After a late night aboard Freefall celebrating Axel's return from Germany, we got up at 6am to sail up to Nosy Mitsio, where Pamina was just arriving from their passage across from Chagos. We had to motor very slowly around the south side of Nosy Be, as the charts here are not very detailed and shallow water tends to come up rapidly and unexpectedly. Once we got around the corner the wind picked up and we were able to sail.

I was suffering from a bit of 'helly belly' so was lying down below when I heard Chris repeatedly putting the boat into gear and then back to neutral. After about thirty minutes of this I decided to pop up to see what was happening. Turns out he had hooked a massive great trevalli, just over a meter and probably about fifty pounds. I gaffed him and we hurled him into the cockpit to expire. We filleted him and got some of the larger fillets I've seen in my life.

The wind and sea states went up and down throughout the sail, with some very boisterous periods at times. We arrived in the early afternoon and anchored next to Pamina, very happy to be here after they had been blown back out from Cape Ambre on their first approach and had to wait another day to round it. They came over for a dinner of grilled trevalli kebabs with onions and peppers, rice and green salad, still a luxury having come across the Indian Ocean without salad for two months. I made bananas flambe for dessert and we had a fun evening catching up. Chris just made poached eggs for breakfast and we're having a nice leisurely morning.

We are anchored off of a very long white sand beach and I am looking forward to going for a run this morning. I think the last time I ran was in Darwin, so we'll see how that goes. We plan to visit the village in the afternoon and then a man came around yesterday evening who has promised to bring us four lobsters today...so if all goes well, we will be having a lobster feast tonight!

Axel brought us a new camera on his way back from Germany - this is the first photo from it, so we hope it looks ok!