Docked at the Marina at Ortega Landing in Jacksonville, FL. Rich's brother and our sister-in-law live in Jacksonville, and several family members will be joining us here next weekend to celebrate our circumnavigation and Rich's birthday (June 7). Also, Slip Away is now officially for sale. We've posted a "For Sale" page on our website, and listed her on the Facebook Marketplace, and we have her first showing scheduled for this Wednesday. We'll be quite busy the next few days getting her organized and spiffed up so she looks her best.

Anchored in Jacksonville near downtown (nice anchorage in front of the Baptist Hospital).  We had a good overnight passage from Ft. Pierce - mostly motoring but a few hours of sailing early this morning.  A cold "landing" beer is tasting really good right now! Cheers! 

Departed Stuart this morning and motored north along the ICW to Fort Pierce.  Anchored near the Fort Pierce inlet for the night, and plan to leave at first light tomorrow, heading offshore for an overnight passage to Jacksonville.  

  Anchored at Pendarvis Cove,  Stuart,  FL.  Had a very peaceful night last night anchored in Hobe Sound.  Motored about 17 miles along the ICW today,  and it was much more pleasant than yesterday!  

  We did it!  When we arrived at the Lake Worth Inlet this morning, we crossed our outbound track from Dec 30, 2008, and completed our circumnavigation!  We anchored in West Palm Beach for a couple of hours, and completed Customs and Immigration clearance with the new CBP Roam app on our phone - did a video chat with Officer Simpson, and that was it.  We did not have to go ashore for clearance - very cool!  West Palm Beach was quite busy with local boaters,  so we decided to head north a little bit to get out of the mayhem.  We managed to find a lovely spot to anchor in Hobe Sound,  but the trip up here was nerve-wracking with all the small boat traffic,  especially when we had to wait for bridge openings. We would not recommend arriving in West Palm Beach on a weekend!  But all is well and the champagne will be opened shortly!  

Anchored at Bird Cay in the southern part of the Berry Islands.  Had a delightful sail here today - beam reach, 10-12 knots of wind and gentle seas.  Barring anything unforeseen, this will be our last night in the Bahamas. We are planning to leave in the morning for an overnight passage to Palm Beach, FL, with an ETA on Sunday morning.   

Anchored at West Bay, New Providence Island (Nassau). Arrived here late afternoon and will depart early tomorrow morning for Chub Cay. Chris Parker (our local weather guru) says the weather in the Bahamas next week will be "not nice" so we decided to head to Florida. Our ETA at West Palm Beach (Lake Worth Inlet) is Sunday morning. We spent the past several days in the Exuma Cays Land & Sea Park and enjoyed the beautiful white sand beaches and the stunning clear blue water. We did some nice walks on the islands, as well as some snorkeling - some of it good, and some of it a bit disappointing (but we recognize that we could be tough to please!). We had no internet for the past several days so were not able to provide position updates, but we anchored at Cambridge Cay (3 & 4 May), Warderick Wells Park Headquarters (5 & 6 May) and Hawksbill Cay (7 & 8 May). We had a farewell dinner with our friends Heather & Jon (s.v. Evergreen) last night, as they are heading back to North Carolina. We've had a super nice time together.

Moored at Cambridge Cay in the Exuma Cays Land & Sea Park. Had a nice sail north from Staniel Cay this morning. Heading out to do some snorkeling this afternoon. Beautiful white sand beaches on Cambridge Cay, and the water here is an incredible color of blue.

Anchored at Big Majors Spot near Staniel Cay. Weather is still a bit unsettled, but should start improving tomorrow. Will probably go visit "Pig Beach" this afternoon.

Had another lovely sail today - moved from Rudder Cut Cay to Black Point Settlement. We are expecting some strong easterly winds and rain over the next few days, and we'll hang out here until that passes through. We haven't been ashore yet, but we understand the town here is pretty nice, and we're hoping to do a few walks.

Departed Georgetown this morning and had a lovely sail to Rudder Cut Cay. Georgetown was a good spot to take care of some business, but we're happy to have moved on to a quieter spot. The anchorage is a little bouncy in these south winds, but not too bad, and they are supposed to abate tonight, so hopefully we can get in the water to do some snorkeling tomorrow.

Anchored off Stocking Island in Elizabeth Harbor (Georgetown) in the Exumas (Bahamas). We arrived here from Mayaguana Island late yesterday afternoon after an overnight trip, which was a mix of sailing and motoring. This is a big harbor with lots of boats anchored in it, but we were able to find the location of our friends Heather & Jon on s.v. Evergreen by their AIS signal. We dropped our hook next to Evergreen, and shortly thereafter Heather & Jon dinghied over with champagne. This was our first human contact in over a month, and we hadn't seen each other in 3 years, so we had lots to catch up on! It was a great evening, and we're very happy to be here. We expect to spend the next couple of days doing some chores - laundry, provisioning, fuel, etc. After that, we'll get out and explore these beautiful islands.

We woke up yesterday, looked at the weather and decided to move on. Our break at Mayaguana was nice to catch up on some sleep and a few boat chores, but the weather was settling down, and we were feeling eager to make a move. We decided to head to Georgetown in the Exumas. Georgetown is a very popular spot with cruising yachts, and we expect we will be able to accomplish some things we need to do - check in with the authorities, buy diesel, buy fresh provisions and get a SIM card for our phone so we have internet. Most importantly, we will be meeting up with our friends Heather & Jon (s.v. Evergreen) who sailed down from North Carolina to meet us - can't wait to see those good friends!! We sailed the first six hours of our passage yesterday, and have been motoring since 5 p.m. last night, but are hopeful that we may still get some favorable sailing winds today. Our ETA into Georgetown is about 1700 today. All is well aboard.

We moved from the west anchorage to the east anchorage in Abraham's Bay on Mayaguana Island late yesterday morning once the sun was higher in the sky and we could more easily read the water. The wind was blowing strong and the bay is quite shallow with a few reefs/rocks to avoid, so it was a stressful hour getting from one end of the bay to the other, and we were quite relieved to drop the hook again. We are anchored behind a reef, so it gets a little bouncy at high tide, but overall it's a pretty comfortable spot. We have not yet attempted to get the outboard on the dinghy because the high winds and wind chop make it a bit of a challenge. The weather is expected to be blustery today and tomorrow and settle down on Monday, so it may be Monday before we get ashore. We arrived here just as a strong storm system moved off the east coast, and it's expected to hit the northern Bahamas today, so that's the reason for our blustery weather. But, we have plenty to do on Slip Away - change the genset oil, run the watermaker, defrost the fridge, and general cleanup after our long passage. We celebrated our arrival with a couple of beers yesterday, but we've got a bottle of bubbly in the fridge for tonight. :-) We expect we will be here until early next week, waiting for the weather to improve and getting ashore to check in. All is well aboard.

Anchored the west anchorage at Mayaguana Island in the Southern Bahamas at 0930 local time. 4600 miles, 34 days + 5 1/2 hours after departing St. Helena Island! As expected, this anchorage is a little bouncy in the SE winds, so we're planning to move closer to the town when the sun is higher in the sky and visibility through the water is better - shallow with coral heads. We're hoping that the town anchorage will be a little less bouncy, but even so, it's quite tolerable. All is well! Very thrilled to be here!

Day 34 underway to the Bahamas. Beautiful sailing conditions this morning. Winds were a little light yesterday evening, so we motored for a bit to keep our speed up. Winds are expected to build today, so we should be able to sail the rest of the way. Enjoying the full moon on our night watches. ETA Mayaguana tomorrow. All is well. 140 miles to go!

Day 33 underway to the Bahamas. Winds have lightened up, so our speed has dropped a bit, but we're still plugging along. ETA Mayaguana on Friday, and if necessary, will apply horsepower to make sure we get in before dark. 2 more night watches - the moon is beautiful right now. All is well. 273 miles to go.

Day 32 underway to the Bahamas. Not much to report. Sailing along nicely and we still have a 1/2 knot of favorable current. Seeing more cargo ships on AIS. Spoke yesterday on the radio to the watch person on a 333-meter tanker headed for Korea - that's a really long way to go!! All is well aboard. 397 miles to go to Mayaguana Island.

Day 31 underway to Bahamas. Sailing conditions have been excellent the past couple of days. We are continuing to make good progress, and Slip Away is starting to smell the barn. At this point, barring anything unforeseen, we expect to reach the Bahamas without stopping in the Caribbean. We had picked out several potential stops in the Caribbean if needed for fuel, weather, boat issues or crew fatigue, but we've already sailed past most of those stops by now. We've been looking at our Bahamas Cruising Guides and have picked out the anchorage where we intend to make landfall - Abrahams Bay on the island of Mayaguana, which is one of the southernmost islands in the Bahamian archipelago. When we initially planned our route, we had plotted our final waypoint further north near San Salvador Island, but we've now adjusted our route to end at Mayaguana and have 115 less miles to go. 547 miles to go to Mayaguana. We expect to be in by the weekend, and are very excited about that!

