When we left the Maldives on 2 September, Eric and I kept one consoling thought in mind: Though we would once again be playing monster-under-the-bed with the unpredictable ITCZ (Intertropical Convergence Zone), the 1,100-mile distance to the Seychelles was 750 miles less than the previous leg, and whatever hell befell us this time would be of shorter duration than the hell before. As it turned out, the weather on this 14-day leg was also less ferocious. It presented contrary winds, choppy seas, and frustrating calms, but no terrifying storms and only a handful of minor squalls. But other gremlins were about to strike, and with both our patience and our energy for the Indian Ocean running low, I’m sorry to say that we were not our best selves on this voyage.
Our first day at sea was bright and sunny with a strong SW wind, exactly the direction we needed to go. We opted to steer NW for the sake of making westward progress, and when the wind shifted south overnight, we nudged SW. Not a bad start, though the short, steep waves made me seasick and cooking impossible, leaving Eric to sustain himself with PBJ and cheese sandwiches. Just after sunset on Day 2, in one of those sudden ITCZ maneuvers, the wind died to nothing, then whipped back from the west, stopping us in our tracks. Having topped up our diesel in the Maldives, this time we didn’t hesitate to flip on the engine and motorsail straight south. The sooner we got into the SE trade zones, the sooner we could turn west to the Seychelles.
Gremlin #1 struck at 0130 that night. One minute all was under control. The next minute the jib was loose and flapping madly. Eric, on watch, called me up to take the helm while he wrestled down the sail. The end fitting of the jib boom, the metal pole that fits into a sleeve on the jib and helps the sail keep its shape, had snapped off. We’d had this rebuilt in 2019 in New Zealand; wear and tear had now caused another breakage. Two days, a mere two days at sea, and already an equipment failure! Come daylight, Eric slid the boom out of the jib—we could still use the sail, albeit less efficiently—and found the broken end piece on deck, a bit of luck as it could be used as a model to fashion a new one. But meanwhile, despite some progress to the south, the stiff west wind had also pushed us steadily back eastward. On calculating how much ground we’d lost, our reaction was vehement. A good thing no one was around to hear.
At noon, after 16 hours of motoring, we were able to return to sails alone. Gremlin #2 pounced soon thereafter when Eric announced that the reef line for the mainsail was chafing through. I said we should address it right away lest it break that night in the dark. Eric resisted. The line might hold until the Seychelles, he said, and cutting off the chafed part, a fix we’d done before, would require taking down the mainsail and sliding the entire sail off the boom. This made no sense, and when I pressed the issue, he shouted at me, “I’m overwhelmed and I can’t think!” This is totally out of character for Eric, and I kept quiet. After some minutes he became himself again, and after rigging a safety line to hold the mainsail in place, he cut off the chafed section and re-threaded the reef line through the sail.
Less than 12 hours later, again at 0130 and on Eric’s watch, Gremlin #3 sprang forth. In another wear-and-tear issue, the shackle that holds the mainsheet to the traveler snapped in two and the boom swung loose and began banging. I took the helm, and Eric pulled in the boom and reattached it to the traveler with a spare shackle. Another crisis averted in the dark. This was getting to be a bad joke, and we weren’t laughing.
On Days 5-6, the wind moderated, the sky was sunny, and the seas calmed enough to tie the helm and let Corroboree steer herself. This gave us some relief from the manual steering at the wheel, our autopilot having crapped out en route to the Maldives. I snatched an hour or two each day to write (which keeps me sane), and Eric strategized the repairs to tackle when we reached port (ditto). The wind continued to drop, however, and so did our speed. When it fell below 2 knots on the evening of Day 6, another 21 hours of motoring ensued. Then at sunup a ring of small, puffy white clouds gathered on the horizon. Was another weather change in store? We eyed them apprehensively, then hopefully. It took all day, but the wind slowly dawdled around to the E/SE, and by evening we had a viable SE breeze. In the trades at last, we turned off the engine and sailed all night on a SW course. Time to put miles under our hull. On Day 8, we made 97 miles.
Then came Gremlin #4, and it took a feathered form. A few nights earlier, a red-footed booby had landed on our bow pulpit and slept there overnight. He must have told his friends about the great floating B&B he’d found because at nightfall on Day 9 a pair of boobies began swooping and circling Corroboree in search of a place to land. Alighting on a bobbing boat is no easy matter, and during his 3-hour watch Eric counted 14 failed attempts. While we don’t mind avian hitchhikers when they rest on our bow pulpit or spinnaker pole, we can’t allow them to land on our equipment and especially not on our bimini (the canvas cover above the cockpit) where they might scratch or damage the solar panels. Thus, in between steering, Eric spent his watch shouting and waving his arms to scare the birds away. Even so, one bird sneaked up from the rear and perched undetected on the outboard motor a foot behind Eric’s head. The inconsiderate wretch pooped all over the cover before Eric spotted him and pushed him off.
