SE Asia Impressions: Wild Things

July 8, 2015, 7:44 pm

≫ Next: Video -- Jana takes on our three-year-old sail.

≪ Previous: SE Asia Impressions: Bali Nyepi, March 2014

You can't spend two years in SE Asia without encountering something of the wild side. We're not extreme adventurers; we are basically homebodies who like to travel with our kids. But here in SE Asia, we've come into contact with some pretty amazing critters, so I'm looking back on our time here and reminiscing a little about how easy it is to get close to nature here in Asia.

SNAKES ON A BOAT!

We begin with our newest passenger -- an uninvited guest who somehow stowed away in Phuket, Thailand, and hitched a ride to Langkawi, Malaysia. By all accounts he appears to be a pit viper -- based o his behavior and coloring/ markings. Not the kind of guest you want onboard. Because of him, we got in touch with a couple snake experts, first in Thailand but as we were sailing south they were out of reach and unable to help first-hand (though they did hold our hands metaphorically, and we were grateful for that), then with a local snake expert in Langkawi.

Othman clarifying a few things about snakes.

Othman Ayeb came to Momo for an afternoon last week and talked all about his own experiences with snakes plus the likelihood of whether our stowaway was still with us -- and also how to care for a bite in case we were to startle Mr Viper and get one. We are now armed with tobacco and vinegar and also know how to use a sharp razor to bleed a bite in case it comes to that. We understand the different kinds of anti-venoms but also that they won't really help when we are offshore. But we are not nearly as fretful as we were upon first seeing the snake fall out of our mainsail and onto the deck. Something about Othman's calm manner helped us feel more at ease with the idea of this stowaway. Lola even resumed sleeping in the forepeak (we had assumed he could be up there since our last sighting saw him come down the rig and slither forward, up under the dinghy on the foredeck).

We were all smiles by the time Othman left Momo that afternoon.

We then went to his house for a visit with his family and his pet King Cobras. All quite fascinating -- and we'll write more about that later. But for now, here are some photos of Othman and some of his pets (the common cobra and the king cobra). He's a man of great energy and passion and shared many stories about the wildlife of Langkawi.

Othman's King Cobra -- 3.5 meters in length. We watched a video of this snake eating a monitor lizard.

Othman demonstrating the common cobra's warning response.

Showing a little love -- the common cobra enjoys this kind of stroking on the back of his head.

Othman is at ease with the cobra as he talks to us for a long while with the cobra right at his fingertips.

Showing the 'warning' reflex of the cobra -- unlike the viper, who will strike with no warning.

Some reading materials Othman shared -- including his page in the 1999 Guiness Book of World Records. We had seen one of these gliders in Thailnad but did not capture it on camera.

Python in the Langkawi Wildlife Park -- this fellow is 7 meters and was first seen by Othman some six years back. He helped release him into a wild area where he'd be farther away from populations, but he encountered him once more when he received a call from a friend whose dog was being eaten by a very large python. Othman arrived on the scene to help capture the snake and discovered it was in fact the very same one from many years back. "is that you, my old friend," he recalled saying to creature. So he helped contain it and get it to the facility where it could live out its years in a place where it's no threat to any other creatures -- except the road kill that it feasts on each month.

KOMODO DRAGONS AT CHRISTMAS

Snakes are new to us, but we've seen plenty of monitor lizards since we've been in SE Asia: they amble across roads, they sit lazily in fields, they climb trees. One even slithered near us at a resort pool and climbed in, swam to the other side and proceeded to carry on his way down toward the beach! But besides monitor lizards, we also had the immense pleasure of seeing the mighty Komodo Dragon -- something we've been curious about ever since we first encountered Last Chance to See. And something entirely different from the more docile monitor lizard. We spent Christmas Eve 2013 with these creatures on Rinca Island, Komodo National Park, Indonesia. With them and a guide, that is.

Komodo dragon, Rinca Island, Indonesia

Water buffalo heads -- the only thing komodo dragons don't eat, as they can't digest the skulls So the rangers nail them up around the park -- effectively sobering decor.

Pretty big guy ambling by...

You don't really hear them as they quietly breathe in and sense their surroundings.

Komodos lounging near the ranger station. Benie and the kids with our guide Arif near the ranger station on Rinca Island. The dragons look slow and relaxed, yes -- but they can take off at remarkable speeds. They feast on water buffalo and are known to attack humans. We didn't go any nearer than this -- and only here at the ranger station.

They look laze and slow -- but that's deceptive. One of them has been spray painted on his back (not pictured here) so the guards know him and keep a greater distance; he is the one who has attacked people. When we visited, our guide told of various people who had been killed in recent years: a Swiss tourist and a local child from a nearby village.

Our guide Arif sharing stories -- and always with his long stick.

BIRDS, BEAUTIFUL BIRDS

More colorful than the Komodos are the many birds of SE Asia. Too many to count and name but all enchanting. We encountered birds in Bali, Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand. Everywhere we went, really. I spent a day in Kuala Lumpur's Bird Park with Jana, plus other bird parks around the area: you can't go very far without encountering a park for local and exotic bird species. We also visited the Wildlife Park in Langkawi, where they have a great many creatures large and small -- including the 7-meter python pictured above, who was rescued and cared for by our friend Othman.

Close-up in Bali.

Birds are part of the everyday fabric of life in this part of the world: they hang prettily in their cared-for cages in shops, in restaurants, in homes.

Pet in the petrol shop in Ambon, Indonesia.

You're not exactly in the 'wild' in the bird parks,but they do let you get up close and personal -- and they are usually trying to educate you about bird behavior, habitat and survival.

The hornbills are spectacular. We took a video of the call of one once -- amazing throaty sound. They tend to swoop in at the end of the day; you can see them all over Langkawi. You hear them before you see them, a great whomp-whomp of the wings. We met a local man who told us to watch for them in the evenings -- to sit quietly and look in the trees at the water's edge, or in the lower sections of Gunung Raya, Langkawi's highest peak. Sure enough, that very evening we saw (and heard) hornbills -- and then grew accustomed to seeing them in the trees.

But we like the smaller birds, too.

Budgies! We love budgies!

In Kuala Lumpur

Many peacocks strutting around the KL Bird Park.

Langkawi Wildlife Park

NON-VENOMOUS VISITORS ON MOMO

Sometimes birds come visit Momo, too.

At anchor in Komodo National Park, Indonesia.

Crow takes flight -- in Komodo National Park.

Sometimes we get other hitchhikers.

And once we had a wee swallow arrive on Momo, en route from Bali to Malaysia. First, he hitched a ride on Jerome, our windvane.

Then he moved to the netting.

And stayed here for some time...

Lola and Jana tried to entice him to eat, since he stayed with us so long.

...but he was not very hungry...

...and he flew from one place to the other...

...landed on Bernie's hand...

and visited with Jana.

That little sparrow died in the night on our back deck. I kept watch over him while he slowed and then breathed rapidly, his tiny chest beating fast, before expiring. Jana said her goodbyes in the morning.

GIANTS AND ANTS

Not all our encounters are with animals. One of the wildest encounters we had was with tree.

Actually, the close encounter was Bernie's, in Singapore. Seems he got a little too close despite the warning. And next thing we knew, his elbow, which was punctured by one of these spines, ballooned with alarming liquidy content.

Other tree adventures included mighty roots in great forests, nutmeg and almond plantations of the Spice Islands, the Botanic Garden of Penang, Malaysia and the tropical forest of the Salt Crater Lake onPulau Satonda, Indonesia.

Ants and beautiful flowers in the Botanic Gardens, Penang, Malaysia.

Great Salt Crater, Pulau Satonda, Indonesia

More ants -- Pulau Satonda, Indonesia

Seaweed offering from the salt lake in Satonda.

We never tire of the peaceful lilyponds all over SE Asia, too. This one in Singapore.

Tree in Tioman Island, Malaysia

Bamboo forest, Langkawi, Malaysia -- there's something about this wild and fast-growing stuff that I really love.

CHEEKY MONKEYS!

Then there are the other primates: the common macaque monkeys, the proboscis monkeys, the endangered orangutans and gibbons. We can't help but be fascinated by them -- on the side of the road in Langkawi, in Bali's Monkey Forest, in Thailand's Gibbon Rehabilitation Project, in Malaysia's Orangutan Island.

We saw monkeys in many places but the first time we really got close to them was in Bali's Monkey Forest. Still, you have to be careful; they'll steal your glasses or food, if you have any in your pockets. They are accustomed to humans, so they aren't shy. The babies are most curious and adorable. The big ones will climb on you just as quickly, though. You learn not to make eye contact and a few other ways to be respectful. In most places we did not just stroll up and handle monkeys -- not advisable. But in the Monkey Forest there are guides posted around to monitor monkey (and human) behaviors.

Slightly blurry but I just loved this little family.

Lunch time!

Typical shoreside monkeys -- in Rinca, Indonesia.

Camouflaged!

Little chocolate monkey in the trees, Penang Botanical Garden.

They can scurry up light poles just as fast as they do up tree trunks.

in Penang Botanical Gardens

Cheeky monkey!!

Shy guy in the tree -- Langkawi, Dayang Bunting, Lake of the Pregnant Maiden

You have to look close but there were lots of these fellows frolicking in these trees. Langkawi.

Langkawi -- Lake of the Pregnant Maiden. These guys are not shy and you have to walk down this walkway past all of them to get to the swim area at the end of the lake.

Uluwatu Temple, Bali -- temple monkey

ENDANGERED PRIMATES: GIBBONS AND ORANGUTANS

One of the last things we did in Phuket before leaving last month was visit the Gibbon Rehabilitation Project-- GRP, which for us has always stood for fiberglass but now holds more meaning.