Day 30 underway to Caribbean/Bahamas. After a frustrating morning of squalls yesterday, the skies cleared about mid-day and we've been having beautiful sailing conditions ever since. We're enjoying the return of the moon on our night watch, and the stars were beautiful last night too. All is well aboard. 809 miles to go.

Day 29 underway to Caribbean/Bahamas. We had very nice sailing conditions yesterday, but not so much today. Squalls, wind shifts, and rough seas. Crew is getting restless. 957 miles to go to the Bahamas - under 1000 miles now!

Day 28 underway to the Caribbean/Bahamas. Not much to report. Conditions are good. All is well aboard. 1107 miles to go to the Bahamas.

Day 27 underway to Caribbean/Bahamas. We're continuing to make good time, and covered 160 nautical miles in the past 24 hours, so our average speed was 6.7, which is fast for Slip Away. The wind is more easterly (vs. northeasterly a few days ago), so we're now sailing wing-and-wing. The wind and seas are on our starboard quarter, which is a more comfortable than on the beam, but it's still pretty lively. All is well. 1260 miles to go to the Bahamas.

Day 26 underway to the Caribbean/Bahamas. Plugging along. Another 150-mile day, so happy with progress. We are abeam of the Caribbean now, so that feels good! Wind has become more easterly instead of northeasterly, so will be changing sail plan to wing-and-wing after sending in this report. All is well aboard. 1420 miles to the Bahamas.

Day 25 underway to Caribbean/Bahamas. Lively conditions again today. Slip Away seems to be enjoying it and has delivered two days of 150+ nautical miles. The crew is busy just holding on. All is well aboard. 1572 miles to go to the Bahamas.

Day 24 underway to Caribbean/Bahamas. Winds are good. Seas still a little lumpy but not too bad. Slip Away is sailing along very nicely in these conditions. All is well. 1730 miles to go to the Bahamas.

Day 23 underway to Caribbean/Bahamas. Conditions have moderated and are definitely better, although it would be nice if the seas were a bit less jerky. We unreefed the headsail yesterday and shook the first reef out of the main this morning, trying to keep our speed up around 6 knots. All is well aboard. 1885 miles to go to the Bahamas - very happy to be under 2000 miles!

Day 22 underway to Caribbean/Bahamas. Conditions continue to be lively. Wind is quite manageable, seas are very lumpy and uncomfortable. We are expecting winds and seas to moderate in the next couple of days. Slip Away and crew would really appreciate that! All is well aboard. 2024 miles to go to the Bahamas.

Day 21 underway to Caribbean/Bahamas. Conditions are rough again this morning, but we did have several hours of pleasant sailing yesterday afternoon and evening - it's amazing how much nicer 15-20 knots of wind is compared to 20-25. All is well aboard. 2148 miles to go to the Bahamas.

Day 20 underway to Caribbean/Bahamas. Boisterous conditions, uncomfortable, but doing OK. Looks like we have a couple more days of this courtesy of a high pressure system north of us. Last night, we passed the half-way point in our passage from St. Helena to the Bahamas - yay! 2294 miles to go to the Bahamas.

Day 18 underway to Caribbean/Bahamas. The Atlantic Ocean is not showing us her "kinder and gentler" side at the moment. With these winds and seas on our beam, it's pretty darn rough. We have reefed the sails and adjusted course to make it as comfortable as possible. If we could put the wind and seas behind us, it would be much better, but then we would be heading for the Amazon River, which is not where we want to go. As it is, we are headed more for the Caribbean than the Bahamas, but hopefully this is just a temporary adjustment. All is well aboard.

Day 18 underway to the Caribbean/Bahamas. Good sailing winds and a helpful 1 knot current. Would be more comfortable if the winds and seas were on our stern instead of our beam, but we're happy to have good wind and to be making good progress. All is well aboard. 2547 miles to the Bahamas!

Day 17 underway to Caribbean/Bahamas. Sorry there was no report yesterday. Winlink changed servers, and we were unable to send/receive email, but have that sorted now. We picked up sailing winds about 48 hours ago, and were very happy about that. Seas were quite rough and confused for a while, but they are settling down now, so we're more comfortable. They sky is still grey, but it appears we are now getting beyond the squalls associated with the ITCZ. All is well. 2684 miles to the Bahamas.

Day 15 underway to the Caribbean/Bahamas. After reviewing yesterday's weather forecast, we decided our best option was to get north of the equator as quickly as possible, and here we are! We crossed into the northern hemisphere at 0640 UTC today. The last 24 hours have been pretty rough - lots of squalls with lots of rain and very little wind, which is constantly changing direction. Worst of all, the seas are really lumpy. How can the seas be so rough when there is so little wind?! We are still motoring. We hope to find the tradewinds soon, and really hope that the seas settle down and become more comfortable! (That would make the crew less grumpy!) 2973 miles to the Bahamas, so we're under 3000 miles to go now!

Day 14 underway to the Caribbean/Bahamas. We are continuing to motor through the ITCZ / doldrums. Our weather files indicate that we should start getting northeasterly winds today which should enable us to sail, and we are eagerly awaiting their arrival. The ocean swell is coming from the northeast now, indicating that those winds are out there - just a bit further down the road. This morning, we transferred 120 liters (32 gallons) of diesel from jerry jugs on deck into Slip Away's fuel tank, and we have enough fuel to motor all the way to the equator, although we would of course prefer to start sailing sooner than that. All is well aboard. 184 miles to the equator, 3036 miles to the Bahamas.

Day 13 underway to Caribbean/Bahamas. We have continued to mostly motor through the doldrums, although we received a gift of 7 hours of wind yesterday afternoon/evening. It was so nice to turn off the engine and sail for a while! Looked at the weather information yesterday and saw no great advantage to turning due north, so we are continuing on our original course - at least for now. Will look again today. 326 miles to the equator on our current heading, so at our current speed, we should get there late Saturday afternoon (UTC time). 3178 miles to the Bahamas, so we are 1/3 of the way to our final destination! All is well aboard.

Day 12 underway to the Caribbean/Bahamas. We are deep into the doldrums with no wind, so we are motoring and it's hotter than stink. We had a number of squalls dancing around us last night, but none of them hit us directly. We could use a bit of a rain shower to wash some bird poop off our mizzen. We've had some hitchhikers sitting on top of the mizzen sail cover the past several nights, and they left some residue. Will be downloading a weather forecast covering a larger area today to see if it makes sense for us to continue on this course or possibly turn due north to cross over the ITCZ and reach tradewinds more quickly. All is well aboard. 3337 miles to go to the Bahamas.

Day 11 underway to Caribbean/Bahamas. We've gotten into the doldrums, and winds are light, so we are motoring for now. We've got just over 600 miles to get to the equator, and hope we don't have to motor all that way, but we have sufficient fuel on board to do so if necessary. Hopefully we won't have to get too far north of the equator before we get decent sailing winds again. It's very hot and humid, and with the engine running, the boat is like an oven. Are we having fun yet? All is well aboard. 3472 miles to the Bahamas.

Day 10 on passage to Caribbean/Bahamas. Back to light winds and slow sailing, but making forward progress. Had a good sailing breeze yesterday afternoon, but motored for a few hours overnight because the wind died out. All is well aboard. 3583 miles to go to the Bahamas.

Day 9 underway to Caribbean/Bahamas. Sailing along nicely today. Had a few squalls yesterday evening, but only one was significant - nothing too much in terms of increased wind, but heavy rain. Also, the wind direction changed dramatically, and after the squall passed, the wind died out totally for about 30 minutes, and eventually came back from the direction it was originally coming from. So, there was lots of scrambling around to change sail configurations. Yesterday was the first day we've had any squalls since leaving Cape Town, which is a pretty long run. As we get closer to the equator, we can expect more squalls. All is well aboard. 3693 miles to go to the Bahamas.

Day 8 on passage to Caribbean/Bahamas. At 0800 UTC today, we completed our first week at sea. Our total distance "made good" toward our waypoint in the Bahamas was 866 nautical miles, so our average speed was 5.2 knots. Although we'd like to go faster, we're pretty happy with that given the light winds we had and some zig-zagging we've done to keep the sails filled. Our total time motored in the past week was just 4 hours (and 2 hours of that was at the very start of our passage when we motored away from the anchorage and then continued motor-sailing to charge the batteries), so all the rest was under sail power. We had an awesome day of sailing yesterday, with 15-20 knots of wind, and our speed was in the high 6's for a good part of the day. Winds are lighter today, and there are a few squalls in the area. We just had a squall pass near to us, and the winds picked up to 20 knots, but after it passed, the winds died down to 10. All is well aboard. 3818 miles to go to the Bahamas.

