We hope that this Christmas finds you fit and well. We thought we would briefly update you on where we are, plus provide an outline of the events of the past year and what remains ahead. First and foremost I should give you our present location which is the lovely island of Sri Lanka.
Akin to New Zealand, where we spent our last Christmas, Sri Lanka is quite significant in both the festive and the sailing calendar for us. Arriving in The Bay Of Islands, New Zealand last year we found that we had alighted upon the global diametric opposite to Gibraltar. This meant that we had unequivocally sailed half way around the world. Arriving in Sri Lanka we find we have not alone returned to the Northern hemisphere, but also we have crossed far in excess of the line of longitude of ninety degrees East. Hence this year we can claim to have sailed three quarters of the way around the world. A mere quarter of the globe lays before us and then home. But before I speak of that I will quickly run through the places and passages made this year.
We commenced this year with a long stay in lovely New Zealand. This stay of six months had us sheltering from the Cyclone season and gave us the time required to furnish the yacht with an extensive refit for the voyage home. This was fully tested immediately on our maiden voyage of the season in May to Fiji. We endured three separate gales in just ten days en route, however Fiji was worth it all. To save me some florid prose on the island I suggest looking at the Brook Shields movie 'Blue Lagoon' which was located in the lovely waters we sailed in. The next pacific islands visited were the islands of Vanuatu, formally known as the New Hebrides. Here we met extraordinarily friendly islanders and experienced the type of island beauty that has come to be a leitmotif of the Pacific. In addition to this it seems to be a favourite yachting location and highly sociable. As a result we stayed twice as long as we intended and were a little bit behind schedule when we made our passage to Australia.
There, after initially landing in Cairns, we passed up inside the Great Barrier Reef and enjoyed unforgettable sailing. One thousand two hundred and sixty miles long and five hundred feet thick, the Great Barrier Reef is a vast coral honeycomb where fish, plant and rock form make the most exotic jungle in the world. Having it all to ourselves was simply wonderful. Rounding the north east corner of Australia we made directly for Darwin in perfect sailing conditions. After a final provisioning and intense twenty four hours a day of perspiration in the sauna of a town we were soon on the high seas setting out into our final ocean, after crossing the Pacific and Atlantic only the Indian Ocean remained. After Australia it was back to remote tropical islands that the trip seems to revolve around. This time it was Christmas Island in October where the police officer who cleared us in quipped 'it's Christmas every day here' and if happiness, friendliness and generosity are what Christmas is all about, well he was dead right. Her the peculiar effects of the past El Nino worked in our favour. The alteration in the season caused the island's unique red crabs to migrate early and we were there to witness it in person. A simply phenomenal army of timid little creatures rain down upon the coast to mate and in such a brief letter I only hope the reader has seen the unforgettable programme 'Kingdom Of The Crabs' narrated by Richard Attenborough to get the jist of what I am talking about.
However the knock on effects of the past El Nino were less benevolent to us in Cocos Keeling six hundred miles further west. This is little known Australian territory in the Southern Indian Ocean just South and East of Sri Lanka. It is a simply beautiful collection of twenty seven largely uninhabited islands of paradise. They are clustered around a coral atoll just south of the Equator in the vast Indian ocean. With their palm trees shimmering in the tropical breeze, pearl white sandy beaches and crystal clear lagoons, the islands are utterly beautiful and just how you imagine an island of paradise should be. It was utterly perfect and the month we spent there will remain one of the highlights of our entire trip. However our time in this heaven was shattered momentarily by cyclone Alison. The category two monster came and sat directly over us for a night which was an experience not to forget. With winds of sixty knots our anchor chain broke early in the tumult and from that moment on it was a minute by minute pitched battle to save the yacht from annihilation. By the grace of God we held out but can clearly say after this experience, our second cyclone, that such ferocious weather systems are far better dealt with deep ocean.
This of course was the worst thing to say for sure enough we tempted faith and experienced another freak event heading on our transequatorial trip Sri Lanka. This was Cyclone Billy. However this was far less threatening as we saw it coming, took evasive action and placed our vessel in the safe sector of this cyclone. As a consequence when it struck we only received fifty knots and associated seas but endured it in the comfort of knowing that it was flinging us out of the central system and not sucking us in. Third time less unlucky then but I have to say the trip that took us here made number three in our all time trips of utter awfulness. Winds consistently blowing from our destination, fifty knot squalls and an eighteen hour gale a couple of days after our Cyclone number three. Hey what did the El Nino do with the doldrums? But do we mind, sitting here in the beautiful island of Sri Lanka, not one jot.
Though there have been a few testing events over the past couple of months I have to say these count for nought. It just does not measure a scratch against the magnificent time we are having. For I can assure the reader we are living the best moments of our lives now each day and know it. It goes without saying that we are going to have a very merry Christmas and a wonderful new year.
So that was a brief snatch of the year that was in it for us. A magnificent year indeed as could be said of every year that we have spent afloat visiting the exotic places that the circumnavigation has taken us to. Looking over our records these places have become quite numerous. Including Sri Lanka, we will have visited five continents in the trip to date, a voyage that includes twenty five countries and eighty five islands. Most all of which were basking in tropical sunlight with leafy green coconut trees throwing shadows over crystal clear waters and snow white sands. Yet as I mentioned there has been on occasion some hard sailing and this brings to mind some hard sailing we are about to prepare for in the final months of the trip.
We had two options when it came to returning, to come via the Cape Of Good Hope and South Africa or the Red Sea and Mediterranean. Both offered the same complexity of sailing but when following the seasons we found the Red Sea allowed us a few additional months cruising time in the Pacific where it was a unique experience. As a consequence we decided to opt for the Red Sea route home. Thereby we plan to leave here in early January and after a brief stop in the Maldives arrive Djibouti in beginning of February. Here we will have some hard work cut out for us fighting constant contrary winds and desert conditions, not to mention the favours of the delightful denizens of these lands - I shall say no more on this topic seeing how Salman faired after spouting.
If all goes well we will be in the eastern Mediterranean in April. At this stage, never has the furthest flings of European waters ever felt so much like our back yard. Then after a series of brief stop overs in, Crete, Sicily, and Sardinia is back to Gibraltar once again to 'close the outbound loop' as sailors say. For once we arrive there it will be the first place we will have returned to on our voyage from the east after departing from it westbound. It will be the precise diametric opposite to the Bay Of Islands in New Zealand, the place where we will complete our circumnavigation of the world. This done, it is the final leg to Wexford hopefully in July.
We wish you all a very merry Christmas and a happy new year. Thank you for the interest you have shown in the trip to date. This year we can conclude by saying we will be seeing you all very soon, God bless.
Michael & Jayne