Dear all,

Apologies for the belated update but time has flown since we came around to the NW side of Madagascar.

Wally was going to write this update today but got caught up in his diving activities, only getting back to the boat late in the afternoon.

We had a spirited, nail-biting ride up from St Marie towards the trepidatious Cap Ambre. This was mostly due to strong ocean currents pushing us northwards. 36 hours before our hoped for arrival time at the cape (around noon on Friday) we realized that our speed of about 7 knots would put us at the cape around midnight, Thursday. Because we had to round the cape at the 100 meter depth line, not too far off the coast, (further out would have put us in the witch's cauldron), and because we did not know how accurate our chart plotter maps were, it was obviously advisable to make the rounding in day light. So we reduced our sails down to almost nothing, and eventually to just a scrap of foresail. As my friend Jiamin, who I met in Krabi earlier this year, would have said, it looked like we had a Frankenstein rigging going on with the deployed, but unused, whisker pole, the guyed out to windward staysail boom, fore and aft boom preventers, and the heavily reefed sails. This brought our speed down to about 4.5 knots - all current driven. Well, that was slow enough to get us to within 20 miles, or 4 hours from the Cape by daylight. The seas picked up quite considerably in the last several miles up to and then beyond the Cape, so we were really happy to be able to see what was going on. At this point we had to make sure we didn't go in too close where the waves were kicking up against the rapidly shallowing sea bottom - a delicate balance indeed. 

But it all worked out, we rounded the cape and took a beam reach with 30 knot winds for about 20 miles down the coast to the start of the off-shore islands that run down the NW coast. Wally hung a line off the back of the boat and promptly caught a nice sized Dorado, or Mahi-Mahi fish. We pulled into the Nosy (island) Haro anchorage at about noon on Friday, where our new friends Bob and Lori, in their Valiant, and Lee and Lander in their Lagoon cat were already anchored. We did not fancy the strong onshore wind conditions at that anchorage and so motored around to the backside of the island - nice and calm. A beautiful spot with basalt cliffs springing up from the bay, looking almost Ankor Wat-ish. 

We have spent the last two days here visiting sandy, small islands, snorkeling over coral beds that Wally and I agree are probably the most pristine and undamaged that we have seen, anywhere in the world, eating lovely, tasty fish dinners, planning the next 4 weeks of our journey and generally relaxing. It has been great.

We pull out tomorrow morning for a 30 mile trip down to the next anchorage as we begin our trip southwards along the north west coast.

Until the next update, cheers from

Neil, Wally and Ben.

- S/V Galatea