Day 7 underway to Caribbean/Bahamas. More wind today and faster speed, but of course the seas are up a bit too, so it's less comfortable. But, we're quite happy with this amount of wind, and the discomfort is quite tolerable. Happy Birthday to Jan's Dad who watches over us from above - he would have been 90 today. 3958 miles to go - we're under 4000 now - woo hoo! All is well.

Day 6 underway to Caribbean/Bahamas. We are having good sailing winds again today, so feel like we're making better progress. The wind died out for a bit last night, so we motored for a couple of hours, but that was a good opportunity to charge the batteries and run new water through the engine. We ate our last fresh tomato yesterday and will eat the last bit of lettuce today. Cabbage salads will be on the menu for the next several days. 4095 miles to go. All is well aboard.

Day 5 on passage to Caribbean/Bahamas. We're supposed to get a bit more wind today, so fingers are crossed for that. Other than that, "same same" - just plodding along and making progress toward our goal. All is well. 4232 miles to go to the Bahamas.

Day 4 underway to the Caribbean/Bahamas. Beautiful day. Winds are a bit up and down - earlier this morning, we had 15 knots and were sailing along quite nicely at 6 knots, but now it's back down to 8-10 and our speed has dropped into the high 4's. Saw a fishing boat just before dawn this morning. It was not transmitting AIS, but it was well lit, put out a good radar hit and passed about 2 miles off our port beam. That was the first boat we've seen in 4 days. Also saw a shooting star which is always nice. All is well aboard. 4346 miles to go to the Bahamas.

Day 3 underway to Caribbean/Bahamas. We're not setting any speed records (117 miles in the past 24 hours), but conditions are very pleasant and we're making progress in the right direction. Nothing much to report. Running the watermaker this morning. All is well aboard. 4468 miles to the Bahamas.

Day 2 underway to Caribbean/Bahamas. The wind has been up and down and moving around over the past 24 hours. It's great when it gets above 10 knots and goes a bit east (on the beam). It slows us down and makes the sails slat around when it gets below 10 knots and moves further south (behind us). We averaged 5 knots of speed over ground our first 24 hours, which isn't too bad, but we of course would like to go faster. Seas are pretty gentle, which has been nice. We are in radio contact every evening with 6 other boats - 5 of which left St. Helena a few days ahead of us, and 1 which left just about a half hour after us, so it's nice to have some other folks to talk to and commiserate with. All of us would like a bit more wind, but as someone cautioned last night "Be careful what you wish for!" All is well aboard. 4580 miles to the Bahamas!

Day 1 on passage to the Caribbean/Bahamas. Beautiful day, ideal conditions. Sailing wing-and-wing. All is well. 4700 miles to go to San Salvador, Bahamas.

We've been at St. Helena Island for a week today, and we've enjoyed our visit. We climbed Jacob's Ladder, went on an island tour and saw the "Napoleon" sites and more of the island interior, and today was the highlight - we swam with whale sharks! The boat operator told us he counted a total of 10 whale sharks swimming about the area. There were only 5 of us on the tour swimming in the water with them. Awesome experience!! We're planning to check out with the officials tomorrow and depart St. Helena heading for the Caribbean/Bahamas on Saturday morning.

Moored at James Bay, St. Helena Island - Yay! All is well. We'll probably stay here for about a week before moving on.

Day 12 on passage to St. Helena. We expect to arrive this afternoon - Yay! Our passage has still been going well, but the wind has been up and down. We motored some and sailed some yesterday, and finally made a decision late yesterday afternoon to just motor sail the rest of the way so that we could arrive in daylight hours. We really prefer to avoid arriving in a new harbor after dark, and we're also eager to get there. All is well aboard. 38 miles to go.

Day 11 on passage to St. Helena. All is well aboard except that the wind died during the night and so we are motoring. We started the engine early this morning when the winds dropped to 6-8 knots and we were barely making 3 knots SOG. Given that we were making some headway, we would have just carried on slowly, except that rolling seas were making the sails snap - not good for the sails and rigging, and the off-watch crew was getting no sleep. We're hoping that the wind will pick up enough for us to go back to sailing today, and if so, our arrival at St. Helena will likely be Friday morning. If the wind stays away, we'll continue under motor and arrive tomorrow (Thursday) afternoon. We know we can buy more diesel at St. Helena, but the price is not very appealing - about $2 USD a liter, so just under $8 USD a gallon! 182 miles to go.

Day 10 on passage to St. Helena. Yesterday afternoon, we crossed into the Western Hemisphere! Slip Away was last in the Western Hemisphere in July 2013 in Taveuni, Fiji. Nothing much to report. Winds are a little lighter, and we are trying to keep our speed up to reach St. Helena in daylight hours on Thursday. We had a couple of small squalls this morning - winds never got above 20 knots in the squalls and we appreciated the wind that they brought. All is well. 308 miles to go.

Day 9 on passage to St. Helena. Winds were up during the night last night - upper teens, lower 20's - so the seas kicked up a bit, but it was all very manageable and still pretty comfortable, and our speed was quite good, averaging 6.5 knots SOG on Jan's midnight to 6 a.m. watch. All is well aboard. 450 miles to go. ETA Thursday. :-)

Day 8 on passage to St. Helena. As they say in Malaysia - "same, same". Sailing along nicely in good conditions. All is well aboard. 597 miles to go.

Day 7 on passage to St. Helena. It's hard to believe that we left Cape Town a week ago! We passed the half-way mark yesterday - yay! Conditions continue to be good - good winds, reasonable seas. The only complaint we can come up with is that there's not much moon right now, and the last couple of nights have been cloudy, so the night watches are VERY dark. That's very minor, but it would be nice to see some stars. All is well. 737 miles to go to St. Helena.

Day 5 on passage to St. Helena. Plugging along. Not much to report. Nice sailing winds. Seas are a little lumpy, but not bad and better than yesterday. Keeping in touch daily via the SSB radio with four other boats also headed to St. Helena, but they all left from Namibia, so are about 500 miles ahead of us. 1029 miles to St. Helena.

Day 4 on passage to St. Helena. The high pressure system settled into place yesterday, giving us good sailing winds. We shut the engine down late yesterday afternoon, and have been sailing wing-and-wing since then. Seas have gotten a little lumpy, but they are tolerable. All is well aboard. 1174 miles to go.

Day #3 underway to St. Helena. Another calm day. We had some wind last night - light (6-10 knots), but on the beam, and with the calm seas we had a very nice sail for over 13 hours. But the winds died this morning, and the iron genny is back at it. We are expecting a high pressure system to move into place later today or early tomorrow to give us more reliable sailing winds. It's gotten warmer every day, and it's quite pleasant now. The sea temp when we left Cape Town was 54F (about 12C) and it's now 70F (about 21C). 1315 miles to St. Helena. All is well on board.

Day 2 from Cape Town to St. Helena. Not much to report. Very little wind, so we are motoring. Seas are nice. The air and seas are getting warmer as we head north. Last night was much warmer than our first night out. We've seen a few big ships on AIS, but all passed a few miles away. All is well.

We departed Cape Town yesterday (Saturday) at 1600 local time, so have been underway for 17 1/2 hours now. It was sunny in the harbor at Cape Town when we left, but at 3 miles out, we ran into a thick fog bank - and the shipping lanes! Our AIS transponder and radar kept us out of trouble - we love both of those instruments! We had the magnetron replaced in our radar in Simon's Town, and it is working well again. :-) The fog lifted about 1900 last evening, and we had nice sailing winds - 10-15 knots on the beam - until about midnight. The winds starting dropping after midnight, but we managed to sail until 0415. We've been motoring since then and expect to motor in light winds all of today and possibly much of tomorrow, but the tradewinds should establish by Wednesday. We have about a meter of ocean swell, but it has a long period between the peaks, so it's very gentle and pleasant (i.e. only a slight roll on the boat). Both of us slept pretty well on our off-watch last night. All is well aboard!

Today is the day we'll be starting our Atlantic Ocean crossing. We'll be leaving Cape Town this afternoon headed for St. Helena Island, a passage of about 1800 miles, which we expect will take us 12-14 days. We're excited to be starting this ocean passage, but we are sad to leave South Africa behind. We've had an awesome time in this country.

Berthed at V&A Marina in Cape Town.  Rounded the Cape of Good Hope this morning with grey skies but light winds and only slightly lumpy seas, so happy that we were treated well by Mother Nature and King Neptune at the "Cape of Storms". Greeted by a number of familiar and friendly faces when we arrived at the marina.  :-) Had a visit from a boat gremlin on the trip, so we have another item added to our to-do list. We expect to be here for probably a couple of weeks before starting our voyage across the Atlantic.   

