Jazz's Sailing Trip

Hi Everyone

As you may know I have been travelling on our sail boat with my husband for a few weeks. It was an amazing few weeks, more of an adventure than a cruise. Since we lifted the anchor on 6th March we have had either no wind and sunshine or too much wind and rain.

Three days into the trip we heard that a category 5 cyclone (very severe hurricane) was coming down to say hello to us where we were anchored. So before it got too windy we got into our little rubber 3 metre dinghy with a little engine and started investigating creeks that we could shelter in.

We managed to get up a narrow mangrove creek and put out two anchors and 4 ropes and waited. It was a bit nerve racking. See the photo of the cyclone, it had 250km winds at its centre.

We had to stay in the creek for 4 days with high winds, even up the creek, until the Cyclone weakened into a low depression and it then just rained.

Getting out of the creek was a little hair raising as we had to turn the boat around in a strong current and wind. As soon as we released the ropes a little it took off turning itself around a little too quickly for comfort and catching a few mangrove tree branches on the way. We then motor sailed in wind and rain and low visibility following the leads and beacons like hawks to avoid the shallow sand banks to a lovely anchorage beside a large sand island. There we had turtles and dolphins playing around the boat.

We then had 5 days of sunshine but not much wind while we continued sailing up the coast visiting some beautiful beaches and lighthouses.

After 5 days we took the boat into a marina near a town where many family members live where we enjoyed showing the boat to our family. The weather was not good again with high winds and another cyclone developed so we waited for the bad weather to pass before we set off again.

In the last week we had sunshine but very big seas. The waves were as big as 4 metres high. I got a little frightened at times but the boat performed very well. We spent the last few days visiting some beautiful islands before heading home.

I am now back at English City and look forward to seeing you all in the City soon.

Bye for now.Jazz