When Corroboree departed Seychelles for Mayotte on 15 October, one thought, one plea, was uppermost in our minds: Please, don’t let this be another Sail Through Hell! After the storms and squalls of the Java Sea and the Indian Ocean, the whiplash winds and drenching rains, the broken ribs and broken equipment, we desperately needed a break. Many friends thought so, too, and they wrote to say they had spoken to the weather gods on our behalf, insisting we deserved better treatment. Apparently, the gods listened and agreed, because our 800-mile passage to Mayotte was strenuous but not fearsome, and the following 1,200-mile leg from Mayotte to South Africa was almost heavenly. So, thank you, dear friends, for your intercession, and for the details, read on.
We left Seychelles with a favorable weather window of steady SE trades. Tiny waves rippled the sea, and powderpuff clouds dotted the bright blue sky. At night, the waning moon shed a friendly light. Over the next few days, the wind and sea gradually increased, and we reduced sail accordingly. Cooking required some tenacity as the boat was constantly on a heel, but we slept well off-watch and during the day Eric read aloud to us from a collection of O. Henry short stories. O. Henry is a marvelous writer and often very funny, and the readings were the highlight of our day.
This is still the Indian Ocean, however, and the critical section along this route is a 275-mile-wide stretch aptly named the Compression Zone. This is where the trades “compress” and pick up speed as they wrap around the northern end of Madagascar and into the Mozambique Channel. It takes two days at least for a boat of Corroboree’s speed to transit through it, and we made it halfway without undue discomfort. On the second day, however, the winds ramped up to 30+ knots, the waves mounted, and that night Eric and I each got walloped by perpendicular walls of water that rushed straight over the rail and into the cockpit. In the dark, we couldn’t see them coming—Surprise! The worst one washed back the hood of my foul weather jacket and sent cold water down my neck and spine. I had to wake Eric to relieve me while I donned dry clothes, fuming all the while.
Yet by noon the next day the wind and sea subsided, and for the final 24 hours we adjusted the sails and/or motored to speed up, then slow down, to arrive at Mayotte at daybreak on 22 October. Our eight days from the Seychelles included two 24-hour runs of over 140 miles each. That’s excellent! Mayotte is the third largest lagoon in the world and is an overseas department of France, and with Madagascar to the east closed to yachts and Mozambique to the west unsafe due to political unrest, Mayotte is a much-appreciated stop en route to South Africa.
Also in its favor, Mayotte has one of the easiest entry/departure procedures we’ve encountered anywhere: a quick trip to the Immigration Office, a one-page form, a stamp in your passport, and not a single fee to pay. The open-air yacht club offers free showers, coin washing machines, drinks, and a congenial place to meet other yachties, swap stories and exchange valuable advice. A convenient ferry service runs between Petite-Terre, where the yachts anchor, to Grande-Terre, where the larger stores are located. Taxis are cheap at 2 Euros per person, and people were generally helpful. Our favorite thing about Mayotte was seeing the women in their colorful print dresses, coming and going like a parade of exotic birds.
Mayotte has its drawbacks, however. The anchorage, though spacious, was crowded with local boats on moorings, and visiting yachts must anchor a half mile out or more. It was also rolly, and on windy days we had a choppy, wet dinghy ride to shore. Fresh local produce was plentiful in the markets but of limited variety; we like eggplant and tomatoes but not six days a week. Imported fruits and veggies, when available in the grocery stores, were of uneven quality, a letdown for vegetarians tired of canned food.
A bigger negative was the garbage. Despite recycling bins, litter abounded, and any open lot between two buildings was a dump for defunct washing machines, rusting sheets of metal, and other debris. We understand that on a small island finding ways to recycle and dispose of garbage isn’t easy, but it was depressing nonetheless. Likewise, the barbed wire coiled atop the fences and the barred windows and doors. Though we felt safe in the city areas we visited, we were warned by both the attendant at the tourist information booth and the tourist brochures not to venture onto any of the advertised hiking trails except on a sponsored walk with a hiking club. Unless you are a fisherman, snorkeler or diver, there simply wasn’t much to do.
We departed Mayotte on 31 October with another favorable weather window and our fingers tightly crossed. Weather windows are reliable for 3-4 days at most, and this 1,200-mile passage down the Mozambique Channel to Richards Bay, South Africa, involves squirrelly currents and the all-too-likely possibility of a storm roaring up from the south. Yachts are therefore advised to have Plan B anchorages along the Mozambique coast to duck into to wait out bad weather. But as mentioned above, Mozambique is not the safest place to stop. While some boats have been unmolested and even welcomed, others have experienced corrupt officials demanding bribes, boardings and thefts—not a pleasant prospect.