Left the dock at Simon's Town marina and anchored out in the bay in anticipation of an early departure tomorrow morning for Cape Town.  We expect to arrive at V&A Marina late tomorrow afternoon. This will be our first (and only) day-sail in South Africa!

Arrived and anchored at Simonstown early this morning. Rounded Cape Agulhas yesterday afternoon at 2:15 pm and crossed into the Atlantic Ocean.  Yay!!!  Will be hauled out into the boatyard at False Bay Yacht Club this afternoon for a few days of maintenance on Slip Away.  

Left Mossel Bay yesterday at about 1900. Motored through the night with no wind.  Motor-sailing now to keep our speed above 6 knots. 27 miles to Cape Agulhas and the Atlantic Ocean - yahoo!  ETA Simonstown tomorrow morning.  All is well aboard.  

We anticipate leaving Mossel Bay in a few hours - waiting for the contrary winds to die down - and we'll be headed for Simonstown. Looking forward to a good moon on this passage. Weather forecast looks good. We're ready to get there!

Anchored outside Mossel Bay harbor. We had quite a lively sail yesterday with 25-30 knots of wind, gusting 35 for most of the afternoon. Fortunately the wind and seas were on our stern, but it was a rough ride and we're glad that's over!  Conditions started abating early evening which was great because both of us slept well when we were off watch.  All is well!  Making progress towards Cape Town. 

Departed Port Elizabeth shortly after 6 pm last night.  Motored for a while but the wind came up and we started sailing at about 0245 this morning.  Wind conditions are about perfect.  Just wish the seas weren't so darn lumpy! 132 miles to Mossel Bay.  All is well aboard. 

We've been patiently waiting in Port Elizabeth for a weather window to move on, and it's finally arrived. It's a short window, but it's enough for us to get to Mossel Bay (190 miles, 36 hours). We'll be shoving off late this afternoon to arrive there early on Thursday morning. Will update with our progress tomorrow.

Docked in Port Elizabeth and will likely be here until Monday. We motor-sailed all night last night in light winds, and seas were very pleasant. The bioluminescence in the water last night was beautiful! All is well. :-) Sent from Yahoo Mail for iPad

All is well aboard the good ship Slip Away. Had a few hours of fantastic sailing early yesterday evening with 25 knots of wind from our stern, flat seas, and great current. Slip Away's speed over ground (SOG) reached 11 knots! Then, at about 10 pm, it was like King Neptune turned the washing machine on the "agitator" cycle, making it virtually impossible to get any sleep. Ugh! This lasted for about 8 hours - not unsafe, but very uncomfortable. The "Wild Coast" lives up to its reputation! This morning, the wind died down so we're motor-sailing, seas are much better and we're taking turns napping. We are making good progress and expect to reach Port Elizabeth by tomorrow afternoon.

Left Durban shortly after 5 this morning. Motored for several hours at the start. Wind filled in enough to sail shortly after lunch. Sailing with headsail only, poled out. Great ride in the Agulhas current. Seas are a bit lumpy but tolerable (and typical for the Indian Ocean!). Good trip so far. All is well.

We had a great trip to Cape Town - a road trip on the Garden Route, wine tasting in Franschhoek, and lots of sightseeing in and around Cape Town. We flew back to Durban early Friday morning, and when the plane landed and we turned on our phone, we received an email from our local weather guy that there was a weather window for departing Durban late Sunday/early Monday. We completed paperwork with Durban port officials on Friday afternoon, did some grocery shopping and are making final preparations to leave very early tomorrow morning. It looks like we will get to either East London or Port Elizabeth on this window, and hopefully that will be a short stop to wait for a passing weather system, and then we'll continue on toward Simonstown. We plan to haul out Slip Away in Simonstown for bottom paint, hull polishing and a few other chores. Our fun is over - time to get to work!

We've been hanging out in Durban for almost 2 weeks now, and there's been and continues to be no weather window on the horizon for us to continue on to Cape Town. Last Friday night, we attended a barbeque (called a braai here), and the local sailors told us that the change of seasons is very late this year, thus wreaking havoc with our plans to move on. Our friends Larry and Rox are arriving in Cape Town in late December, and we started getting concerned that if we continued to wait for a weather window, we could get caught out and miss their visit, and that would be totally unacceptable. Fortunately, we had options - we could fly or drive to Cape Town. We decided to fly, and rather than sitting here in Durban until late December, we're flying to Cape Town this week. Upon arrival, we'll rent a car for 10 days and do a road trip along the "Garden Route", which is a highly recommended scenic drive visiting several towns along the southern coast. We'll then spend Christmas and New Years in Cape Town, and fly back to Slip Away in Durban in early January. The local sailors seem to think that the weather will be much improved in early January for us to sail Slip Away to Cape Town. Hope so!!

Arrived Durban at around 0930 this morning, berthed at Durban Marina, and all is well aboard. Trip down from Richards Bay went fine, but was a mixed bag. After being given the go-ahead from Richards Bay Port Control to leave our berth yesterday afternoon, we had wait inside the port but outside the shipping channel for 2 hours before we were given permission to leave the port due to cargo ship traffic. Once outside the port and on our way, there was very little wind, but the seas were pretty rolly for a few hours. The seas eventually calmed down, and at about 0500 this morning, we had enough wind (10-15 NE) to unfurl the jib. By 0800 it was 20-25, and by the time we arrived at Durban, it was blowing 25-30. Fortunately Durban Port Control gave us the OK to proceed into the port immediately upon arrival. We then called the marina, and they told us our berth was available, but when our friends Lisa & Fabio (sv Amandla) walked over to the dock to help with our lines, there was another boat in our slip! So we milled about outside the marina until that was sorted out. Fortunately, our spot in this marina is well protected from the strong winds, so docking went smoothly. We're now headed into town to complete inward clearance with officials. Happy to be here! :-)

We've enjoyed a month here in Richards Bay, but it's time to start making our way toward Cape Town. We're leaving this afternoon for Durban - just 90 miles of the 1000 we need to go to Cape Town, but the weather is in control and at the moment will only let us do a short hop. Our ETA in Durban is tomorrow (Friday) morning. We'll continue further when the weather is right, which at the moment looks to be early to mid-next week.

We're here! We arrived Richards Bay, South Africa, late this evening and are presently tied up to the International Jetty, awaiting clearance with authorities. We're not sure if they will do clearance tomorrow (Sunday), or if we'll have to wait until Monday. A big thank you to Dale (s.v. Sukha) and Rowan (s.v. Wakanui) who took our lines when we came in at 11:30 p.m. We're having a beer and celebrating! Cheers!

Slip Away's motor is chugging along. Conditions are extremely calm. The air is getting cooler, so we don't mind the heat of the engine so much, but it would be nice to have some peace and quiet. (But really, no complaints!) We had another beautiful moonlit night last night. Less than 100 miles to go to Richards Bay. All is well aboard.

After motoring the first 36 hours of this passage, we finally were able to turn off the engine last night about midnight and sailed through the night. It was a stunning night watch with a full moon which illuminated a few puffy clouds in the sky, 10-15 knots of wind on the beam and a gentle swell. The wind died again this morning, so the engine went back on again at about 7 a.m., but we don't want to complain. This passage can be a tough one, and we'd rather motor than get our butts kicked! The forecast is for light winds today, and maybe good sailing winds again tonight (fingers crossed!). 250 miles to Richards Bay, South Africa. All is well!

Over 20 boats left Bazaruto Island, Mozambique, yesterday afternoon for Richards Bay, South Africa. Most of us were anchored about half-way down the island, so we needed to motor 15 miles south behind the island to the exit into the open ocean. It was quite a parade of boats, and Slip Away was the Grand Marshall (or, as another friend put it, we had pole position). It was not an easy trip to the exit as we had to pass through some shallow areas, and we had some strong currents. We cannot begin to imagine how we would have found our way without the waypoints provided folks who transited this area before us. But, Slip Away led the pack, and everyone passed through safely. Once outside the pass, faster boats passed us, but we're used to that. We've been motor-sailing because the wind is too close for us to sail, but we're making good progress, and are hoping to get a better angle on the winds when we turn a little further west tonight. Just under 400 miles to Richards Bay. All is well aboard.

After a few days of strong southeast winds here at Bazaruto Island, our weather window for South Africa has arrived. We will be leaving mid-day today. We would like to leave earlier in the day, but we need to wait for the correct tide. We are hoping to go from here non-stop to Richards Bay, which is just over 500 miles. If some bad weather comes up, there are a couple of anchorages we can stop at to wait it out. Fingers and toes are crossed - all positive thoughts and prayers for this passage are appreciated!