The project was started in 1992. At that time they were almost completely wiped out -- extinct! -- due to poaching. The project collects injured animals from the wild, saves them from abusive owners and monitors the populations, ensuring families are released together for better chances of survival. The population is now making a comeback.

Why do gibbons suffer still? There is a huge tourism trade for photos with gibbons -- the cute, fuzzy baby ones. The babies are collected from their parents and used -- photo with a baby gibbon? -- and then, as they grow older, they are set aside or even worse outright physically and emotionally abused. We heard from our guide of several cases of gibbons that they've taken in who are recovering from beatings -- and we saw one who had lost one hand and one foot from abuse by her owner. She will not be released into the wild but cared for here for the rest of her life. The main goal, however, is to nurture families and set them free.

From the GRP page: Don't have your photograph taken with a gibbon or use the bars they are kept in. Report poaching to the National Park Headquarters or the Natural Resources and Environment Crime Suppression Division or the Department of National Parks: Wildlife and Plants.

The GRP Facebook page is here. Go on, Like it!

These two are always together -- friends for life and inseparable.

Earlier in the year, we visited Malaysia's Orangutan Island, a similarly organized facility where orangutans are protected, nurtured and rehabilitated, with the goal being to release them back into the jungles of Borneo. Orangutan Island is larger than the gibbon sanctuary -- a whole island in the middle of an strangely defunct-feeling Disney-like theme park (very odd) -- but these creatures need room to move. The thing about this facility that really struck us was the way the visitors are the ones enclosed, not the wild animals. We walked through portions of the island (only a small portion is open to viewers) and we were the ones caged: an enclosure around us on both sides and up over our heads kept us a considerable distance from the orangutans, while they were free to roam about in their natural habitat. Hence, my caged photos with blocked views. But I really like how the only way to view these creatures is through this distance; even the guides only ever enter the territory if an orangutan is sick or in need of routine medical care.

BFFs

She is lovely.

Big Daddy!

Walking through with our guide. You can see how the enclosure works, keeping us in.

The humans' enclosure goes up overhead, too, so you can see the animals in the trees.

Young one on the move.

Stopping to say hello.

Orangutan Island also has a medical facility, of course. Some of the animals need serious care when they are rescued (babies without parents, for example), and some need continuing care as they grow and change. There are educational brochures and plenty of places to inform yourself further.

When we were there, two young ones were in the hospital facility for blood tests. They were wild and woolly and interacted with us quite a lot through their windowed enclosure. One made a game of passing a leafy branch back and forth over the top -- where it was barred and open -- to a girl who was also there visiting with her family. It was quite something to see the way this animal played with her; there was a sense of play and insisting on 'my turn, your turn' that was fascinating to watch.

Small girl and orangutan -- equally curious about the other.

Jana making contact.

Jana could connect her hand here through the glass to the hand/ foot of the animal.

You can read about the care program and the facilities at the island, as well as their release program, here. The challenge is making sure the animals are ready for release (they use an interim pre-release island to observe and carry out the release in stages) and ensuring there is suitable forest for the orangutans to enter or re-enter. More about the release process is here; and video of a release can be viewed here.

CIVETS AND COFFEE: TO BLING OR NOT TO BLING

Another case of humans interacting with the wild...

In Bali, we were introduced to the famous cat-poo coffee, more formally known as Kopi Luwak and made from the beans of coffee beans ingested by civet cats and then expelled, cleaned, roasted and ground. Said to be the 'blingest' coffee in the world, this coffee is, yes, expensive. We paid $5 for a small cup, and did not dare purchase any more. The taste was smooth, yeah, and I admit to being intrigued by the whole idea.

Michelle's mother sniffing the civet coffee beans

But you spend enough time in these parts, you start to see past the initial intrigue. Trauma and drama hide behind this tourism 'seller' which brings people by the busload to small coffee 'plantations' and even sees a lucrative export trade. Kopi Luwak was first exported to western countries by Toni Wild in 1991. But Tony has since recanted his devotion to this coffee and speaks out passionately about the practices of keeping the wild civet cat in captivity for coffee production and export. In the last couple years, he's launched a worldwide campaign to stop what calls a 'cruel, fraudulent trade'. He's now looking for a way to produce sustainable coffee. His Facebook campaign -- Kopi Luwak: Cut the Crap -- can be found here.

WILD THINGS UNDERSEA

Finally, it's not possible to talk about SE Asia without looking under the surface. We are always mesmerized underwater -- by corals, fishies, dolphins and sea turtles, Jana wrote up a school report about the turtle sanctuary of Tioman Island, where we had a tour of their rescue and egg care facility, and we swam one afternoon in the waters of Redang Island with these graceful creatures. Like with dolphin or whale, I never get tired of this kind of thing. We first swam with turtles and dolphins in Hawaii in 2005, and I'm never any less enchanted when I get in the water with one of these amazing beings -- who are also surprisingly quick in the water.

Tioman Island, Malaysia, Turtle Sanctuary

Getting an introduction to the Tioman turtles

Jana at Tioman Island

Meeting Jo, the blind turtle who is cared for at Tioman

Protecting turtle eggs at Tioman

Creeping along the bottom at Redang Island

My Wild Thing - Jana, in Redang Island, Malaysia

Christmas Tree Worms in Koh Tao, Gulf of Thailand

Christmas Tree Worms -- Spriobranchus giganteus

Corals in the Gulf of Thailand

Michelle and Jana in Redang

WILD LUMINSCENCE

Lastly, a brief mention of the oddest wild encounter of all: the case of bioluminescence we experienced in the Gulf of Thailand one night in 2014 -- mystical and strange and impossible to describe. A pulsing thing that lasted hours and was unlike any other bioluminescence we'd ever seen -- fish zigzagging through the water or the dinghy creating a glowing bow wake, for example. Turns out, it was a rare experience and we were luckier than a scientist who's been tracking this phenomenon his whole life, trying to get a glimpse. We wrote it up in a blog entry here.

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Video -- Jana takes on our three-year-old sail.

September 29, 2010, 12:31 pm

≫ Next: Need to Control Your Twist? Consider an Off-Center Vang

≪ Previous: SE Asia Impressions: Wild Things

We made this little video last January in Whangarei. An article about this sail will appear in the November issue of Blue Water Sailing (available mid-October). Once it's published, we'll post it to our blog.

↧

Need to Control Your Twist? Consider an Off-Center Vang

October 15, 2010, 5:09 pm

≫ Next: 3000 miles of waves and sky

≪ Previous: Video -- Jana takes on our three-year-old sail.

(A version of this article appeared in Good Old Boat in March/ April 2007)

Momo uses two off-center vangs
led to positions near the toe
rail on the side deck.
They help control the boom in
all sailing conditions, act as
preventers, and are controlled
from the safety of the cockpit.

When we reconfigured Momo, our Mason 43, for blue water sailing, we searched for a way to replace our 4:1 purchase vang with something more powerful. We also needed something that could act as a preventer and steady the boom. Eventually we developed a system of dual off-centered vangs which has proven robust, effective, and easy to use. In fact, these vangs turned out to be our most significant modification to the sailboat’s rig, greatly enhancing performance and safety.

The Centered Vang vs. the Off-Centered Vang

The typical sailboat features a centered vang, which is secured at the base of the mast and runs at an angle between 30 and 60 degrees to a position on the boom a few feet from the gooseneck. The vang keeps the boom down and thus controls the twist of the main, particularly when the boat heads off the wind and that function can no longer be fulfilled by the mainsheet and traveler.

Older boats like ours often employ a modest 4:1 tackle, which is barely adequate even on small boats. Skippers with deep pockets can install a masculine piece of hydraulic muscle powerful enough to move mountains but which costs more than a new a mainsail. New boats increasingly sport rigid mechanical vangs which also support the boom in lieu of the topping lift, although I don’t understand why anyone would trade the supple strength of rope for the rigid vulnerability aluminum extrusions and steel. Judging from manufacturers’ warnings and reports I’ve read from people who use them, rigid vangs seem like a heavy and expensive way to replace a fully functional topping lift with a product that offers above all the potential to break. The virtue of the centered vang lies in pulling the boom down without impinging on its freedom to swing from side to side. The boom can be sheeted to any desired position while the vang’s tension remains the same. But such convenience comes at a price. As much as half of the force applied to a centered vang does not actually pull the boom down but rather wastes itself driving the boom into the mast and stressing the gooseneck. Little can be done about that: if the boom attachment is moved forward, the downward pull of the vang increases, but leverage is lost; moving the boom attachment aft increases the vang’s leverage, but decreases the proportion of force actually used to bring the boom down.

Furthermore, giving the boom the freedom to swing is not necessarily a good thing. With any kind of seaway, particularly in light winds, the boom bounces around with a violence that benefits neither the rig nor the canvas. And the further the vessel sails downwind, the greater danger it faces from an accidental jibe. Inevitably, measures need to be taken to steady the boom.

Often, however, such measures are awkward and unsafe. One common recommendation, for instance, is to rig a preventer to the end of the boom, lead it forward to a block on the bow and bring it back to the cockpit. But that is easier said than done, especially after a jibe at night or in heavy weather. Another way to rig a preventer is to change from a centered to an off-centered vang – by releasing the bottom of the vang from its position at the base of the mast and moving it outboard so that the vang constrains the boom. But a vang that always needs to be moved from one place to another is a nuisance.

On Momo we decided to set up an off-centered vang for each side of the boat, with both sides controlled from the cockpit. Not only are these vangs more effective than a centered vang at pulling down the boom, they also act as preventers and help steady the boom in a seaway. Jibing and tacking are easy, and using the vangs and mainsheet we can secure the boom in any position we desire within seconds.

