home, returning early next year.  Then we will take the opportunity to sail up through the Caribbean and on up the east coast of the US, something Gill has wanted to do since we started.  We will also have a better angle to get over the Azores High. 

I am making no promises but.....we are aiming to sail home in August 2021.

It is a crazy world we live in.  It is funny that much of the world have the shared experience of some sort of lockdown, but we and a handful of other countries have continued to enjoy our freedom.  

Fair winds and try to keep your sanity

Love 

Alasdair and Gill