Anchored at Bazaruto Island, Mozambique. There are 17 boats in this anchorage, and we hear there are more around the corner, all of us waiting for the elusive weather window to South Africa. Bazaruto Island is a huge sand dune, and the water in the anchorage is a beautiful blue - this is a very pretty setting. We will be staying here for a few days to let some bad weather pass by. We hope to get ashore for a walk before the weather hits, which is expected to be late tomorrow night or early Sunday morning, and it's expected to be quite windy for a few days. There is no internet here. We will update in a few days.

All is well aboard, and we have 22 miles to go to entrance of the Bazaruto, Mozambique, anchorage, where we will stop for a few days for protection from some bad weather that's heading this way. We had some rough weather yesterday. We were expecting a short storm with maybe 20-25 knots of wind, but it ended up being the most intense frontal boundary of a storm that we've ever experienced with up to 40 knots of wind. Fortunately, the extremely high winds (35-40) lasted only about 30 minutes. There was also heavy rain and lots of lightning, and our iPads and phone went into the microwave in case of a lightning strike, which luckily did not happen! Glad to have that behind us! Once all that passed, we had good sailing for the rest of the day and night, although not particularly comfortable with the rough seas. We're looking forward to a few days at anchor.

Beautiful sailing conditions all day yesterday, and quite brisk last night with winds up to 30 knots and 2-3 meter seas. But the wind and seas were behind us so not a problem. We also had a strong current helping us, and saw a couple bursts of 10 knots SOG as Slip Away surfed down a couple of waves. The winds have abated now, but the seas have not, so it's a bit rough. It normally takes them a couple of hours to calm down. ETA Bazaruto sometime tomorrow.

Had good sailing winds and a favorable current for most of yesterday. The currents changed last night and the seas became lumpy and uncomfortable but we're still making good progress. Will need to stop in Bazaruto, Mozambique for a few days to hide out from a strong weather system which is expected to arrive late Saturday night or early Sunday morning. We expect to arrive Bazaruto on Friday, so should be good. 294 miles to Bazaruto. Of the three boats we left with from Baly Bay, two of them (Tereva and Rokalo) are close by - we can actually see them both this morning, and if they get out of sight, they show up on our AIS receiver within about 6-8 miles. Charlotte is behind us - neither visible, nor on AIS - but we are keeping in touch via daily email.

Motored a good part of the past 24 hours, but sailing now, and we've found favorable currents which has us moving along faster than expected. Nothing much to report. All is well aboard.

Day 2 underway to Richards Bay, South Africa. We had beautiful sailing conditions all day yesterday, then motor-sailed starting at sunset when the wind died, then started sailing again at about 2:30 this morning. The 3 boats with whom we left from Baly Bay all are within VHF radio range, and we can see each other's relative positions on our AIS receivers, so it's nice to have some company. We had a very close encounter with a mother and baby humpback whales yesterday - they surfaced just in front of Slip Away, and I (Jan) quickly turned off the auto-helm and grabbed the wheel to steer around them. The baby then breached right in front of the boat, and the mother flipped her tail at us at least a dozen times, as we passed by her. She was probably less than 50 feet off our port beam - it felt like we could reach out and touch her. What a rush!

Departing Baly Bay this morning, heading in the general direction of Richards Bay, South Africa. The passage is 1200 miles +/- and we would prefer to go direct, but the weather gods, King Neptune and Mother Nature are in charge and if necessary due to weather, we will stop along the coast of Mozambique.

Anchored at Baly Bay after a 25-hour passage from Moramba Bay. We had good sailing winds for most of yesterday, but the wind died shortly after sunset, and the southeast winds which usually arrive in the middle of the night here did not fill in, so we ended up motoring more than we would have preferred. On the bright side, we had a favorable current for most of the night, which gave us a good push. The moon set fairly early (9 p.m.), but the skies were clear, the stars were incredible, and there wasn't much fishing boat traffic during the night, which is always good. Baly Bay is often the anchorage from which boats depart on their way to South Africa, and as we arrived, there were three boats heading out on that passage. We have a few last minute preparations to do before we are ready to go, so we wished them well and pulled into the bay. There are four sailboats here now - Tereva, Rokalo, Charlotte and us - and we'll be watching the weather closely.

We had a nice stay here at Moramba Bay - met up with some other boaters and saw some Sofaka Lemurs and beautiful baobab trees ashore. Leaving here this morning and heading further down the coast to Baly Bay. Will probably sail overnight to arrive in the morning and will be traveling in company with our friends Sue & Stefan on s.v. Charlotte. We are hopeful that there may be a weather window to depart from Baly Bay to South Africa in the next few days.

Anchored at Moramba Bay. Had another great day of sailing from Nosy Lava to here, and another good day of fishing. We landed three fish - threw the first one back because he was rather small (looked like a barracuda), then landed 2 more nice ones. We're not able to positively ID the fish we've caught, but one seems to be a mackerel and the other a tuna. We had some of the mackerel for lunch, and it was delicious. Until now, we had been traveling on our own, but we've caught up with a crowd here. There are a total of 9 boats in this anchorage. Everyone seems to like it here, and we're looking forward to hanging out for at least a few days. All the boats here are watching for a weather window to sail to South Africa, and at the moment, it looks like we may be here until the middle of the month. Will update again in a few days.

Anchored at Nosy Lava. The anchorage here is bouncy, so not sure we'll get much sleep, but there isn't another good option nearby. Not finding much internet along this coast, so sending these position reports via our SatPhone. Had another nice sail today. Caught a fish shortly after we started our passage this morning. Not sure what it is - maybe some sort of jack. His remains are in our fridge and will soon be dinner. Had another strike around noon, but when we reeled that one in, we had only half a fish on the line (looked like a barracuda). Apparently something bigger got to it first! All is well aboard. Will continue on to Moramba Bay tomorrow (40 miles from here).

Anchored at Pt. Berangomaina on the northwest coast of Madagascar. We had another beautiful day of sailing today from Honey River to here but a very disappointing fishing day. We had a fishing line in the water all morning and at lunch time got a strike with a yellow-fin tuna on the line, but we lost it while trying to gaff and bring it on deck. Our steel leader broke, so we lost not only the fish, but also our lure. Very bummed. In all our years of sailing and fishing, we've never caught a yellow-fin tuna - lots of Mahi Mahi, Wahoo and Spanish Mackerel and other fish, but the yellow-fin tuna have always eluded us (and that's a delicious fish!). The fishing line and a new lure will go back in the water tomorrow. Fingers crossed!

Anchored at Baramahamay River (aka Honey River). No internet here. Left Russian Bay early this morning, and stopped along the way at Lemur Island. Did a short hike with a ranger and fed bananas to some lemurs. From Lemur Island to Honey River, we had a beautiful sail in light winds and flat seas.

Departed Hellville on Nosy Be early this morning, and motored across the channel to Russian Bay on mainland Madagascar. Will spend tonight here and continue on tomorrow. Will spend the next week or so harbor-hopping south along the west coast of Madagascar, watching and waiting for a weather window to head for South Africa.

Moved from Hellville on Nosy Be to an anchorage off the small island of Nosy Sakatia - 13 miles from Hellville and worlds different. Hellville is the "big city," and offers the opportunity for re-provisioning, as well as some nice restaurants, but the anchorage was busy and noisy, and we bounced around from all the passing boat wakes. Sakatia is flat calm and peaceful - a lovely spot. We're looking forward to snorkeling with turtles here, and fingers are crossed that the whales may come visit us here too.

Anchored at Hellville, Nosy Be, Madagascar. Enjoyed the past couple of days at Nosy Komba, but moved on late this morning to the big city of Hellville. Need to top up on diesel, get some laundry done and buy a few provisions (mostly fresh stuff). Will spend a few days here and then head out to some of the other recommended anchorages in the area.

Anchored at Nosy Komba. Had a nice slow sail for most of the way from the Mitsios. Had a couple of whales swimming along with us for a few minutes - about 40-50 feet off our starboard beam. Caught our first fish for the season (and the first in a few years now!) - a skipjack. It was his lucky day because we released him back to the sea (skipjack not our favorite fish and we presently have some other fish in our fridge which our friends Stefan & Sue on Charlotte shared with us). Looking forward to seeing the Lemur Park here.

We were up early this morning, departed the Cathedral anchorage and sailed to the Mitsios Islands (54 miles). We motored for most of the morning, but a nice breeze came up shortly before noon and we sailed the rest of the way. Seas are flat on this side of Cap D'Ambre because the ocean swell is blocked, so it was delightful sailing. We put our fishing lure out for the first time this season, and got a big hit, but it got away before we even started reeling it in. We saw a few whales along the way too. We are planning to stay in the Mitsios Islands for a few days - maybe do a bit of snorkeling and land exploring. There is no cell phone service here, which means no internet, so we are sending this position report via our satphone. We have not seen much of the news today, but are thinking of our family and friends in the path of Hurricane Florence, and sending our most positive thoughts to them.