Respect the Force

Due to the difference in leverage, any tackle that controls the boom from the middle encounters substantially more force than tackle which controls the boom from the end. The forces faced by an off-centered vang, especially the shock loading from a slatting main, can overwhelm hardware, pull fittings through decks, break stanchions, and lift genoa tracks. Thus the vang’s components, especially its attachments to the boom and deck, need to be carefully considered.

We use webbing straps for all of our boom
attachments. They are cheaper and more
forgiving than stainless steel fixtures
and put less stress on the boom. They
accommodate shifting directions of load
and are easy to inspect and replace.
The red lines, led through holes in the
boom, keep the straps from sliding back
and forth. After about a year or so we
noticed some chafing at the point where
the shackle passes through the loop. But
the problem turned out to be caused by
corrosion on the stainless. We now put a
few turns of electrical tape around the
shackle to prevent abrasion; that has
solved the problem.

On Momo we secured the vangs to the boom with a webbing strap. In fact, ever since a stainless boom attachment for our mainsheet sheared while we were motoring through a windless stretch of sloppy seas, we have used webbing straps for all of our boom attachments. They absorb shock and accommodate shifting directions of loads; they are easy to inspect and replace; and they are light and incredibly strong – the 1" wide straps we use have a working load of 3200 lbs. with a safety factor of 5:1. They are also inexpensive – after asking a boatyard crane operator where he purchased his straps, we went to the same place and discovered that they could custom-make any kind of straps we wanted at very reasonable prices. The 2' long straps we use on the boom were made by Grip-Sure Manufacturing in Richmond, B.C., and cost less than $8 each. Compare that to the $40 we might otherwise have spent for a stainless steel boom bail that, tortured by the stress of an off-center vang, would inevitably fail.

One way to assure the strength of the lower fitting is to secure the vang to the chainplates. But leading the lines fairly can prove difficult, and, for safety reasons I will explain later, we did not want vangs positioned that far forward. On Momo we secured the bottom of the vangs to two separate points aft of the chainplates, spreading the load between the midship cleat and a stanchion base. The points are 24" apart, and each is reinforced with a 4" x 6" stainless steel
backing plate.

Each vang has a purchase of 8:1 – the same as obtained from a typical rigid vang – which generates sufficient force to pull down the boom in a strong wind. Moreover, since the off-center vang pulls the boom more or less straight down, it is more efficient than a centered vang. To gain such purchase without using excessive lengths of line or numbers of blocks, the vangs are composed of two cascading tackles. The first tackle consists of a line, the standing part of which is fixed to fiddle block. The hauling part is reeved through a block at the boom, brought down to a block at the midship cleat, and led back to the cockpit where it can be made fast. By itself, it yields a 2:1 purchase. This part of the vang bears the most load, thus the blocks and line must be sized accordingly. On our boat, we use 90mm blocks by Wichard (safe working load of 4,400 lbs.) at the boom, Schaefer’s 704-5 block (safe working load of 2,250 lbs) at the cleat, and ½" line (breaking strength of 8,500 lbs). The line must also be long enough to allow the boom to swing freely to opposite side of the boat.

The blue line runs through a block
secured at the midship cleat -- it
has a 2:1 purchase and is used for
the gross adjustment of the vang.
The white line is used to get the
vang tight. It runs through tackle
secured to a stanchion base (our
stanchions our quite strong) and has
a 4:1 purchase. This produces a 8:1
purchase overall. Both lines are led
back to the safety of the cockpit.

The second tackle bears only half the load of the first and thus can be sized somewhat smaller. The standing part of the second tackle is fixed to a fiddle block secured to a stanchion base about 24" aft of the midship cleat. The hauling part is then reeved back and forth between the fiddle block which terminates the first tackle and the fiddle block that is secured at the stanchion base, and finally brought back to the cockpit where it can be made fast. We use Harken’s fiddle blocks 1559 and 1560 (safe working loads of 1800 lbs) and 3/8" line (breaking strength of 4,400 lbs.). By itself, this second tackle yields a purchase of 4:1. Between them, however, the two tackles yield a purchase of 8:1.

Operating the vang involves two steps. First, one makes a gross adjustment using the first tackle. Simply put, one hauls on the first tackle until the fiddle block is brought all the way up to the boom. Then one uses the second tackle to achieve the desired tension and sail shape.

Don’t Trip the Boom

The only serious danger with an off-center vang involves tripping the boom in heavy seas. If the boom digs deeply into a wave while constrained by the vang, it could very well snap. With a system like ours, the vang should retain enough elasticity to avoid such a catastrophe. Since the vang’s bottom attachments are situated aft of the chainplates, it does not actually hold the boom all the way out. The distance between the vang’s bottom attachments absorbs shock by allowing the boom to rock back and forth a little while under tension. The ropes and the webbing also stretch. Furthermore, the location of the vang’s bottom attachments also help us recover from accidental jibes. When the wind catches us aback, the boom swings inward a few feet before being stopped by the vang. In this position, the boat actually feels like it’s hove-to. It continues to make enough headway that, by putting the helm hard over, we can bring the stern through the wind again and resume our course.

During gale conditions we’ve had the boom dip lightly into the sea, but this is not something I like experimenting with. The best thing is to avoid tripping the boom at all. Reefing helps, not only by reducing heel but because each successive reef raises the end of the boom a little further from the deck (this, of course, depends upon the design of the main). Eventually, conditions might require striking the mainsail and flying a trysail without the boom.

In the absence of boom gallows, the vang can center the boom and hold it steady. In any event, even if the boom trips in the sea, the rig faces less danger from an off-center vang than from a preventer run forward from the end of boom. Whereas the vang might break the boom, the preventer might generate sufficient torque to bring down the mast.

Buy Yourself Something Nice

Building a quality robust vang is not exactly cheap. Our vangs were designed to sustain a safe working load in excess of 3000 lbs. Based on the catalog of a leading US chandlery, the blocks we used retail at around $650, although a little bit of searching can yield significantly lower prices. To that one needs to add the cost of line and other incidentals needed to secure the vang and lead the falls back to the cockpit. Still, compared to other alternatives a vang like ours is a veritable bargain and much more versatile. Forespar’s rigid mechanical vang (‘Yacht Rod’) for a boat our size retails at more than $1800, while setting up a hydraulic vang for a boat our size costs around $2800. With all the money you save, you can buy yourself something nice – perhaps a little rowing dinghy. And when you stow it on deck, shove it right against the mast, because there won’t be a centered vang to get in the way.

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3000 miles of waves and sky

September 3, 2015, 3:00 am

≫ Next: Madagascar, First Impressions: Music Festival of Nosy Be (and a little about sex)

≪ Previous: Need to Control Your Twist? Consider an Off-Center Vang

Just before leaving Malaysia, I was put in touch with an artist working on a painting project in which he was trying to capture a sense of the ocean's waves. He was looking for offshore photos of the deep blue. I told him our own attempts at photographing the ocean -- many years of it -- are never very successful, as it's nearly impossible to capture the depth and breadth in a camera lens. We have no perspective other than our sea-level view, and there is no comparative element. We also can never capture the movement of the waves: how they come at you with great speed at times, lift you, push and pull you. The movement of the boat is what defines our existence at sea -- up and over waves, one moment after another. Patterns of holding on and letting go, of balancing on one foot or the other, become second nature to an offshore sailor. But those can't be captured either. The kinetic energy of life afloat is wholly elusive when it comes to a digital capture. I'm sure professional photographers do a much better job of it, with better equipment and a better sense of the how to of it.

But I liked thinking of this artist with his white and blue and grey canvas. Indeed, I thought of him all the way across the Indian Ocean, wishing I could contribute something of the variety of the ocean for his 'research'. So we tried with our own modest Nikon to capture the sea state, taking hundreds of photos of blue and more blue. We experienced real variety, too: at first a very calm sea, then building with increasing wind and then very steep seas as we made our way further south and got into the heavy tradewinds. But we don't venture outside with the camera when the seas are especially nasty; you'll not find any photos of those days when waves the size of two-storey houses were breaking over Momo.

Below are some samples from our 25 days between Sumatra and Madagascar -- some 3000+ miles (you can see our track here). Even if you can't get a sense of the height or depth or frequency of the waves from these views, you can at least see the infinite blue.

Departure day, August 1

Sailing into the sunset, first days out

August 8, wind increasing and waves building

August 8 -- the day the first wave swamped Bernie and me in our cockpit. No capture of that wave.

More from August 8. Wind was 25 knots the night prior, but lessened at dawn. The seas were still quite boisterous, however.

Madagascar, First Impressions: Music Festival of Nosy Be (and a little about sex)

September 21, 2015, 11:38 am

≫ Next: Madagascar Early Impressions: Harnessing the Wind

≪ Previous: 3000 miles of waves and sky

Madagascar is a country that makes a big first impression. Just east of Mozambique, it's the fourth largest island in the world, and a convergence of Europe, Africa and the Middle East -- as evidenced by the gourmet French meals and baked goods, the combination of French and local Malagasy language, the melange of rum drinks and vibrant materials for both traditional and modern dress, and the fleet of sailing dhows that are scattered every day up and down the coastline, with their triangular sails set against the rising and setting sun, reminiscent of traditional Arab sailing vessels.

This is the land of lemurs and ylang ylang, distilled rum and vanilla, dancing and late-night revelry (the party starts at midnight, as far as we can tell), lazy mornings and lavish lunches.

We arrived in late August, just as a music festival was starting up in Nosy Be, the administrative check-in center for vessels arriving on the northwest side of Madagascar.

