We've been enjoying our time here as it's good to be out cruising on the water again after being tied up alongside in Mauritius and Reunion. There's a great choice of picturesque bays, coves and islands to visit and explore of which many are isolated and uninhabited. We've only touched a few so far. We found that the winds patterns vary and it takes a few weeks to understand these but are generally less than 15kts in the Nosy Be area. At Crater Bay, we took a membership and rented a mooring for a few months from Rudy's 13-48 as this offers us a secure central base while we drop in, sundowners, do our land visiting beyond Hellville and provisioning.

Diving and snorkeling, once you find a locale with good visibility (usually well away from the islands/land) is met with healthy coral and plenty of reef fish. On one occasion we hired a dive charter with Rosie and Mark of SV Merkava and dived 'The Wall' (13 19.42'S:48 01.60'E) where we saw plenty of sharks (greys and white tips), large honeycomb moray, great barracudas, napoleon wrasse, groupers and a wreck. We missed the hammerheads and whale sharks - but they are coming!

We sailed north for a 8 day visit including Tsara Benjina, a resort island, with SV Antje and snorkeled the surrounding islands with healthy coral with lots of reef fish however the "underwater fishing" only produced minimum results - it appears its been well fished. The waters on the SW side here are quite clear with a good sandy bottom for anchoring. Its a lovely spot however the light winds and swell blew in opposing directions that make for an uncomfortable roll. Next time here we'll be on the NW side, which has similar bottom conditions and likely less roll.

We continued onto Nosy Mitsio (again) which has a number of anchorages including the nice waters off Nosy Ankarea; a small island just NW of Mitsio. Another amazing site is Nosy Lava, about 12Nm north, but it's pretty much a morning stopover as the winds change and make the south bay untenable in the pm. There are plenty of villagers coming out to visit for trading. After a good days hike crossing Nosy Mitsio island we partied it up and danced into the night at a local village after we were invited to their disco. Lots of fun!

Great sailing with 15kts, little swell, good speeds....

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