I took up the routine when my watch came. At one point, I heard a thump! on the bimini, then saw an odd, heavy object tumble off it and disappear into the sea. Panicked that some piece of equipment had fallen overboard—though I couldn’t imagine what—I yelled for Eric. He hurried up, and in trying to peer overhead he put his hand on the pole that supports the wind generator and felt it wobbling. Mystery solved: A kamikaze booby had flown into the wind generator blades and committed suicide. The blades were still intact but had been knocked out of alignment, and Eric had just reset them in the Maldives. This can’t be fixed underway, and to prevent further damage we had to turn off the wind generator for the rest of the voyage. The loss of electrical power meant rationing our refrigeration and the end of my writing time on the computer. I was not happy.
Nor was the battle over. Undeterred by their comrade’s death, more boobies arrived and tried clumsily to land. One plopped onto the dinghy and I shoved it off. Another stubborn bird made three touchdowns on the bimini directly above my head, and three times I shouted and thrust up on the canvas to dislodge him. When he landed a fourth time, I picked up my water bottle and whacked his feet where they overlapped the bimini frame. He left with a horrible shriek, and I half expected him to return with his buddies to exact revenge. Instead, it did the trick, and with one exception, the rest of the voyage was booby-free. He must have spread the word: There’s a shrieking demon wielding a water bottle on Corroboree—stay away! The whole ludicrous night felt like being cast in a remake of Hitchcock’s The Birds.
Meanwhile, in the wake of all this mayhem, we began making consistently good speed; 124, 132, 138, 139 miles. The unruly waves made it hard to hold course and cooking went out the window, but you can’t have it all. Back in Darwin, Australia, we’d had a third reef installed in the mainsail in anticipation of the Indian Ocean, and on Day 12 we employed it, only to have the wind desert at nightfall. Over the next 24 hours we wallowed through misty squalls, motorsailed 4 hours, sailed wing-and-wing under triple-reefed main and jib, lowered the jib in winds gusting 35 knots, and resumed motorsailing for another 20 hours when the wind died again that night. The only aspect of the weather than didn’t vary was the choppy sea.
At dawn on 16 September, the Seychelles emerged from the mist. In contrast to the low-lying coral atolls of the Maldives, the Seychelles are granite and the main island of Mahé is mountainous, covered in lush green vegetation and lapped by pretty blue water. We anchored in the quarantine area and the officials cleared us in. But one last gremlin lay in wait. When Eric tried to raise the anchor to leave the quarantine area, the electric windlass wouldn’t start. We were beyond caring. Eric hauled up the anchor manually, and we proceeded to Eden Island Marina where the helpful dockhands caught our lines.
Was this passage yet another hell? It was physically demanding, but unlike the previous two passages, none of it was overly dangerous, and despite the gremlins, obviously we coped. But it was deeply discouraging, and we felt no sense of exultation on our arrival. Instead of enjoying the beautiful Seychelles, we would spend 3 of our 4 weeks there sourcing parts and expertise and making repairs. This included a 9-day hassle with Seychelles Customs to liberate two incoming packages of vital equipment from their bureaucratic grasp.
The history of the Seychelles can be told in brief. Unlike the Maldives, the archipelago had no permanent inhabitants prior to the arrival of French settlers in 1770; they brought African slaves and established cotton and coconut plantations. The British took over in 1794, slavery was abolished in 1835, and independence was gained in 1976. Today the country is a mix of French, British and African culture, the population numbers about 100,000, the official languages are Creole, French and English, and the dominant religion is Catholicism.
Tourism is the mainstay of the economy, and at our comfortable berth at Eden Island Marina Corroboree was surrounded by luxury apartments and charter yachts. Transportation via the local buses was cheap at less than $1 per person, and a rental car took us along the coast and across the jagged spine of the island on narrow switchback roads. Among the sites and experiences that helped restore our equilibrium were the National Botanical Gardens and its giant tortoises, the National Museum of History, the Jardin du Roi Spice Garden, and the many panoramic views.
In a few days we’ll leave Seychelles for the 800-mile leg to Mayotte, a French island in the Mozambique Channel between Madagascar and the east coast of Africa. It has a reputation as another tough sail, and although the current weather forecasts are within our comfort zone, who knows how far off they might be? As always, we’ll be as careful as we can, but what was most disheartening about the combined 3,900 miles of our last three legs was that virtually none of the sailing was fun. Skipping over a sunlit sea, gliding along under a full-moon night, fair winds filling the sails and gentle waves kissing the hull. Where did that go and will we ever get it back?