Below are some photos from our first days here in Hell-Ville and the music festival that filled the streets and even our cockpit day and night. We can't photograph the underlying cultural rhythms and tones -- poverty that begets petty crime and sometimes more dramatic instances of violence, or the clash of cultures that inevitably comes from the intersection of a thriving local culture and a strong expat community (which seem to exist, for the most part, in relative peace).

Nor can we capture the pervasive sensuality of Nosy Be, but we have the unavoidable sense that sex is neither a nasty three-letter word in the traditional Victorian Values sense, nor merely a means to procreate. We haven't been here long enough to understand the relationship between sex as pleasure and sex as business -- but they are both a deep part of this culture. Clearly, solicitation is a pervasive issue here and is at least at the official level discouraged (see t-shirt photo, below). Others have written on the topic of prostitution and the meaning of sex/life -- and how it differs from the well documented sex trade in Thailand and the dangerous and frightening child sex industry in places like Mombasa. Clearly, from our peripheral vantage point, we have little way of understanding exactly what's going on here. Even as it makes an impression.

But so do the forests and sailing dhows, the chameleons and lemurs, the embroidery and carvings, and the music and outwardly colorful culture -- and we can photograph that. Once we stay longer in this mysterious and welcoming country, we may be able to say more about complex cultural undercurrents and countercurrents. For now, we'll stick with some first impressions, beginning with the music festival that raged for four days when we first arrived in Hell-Ville.

The Parade / Music Festival of Nosy Be

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Madagascar Early Impressions: Harnessing the Wind

October 21, 2015, 5:26 am

≫ Next: First Log Entry (dated 28 February 2004)

≪ Previous: Madagascar, First Impressions: Music Festival of Nosy Be (and a little about sex)

So we settled into our early weeks in Madagascar, and the second thing we noticed -- along with thecacophony from the music festival blaring off our bow and the gyrating rhythms of Nosy Be-- was that this is a sailing place.

In Crater Bay, in Russian Bay, in Honey River, in Sakatia, we follow the rhythm of this watery life, as boats sail by our bow or our stern morning, noon and night. It's busy in Crater Bay, as this, along with Hell Ville, forms the hub of Nosy Be's trading center. Sailing dhows of all sizes glide in and out, leaving in the early dawn, transporting their cargoes using the reliable afternoon breeze and returning after dark. And they really do glide -- they hoist their sails and go, even in the lightest of breezes. Sometimes they ghost by at midnight, propelled by a single oar to get them into waters shallow enough to drop anchor. Sometimes they sail all the way in, inching along before stopping deep in the bay. And the helmsmen expertly manage their craft, which pass so close to Momo's bow that we can almost reach out and clasp hands.

Close encounters with local outrigger and her quick crew

Sometimes, they're a little too close. Just now, as I was loading photos for this post, we heard a large clang, and for a brief moment thought something had gone wrong with our anchor. Coral clanking? No, impossible: we are anchored in mud. Chain paying out unexpectedly? That happened recently, just as we were sailing into Honey River, forcing us to anchor just a few meters earlier than we'd planned. No, the chain was not feeding out. We flew out the companionway to see what all the noise was about just as Lola said with relative calm from her view in the forepeak, "Oh! A boat's caught on our anchor!" Sure enough, a dhow had sailed by so close that its starboard outrigger snagged our anchor chain, bringing the boat boat to a screaming halt. By the time I got there, the helmsman was already trying to free himself, and by the time we were all assembled on the bow, he was gone. We waved, chuckling at the irony of this occurrence. Bernie grabbed the camera and snapped this photo (note the nearly stacked wood being delivered -- these boats represent the equivalency of the trucking industry in mainland commerce). And our new friends sailed away.

Large or small, the boats are made of rough-hewn wooden planks held together by galvanized nails and caulked with a mixture of tree resin and old motor oil. We've seen them being built on the shore, the first stage of construction taking place just above the tide line, the second on the tidal flats where repeated inundation swells the wood and seals the joints. Forget high mass fiber weaves; forget Kevlar or carbon. Forget name-brand sails. Here, sails are made from materials on hand, from potato sacks to recycled awnings, and patched with strips of clothing. Held up by bamboo or wooden spars supported by low-tech ropes, the sails move the vessels in and out of harbors, across bays, along coast lines and on estuary waterways. The toy ships, too, are carefully made from on-hand materials -- even plastic grocery bags will do for a sail.

Thai tour boats, w/ great big car engines. Ko Phangan, Gulf of Thailand.

Seldom is there the puttering sound of an outboard. Where SE Asia coastal sailing was often a test of one's patience -- drifting in light-wind whispers, weaving through fish stakes, dodging large diesel vessels stringing nets between them -- sailing in Northwest Madagascar is by a far more subdued activity. The shoreline is a blend of browns and reds, earthen tones of boats and cargo, compared to the colorfully painted longtails of SE Asia, picturesquely parked in formation at the edge of beachside resorts, Sure, there can be a rush of activity here, as commerce drives the flow. And in the larger town of Majajanga, friends of ours noted what they called the morning 'rush-hour' just off their bows. But even there, the boats are sailing.

Outrigger whizzing by Momo one fine afternoon

And these boats are fast. On light-air days we might maintain a steady 4 knots, and as the breeze builds we reach a satisfying 6. But the boats on these waters pick up and fly, unencumbered by a full keel and heavy displacement hull, lifting and leaning into the wind, their crews hiking out as needed to maintain balance and speed. One such vessel, much smaller than Momo (see photo, left), passed us one afternoon as we approached Crater Bay. Piloted by its deft helmsman, the boat sailed past with ease, picking up momentary bursts of speed by surfing on the little waves.

We're not the only ones to notice the speed and craft of these vessels. Bernie recently came across The Adventurists' Adventure #9 and the short video that introduces viewers to a dhow sailing adventure off the coast of Tanzania -- a race that, to us, is far more interesting than the big-money-corporate-sponsored sailboat racing that we're all more familiar with. From the website:

A tree, a bedsheet and some string -- what could go wrong?
Yachts are for wankers, old men and tanning. You will be sailing in an Ngalawa, a native-style boat still used by fishermen on the coast of Zanzibar and Tanzania.
It's rustic as fuck: the hull is a mango tree scraped out by hand and the outriggers are tied on with string.

I can think of a few lower-budget Wednesday-night racers, from Newport, RI to Opua, NZ, who'd jump at the chance to get wet in this kind of wild ride. A 500-km race in and around the waters of Zanzibar. More about the Tanzanian ngalawas (the boats) can be found on the website, here. Note how with a mere 30-40 m2 of sail area, they go up to 10 knots. On a 6m open boat out on the big ocean, that's fast. Just watch the video and you'll see what I mean. Momo wouldn't stand a chance.

Fishermen just off Momo in Crater Bay

Meanwhile, in the quiet bays around Nosy Be, fishermen row their boats just beyond the anchorage in the pre-dawn grey, and we wake to see them silently pulling in their nets just off our stern. Voices carry in the light air. They say hello, they wave, they go back to fishing.

Madagascar is, in contrast to other places we've been, a blissfully quiet experience thus far. Plenty of noise happens in town, of course: the markets are bustling, the pubs are bulging. The tuk-tuks are a lively yellow. and the music is frenetic and uplifting. Incidents of petty theft occur on every corner, and we sense there is an edge of danger here. Even Honey River, with its serene-sounding name, was not so serene for us (more coming soon: No Honey in Honey River). But the anchorages are quiet as boats come and go with the breeze.

Below are some photos from the watery edges of the area in and around Nosy Be, Madagascar; Sept-Oct 2015.

This is the first photo we took of a sailing dhow as we came in through the pass between Nosy Komba and Nosy Be in August

Arriving in Hell-Ville

Sailing in the lightest wind

Tear in the luff won't stop these sailors

Patchwork plastic

Good morning, sailors!

Two narrow spars hold up the sail to keep this boat moving

Sailing into a crowded anchorage

Early morning fishing activity off Momo's stern

Boats cross Momo's bow as we sail to Nosy Komba in distance

Sailing in light air --note the sail material and the fridge balancing near the oarsman

Kids fishing on a calm afternoon, with rolled sails in background

Heading out with nets -- these guys will pull in their catch just off Momo's stern as the sun sets

Crater Bay waterfront

Light wind sailing -- like us, with makeshift shade cloth

Downwind across the bay

View from wooden boats to the fiberglass dotting the bay -- Crater Bay

This boat just drifted past us this morning -- no wind, no sails, but silently gliding along

Sails rolled away, and unloading at the water's edge, Crater Bay

Ghosting away and out, where they'll pick up the breeze later in the day

Moving smooth under patchwork sail

View to fishing boat under Momo's drifter (note our patches)

Fishing on a quiet afternoon

Busy loading of the fleet, Crater Bay

Close-up look at sails, spars and ropes holding it all together

Colorful sailboat in Crater Bay -- a larger tour and delivery boat

Patched and dirty, but still moving

Outrigger dug-out picking up speed on the waves -- and passing Momo

And, finally, in contrast: Momo's modern (though admittedly very old) drifter blew out with one fine afternoon breeze; time to get some local help to patch her up!

Bernie and Jana pull the drifter down, so we can sail on toward Russian Bay

Plastic bag sail (a little deflated here, but it really does work!) takes this wee skiff along the Honey River

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First Log Entry (dated 28 February 2004)

October 26, 2015, 6:39 am

≫ Next: Wind-Vane Self-Steering on Momo: Balancing the Machine

≪ Previous: Madagascar Early Impressions: Harnessing the Wind

On 28 February 2004, after having spent around two months getting our new-to-us boat ready for offshore sailing, we left Redondo Beach and sailed to Catalina Island, some 20 nautical miles away. Here's my (Bernie's) first log entry (I recognize the handwriting):

"Took us while to get control of things. Tried to raise our main with a reef in it but got something (??) hung. Sheeted the jib sheets wrong. Wrestled with the main sheet because the way it’s set up really sucks. The dodger also gets in the way of the jib winch. Dragged a dockline through the water all the way to Catalina. The prop freewheeled the whole way even though it supposedly feathers.