Anchored at Cathedral anchorage for the night. Rounded Cap D'Ambre (north tip of Madagascar) at noon today with good conditions and no drama. Celebrated another milestone tonight with champagne. Will move on tomorrow to another anchorage.

18 miles to go to Cap Ambre. Wind is good, speed is good, timing is good to go around at noon slack. Fingers crossed!

Heading north toward Cap D'Ambre. Wind was up and down yesterday, but we sailed all day. Around midnight, the wind started getting fluky (lots of shifts in direction and varying velocity), and seas got confused and lumpy, so we motored, then sailed, then motored some more. VERY dark night last night with no moon and cloud cover obscuring the stars. Need to keep our speed up to round Cap D'Ambre at noon tomorrow (slack tide), and winds are a bit light at the moment, so we are motoring at the moment. 170 to Cap D'Ambre and will make final decision on which anchorage we're heading to once we're around the top.

Will be leaving Ile Sainte Marie this morning and heading north. Looks like we have a good weather window in a couple of days to round Cap D'Ambre at the north end of Madagascar, so we want to take advantage of that. We have enjoyed our stay in this anchorage, despite a rolly night last night. Went ashore yesterday afternoon and saw some lemurs, then had a drink at a small resort and watched the whales jumping offshore. Also, met a young American couple at the bar/restaurant, which is quite rare in this part of the world. She is working in Southern Madagascar on coral reef restoration. We meet such interesting people.

Moved further north to a different anchorage today, and enjoyed the whale show along the way. Will stay here for a couple of nights and planning to leave on Sunday to sail north and around Cap D'Ambre at the top of Madagascar.

Anchored off the town of Ambodifototra, Ile Sainte Marie, Madagascar. We had really nice sailing conditions last night, so arrived this morning. We rounded the southern end of the island shortly after sunrise and were greeted by humpback whales. Jan had laid down on the settee for a short nap after her midnight to 6 a.m. watch, and she thought she heard whale songs. Rich popped his head down below for something, and she asked Rich if he heard anything, and he heard it too. How cool is that?! It sounded like Dory in "Finding Nemo". We couldn't hear it in the cockpit, only down below. After hearing the songs, Jan couldn't sleep, so we both hung out in the cockpit as we sailed north toward the anchorage, and we saw several whales - one breach, a few tails, a few fin waves and lots of spouts. They were not especially close encounters, but we were thrilled to see them! Humpback whales migrate to this area from Antarctica in the Southern Hemisphere winter to give birth and mate. We're hoping to see more of them in the coming days, but for now, a nap is in order. All is well!

Still sailing, although winds are lighter today and directly on our stern. Seas are OK, but they are a bit too much for the lack of wind, and the sails and rigging are slamming quite a bit, so we're steering slightly off course in an effort to reduce the stress on the rig (and crew!). 125 miles to go. Should arrive sometime tomorrow - probably afternoon unless the wind picks up. All is well aboard.

Departure from Reunion yesterday went smoothly - after leaving our berth, we topped off our diesel at the fuel dock and then got underway (about 24 hours ago). Have traveled about 130 miles so far. Lighter winds yesterday, and had to motor for a few hours yesterday evening. Wind filled in just before midnight, and we've been having good sailing conditions ever since. Our wind instrument decided to go on strike for this passage, so we're guessing at the wind speed and setting our sails based on the wind indicator at the top of our mast, but we're having a nice wing-and-wing downwind sail. All is well aboard. 270 miles to go.

Heading out from Reunion this morning to Ile St. Marie on the east coast of Madagascar. If the forecast is right, this should be a nice passage - fingers crossed! The distance is 400 miles, and we expect to arrive in about 3 days.

Arrived at Le Port Marina, Reunion Island at noon today. Passage was relatively easy, but mostly motoring - a total of 25 hours underway, only 9 of which we could sail. Very challenging docking situation in this marina - managed to get Slip Away in the berth without hitting anyone, but we had only inches to maneuver. Not sure how we'll get out of here, but we'll worry about that later! Check in with authorities was the easiest we've experienced in 15 years of cruising. Looking forward to exploring this beautiful island!

Ready to hit the high seas again (well, hopefully not too high). We've enjoyed two weeks here in Mauritius, but it's time to move on. We'll be leaving this morning for a 135-mile passage to La Reunion Island. Weather forecast looks like we'll have lighter winds than we would prefer, so we may be motoring a bit, but the seas should be under 3 meters, which is a happy event here in the Indian Ocean. Rumor has it that there are lots of whales in this area right now, so we're excited about that. This passage should take us 24-27 hours, and we will post an update when we arrive tomorrow.

Berthed at Le Caudan Marina, Port Louis, Mauritius. Formalities are completed with officials - lots of paperwork! The marina is a small basin with concrete walls (no docks), so we are quite happy that we recently purchased some very large inflatable fenders. The main island of Mauritius is very different from Rodrigues. It has modern tall buildings, traffic, shopping malls, a wide variety of restaurants and cafes, and the local people are a mix of cultures - Indian, African, Chinese, and a few Westerners too. We expect to stay here maybe a couple of weeks.

Arrived Mauritius late last night and dropped our anchor off the west coast of the island just before midnight. We had a celebratory beer and then headed to bed. This is an open roadstead anchorage, but it's delightfully calm, and we both slept well last night (albeit not long enough). The Mauritius Coast Guard called us on the radio last night as we were sailing around the north end of the island (they saw our signal on AIS), and welcomed us to their island - how nice! We will head into Port Louis this morning to complete formalities with officials.

In the home stretch and conditions are still good. Last night was MUCH nicer than the previous one, with no squalls, a moon for a good part of the night and lots of stars. Going more slowly than we would prefer at the moment, because we need to time our arrival with an ebb tide to sail around the top of Mauritius. 88 miles to go.

We left Rodrigues yesterday around noon, expecting somewhat boisterous conditions, and that's what we got - 25-30 knots of wind and 4+ meter seas. But, it was a sunny day, Slip Away was handling it just fine and we were sailing quickly to our destination. We're having another sunny day today, and the winds and seas have moderated a bit, so it's more comfortable. Last night was a challenge - lots of squalls, lots of wind on the front end of the squall, then very little wind after it passed, and big wind shifts - from south to southeast to east-southeast. Glad to have that behind us and hoping that we won't have a repeat tonight! All is well aboard. Our friends on s.v. Charlotte are just 5 miles off our port quarter. 150 miles down, 200 miles to our destination (Port Louis, Mauritius).

After a very enjoyable month here in Rodrigues, we are heading out today to Port Louis, Mauritius. This is a 350-mile trip, which we expect will take about 3 days, and we'll be traveling in company with our friends Sue & Stefan on s.v. Charlotte. We will be updating our position daily (assuming that my computer/satphone connection is working), but in any event and barring anything unforeseen, we should be there in a few days.

Anchored at Port Mathurin, Rodrigues Island. 2000 mile passage completed in 14 days, 10 hours. Although we had a little rough weather along the way, we could not have asked for a better passage on this stretch of the Indian Ocean. Most official formalities are completed here in Rodrigues, and we are now celebrating with a beer. Looking forward to a good night of sleep!

Almost there! 27 miles to go. Champagne in the fridge. All is well.

Day 14 underway to Rodrigues. Moving along quite nicely, although seas are lumpy (what else is new?!). Skies have cleared up a bit. Saw some stars last night, and Rich caught a glimpse of the waxing crescent moon just before it set. All is well aboard. 174 miles to go. Still expecting to arrive tomorrow. Yay!

Day 13 underway to Rodrigues. Fairly rough at the moment, but tolerable. Big swell on our port quarter. Long period between the swells, so not a lot of bashing, but every once in a while, we get a good roll. There's no moving around the boat without firmly holding on. 319 miles to go. If we continue at this same speed, we should get in Monday afternoon or early evening. :-) All is well!

Day 12 underway to Rodrigues. Grey day, with a few rain showers. Great wind so our speed is good, but rough seas. 463 miles to go. We are now over 3/4 of the way to our destination, and that's helping to keep the crew's spirits high. :-)

Day 11 underway to Rodrigues. Yesterday was very rainy and dreary, and the winds died in the afternoon, so we ended up motoring through the night. Winds are back now, and skies are starting to clear. The last couple of nights were VERY dark with no moon and heavy cloud cover. Spent a good part of yesterday working on a computer glitch. The USB ports on our primary laptop decided they wanted a holiday, which meant that we could not send and receive emails. Using our backup laptop for email now, and it's a bit flaky, but hopefully it will at least get us to Rodrigues. Grr.... 603 miles to go.

Day 10 underway to Rodrigues. Rainy day, but not squally. Computer issues today - unable to answer emails at the moment. Otherwise, all is well. 756 miles to go.

