bigbadblog

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At the moment Tin Tin and her intrepid crew of 3 greybeards are making the final 40 miles to the northern end of Mauritius (pronounced Maurice en Francais) having said goodbye to her smaller associate island of Rodrigues where we spent a few days relaxing after the long voyage through stormy seas from the Australian Indian Ocean outpost of Cocos Keeling. The islands of Rodrigues and Mauritius were wrestled from the French just over 200yrs ago and one might have thought that in the intervening two centuries that the English language and customs might have all but superseded the French... but no.. It is veritable melange ... although traffic does drive on the left, English is an official language, road signs are in English and a strangely familiar feeling came over me when I came across double yellow lines. Despite these signs of a British presence it appears that French and Creole is the dominant mode of speech, on Rodrigues at least. Looking at the map of Mauritius you will notice

YES! .... it is me, myself, I... After a very long absence when I have rather lazily suggested you look at my photo albums, thinking that if each photo was worth a thousand words then it wasn't really fair to inflict any actual written words when you may already be reading the Skipper's blog which is apparently a regular cascade of verbal reporting of our every moment and latterly, in particular, our culinary skills with cabbage... I am attaching four photos to this post (4000 words I need not write?!) which I promise will not include white beaches, crystal clear blue waters and overhanging palm trees.... this time at least, as we have seen a goodly number of those three constituent parts assembled together to the recipe of the classic holiday brochure idyll. The first photo is a shot taken looking forward over TinTin's bow as the large swell raced past lit by the afternoon sun. It is very difficult to capture the real size of the waves on camera and I at last found

Here is the link to the next photo album documenting our voyage from Tahiti to Tonga... It is difficult to find internet connections with enough band width to upload photos even here in Tahiti so I will try as best as I can along the way. We hope to visit, Bora Bora, the Cook Islands, Palmerston Island and Nui before arriving at Tonga for a  a big crew change over. Sign in as a follower of the album and you will get informed when new photos or text are posted. https://goo.gl/photos/Lq4GgBWDU86eSa8z9

A lot has happened since my last blog soon after we head arrived in the îles Marquises back in mid April. My journey back to England was uneventful and I was met at the airport by Matthew who had taken a day of work to greet me and ferry me back home from Heathrow. Matthew was the reason four my return as he was getting married just two days later! I knew I had lost some weight since I wad last home in November 2106 but I was not really expecting to be able to fit into MY own wedding suit quite so well! The Matthew and Lisa's wedding was a magnificent occasion, very much in their style and a 'great party' as one of the oldest guests commented! Not only have M&E spent months organising their wedding but they have also managed tho buy and move into their own house at the same time... A real feat of organisation and financial wizardry! The following week were filled with all sorts of 'things that must be done' including sourcing and securing a number o

For the first time in 20 days we did not have a watch system so, after a great pasta and lentil supper washed down with a very smooth bottle of Sainsbury's Rioja we were all able to look forward to an unbroken night in bed. Well.. Not quite unbroken as it started to rain at about 2am when I went up to raise the cockpit hood. I provided breakfast of bacon, American pancakes, butter and maple syrup followed by our normal oats and granola washed down with our normal breakfast drinks round of 2 teas (Emily and me), coffee(Paul) and decaffeinated coffee (Justin). As I have mentioned in earlier posts, I like to get as high as possible when visiting an island. It gives one a very much broader perspective of the surrounding environment and usually a fairly good workout as a bonus. So, Justin and I set off to follow the only road on the island which runs between the two inhabited valleys. The concrete road is the same one we followed yesterday when we walked up to an amazing waterfal