Rounding the Northern Tip of Madagascar

Around 2 pm today we rounded the Northern tip of Madagascar. The wind increased immediately and we had to go to manual steering for a bit until the boat settled down. As we rounded the corner we almost hit a whale! The sea and terrain is beautiful here. We keep getting smacked with gusts, causing us to grab on to something as the boat heels to starboard.

Had a bit of fun last night. Was going along, doing 7-10 knots, with just a reefed mainsail and all of a sudden the mainsail jibed. We had a preventer tied to it, so it only got halfway there, but there was tremendous strain on the preventer. It was my watch and the others were sleeping. I went forward, clipped my safety harness in, and started to undo the preventer. Unfortunately it got jammed up with the extra line that was there and I was unable to release it. So I quickly, after checking the course of the boat, ran downstairs and grabbed a knife. I came back up and cut just the end of it off, after bringing in the main sheet so the jibe wouldn’t happen without restraint. It was a wild 5 minutes for me and I was thankful for the safety harness.

Tonight we plan to anchor in Cathedral, known for its beauty and calm anchorage. Then on to Nosy Be where many of our friends are waiting to see us.

Here are some pics from today’s sail. As always, don’t forget to follow the adventure on email by subscribing, or you can follow me on Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, Google+, Instagram, and Path!