Day 8 underway to Rodrigues. Not much to report. Moving right along. Seas a bit rolly today. All is well aboard. 880 miles to go.

Day 8 underway to Rodrigues. Beautiful conditions yesterday, last night and today. Would like to put in an order for more of the same for the next week! Winds are a little lighter today than yesterday, but still good. Air and water temps have been gradually cooling off and are quite pleasant. 1026 miles to go. Will be passing our half-way point this afternoon - yay! All is well.

Day 7 underway to Rodrigues. Seas moderated late yesterday afternoon, so the ride has improved. Also, we had no squalls last night. Both of us slept well while off watch, and attitude is much improved. Wind speed is about ideal. All is well aboard. 1165 miles to go

Day 6 underway to Rodrigues. Conditions have been very mixed on this passage so far. Had a very nice day again yesterday, but then a very squally night last night. Seas became rough last night and have stayed that way today. All is well aboard, except the crew is a bit grumpy. ;-) 1308 miles to go.

Day 5 underway to Rodrigues. Yesterday was quite rough and uncomfortable, but the winds have moderated and backed a bit, so it's much better today. Moving right along. All is well. 1449 miles to go.

Day 4 underway to Rodrigues. After a pleasant day of beam-reaching yesterday in 15 knots of wind, conditions became rougher last night, with bigger winds and seas. Not a very comfortable ride at the moment, but all is well aboard. Happy Birthday to Rich! 1580 miles to go.

Day 3 underway from Cocos Keeling to Rodrigues. Very pleasant sailing conditions at the moment with wind on the beam, moderate seas and partly cloudy skies. No squalls last night, and weather is expected to be settled, albeit windier, for the next couple of days. Approximately 285 miles down, and 1720 to go. All is well aboard.

Day 2 underway from Cocos Keeling to Rodrigues. We had northwest winds 15-20 all day yesterday, so ended up sailing a fair amount south of the rhumbline. We started motor sailing last night at midnight when the winds lightened up a bit and moved further west (on the nose). We motor-sailed until about 10 this morning (Cocos time) when the winds finally backed around to the south. Winds are still slightly west of south, and we are sailing with them about 60 degrees off the bow. Expecting them to back further to the Southeast today - or at least hoping that they do! All is well.

Departing Cocos Keeling this morning for our 2,000 mile passage to Rodrigues, which we expect will take us 15-16 days. Winds have been light around Cocos Keeling for the past several days due to a nearby low pressure system, so we may have to motor for a day or so before we hit the tradewinds. The weather forecast looks reasonable, and of course we're hoping for the best, but we've prepared the boat for rough weather just in case, even stowing the dinghy on deck instead of in its davits. Rich will be celebrating his 70th birthday on this passage on June 7. :-) Wish us luck!

Still hanging out at Cocos Keeling, waiting on a weather window to depart for Rodrigues - probably a few more days. Weather has been quite blustery the past few days - blowing steady in the mid-20's, and squalls with winds reaching into the mid-30's. Winds are settling down from that weather system now, but another one (a trough) is expected to develop in the area tomorrow. And so we wait ...

Still anchored at Direction Island, Cocos Keeling. We've been here a week now, and expect to be here for probably one more. We are enjoying the snorkeling here - the drift through "The Rip", as well as the other reefs scattered about the anchorage. The reefs are very healthy, and the fish life is good - lots of butterflyfish, parrotfish, sweetlips, surgeonfish, wrass and others, as well as the occasional black tip or white tip reef shark (which are not worrisome). We're still looking for eels, octopus, nudibranchs and other creatures - no sightings of those yet. There are some nice walking trails on Direction Island with signboards providing a bit of history. We've also visited Home Island (population of about 700 Malay Muslims) and yesterday, we went to West Island (population of about 100 ex-pats, mostly Aussie and British), as well as a couple of small hotels and restaurants. Grocery shopping is expensive here - a head of iceberg lettuce costs AUD $12. We passed on that. Internet is sparse and also expensive - the wifi hotspot on Direction Island is not working, but we have had a few hours of internet when we visited Home and West Islands - so we're pretty out of touch. (We send these updates through our SSB/Ham Radio email.) When we were at West Island yesterday, we checked our postings on this webpage and saw the comments from friends and family - so good to hear from all of you! We are watching the weather for an opportunity to move on to Rodrigues Island - possibly later this week. All is well. :)

Anchored at Direction Island, Cocos Keeling - our first anchorage in the Indian Ocean! As we approached the island this morning, we were escorted by a pod of dolphins, and after we dropped our anchor, a couple of small black tip sharks swam over to welcome us too. With the sun out, the water here is that beautiful iridescent blue that we have not seen for a while. It's warm here, but not too hot - the tradewinds are maintaining a very pleasant temperature. We are very happy to be here! Overall our passage was good. We mostly had steady tradewinds in the high teens, which is just about perfect, but the seas were not comfortable, with swell running in two directions, usually around 2 meters high, and sometimes up to 3 meters. But we'd been forewarned that the seas in the Indian Ocean are generally rough, so our expectations were managed. We had good weather the first three days of the passage, but then had quite a few squalls the last couple of nights. So we reefed down and sailed slowly the past couple of nights, and everything was fine. We just had some breakfast, and the officials radioed us to let us know they would come out to Slip Away to check us in after lunch, so we're going to take a nap!

Day 5 underway to Cocos Keeling - 62 miles to go. Last night was a bit dark and stormy - not fun, but it wasn't too bad, and with our sails reefed, Slip Away and her crew were fine. But, it slowed us down a bit, which made it a certainty that we could not arrive at Cocos Keeling this evening before nightfall. Although we intended to go into the "Port Refuge" anchorage, which is supposed to be easy to get into even after dark, we re-thought that plan because we weren't sure if we might have another night of squally weather, which would add a level of stress and difficulty. So, we decided to slow down and plan to arrive tomorrow morning - better to spend another night at sea and enter safely after daylight. We've spent the day lumbering along at around 3-4 knots. Another sailboat on their way to Cocos passed us by, and we chatted briefly on the radio.

Day 4 Underway to Cocos Keeling. Rich had a busy watch last night with lots of fishing boats, none of which had an AIS signal. Also, seas were a bit lumpy last night, so neither of us slept well, but they moderated today and we both got some sleep during the day (at different times - one of us is always on watch). We occasionally get a hit on the AIS from a large ship, but none have been close. Looks like we will be arriving Cocos Keeling tomorrow evening. If the winds stay up, we can get in before sunset. If not, there is an outside anchorage that looks reasonable to get into after dark.

Day 3 underway to Cocos Keeling. Reefed down for a few squalls today, but they haven't had a lot of wind or rain in them. 330 miles to go. All is well.

Day 2 underway to Cocos Keeling. Making good progress. Great sailing winds. Seas a little lumpy, but we're getting used to the constant motion of life at sea. All is well aboard.

Left the anchorage near Krakatoa this afternoon, and we're on our way to Cocos Keeling. :-) Sailing wing-and-wing. Winds are a little lighter than we would prefer at the moment, but we're happy to be on our way, and the winds should pick up in about 12 hours or so. 20 miles down, 600 miles to go. ETA 12 May.

Anchored at Rakata Kecil. We had an easy and non-eventful passage through the Sunda Straits in the late afternoon yesterday, and then continued on to arrive here last night at about 7:20 p.m. We found our way in and anchored safely, but it was stressful. We arrived almost 90 minutes after sunset, so it was very dark since the moon had not yet risen. Additionally, we needed to weave our way through a number of fishing boats just outside the anchorage, and shortly before we arrived, we were hit with a squall bringing lightning, thunder and some rain. Fortunately, the squall did not have a lot of wind and rain in it, and we crawled slowly up to our anchoring waypoint, dropped the hook and thankfully it set well. We celebrated with a couple of beers, cheese and crackers for dinner, then cold showers, and then we crashed and slept like the dead last night. The views of the original Krakatoa volcano and Anak Krakatoa, which was born from a 1927 eruption of the original Krakatoa are stunning. We plan to spend a couple of days here preparing for our passage to Cocos Keeling - refilling our main fuel tank from the jerry jugs of diesel we carried on deck, preparing food, and other jobs. We'll also be keeping an eye on the weather and will leave when it looks right. All is well!

23 miles to the Sunda Straits. We have good timing in that we'll go through the Straits in daylight hours, but timing isn't perfect because we will likely have a current against us. But, there's not a good place to stop and anchor to wait for perfect timing, and if necessary, we'll crank up the turbo to give us a bit more speed. We've been motoring for 101 hours now - no good sailing winds at all. If all goes as planned, we'll get to the anchorage near Krakatoa tonight after dark, but we have an anchoring waypoint from friends, and the anchorage looks open and easy to approach.

Headwinds and countercurrent - clawing our way along.