We made good time -- 7 to 8 knots. The thin 'safety' lines holding the blocks to the Sailomat [windvane self-steering gear] chafed through right away.

White Cove we found plugged with mooring balls. Tried anchoring in 40’ of water. First time we did not set. The bow roller -- the axle came apart while pulling the chain back up. The second time the anchor did not set. Bow roller malfunctioned again. And we pulled up a huge piece of sheet metal -- remnant of some Japanese submarine no doubt. So we picked up a mooring. To keep us from bouncing on the mooring ball we tried to set a stern anchor. Pointless. We need a stern roller. Our present arrangement sucks. But things are good. Things are beautiful."

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Wind-Vane Self-Steering on Momo: Balancing the Machine

November 6, 2015, 5:53 am

≫ Next: Madagascar: Big Skies -- and a Waterspout in Sumatra

≪ Previous: First Log Entry (dated 28 February 2004)

I began writing this description of how we set up the wind-vane self-steering gear on our boat primarily as a response to somebody from the Mason Sailboat Owners group. But I figure it might be worth sharing more broadly. In the perennial debate regarding the virtues of autopilots versus those of wind-vane self-steering units (ours is a servo-pendulum device), we find ourselves firmly on the side of wind-vanes, at least for boats more or less like ours – not too fast, moderate size, aft cockpit, tiller or cable steering, etc.

Obvious advantages of wind-vane servo-pendulums over autopilots include that they are robust, relatively simple and easy to repair, and require no power and thus do not depend on the boat’s electrical/charging system. Moreover, should your steering cables fail, you can easily hook up the wind-vane servo-pendulum to your emergency tiller.The disadvantages include … well, I don’t really know.

Using the tiller pilot to operate
the servo-pendulum while motoring

Our own preference is for units that use the boat’s own rudder to steer the boat (as opposed to ones that incorporate an auxiliary rudder). Under normal circumstances, it seems to make sense to use the rudder that was designed for the boat instead of a one-size-fits-all auxiliary rudder. Arguments touting the safety factor of having an auxiliary rudder just in case the main rudder fails become less persuasive when you consider that the main rudder must surely be far sturdier than any auxiliary rudder, especially compared to the keel-hung rudder on a boat like ours. But, of course, situations exist where the use of an auxiliary rudder is more appropriate (hydraulic steering, for example, or poorly designed main rudders).

Certain specific features of a boat – hydraulic steering, center cockpits, dinghy davits – can conspire to make wind-vane servo-pendulums less attractive (although not necessarily prohibitive, and there are wind-vane alternatives to servo-pendulums). But they don’t play a role for boats like ours. Performance has never been an issue. We’re aware of various reports about the poor performance of wind-vanes on certain points of sail or in light air, but that hasn’t been our experience and we wonder sometimes whether there’s more to the story. An acquaintance, for example, who had sailed all the way across the Pacific to New Zealand, complained about the inadequate performance of his Monitor wind-vane, but when we reconfigured the blocks and lines to double the length of line travel this made all the difference in the world. Our wind-vane unit works well in light wind and on all points of sail, while in really nasty conditions -- conditions in which we’ve seen autopilots pushed to the point of failure -- it really shines. Meanwhile, the argument that one needs an autopilot when motoring holds no water because, instead of using wind, you can also operate the wind-vane servo-pendulum with an inexpensive, low-energy tiller pilot.

To be sure, setting the wind-vane self-steering device involves a little more thought and effort than punching a compass heading into an electronic device. Basically, you need to understand the wind-vane device as part of a much larger mechanical system that includes the rudder, keel, and sails. This system needs to be balanced as a whole, and the nature of this balance depends very much on the speed and constancy of the wind, as well as the conditions of sea. This takes a little practice, but for us also forms much of the challenge and pleasure of sailing. We get our kicks not so much from going fast (although speed is good) or pushing the boat to its limits (which for cruising just seems stupid) but from balancing between the shifting forces of the wind and waves a machine that draws its energy entirely from the wind and water. That said, it’s not as if we’re constantly fiddling with the self-steering gear. In fact, the boat practically sails itself. Once the gear is properly set, we just keep an eye on things and monitor the balance.

Commercially available wind-vane self-steering devices are admittedly expensive, but their upkeep is minimal and you can usually fix them yourself using self-fashioned parts, if necessary. We’re talking here about a basic mechanical device rather than hi-tech engineering and electrical components. Indeed, you can also build wind-vane self-steering units yourself. If you can get your hands on it, Bill Belcher’s Wind-Vane Self-Steering: How to Plan and Make your Own will tell you everything you need to know in order to make a number of different kinds of wind-vane self-steering devices, with and without auxiliary rudders, with and without servo-pendulums. Years ago, I used his book with some success to build a wind-vane servo-pendulum for our 28’ Pearson Triton out of various bits of wood, epoxy, aluminum, and plumbing.

The home-made self-steering gear on
our Triton consisted of two parts: the wind-vane
component mounted on the rail and the
servo-pendulum component mounted on the transom
The design drew its geometry from Belcher's book.

Which brings me to the original point of this post, namely, to show in (perhaps excruciating) detail how we've set up the Sailomat 601 self-steering gear on Momo. In certain respects, our approach deviates from the manufacturer's recommendations. But the system has worked very well for us, and it might give people some ideas when setting up similar equipment on their own vessels.

Mounting the Sailomat 601 on a Mason 43

Because of the angle of the Mason's transom, the base of Sailomat 601 cannot be attached directly to the transom. The aluminum mounting brackets do not allow the base to be sufficiently adjusted. So we mounted these bracket on two angled pads of teak. The pads are glued to the transom directly below the toe rail and, together with the aluminum brackets, through-bolted to the transom.

Niggling Issues

The Sailomat has been good to us these past twelve years, but we've also encounter a few niggling problems along the way, which we might as well mention here. For one thing, we discovered that the

blue powder coat on the cast aluminum parts (no longer found on the newest models) did more harm than good because it encouraged fierce and destructive corrosion. We stripped it all off using paint remover back in 2009 and left the castings bare. Another annoying problem on our unit was the fact that the steering oar was held in place on the cradle by a single set screw, which tended to work its way loose. Twice we’ve had the oar slip out of the cradle completely (thankfully, we had it tied on), which also damaged the little tiller arm bearing. Once this also badly bent the 12mm stainless steel axle for the tiller arm, which we replaced in a remote anchorage with a piece of a fishing rod. The set screw is now pinned in place; we’ve added a second set screw, and we also filled the space between the oar and the cradle with epoxy in order to eliminate the free play that has developed over the years. Early on, we also had problems with the main pendulum bearing, which for some reason became seized after being in the stored position for a few months. For a long time I simply made new bearings from epoxy and fiberglass cloth until we eventually bought a new shaft and bearing from the manufacturer.

The point here is not so much that wind-vane self-steering units don’t break but that when they do you can often fix them yourself with materials on hand.

Line Configuration

The Sailomat comes without blocks or sheaves (unlike the Monitor, for example). You need to configure and install them yourself. But we found this to be a good thing, because it allows you to set up the blocks and lines in a manner that suits your boat. We utilized the entire width of the Mason 43’s (rather narrow) transom, installing angled brackets that extend from each corner of the transom. The line of travel from the top of the pendulum cradle to the blocks on either side should run straight across the boat. The brackets need to be strongly braced because the ends that attach to the toe rail are otherwise subjected to a lot of leveraged force (a physics lesson we learned from experience early on when one of the brackets tore out of the toe rail and fell into the drink). We’ve run the lines in a way that largely keeps the cockpit clear. The Mason 43 has a starboard side entrance, so it makes sense to have the lines cross to the wheel from the port side. Apart from this crossing point, the lines are kept outside the coaming, which makes for more seating space. While it might be aesthetically appealing to have the lines and blocks hidden away, as with the Cape Horn servo-pendulum gear, it seems far more prudent to have them completely accessible for when things go wrong. Which they will.

Adjusting the Lines

The wind-vane self-steering unit is balanced by adjusting the lines at the cam cleats on the aft coaming. Adjusting the lines changes the “neutral” position of the wheel, thereby setting the rudder’s initial on-course position in a way that compensates for weather helm and other balancing issues. Even minor line adjustments of an inch or so can make a significant difference to performance. In principle, the idea is to set the lines so that the boat is balanced with the wind-vane in a neutral position. But this does not always achieve the best results. Sometimes it is better to set the gear so that it is always working a little bit. In so doing, you’re adjusting for the fact that in most situations the boat tends to go off course more in one direction than the other.

Pulleys

Note the one pulley mounted on the pushpit stanchion (and stop looking at the rust on the stanchion base). Because it is situated in the corner of the pushpit, this stanchion is very solid and does not move. But I would not otherwise recommend attaching blocks to stanchions or rails because they will work back and forth and no doubt eventually break.

