The picture is of Drake after he broke his arm in a fall at the boat yard. We have been is Hout Bay since January 4th. Here we hauled Blue Sky out of the water for her 8th time. We removed the anti-foul that I applied in Malaysia. It was the International Interswift 655 and it really held up well. We could not get the 655 here so we went up to the Intersmooth 306 with the appropriate primer put on first. We repaired the slight damage to the keel we sustained in the Maldives when I drove Blue Sky on to a mound of coral rubble. When I looked at the damage underwater with a scuba mask the scrapes looked a whole lot worse than they turned out to be. We had Blue Sky craddled up high enough that I was able to sand, fill and fare the entire keel. Blue Sky now has a really smooth bottom! Emma's parents flew in from Tucson and the children were able to spend some great quality time with Ruth and Edward. We joined them for a trip out to Robben Island & up the cable car to the top of Table Mountain. We also made a couple of trips out to the wine farms and Phoebe and Drake had the opportunity to pet cheeta & lion cubs. The whole Cape Town area has just been a dream. We have been looked after not only by Emma's parents but Emma has a cousin here and Liz & Paul de Beers have been fantastic guides. We also have been able to connect with SoCal native Erik Bjerring who lives here now with his wife Colleen and daughter Tanille. Erik is managing the sales and marketing for Bavaria Yachts in the V and A waterfront. He knows where all the yacht supplies are and has helped us tremendously sourcing all the replacement parts to get Blue Sky back up to perfection. One more special thanks goes to Tony Gervais of 3M. He knows all the practical and ingenious solutions that made the re-fit of Blue Sky a pleasure instead of a chore! If I ever have a choice between a 3M product or a copy, I always insist on 3M.

We are now back in the water and just finishing up all the little installations that did not require us to be out of the water. Sails are being re-stiched and new UV covers sewn on. I'm having a brand new stainless radar mount manufactured that will be engineered better and stronger than the original. We are waiting on a few parts for the Yamaha outboard and I received brand new Carefree Tires from California for the dingy.

From here we will head north along the coast working our way to Namibia. From there we will make the jump to St Helena then to Brazil.

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The photo is Blue Sky rounding the northern tip of Madagascar, Cape d'Ambre. This is a very rare calm here!

We are currently at the Zululand Yacht Club in Richards Bay, South Africa.

Needless to say we are very relieved to be in South Africa. The passage from Chagos to Madagascar was an experience that I would prefer to never repeat. It is all the more chilling now that the British Yacht Lynn Rival has been hijacked by Somali Pirates. The couple is currently being held aboard a commercial vessel that was taken during our voyage from Chagos.

The stress of not communicating on VHF with our buddie boat s/v Moose and when we did our daily sked on the SSB we spoke in a code that we only had. The commercial shipping was just as nervous as we were. We were passed on three occassion. The first was during daylight and a east bound German registered ship steam by and blew their horns wishing us luck and in hindsight blew away any bad luck. The second vessel was encountered on the Saya de Malha bank. It was just drifting and the only thing that Emma and I could guess is that it must have been awaiting orders where/what to load. The third vessel was the worst as it was just before nautical dawn. I received a beep on our CARD (collision avoidance radar detector) and immediatly powered up the Raytheon Radar to see a very strong return displayed only a couple of miles directly behind us. Worse the Somalis were using "motherships" to dispatch their boarding pirates and it was still dark and I could not see what was coming. To add to the stress we were running in "black-out" conditions and so were they! I turned on the engine and made a 90 degree turn to port. The dawn just broke as the commercial vessel passed us within 1/2 mile. (That is REALLY close.) Relief! It was only a commercial vessel but I am still pissed that a vessel their size would even consider getting that close to us. I know for a fact that our radar reflection is over 9 miles so IF the watch WAS looking, THEN they saw us for more than 30 minutes.

Making Madagascar was a relief and we rounded the northern most cape in calm conditions.

Three months of relaxation was what we needed and Madagascar proved just that!

From Madagascar we motor/sailed over to Mayotte. Staying only a few weeks we then proceded to the East Coast of Africa. Ile Mozambique was our landfall and proved a stunning sight with its fort.

We used the southerly/northerly weather to make our way down the coast of Mozambique. We were amazed at the huge population of humpback whales. They would cruise past the boat or we would see them breaching off in the distance or tail/flipper slapping the water. We made it into Richards Bay, South Africa just after our closest pass of a whale. It surfaced directly in front of the boat and that with the engine running and blasting music from the stereo. I guess he was just curious. One vessel did collide with a whale and it disabled his propeller and rudder. The fleet this year gave the local sea rescue a busy time. Of the 9 vessels that left Mauritius 4 of them were towed into Richards Bay with some dammage.

Now that we are here we will take advantage of its proximity to the game parks. Hopefully we will be fortunate and see at least a few of the big 5. Phoebe is hoping for an elephant and Drake wants to see a lion. I'll just be happy to take a quick break!

more to follow....

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We are back in the Talaga Marina on the main island of Langkawi, Malaysia. We have spent the last three months cruising southern Thailand. We visited the Thai islands south of Phuket, working our way up into Phang Nga Bay. There we stopped off in the Krabi area before rounding the bottom of Phuket Island and enjoying the west coast and getting out to the amazing Similan Islands. The Similan Islands have the clearest water in South East Asia. The children swam with turtles in amongst coral and tropical fish.

My niece Rebecca's friend Rachel was in Thailand with her friend Russ. They were considering working as dive masters but the political situation and economy have ruined the 2008/2009 tourist season here. The numbers to date have been cut in half from last year.

Rachel & Russ decided to hitch a ride from Thailand to Langkawi, Malaysia. We showed them as much as possible of the southern islands. We took three weeks traveling from Phuket to Langkawi. In that time Rachel and Russ taught Emma, Phoebe & Drake how to scuba dive. Emma's un-schooling approach seems to be working. The children both studied and passed. Drake is too young to actually apply for his diver card but both Phoebe & Emma have theirs. Drake had a great time doing "fun dives" with Russ.

We spent Christmas having a beach BBQ on the island of Koh Kraden with several other crusing kid boats. For New Years we went to the busy island of Koh Lipe. It's just 24 miles from Langkawi but the water is 3rd in clarity after the similans. Fireworks, Glowing Sky Lanterns, Fire twirling and music til dawn! January 1st was a very quiet day as the island emptied out and it was just Blue Sky and the locals.

More later...

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