Our wind died a lot earlier than expected and we have done a lot of motor-sailing. We reached our waypoint a good 18 hours later than initially expected and did a slight turn to port, towards our next waypoint off the little island of Juan de Nova and then crept up the coast to just north of the island of Nosi Be. The wind came up to 30 knots "on the nose" and at 02:00 in the morning I decided to change course to Nosi Be to get fuel.

Now, the main town on Nosi Be is "Hellville" - and that is just what it is, absolute hell! We arrived yesterday afternoon (Tuesday) and I started the check-in process. Now, I have no idea how the process should work here but it appears that there are grubby little paws everywhere seeking their "cut" of money. The local policeman at the port that does the immigration process stamped our passports with a 10 day visa and then added his official "GRATIS" stamp. In my understanding "gratis" means "free", but not here. It means 60,000 Ariary with no receipt given and no record of the charge being made. Then on to the customs office in the port. He stamps our crew list and demands 30,000 Ariary (with no receipt given). Then I am told to proceed to the Harbour Masters office where I have to hand in my crew list with the customs stamp and am told to pay 50,000 Ariary. Then, to top it off I have to go to the Customs and Inland Revenue office in town and cough up another 30,000 Ariary. I wonder what it is going to cost to leave?

Now, I have been to many poor places in the world, but nothing compared to this. Hellville lives up to its name. A taxi is really any old Renault 5 or 9 that has an engine that just works, is rusted to hell and gone, has bald tyres and a driver that would not pass any driving test, anywhere in the world. Oh, I forgot to mention that the vehicle, if it can be called that, has no suspension and is held together with duct tape, lest something falls off whilst mobile - the breaks are also metal on metal. It is far safer to just walk into town.

So, what do we see in Hellville, you may ask? It is strange as most shops are small run-down shacks or crumbling brick buildings that seem to trade in something. Sometimes I actually cannot fathom out what they trade in, but they seem to survive. Our guide (which costs 40,000 Ariary per hour or day), speaks just a smattering of English and some French and finds it hard to explain to me exactly what the different shops are selling. However, after passing a few carts drawn by oxen in the main street and nearly killing us a few times because the taxi driver has no idea that there is two-way traffic and he has to keep right, we are taken to a Shell service station where we buy 150 litres of diesel (called gasoil here). Up the road we pass a few more oxen fuelled carts and a few road signs indicating they have the right of way, and arrive at our next destination, a restaurant that has Wi-Fi - pronounced "weeee feeee" here. The connection is cheap and I am able to download the latest seven day weather forecast for the region north of Madagascar to the Seychelles. Not too good as the winds will be 20 to 30 knots for the next few days, dropping to 15 to 20 over the weekend. So, I made the decision to wait three days for the winds to settle a bit before undertaking our last leg of the delivery.

There was one thing I managed to get whilst in Hellville, and that was about 1.5 kilograms of vanilla pods - 50 cents a pod here compared to more than R5.00 a pod back home in Cape Town. So, whilst the boat is well scented with vanilla, we wish you well for the next few days. Oh, although Hellville is hell, the rest of the islands are absolutely fantastic! Regards from Richard, Dylan and myself, John.