We have had wonderful winds now for a while. It has been a great sail since we started down the coast of Mozambique. The only thing we have missed out is checking out various potential anchorages that we have sailed by. However, that will end in about 36 hours. We will be holing up in what is supposed to be a very nice little spot just up a river near the city of Inhambane. We would love to explore this city while we hole up and wait for a series of lows to pass south of the Cape of Good Hope. It could be 4 or 5 or 6 days before we will be able to continue down the coast toward Richards Bay.

While we would love to explore this old Portuguese town (established, 1534) but that would require us to clear into the country which we understand can be a real pain the in arse. Instead, we will anchor near the mouth of the river with the understanding that we are just anchoring there to wait until it safe again to continue on. I understand that one can legally do this. We shall see�...

We learned today that we will be there by ourselves. We had been looking forward to having our friends on SV Rhythm join us but received an email from them saying that they have not been making very good time since the shackle that attached to the top of their head sail broke and the head sail came down. They have since been sailing with just their main and not making the speed necessary to make our anchorage in a timely fashion. Instead, they will be anchoring off the Island of Bazaruto while they make repairs. We are now passing that island but we are about 130 mile out to sea of it. They hope to join us after they make their repairs but I am not hopeful that the weather will cooperate for them to do so. We do have our fingers crossed, however.

While we have been having a great sail, today we were visited by a rogue wave on three different occasions. Each time the big, bad rogue wave would come 90 degrees from the rest of the swells and just pick up Leu Cat, capture her and throw her 90 degrees from the direction we were sailing. Before we knew it, we would be facing the wind and locked in irons with the sails flapping in the wind. What a hoot! Well, it was the first time but by the third time it happened, it was getting annoying. Getting out of irons can be a real pain the arse and each time we really struggled but finally managed it. We hope we are through with rogue waves�....

Our position at 1800 is 21 18.162S:037 41.941E. We are well out of the Mozambique current but heading slowly back toward it. Our slow down strategy has not worked very well today as the winds keep blowing and we keep moving. One of the strategies we are thinking about trying is to get back in the current and heave to and just let the current take us down the last 24 hours. Another possibility is to just sail with only the head sail out or reefed. We will see what works best when the time comes. We will have a narrow time window of between 0600 and 0700 on October 12th to enter our anchorage due to tides, sand bars and currents.

Our course is 196 degrees true, our speed of 8.4 knots with a reef in the main and the head sail. The winds are between 15 and 20 knots off our beam. The seas have varied throughout the day but now are from the NE at 1 to 2 meters. We have made 780 nm on our passage, averaging 6.2 knots. We have 605 nm to go to get to Richards Bay.