Island Bird is still in Cascade Seychelles, tied up to a pontoon since beginning of December when I left for Mauritius. I am now back on board and preparing her for more sailing around the Seychelles and further to the other islands not too far...The weather is definitely better now. Not raining any more and I am looking forward to two months of smooth sailing.

As we got closer to the Seychelles, the winds became more favourable and as we picked up speed we caught this 10 kilo yellow fin tuna. Enough food for several days...and big juicy fillets into the freezer.
We do not troll all the time at sea. More often we are sailing too fast or too slow....

Whatever name you prefer, it seems that we just cannot eat one on Island Bird... This one was hooked and landed on the deck but still managed to escape.... It is the third such narrow escape for this beautiful fish. This one was on our way from Mayotte back to the Seychelles back in October 2017. The trip was un eventful but took longer as we had to sail west to get favourable winds....

The connection by ferry between Petite Terre (Dzaoudzi) and Grande Terre is assured by two brand new double-ended roll-on-roll-off vessels built in Mauritius by Chantiers Navals de l'Océan Indien. During the day there is a departure each way every half hour. Nice crossing for cars and a capacity of more than 500 passengers.

Having arrived in Dzaoudzi on 17th October, we anchored, checked in with the authorities and drove round Grande Terre. Mayotte is facing a large scale immigration crisis. Apparently 40% of the population consists of illegal, undocumented persons from the Comoro Islands. We were told to be careful with our belongings... Island Bird was tied up to a mooring buoy and is right in the middle of the picture. All went well throughout our stay. Our generator got repaired and fully serviced and is now working perfectly. But noone could repair the mainsail...

We had good weather for the 6 days we took to reach Mayotte. Some showers and some periods without any wind at all. However, because of a tear at the bottom of the main sail, we sailed with two reefs almost all the way. Suprisingly we maintained an average speed of over 6 knots. Not bad for sailing for 6 days with two reefs in the main sail....