Arriving in Seychelles

We left the megalomaniac Chinaman and his crew of murderous Somalis behind us, grateful for the North-West wind which was the reason that we had timed this voyage for this time of the year: to get this long leg of the three part voyage with the best wind possible.

As we sailed further south it was as though the goldfish bowl in which we had been living was being cleaned. In the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden the sky is partially obscured by dust so that you can only see the stars above, rather like a goldfish looking through the top opening of his bowl.

As we progressed it was evident that the sky was slowly getting clearer and the celestial vista was improving each night as though some vast kind soul was cleaning our little bowl and giving us a view of the heavens. When I sailed up the Atlantic many years ago, my sole means of navigation was a sextant and an almanac of the stars. Many of them became friends who I could recognise at a glance and who guided us over thousands of miles of sea.

Now I felt ashamed that I had forgotten most of their names like going to a school reunion and fumbling for memories and names of fellow students that have become vague due to non-use.

The easy ones were there of course and we were in the right part of the ocean at the right time of year to have the plough and the North Star behind us, Orion overhead and in front the Southern Cross acting like a huge celestial clock. It was chance that the Southern Cross was vertical at local time midnight so that each hour of the night was represented by movement across the sky of this well known collection of stars. I found that I was able to time my cups of coffee during the night vigils very accurately, each hour, by merely glancing at the position of this great formation.

Of course the Milky Way lit up a huge swathe across the sky and because we had no clouds it was easy to move around the boat at night just by starlight. There was a New Moon at this time, and I was grateful for that as it gave us twelve night hours of each twenty four where we were almost invisible to any prying eyes.

The motion of the boat with the trade wind was serene so that at night it was as though we were flying on a magic carpet above the waves. The sky was reflected in the sea like an inverse universe and the little flashes of light from small squids and jellyfish seemed to be like shooting stars scooting across this upside-down firmament.

Marlene said, in a moment of poetic inspiration, that “It seems as though you can step off the boat and walk through the stars!”

Rather like some people would like to anticipate death: to be able to step into another reality in a painless and peaceful transition.

Behind us the twin hulls left a trail of florescence in the sea that looked almost like the condensation trails behind a jet aircraft at altitude.

It was a beautiful time to be cruising, marred only by the anxiety of keeping a watch for strange and suspicious boats. It seems to be a rare privilege to have a part of the planet all to oneself, with no vestige of the human race in sight and to be able to contemplate the insignificance and temporary condition of man in the order of Nature and the Universe.

The First of April passed without any pranks, although I had been tempted to attach a plastic bottle to Tony’s fishing line that we had been trailing hopefully but without catching anything all the way from Oman. We crossed the Equator on the Third and we gave Neptune a shot of Brandy which was well received because the wind now backed to the North and we were able to raise the Spinnaker. It was so steady that we sailed over two hundred miles with it flying and pulling us along.

 

I toast crossing the Equator while Marlene shares hers with Neptune

 

Tony caught a couple of fish but they were too big to land and they broke away. Now we were approaching the Seychelles group of islands and the character of the sea changed as we had been cruising with a depth of over four thousand metres and now it was reducing to fifty. The underwater view of this great submerged mountain range would be spectacular and we would seem to be approaching it like an aircraft just skimming over the shallow valleys near the peaks.

We were feeling more relaxed with every mile that we made away from the disputed waters of the north Indian Ocean. We had not expected this following wind at this stage of the voyage as normally we should have had variable doldrums type weather, but it seems that this year the northern movement of the Inter Tropical Convergence Zone has been delayed and we only ran out of wind twenty miles from Mahe.

Fine control tuning of the spinaker

We anchored at four in the morning in deep water to await the dawn and the clearance with customs and immigration, who at Seychelles come out to the boat at anchor to do all the formalities.

What a pleasure it was to be greeted by friendly efficient people who got all the paperwork done with smooth competence.

Then we were free to enter the port and see mountains with trees. We hadn’t seen any trees for nearly two months of sand dunes, rock and filth on land and of course trees at sea need to be treated with utmost caution!!

We got reciprocal membership with the Seychelles Yacht Club because Tony had arranged this with the Royal Cape Yacht Club and with Gordon’s Bay Yacht Club during a previous visit to the Seychelles, so in short order we were tied up to an island by the stern with the anchor laid to hold us in position.

Our neighbours are a collection of herons and egrets who have taken a few trees and decorated them with nests all separated by squabble distance.  They dispute their territories with the same vigour as neighbours do all over the world, the difference being that here they are elegant and beautiful. While we sit with a cup of tea we watch a heron coming in to land with a four foot branch that is going to be an extension to his nest. He has to balance the branch in his long bill, position it so that he does not hit it with his wings in flight and then land on a twig with his long legs all the while keeping an eye on the wind flurries and the other birds in flight.

My flying skills of decades of sitting in aircraft and simulators seem paltry by comparison.

Our other neighbour is a Frenchman on his small steel yacht who behaves like a hermit crab. He popped his head out when we arrived, ignored my “Bonjour” and has been hidden ever since.

This is in total contrast to the Seychelles Islanders who we find relaxed and communicative, helpful and happy to share their island with us.

We hope to explore the anchorages and diving places while slowly working on the boat to prepare her for the next part of the voyage.

 

 

I hope to be able to share some of the sights of the Seychelles with more pictures and less chatter when I find a suitable internet café where I can upload them.