If you closely adhere to these steps, kiting sans beach becomes a safe, easy and fun alternative, and opens the world of offshore wind kiting which is often the best. We’ve never had a single incident (well, one slightly torn kite, but that doesn’t count!).
I’ve been trying to write our final log of the Cape Verdes for over a month now. It’s not that I can’t remember what happened, and it’s not that I don’t have a story to tell. I experienced some of the most magical days of my life in those dry islands off the west coast of Africa and I’d like to describe how that feels.
Many people have the dream of sailing off into the sunset. But the reality is a LOT different than the perception. Herein lies the advice of someone who’s spent 13 years circumnavigating on the pitfalls to avoid.
We’ve put together this 2010 highlight reel for all our owners, guests and well- anyone who has ever had interest in playing in the Indian Ocean as we covered just about all of it this past season. This will be mostly a slideshow from the field but I’ll give you a little run-down as well. Don’t miss the slideshow at the end!
The paradox of being at sea for a long time is that you do not get more comfortable as time passes, but more scared. You get more competent, and that helps with controlling fear, but competence can only carry you so far. With each passing year out here I feel smaller and more at the whim of the ocean; more humbled, more afraid. People who come on board who have not spent time at sea often tell me they want to see a storm, they want to experience what it’s like. I know immediately that I am dealing with a novice if these words leave a person’s mouth. Storms at sea are not the same as on land. Land lubbers cannot possibly comprehend what it’s like to know the dread and physical stress that an approaching deep low pressure system causes; they cannot comprehend what it’s like to battle 70 mile an hour winds; to be in seas several times larger than your boat; to be completely at the mercy of the weather, your ability, and the frailty of your vessel.
After nearly 2 months in Madagascar it was regrettably time to move on, though we will be returning in September for the final trips of the season. The rough plan was to spend a few days in Madagascar, then sail across the Mozambique channel some 550 miles with a stop in Europa, a French island outpost of which we’d heard tantalizing rumours of sharks, turtles, and a phenomenal left hand wave.
I’m not used to this. Sitting down at the computer writing about a trip where everything went right..or at least mostly right. Ok, a few people got sick but in Madagascar that’s pretty much par for the course. But no one got hurt. The wind and waves paid us a number of visits. Knock on wood, but maybe our luck has finally returned?
In many ways the last trip started over 10 years ago. I was sitting in a pub on the SW corner of Vancouver Island near the Juan De Fuca Straits with a guy who’d just completed a circumnavigation. It was the spring of 1999 and other than commercial fishing in the Bearing Sea I’d never been offshore and had no idea how it all worked. This guy’s stories of adventure kept me rapt for hours and I furiously scribbled notes about all the places he reckoned were “must sees”. One in particular seemed more enticing and yet elusive than any other. Chagos. I’d never heard of it and remember pulling out a map later that night just to make sure it was real.
Burma, or Myanmar is very, very difficult to sail due to the time consuming and exhorbitant expense of obtaining permits. Our hope was that this meant we’d be sailing an area that was pristine and wild. We find it anything but.
A rough and extremely scary solo passage through two of the busiest shipping routes on earth puts skipper Gavin McClurg through the ultimate test.