We originally ran the lines through blocks, but later we moved to fixed pulleys mounted on 1/2” inch studs, a solution that we found not only more pragmatic but also less expensive than blocks. The pulleys are also easily cleaned and lubricated, and we keep a number of spares. Larger pulleys are easier on the lines and accommodate more line deflection. Incidentally, the Sailomat manufacturer recommends ball-bearing blocks, but they don’t last as long as plain-bearing blocks. Our worst experience was with some heavy-duty Garhauer bearing blocks we originally bought for our main sheet -- they were destroyed during the course of a 200-mile passage. In any event, the power generated by the servo-pendulum is far more than enough to overcome any increased friction from plain-bearing blocks. As far the lines themselves, we use standard double-braid polyester lines. We’ve tried Spectra, but found that it slipped through the cam cleats. I also think that line creep may be more of an issue than line stretch in wind-vane applications. I don’t think that the stretch of double-braid polyester has any significant impact on performance. At the same time, this stretch provides a safety factor in the event of shock loads and overloading. This is all the more important because our system does not incorporate “fuses” to prevent overloading (the manufacturer recommends at least one block attachment with a breaking strength of 170 - 225 lbs, but we found that these attachments fatigued and broke very quickly).

Blocks on the Pendulum Cradle

Instead of attaching the lines directly to the pendulum cradle, we run them through blocks mounted on the cradle. This doubles the amount of line travel -- the distance travelled by the line is effectively twice that of the distance travelled by the pendulum. This, of course, translates into increased wheel movement. Servo-pendulums deliver plenty of power to the wheel. But without sufficient line travel, the gear will not steer the boat very well. The fact that the blocks are mounted slightly higher than the positions on the pendulum cradle also increases line travel a little bit. From the pulley on the pendulum cradle, one end of the line leads via pulleys to the wheel; the other end leads first to the 1/2” stainless bolt and from there to the cam cleat. This bolt functions better than a pulley or block because this is a fixed point -- the line does not move at this position (except when you’re making adjustments). In situations where the steering gear is working especially hard, the lines eventually creep a little through the cam cleats, introducing slack. This can be prevented by taking a few turns around the bolt before taking it through the cam cleat.

In Conclusion: A Thirty-Second Video

Here's a not-enough-time-for-popcorn-long clip of Momo on the Indian Ocean.

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Madagascar: Big Skies -- and a Waterspout in Sumatra

November 24, 2015, 8:56 am

≫ Next: Mason 43 Mast Step Replacement Ensenada 2004 (January 2016)

≪ Previous: Wind-Vane Self-Steering on Momo: Balancing the Machine

We are in our last days in Madagascar, and we have a lot more to say about it, much more beyond those first impressions from our other posts -- but in this post we're just going to share the big sky that we wake up and go to sleep to every day.

When we arrived in late August, the sky was big and blue. As the season has worn on, it is weighted some days with graphite grey, and rain threatens to loose itself on the anchorages and shorelines. Sometimes the clouds open up and drop a barrage of large droplets -- once with what sounded like hail on our cabintop. But often they hover, low and hulking over the mainland, threatening to come our way but staying just beyond our northwestern island anchorages.

And then evenings bring soft pinks and golds.

The best morning skies we've seen have been in the early dawn hours as the sun starting to show, before the heat presses in. I usually don't have my camera if I'm out on deck at that time of day. And on two of those occasions we were outside chasing down a stolen dinghy -- stealthily cut from our stern in the night and recovered in the peaceful pre-dawn of an almost-perfect anchorage. But that's another story and part of the next post. For now, nothing but sky...

Blue Skies -- a lot of days in September and October looked like this:

Afternoon on Nosy Be

Blue skies and waters

Mud flats and sunny skies up Honey River

Typical clouds over the mainland, looking west

Shades of blue at the Russian Bay pass, looking out from the anchorage

Happy skies

Sunshine over Nosy Be and Nosy Komba

Beachside resort, west coast of Nosy Be

Days begin pink and purple:

Lop To in Honey River, September, just before sunrise

Looking west to the entrance of Honey River in the early morning light

Lop To, just off Momo's bow - and here comes the sun

And sunsets look like this:

And then there are the crazy storms that blow in more regularly now that we're in the shifting seasonal month of November. This sky is from November 4, Crater Bay, and we watched the clouds roil and creep toward us for an hour, with one lone dhow coming into the anchorage just in front of the threatening steely line:

And just the other day, they clouds gathered again and rolled toward Momo:

Looking south, out of Crater Bay

Looking east, where the weather formed over the mainland

And then brought rain!

Whiteout at coming our way, but I snapped this just as the drops starting hitting us

Some mornings we wake to it being so grey the photo looks almost black-and-white:

But many days Momo is anchored against the backdrop of blue skies:

...which is a lot better than watching an approaching waterspout. We saw this form one afternoon in July, back in the Straits of Malacca, heading from Langkawi, Malaysia, to Sumatra. In the span of a few minutes, we watched -- with growing worry -- as this first formed then gained strength and speed, and headed directly our way; then, as quickly as it had formed and a little too close to Momo for comfort (we dropped our light-wind sails and turned on the motor to get away from it -- and instructed our children to head inside and hold on), it dissipated and was gone. Hard to capture on camera but here's what we saw:

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Mason 43 Mast Step Replacement Ensenada 2004 (January 2016)

January 18, 2016, 11:20 am

≫ Next: Tying Stuff Down without using Padeyes, U-Bolts, Eyebolts, etc.

≪ Previous: Madagascar: Big Skies -- and a Waterspout in Sumatra

This evening I stumbled across a few photos of our mast step replacement project in Ensenada back in 2004, a pleasant surprise because I thought we had lost them all.

Original mast step, looking forward from and into the bilge.

The mast step on the Mason 43 (at least on ours) was very poorly made. I refrain from saying poorly "designed," for the drawings by the naval architect show something quite different. But the actual construction was remarkably inept, consisting of a pad made of few layers of plywood supported and raised above a drainage channel (and drainage pipe) by thin supports on either side, all encased in fiberglass. Evidently, the idea was to give the boat all the weaknesses of deck-stepped mast and none of the advantages.

Water had found its way from the mast into the mast step, leading to the delamination of the plywood. We discovered the problem in Ensenada, Mexico when we noticed our slack rigging. Needless to say, we were quite distressed, all the more so because the boat was new to us.

Moreover, Ensenada lacked any good options for pulling the mast. Fortunately we had become friends with crew on Infinity, a 120' ferro-cement ketch whose skipper/owner was busy gutting and rebuilding his boat while at anchor in the Ensenada harbor. He not only offered us space on his boat to build a new mast step but also convinced us that we could lift the mast using his mizzen. He also had all the materials I needed for the job (if I recall correctly, in exchange I built an instrument panel for his engine). The lifting operation seemed a little dicey to me, but we decided to give it go. Over the next while, I built our new and much improved mast step. Then, after choosing a proper weather window, we rafted up to Infinity and raised the mast just enough so that we could set it on the cabin sole. We moved our little family (me, two-year-old Lola, and pregnant Michelle) aboard Infinity. Then after we sealed off all the cupboards and lockers, I ground out the old mast step and epoxied the new mast step into place. For us it was a major victory over a potentially major problem. And it was fun, demonstrating what one could accomplish with a few friends.

Original mast step, looking aft.

Original mast step, looking forward. That's a water tank on the right.

Colin (where the hell are you? Why don't you write) showing off the new mast step.

Momo rafted alongside Infinity (that's a teepee on Infinity's foredeck)

That's me setting Momo's spinnaker pole for the lifting operation.

Raising the mast -- Skipper Clemens at the winch on the mizzen mast, Colin guiding the mast on Momo's cabin top.

Resting the mast on the cabin sole.

After the grinding.

Ready for the new mast step (looking aft).

New mast step installed (looking aft). Jonas did the nice job on the stainless & aluminum.

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Tying Stuff Down without using Padeyes, U-Bolts, Eyebolts, etc.

February 17, 2016, 8:22 pm

≫ Next: Vignette: Tanzania / Tanga -- Market (March 2016)

≪ Previous: Mason 43 Mast Step Replacement Ensenada 2004 (January 2016)

Tie-down at the front of the cabin to help secure the dinghy.

Last year when it came time to install a few tie-downs on the boat's cabin top we tried something a little different. Instead of resorting to toe-stubbing stainless hardware, we embedded loops of rope into the cabin top using epoxy. The approach has many advantages over the installation of standard fittings. It's quick and cheap and the results are waterproof and plenty strong. The tie-downs are also easy to replace. You just need to drill them out.

Today I made a few tie-downs to keep our solar panels in place when we go offshore. To make six tie-downs, I used 100 cm (40 inches) of line and 15 ml of epoxy. I could put the tie-downs exactly where I wanted them. And the job was done in an hour. No need to take down interior ceiling panels, seal off bore holes with epoxy, or seal fasteners with caulking.

Drill a hole: the cabin tops and decks of most fiberglass boats have a wooden core. Drill through the top layer of fiberglass and through the wooden core, but make sure to stop when you hit the bottom layer of fiberglass. On the cabin top of the Mason 43, this will leave you with a hole that is 20 mm (3/4 inches) deep.
Insert the loop of line.
Fill the hole with epoxy using a syringe.

Positioning the tie-downs. It's worth noting that the pretty piece of hardware in foreground costs USD 77.00 at West Marine, sans fasteners.

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Vignette: Tanzania / Tanga -- Market (March 2016)

March 1, 2016, 12:13 pm

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≪ Previous: Tying Stuff Down without using Padeyes, U-Bolts, Eyebolts, etc.