Night watch was busy but manageable. Making progress through the Bangka Straits. All is well!

Made good progress last night and today. All is well. Just getting to the Bangka Straits. 315 miles to go to the Sunda Straits.

Just crossed the equator, so we're back in the Southern Hemisphere. This is Slip Away's and our third equator crossing. Conditions were better today, so made much better progress than yesterday. Stopped and anchored last night because there was too much fishing activity to travel safely. Got underway early and with a strong counter current and 10 knots of headwinds, we were creeping along and feeling very frustrated. But conditions improved as the day progressed. The current switched and started helping us, and the winds abated in the early afternoon, so the ride got smoother. The forecast is calling for light and variable winds the next few days, so hopefully that's the end of the headwinds. We're hoping to travel all night tonight as we're further offshore than last night, but if needed, we've picked out a couple of spots to stop. 220 miles down, 450 to go to the Sunda Straits.

Crossed shipping lanes this morning - no ships at all in the northbound lanes, but southbound lanes were quite crowded. Drove along the "median" until we found a break in the traffic, and then quickly crossed over. Fought winds on the nose all day, so pulled into a harbor to wait for a break in the winds and had the opportunity to spend 2 1/2 hours with the Indonesian Navy, explaining to them what we were doing. Lots of photo taking. Winds have died down, so we're on our way again.

Finally got away from the dock at Admiral Marina in Port Dickson yesterday at 5 p.m. Did an overnight run of 109 nm to Pulau Pisang and the timing was good for us to stop and anchor for the night. Will leave again tomorrow at first light to cross the shipping lanes, and the tides should be right to give us a favorable current through the Durian Straits. Our passage last night went fine but was not particularly pleasant. We started out with a favorable current, so we were making great speed, but then the tide changed. The adverse current slowed our speed to less than 4 knots and gave us a bouncy ride for several hours. We had headwinds for the entire trip, but fortunately nothing too strong (mostly 8-10 knots). The moon was beautiful, and we love the light that a full moon provides. Lots of big ship traffic in the Straits of Malacca (at one point, we had 128 targets on our AIS), but all went well. 560 miles to go to the Sunda Straits.

Arrived this morning at Admiral Marina, Port Dickson, Malaysia, after an overnight run from Pangkor Marina. Lots of big ship traffic in the Malacca Straits and especially around Port Klang, but we managed to get through it with no issues. AIS is so incredibly helpful in those situations!

Berthed at Pangkor Marina. Planning to spend a week here before continuing south.

Anchored at Pulau Rimau. Heading off early tomorrow morning for Pangkor Marina.

Berthed at Straits Quay Marina in Penang. Planning to hang out here for a week.

Anchored at Pulau Bunting. Heading into Penang Straits Quay Marina tomorrow. Looks like it may rain tonight.

Anchored outside Rebak Marina. Heading to the beach bar for happy hour, then dinner with friends Sue & Bob on s.v. Mawari. Leaving in the morning to sail south toward Penang.

docked at Telaga Harbour Marina, Langkawi, Malaysia

Left Krabi Boat Lagoon Marina today. Drove by beautiful Railey Beach and now anchored back at Koh Dam Khwan. Would have liked to anchor close to Railey, but very crowded with tourist boat traffic. Quieter here.

Berthed at Krabi Boat Lagoon Marina for some rigging repairs.

Anchored at Koh Dam Khwan, off the coast of Krabi, Thailand. Very scenic anchorage, and very quiet now that the tourist boats have gone home.

Will go into Krabi Boat Lagoon Marina on the morning high tide.

Berthed at Royal Phuket Marina. Greeted with a "Welcome Packet", cold towels and cold bottles of water. Very nice! Planning to stay here for one week.

Anchored at Ko Phi Phi Don, Thailand. We agree with a friend's description of this anchorage as both beautiful and appalling. It is a lovely bay and has the potential to be a fantastic anchorage if there weren't longtail boats driving by us every few minutes and techno music blasting from onshore (day and night). Just stopping here for the night before heading to Ao Chalong tomorrow. We don't feel compelled to return here.

Berthed at Rebak Island Marina, Langkawi.

Pangkor Marina, Malaysia. Will haul out at the end of the month and leave Slip Away here on hardstand while we travel back to the USA for the summer.

Back in Singapore at One Degree 15 Marina. Rich's shoulder surgery (rotator cuff repair) scheduled for Thursday, December 3. Expect that we'll be in Singapore for the next couple of months.

Docked at Admiral Marina, Port Dickson, Malaysia. Arrived this morning, after an overnight run from Singapore. Good trip running along the eastern edge of the northbound shipping lanes. Glad we have an AIS transponder and not just a receiver, so that all the ships could see that we were there.

Crossed the Singapore Straits today and are now comfortably tucked into the OneDegree15 Marina on Sentosa Island, Singapore. Lovely spot!

Anchored at Boyan Island. Will continue on to Singapore tomorrow morning.

Underway to Singapore. Crossed the equator, so back in the Northern Hemisphere - first time in over five years for Slip Away! Planning to anchor tonight at Boyan Island and continue to Singapore tomorrow.

Day #2 underway to Singapore. Motoring in light winds. Hot, sticky and smoky - visibility about 3 miles.

Underway to Singapore. Motoring. Little wind. Hot and sweaty.

Anchored at Belitung Island. Had a great passage from Karimunjawa, with the exception of an opposing current for a good part of the way, but we still managed to sail most of the trip. Pretty anchorage here, but the locals are burning stuff ashore, so it's smoky. :-( Will do our clearance here and head for either Singapore or Malaysia.

Underway to Belitung Island. Fighting a countercurrent at the moment, but all is well. Lots of fishing boats on night watch. ETA tomorrow.

Anchored at Karimunjawa Islands, Indonesia, after a 3 day + 7 hour passage from Lembongan Island (off the coast of Bali). We saw numerous fishing boats on our night watches, so that kept us on our toes. We were pleased that we were able to sail for most of the way - 24 hours of motoring, 55 hours of sailing.

Underway to Karimunjawa. Nice sailing. ETA tomorrow.

Underway to Karimunjawa Islands (off the coast of Java), Indonesia. Sailing slowly in light winds.

Back at Lembongan Island for the day. Cleaning the boat bottom and doing a few other chores in preparation for an early morning departure, enroute to Karimun Jawa (about 400 miles).

Moored at Serangan Island, Bali, Indonesia. Looking forward to exploring Bali for a few days and also planning a trip to Borobudur on Java.

Moored at Lembongan Island. Good trip here today from Lombok.

Moored at Medana Bay Marina, Lombok Island, Indonesia.

Anchored at Gili Air, across from Lombok Island, Indonesia - much more touristy than the other areas we've been in so far.

Anchored at Moyo Island, Indonesia, after an overnight passage from Sebayor Kecil Island near Komodo National Park. Good passage, although lots of motoring (21 hours of motoring, 28 hours total passage time). Looking forward to doing some snorkeling here, but first we need a nap!

Anchored at Sebayor Kecil island. Visited the Komodo Dragons on Rinca Island earlier today.

Moored at Waecicu Bay, Flores Island, Indonesia. Going scuba diving in Komodo National Park tomorrow!

Anchored at Gili Bodo / Sabibi Island, Indonesia. Great downwind sail today with 15-20 knots of NE wind. Anchorage here OK but not great in NE winds.

Anchored at Lingeh Bay, Flores Island, Indonesia. Had good sailing winds for most of the trip here from Riung (35 miles). Greeted by boatloads of kids, all asking for notebooks and pens. We didn't have nearly enough notebooks for all of them, so did not give out any to avoid a riot. We did give out pens and pencils and that supply is about gone. One guy gave us a couple of coconuts, so we gave him a t-shirt for his kid.

Anchored at Riung, Flores Island, Indonesia. Planning to spend a few days here and hoping to find some good snorkeling and/or diving.

Anchored at Nagar Ujong, Flores Island, Indonesia. Had a nice sail today - light winds, so it was a slow passage, but we were able to sail almost all the way here - 9 hours out of 11. Will leave in the morning for Riung.

Anchored in front of the Sea World Resort, near the town of Maumere on Flores Island, Indonesia. Will do our visa renewal here and also some provisioning.

Anchored at North Hading, East Flores Island, Indonesia. Passage from Kroko Atoll today started in light winds, and we motored most of the way. Run under spinnaker for a bit, but shortly after we set the spinnaker, the wind piped up to 20 knots and then backed, so we had to take it down after about 40 minutes. After that, we sailed with just the headsail for 1 1/2 hours before motoring into the anchorage.

Anchored at Kroko Atoll, Solor Archipelago, Indonesia. Had a nice overnight trip from Wakatobi. Sailed about 2/3 of the way, but then the wind died, so motored the last 8 hours.