Our first few days brought sunny wing-and-wing sailing in a NE breeze with gentle seas and only a little roll. When the wind petered out, we motored. Ditto when we got caught in a 4-knot SE-flowing current and had to break out of it to the west. On the one hand, we still don’t like to expend diesel early in a voyage. On the other hand, the Moz Channel is no place to linger, and the weather gods help those who help themselves. Then on the evening of the fourth day, a long line of clouds appeared on the horizon and stretched across our bow, dark gray and seemingly squally. Uh-oh. Yet the clouds never got any closer. They just hung there, draped across the sky like a fuzzy wool scarf, as if we had entered some kind of Twilight Zone. Then all of a sudden, a wind rippled across the water from the NW. Within an hour we had a reasonable breeze from that direction and began to make progress straight SW towards Richards Bay. When we updated our weather models the next morning, they showed days of this excellent wind to come. Hooray!
Four days of blissful sailing followed. The sea sparkled, the sky brimmed with endless blue, the autopilot held nicely and we barely had to tweak the sails. Wonder of wonders, we also now had a 1.5k current in our favor, so even when the wind relaxed, we made runs of 126, 151, and two of 129 miles. Eric read us more O. Henry, I wrote, and we ate real meals. At night, the full moon beamed. It was uplifting and exhilarating and our spirits soared.
The final four days to Richards Bay threw us one last challenge. Since leaving Seychelles, we had been using the services of an experienced South African sailor and weather router named Des Cason. Each morning Eric emailed Des our current position, course and boat speed, and Des replied with the latest weather and his recommendations for the best route ahead. For the most part, we can access this info and make our own decisions, but the Moz Channel being so unpredictable, we welcomed the extra input. Des now alerted us to the formation of a low-pressure trough across our path and provided the coordinates of the endpoints.
Indeed, the weather had already obliged us to triple-reef the main, and the rocky-rolly sea returned. Over the next 36 hours we altered course to the SE to skirt the outer end of the trough, and on the morning of 10 November, there it was, a line of seething gray clouds whipped up just above the horizon. We donned foul weather jackets, anticipating rain, and turned on the engine to get through it asap. We were in luck. Over the course of the morning, Corroboree passed under succeeding banks of clouds, but aside from one bolt of lightning far off to port, the wind held between 15-20 knots, the cloud banks grew steadily less threatening, and the only precipitation was a few spits of rain. In early afternoon, we emerged into hazy blue sky, and as the wind gradually shifted from north to south, we were able to turn off the engine and sail close-hauled towards Richards Bay. Though our avoidance tactics lengthened our stay at sea, they kept us out of danger. Safety first, and thank you, Des!
During this time, on 9 November, we marked Eric’s 73rd birthday with a dinner of canned ravioli; cake and ice cream would have to wait. In addition to dealing with the low-pressure trough, we had begun encountering large ships heading north and south. Two of these 1,000’-long behemoths courteously altered their course to give our bobbing little sailboat extra room. But Eric did receive visitors, a squadron of about 20 little dolphins. They were our first dolphins since the start of the Indian Ocean, and they came in three quick waves of about six each. One flipped out of the water entirely, then they all swam under the hull and disappeared, as if on a tight schedule to some important destination. It was sweet of them to detour to bring Eric birthday greetings.
At dawn on 12 November, the coast of South Africa met our eyes—sand dunes and cliffs, trees and vegetation—and five hours later we reached the breakwater outside Richards Bay. There we were welcomed—not too closely!—by a magnificent humpback whale breaching and tail slapping. We proceeded to the quarantine dock where, with the help of two crewmen from a local tour boat, we managed a tricky tie-up to the seawall in a tight corner of the basin. Then we paused to reflect.
Lucky, we were so lucky. Our 2,000 miles from Seychelles to Mayotte to South Africa were sometimes uncomfortable but never dangerous. We had few mishaps, and except for a burned-out compass light, we had no breakages. Our slow spells were compensated for by some very swift runs; our average speed on both passages exceeded 100 miles per day. The weather gods certainly smiled on us, and thanks again to our interceding friends. Perhaps most important, after having our confidence battered by the Indian Ocean, we regained some faith in ourselves and our abilities. Our research, our preparations, and our hour-by-hour decision-making on these two routes were validated by the results, and our enthusiasm for the voyage revived.
Maybe we know what we’re doing after all?