This is the market in Tanga near the waterfront. There’s lots of dirt and smells and plenty of flies. The guy in the photo? We always go to him first because he’s friendly and funny and always gives us something to try–an orange, a banana, today it was some strange and tasty knobby little fruit. He also always ends up giving Michelle a hug. He lets us slide our bags under his table when it’s time to wander to the other tables. The vendors sit around on plastic lawn chairs, some of them watching soccer games on TV. You buy your chickens alive here. They are stacked in cages along a wall, fine feathered and perky. I don’t know if they kill them for you because we haven’t tried to buy any. What if they don’t and you end up with a chicken on your boat? I’m aspiring to be a vegetarian anyway. You buy your meat from butchers operating out of tiled stalls. It hangs unrefrigerated in big slabs and is not USDA approved. It’s also not covered with shit and you can watch them cut it up. There are no price tags. There are no cash registers. Nobody announces specials from loudspeakers. They don’t take Visa, MasterCard, or American Express. You buy your stuff directly from this guy, or that guy, or from the other guy over there. The guys are all, well, guys. You pick out your stuff–mangoes, ginger, papaya, carrots, oranges, watermelons, beans, rice, etc. Or the guy picks your stuff out for you– you ask him for an avocado that will be good today and one that will be good tomorrow.

Some stuff you purchase by the piece (papaya, mangoes, pineapples); other stuff he weighs on an old and dented balance scale (beans, potatoes). Naturally, you banter about price. Our friend Josh, who knows how locals do things, seems to pay more than anybody else. His girlfriend, who makes no such claim and won’t negotiate, pays maybe half of what he does. Go figure. You give them your money. If need be, the guys go get change while you wait–they get it from that guy, or the other guy, or from the store across the street. The money vanishes in pockets or maybe in a plastic bag that disappears someplace safe. Sometimes you shake hands, sometimes you don’t.

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Vignette: Tanzania / Zanzibar -- Beaded things (February 2016)

March 3, 2016, 11:38 am

≫ Next: Vignette: Tanzania / Tanga -- It's a Crime (March 2016)

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Narrow Zanzibar street -- Stone Town

My mother flies to visit. We meet in Zanzibar. We stay in a nice hotel with air conditioning. We get colds. We walk the narrow streets for hours. We chat with people in markets and shops. We buy trinkets and beautifully hand-made clothes in co-ops set up by and for African women. We drink coffee, lick gelato: coconut and cinnamon, mango and masala. We eat fish and calamari. We eat more fish and calamari. We meet a woman named S. who invites us to her village at the edge of town. It’s not really her village, she tells us, it’s the village where she has a room. We walk to the edge of town with S. and by the time we arrive we are sticky and hot. We sit on the cool floor of S.’s room. She offers my mother the seat beside her on the neatly covered mattress. I edge in next to my mother; my daughters sit on the floor. S. talks about her hotel job, her family. She shows us photos from home. Her daughter, only six and back in the village. S. is working in Zanzibar to earn money to send her daughter to school. Her daughter lives with her sister-in-law. S. had her baby when she was sixteen: raped by an older village boy. What happened to him?I ask. He was put in prison, says S. Now he lives in the village, with his wife and children. And the rest of your family? I ask. Are they there? S. smiles.My father is, yes. My father has ten wives. I am very good with my father. S. is Maasai. S. says we should come visit her Maasai village. I have read about the Maasai. Nat Geo. I want to see last year’s film, Warriors. Here in Tanzania, I have seen the Maasai in town markets, in roadside stands. Selling shoes, belts, beaded things. Websites tell you how to talk to the Maasai, how to say how much? and too expensive! S. says, when you come to my village, you say takwenya as a greeting to women, means hello. And you say yko, means hello back. When we leave, S. gives my mother a Maasai necklace: intricate beads and elephant hair. She gives us photos of herself in her Maasai dress, jots her email on a scrap of paper, says Write to me.

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Vignette: Tanzania / Tanga -- It's a Crime (March 2016)

March 6, 2016, 10:26 am

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≪ Previous: Vignette: Tanzania / Zanzibar -- Beaded things (February 2016)

(This is not John's place. But it is a place.)

At the grocery store in Tanga I hear an older white guy talking to the Indian checkout clerk about how he had been recently robbed and how somebody else he knows had been shot. She commiserates. Two months later while we're getting new passports at the Canadian High Commission in Dar Es Salaam, I see him again, explaining to the woman behind the glass how he lost his passport and papers, all stolen. We recognize each other. Let’s call him John. John and his girlfriend have a modest beach resort – we tell him we’ve actually come across his website. He describes how the small resorts along his way were robbed one after the other by men with machine guns pretending to be police and looking for tourists with foreign cash and pretty baubles. The resort’s security guards all ran away, and John and his girlfriend were badly beaten and robbed; elsewhere, someone was shot through the leg; elsewhere, someone was shot to death. Although the police took their sweet time, they eventually tracked down the thieves, who made the mistake of using stolen cell phones. Turns out that these guys rented their weapons from the military in a deal brokered by a policeman.

Later, I will tell this story to a Kenyan fisherman friend, a kind-hearted Muslim bloke who insists with genuine conviction that we’re all brothers and isn't fussed that I don't believe in God, which doesn't stop him from educating me in things Islam and polygamous. He will laugh and say he’s not surprised because it happens all the time. The criminals get their guns from the police/military because regular people can’t have guns and that’s the best place to get them. He doesn’t like the police because they just take your money. He will explain that they don't normally have police at his village. If you see a policeman, you warn everyone by cell phone that the Big Snake is coming. Before cell phones they had other methods. So I will ask: what do you do if you, say, catch somebody stealing. He will say: we beat him to death or beat him and kick him out of the village and turn him over to the police, which is worse than death.

Back at the Canadian High Commission, as we’re just about to leave, John hands us his card and enthusiastically invites us to check out his place.

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Vignette: Tanzania / Tanga -- Impromptu Community (March 2016)

March 13, 2016, 1:50 am

≫ Next: Vignette: Tanzania/ Serengeti -- Endless Plains? (March 2016)

≪ Previous: Vignette: Tanzania / Tanga -- It's a Crime (March 2016)

What for them is the call to prayer wakes me up at an hour ungodly and dark; for me, it’s the call to check my email for work. I translate stuff from German into English (mostly for lawyers, bankers, and corporations via an agency in New York but sometimes for academics who care to seek me out), dressed only in my "Soda"-labeled underwear purchased in Malaysia, extra large but still too small, hence filling me with confidence.

Not long after first light, the day’s first swimmers appear – two, three, or four dark heads bobbing around the boat. They swim out from the bathing club that shares the little bay’s waterfront, flanked on one side by the yacht club and by the swimming club on the other. Of the three, the bathing club has the most raucous fun, with loud music and frequent games of soccer on the beach; the swimming club doesn’t seem to have much fun at all, but it has a substantial and well-lit building and serves pretty good Indian food (there's a new chef, I've heard). Most mornings Michelle and I try to steal a moment for ourselves and have coffee on the bow before the sun really kicks in. But we sit just in front of Lola’s hatch, and she invariably pipes in with “what was that?” the moment she hears our voices. Speaking in German only invites further interrogation.

We find ourselves in a remarkably secure anchorage in a remarkably pleasant impromptu community. What we have here is a handful of peculiar sailors following very different trajectories and motivated by very different purposes. Everybody has stories to tell and experiences to share, but, unlike what we've found in the so-called cruising community, there is no jockeying for position or assertive need to dispense advice or expertise. Perhaps this is because we are really not a community at all but just a serendipitous constellation unmanaged by spreadsheets or radio schedules and without the coherence that comes from shared agendas, for we will very soon disperse in entirely different directions. But for now I'm swapping ideas with Josh for making pressure-cooker bread and smoking Stephan's cigarettes in exchange for the occasional beer.

Here in Tanga, this handful of sailors intersects with a cluster of less transient but equally peculiar grounded folks – builders, farmers, aid workers, missionaries, restaurant owners, resort owners, peace corp volunteers – many of whom are also just passing through, but more slowly. We orbit around a yacht club that was once an Anglo-Saxon colonial institution but has now become more of cordial multi-ethnic drinking club overrun by monkeys with sky-blue testicles (only the males, of course; Michelle was hoping that the females had sky-blue nipples, but they don't) and posting lots of unenforced rules and boasting a multi-term, ethnically Indian commodore who doesn’t own a boat. For years now, cruising boats have stayed away because of the Somali pirates, but perhaps they are coming back. In any event, there’s a move afoot to shift the club’s focus back to the water, which has led to the tentative resurrection of three or four Optimists and sailing lessons for the kids, taught by a heartsick French single-hander who has sailed around the Horn and by Jana, who hasn't.

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Vignette: Tanzania/ Serengeti -- Endless Plains? (March 2016)

March 29, 2016, 4:03 am

≫ Next: Vignette: Tanzania/ Pangani: On living in the real world

≪ Previous: Vignette: Tanzania / Tanga -- Impromptu Community (March 2016)

Southern Serengeti, mid-March: we are surrounded by thousands of wildebeests on either side. We’ve stopped our vehicle to watch. We look left and right, forward and back: they are everywhere, a sea of life across this African plain. Running, jumping, grazing, nursing. Bucks and youngsters, mothers and babies. We are here at the end of calving season (500,000 calves are born each year, in a mostly condensed time frame near the end of February ) and the beginning of their annual migration (map here). They are gathering in the tens of thousands, nursing their young and congregating under trees. When we first see them, the grass is tall and wavy; near the end of our week we see large swaths of short stubble as they set out, following patterns of rains and grassland. Some 1.5 million wildebeests and 250,000 zebra travel a nearly 2000-mile clockwise route each year to move south to west to north (traversing national boundaries into Kenya’s Mara Maarai game reserve as well), and then back again when the season comes round. Besides wildebeest and zebra, the migration also includes Grant and Thompson gazelles, impala and eland. We feel lucky and overwhelmed by the sheer numbers.

The Serengeti is named from the Maasai language, Maa: ‘serengit’ means ‘endless plains’.

