We have been a week now in Chagos. Although it is beautiful, and peaceful, here, we think it is time to move on for our passage to Mauritius. We are hoping for sailable winds to get us out of the Chagos area and down towards the trade winds south of 10 degrees S. We will most likely have to motor some of the way, but hopefully not too far (because we don't really know how much diesel we have left).

Apart from the last couple of mornings when light squalls accompanied by wind and rain have come through from the SE, the weather here has been excellent. We have snorkeled the reefs, taken a dinghy trip across to the other anchorage a couple of miles away (where the old settlement used to be before the inhabitants were relocated to Mauritius in the '60s), caught a smallish fish (Chris did), put Wally's fish cleaning tools and tips to play to prepare our meal, had a couple of bonfire sundown get-togethers on the beach, last evening with  the latest arrival here, a boat from Reunion, and generally had a very relaxing time. The coral is extensive and in good shape, although mostly bleached by warmer than normal water temperatures according to the Austrian marine biologists who we had met here a week back, and the fish are abundant, including reef sharks, mantas, eels and turtles. I haven't seen so many birds in undisturbed environs since Tonga, these being mostly frigates, noddies, terns and boobies.

We will prep today for a departure tomorrow pending a positive forecast from Commanders, the weather/routing planners. It is about 1200 miles or 9 days to Mauritius. We are down to our last few packs of sausages so will be moving on to the dry goods for most of the trip.

So, that's it for now and we will provide an update once we get moving.

Neil, mike and chris.

- S/V Galatea