East African sailing trip – log 2

SAILING LOG 2

June 23, 2004

We listen to the SSB radio station for the weather report and hear from our friends, yacht Yawarra – currently sailing to Mayotte; which is a French owned Island in the Comoros Archipelago.

Jan relays the good news of favorable sailing weather to push us further along the coast to the next entry point the Port of Inhambane and we immediately make the decision to weigh anchor and set sail.

By 10:00am we are sailing at 6.5kts our spinnaker filled to capacity the only sound the swishing of the hulls through the water – Huge grins on our faces, but not for long… we are visited by a navy helicopter circling above our mast taking photographs.

Our hearts sink as we had not yet made the 1 day sailing excursion to Maputu to check in and we suspect there might be trouble. They fly off and in the distance we see them land on a Navy Frigate.

As we exit the harbour about 4 hours later they are above us again. Wolf and I smiled and wave sheepishly, pretending to be “cool”. They take some more photos wave back and fly away.

Later we notice a boat following us. Through the binoculars it looks like the Coast Guard. We are now certain we are in BIG trouble. It turns out to be a local prawn trawler – thank you Lord we say and sail out into the sunset.