Seeing this migration in the Serengeti takes some doing. You have to travel hundreds of miles (or thousands, depending on your departure point) just to get here, first by air and then over rough roads. Our focus was the southern Serengeti and the Seronera Valley, a grassy expanse of plain with granite kopjes offering shade and shelter for their own mini-ecosystems with thriving baboon families, snakes, chameleons and red-headed rock agama. How’d we come to be here, so far from our usual coastal living? A relative who visits every now and then said at the beginning of the month that he’d like to go on a safari – and invited us along. So we buttoned up Momo and flew to Arusha. From there, we travelled for a week with our binoculars and guide.

We learned more in a week than we’ve ever learned about animals, big and small. We sat in silence on the side of the road, day after day, awed by the vibrancy of life around us: elephants bathing, lions mating, giraffes loping, cheetahs feeding, rhinos grazing, eagles swooping, flamingos flapping, buffalo grunting, buzzards buzzing, weavers weaving. Even dung beetles pushing their oversized loads and tortoises sunbathing. We didn’t know what to expect when we said a spontaneous yes to the offer of a week in Ngorongoro and the Serengeti. We didn’t even know what The Big Five were. But we know some things now. We saw The Big Five, yes. We saw The Ugly Five. We even saw some of The Small Five. In a short week, days stretched from pre-dawn purples to the deep black of night. We drove and drove and drove. It made me feel very small, and very fortunate to be alive on this earth. It made me cry at the unspoilt beauty.

We fly back to Momo after our short sojourn inland, awe and wonder pushing up in our chests as we looked down at the expanse of land below us. We usually don’t have this kind of view – not in such a compressed period of time. We see the world slowly; we follow the horizon and travel with wind and current. We nourish ourselves with fish and whatever’s available at local markets. We don’t buy meat anymore – because it’s too hard to manage, because it’s overpriced, because it’s… Because.

We feel both exhilarated and overwhelmed by the wildlife of the Serengeti – by the numbers, by the variety, by the tenacity of nature. In 1972, when the United Nations met to set up World Heritage Sites, the Serengeti topped the list. These days, there's continued talk of building a highway straight through the middle of it.

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Vignette: Tanzania/ Pangani: On living in the real world

April 19, 2016, 8:27 am

≫ Next: Tanga, Tanzania to Lamu, Kenya (June/July 2016)

≪ Previous: Vignette: Tanzania/ Serengeti -- Endless Plains? (March 2016)

Sisal plantation on the road between Pangani and Tanga

The house went up in flames in a matter of minutes. Once the spark jumped from the burning field to the nearby palm and then the makuti roof, there was no stopping it.

The couple grabbed what they could and fled. Got out with the most important items in tow: baby, passports, laptop, iPhone, a few bags of clothes.

We meet two days later; I go with them to the market to buy necessary replacement items; for two days G has been living in pajamas, her clothes turned to ash. She tells me the details of the fire while we drive: her fear, the moment she saw the palm tree go, how she knew then it was time to scoop up the baby and leave. How it all seemed so surreal – you never really realize it’s happening when it’s actually happening. How they are still processing the whole event. How, besides what they grabbed in those first few moments, most things are burnt to black: furniture, clothing, camera, baby clothes, sentimental stuff, books.

I recall a book we lent them last week – a family favorite, a gift from my mother. I wonder if it survived the flames, but I don’t ask.

G says that they’ve had wonderful support, except for the one comment that ruined her day. Judgmental, condescending. Suggesting parental irresponsibility for having a baby in Africa in the first place, implying that similar disasters could be avoided if only these young parents would wise up and get their baby back to the safety of home shores. That comment began with “I’ll say what everyone else is thinking…”

Not everyone.

The naysayers come out when the going gets tough. The naysayers will tell you the things you can’t do. We’ve heard plenty.

You can’t raise a baby on a boat.

You can’t give birth in Mexico.

You can’t sail across oceans with children.

You can’t you can’t you can’t.

The naysayers are good at prescriptive advice. The naysayers fit life into a space with four predictable corners.

The naysayers haven’t tried to live outside the box. They just know they can’t.

When our first baby was due, we were told we needed a paediatrician before the baby was born. We did as suggested; we ‘interviewed’ several potential paediatricians one month prior to the baby’s birth. Important topics such as immunization schedules, birth weights and standardized expectations for a healthy baby dominated the sessions. Books were consulted; charts were referenced. Only one listened to our story – how we planned to move aboard our 28’ boat, with our baby, as soon as summer arrived – and said, “Listen. You can raise your children anywhere in the world.” He was from Egypt. He’d seen a few things before landing his practice in Baltimore. “Love your baby,” he said, “and she’ll have a good life.”

Lunchtime. We admire our purchases from the market; G does not have to walk around in her pajamas anymore. Our friends tell the story of their wedding bands – metal, plain – and purchased in Malaysia for $2. We laugh at that, and we laugh again when they tell us they purchased an extra ring, because E knew he’d lose the first one. We laugh a third time when he tells us the one he’s wearing is the replacement ring.

The baby sits on dad’s lap, blowing bubbles.

“Oh!” says G suddenly. “Your book! I’ve just remembered your book!” This talk of lost things. G realises now that the book we lent her is destroyed, gone.

“It doesn’t matter,” I say quickly. But as soon as I say it I know I’ve misspoken. The book does matter. Just the like the wedding bands – the lost one and the replacement. What doesn’t matter is that the ring was lost, that the book was burnt to bits. But they are still part of the story.

I reach to take the baby, to hold him while his parents eat. I put him to my shoulder and inhale – he smells like he should: fresh, warm, milky soft. He squirms a bit and almost cries.

“Try turning him around,” E says. “He likes to see the world.”

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Tanga, Tanzania to Lamu, Kenya (June/July 2016)

July 4, 2016, 12:20 am

≫ Next: Madagascar article in Cruising World

≪ Previous: Vignette: Tanzania/ Pangani: On living in the real world

It was a fast jaunt from Tanga to Lamu (approx. 200 nautical miles). We stopped first just over the border in Shimoni to check into Kenya. The officials were very friendly but also quite thorough, very much on guard against Al-Shabaab. They checked us out more thoroughly than anywhere we've been since New Zealand, asking questions about safety gear and looking through lockers and under beds. On shore, we asked the immigration officer about the piracy situation, whether it was safe for us to sail to Lamu. He said that the fishing boats go up to Lamu all the time. I asked: And they come back? Yes, they come back, he smiled. Evidently, the trip to Lamu by sea is now safer than by land. After two days in Shimoni, we continued to Lamu, way too fast for my liking, the pleasure of moving at 8 and 9 knots with a moderate following wind and strong favorable current muted by the knowledge that soon we'll have to struggle against this wind and current to make it back to Tanga. So much for living in the moment.

Momo anchored in Shimoni, with Q flag, after an excellent day sail from Tanga (30 miles).

Momo's escort to shore; Shimoni officials included the driver, the man in charge (pictured above) who scanned our papers and asked questions, the driver (a nice boy who drove us back to Momo later in the evening) and two more escorts who looked through Momo's lockers -- always with huge smiles.

Fast trip to shore for check-in. We had planned to rest at anchor for the evening and then check in, but we were warned that waiting a day to go to immigration would land us in jail. We took the friendly advice and nice ride, and checked in on the evening of our arrival.

Lamu waterfront: Al Jazeera (the boat).

There are (virtually) no cars on the island of Lamu. Transport is by donkey. Or by boat (almost all of them powered by two-stroke Yamaha Enduro outboards, by the way, mostly 15 hp).

Old mosque in Lamu town under reconstruction/ repair.

Boy, donkey, transport boat, sails: typical Lamu waterfront scene.

Spindly-legged donkeys carry everything, from people to heavy bricks for construction.

Small dhows in front of old Lamu Town.

View to waterfront from typical arched doorway.

Constant care to boats -- we know it; they know it.

Momo's colors, with a message. And a nice outboard.

Kids playing Bao, a traditional East African mancala board game

A friendly antiques dealer who said that if we used the proper keywords we could find him on Google. But we forgot the keywords, so we can't.

No cars, but plenty of bicycles in Lamu.

Town tour; looking for a way to access Internet.

Cats and doors -- key Lamu scenery.

No shortage of fresh veggies in Lamu. We are eating well.

Town square in old Lamu.

Lamu town square.

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Madagascar article in Cruising World

January 27, 2017, 1:45 am

≫ Next: A Few Recent Photos -- Tanzania (early 2017)

≪ Previous: Tanga, Tanzania to Lamu, Kenya (June/July 2016)

Very pleased that my article on Madagascar appears in the January 2017 issue of Cruising World. I've not seen it but the draft I saw looked great. Thanks to the editors!

waterfront scene at Crater Bay, Nosy Be, Madagascar

The article is based on our first impressions -- we arrived in Madagascar in August 2016, and it was our first encounter in Africa. By now that seems quite a while ago. Since then we've had two outboards stolen (we've wised up now -- we row to shore), become members of the Tanga Yacht Club and encouraged our younger daughter in her weekly commitment to the Youth Sailing Programme of Tanga. We've pent the last year (since December 2016) more or less based in Tanga, Tanzania. We've sailed to Dar es Salaam and Zanzibar and Lamu, Kenya; we've visited (via air and land) NgoroNgoro Crater, the Serengeti and Cape Town.

We've made heaps of friends. We love East Africa in general and Tanga, specifically.

We'll post more stories from our time in East Africa, but as always life continues and the blogging is, well, not really a point of focus. But we like dropping in here now and again, and we're glad when our paths cross with others who may like to share experiences.

For now, I'll share a wee story -- fiction -- that was Commended last year in the Bath Flash Fiction Award. It's part of a collection of small stories that draws on the imaginative dreamworlds of the animal kingdom. Thanks for reading!

Whale Shark by Michelle Elvy

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