Rodrigues to Mauritius, Day 1
October 1! And what better way to ring in this great month with a little 350-mile passage from Rodrigues to Mauritius? The new moon will guarantee we see lots of stars on the night watch. Our friend John on Sapphire is departing with us, but he is bound for La Reunion, one more day sailing beyond Mauritius.
After clearing the inner harbor we met with 18-20 knots of stiff breeze and started off our passage running out the gate, under reefed sails. The pole is out and we are wing-on-wing under the old standby sail configuration that has served us so well for the last 6,500 NM from Vanuatu. We’re really racking up the ocean miles this year!
The seas sort of zippered together as we came out of the lee of Rodrigues, with swells meshing from two different directions. It made for the “metronome” effect for about 6 hours. But we are clear of that now and enjoying a fast ride, around 7 knots. We reluctantly leave Rodrigues in our wake, and hope to meet up again soon with our friends on S/V “Ralph Rover” and S/V “Fleur de Sel”. For now, the weather window is right and we must sail on…
While in Rodrigues we unbolted the Monitor from the back of the boat and did a complete disassembly and re-build inside the boat. She’s really working well now, with all new bearings and bushings, and polished up to look like new. I used as many parts out of the spare kit as I could!
Kelsey and Taz unfortunately have the 2-day bug that’s going around Rodrigues now, so they spent most of the day sleeping down below, but Taz and I still had fun flinging his stuffed animals around the cabin and watching a great sunset. I can single-hand this passage as it should only be a few days to Mauritius.
