After an unnerving and exhausting night, given that we changed our watch schedule from 3 hours to 2 hours, at 0900 “land” was spotted, but given how low and flat it was, it was barely an “ahoy”. In fact, Elaine almost missed it when she woke up. It was the Les Moucha marine reserve belonging to the tiny country of Djibouti; we had 15NM to go after a very long, stressful and exhausting passage. Our thanks to Keenan and Justine, who honoured our request to keep this passage a secret and who remained in constant communication with us, as well as kept an eye on our progress via our Yellowbrick tracker.

This was obviously a difficult message to convey to our family, realising that some would be disappointed and upset and others really annoyed with us because we didn’t say anything about our change of plan when we left the Maldives, so as not to worry everyone.

That said, having completed all our passage planning for our intended route back to the Caribbean via South Africa, we made the difficult decision to pursue our backup route. This decision was fuelled by a number of reasons, culminating in us leaving the Maldives Rally at considerable expense before it even got started, due to the deteriorating COVID-19 situation in the Maldives. With cases sky-rocketing and strange health policies that allowed asymptomatic individuals to roam freely without isolating after knowingly being exposed to someone with COVID-19, made it far too risky for us, because of Elaine’s underlying health issues, to participate in any of the rally activities arranged by the organisers, given that these centred around extensive interactions with the local population and, if things had gone horribly wrong with her health as a result, we would have been in the middle of nowhere with dubious medical care available. Unbeknownst to us, although we’d left Thailand as their next wave was taking off after the Christmas and New Year festivities, we actually arrived in the Maldives at the height of their next wave. Additionally, having the choice of hanging around all the uninhabited islands in marginal anchorages until the end of May, before we could leave the Maldives and safely cross the equator to arrive in the Southern Hemisphere at the end of the cyclone season and continue our circumnavigation from Chagos, we preferred the alternative of getting to Europe as quickly as possible via the Red Sea and the Suez Canal, stopping only for rest, supplies and weather and indeed getting to Europe within the same timeframe as we would have had hanging around in the Maldives.

Other factors which weighed in on this decision included the reality that we were both completely over the constant uncertainty around the pandemic, tired of our plans being constantly up in the air, tired of the lockdowns and restrictions imposed by the various countries we’d found ourselves in and precluding us from enjoying these countries, the very reason we had chosen a cruising lifestyle to begin with, tired of visa issues and the associated uncertainties, never mind the constant expense thereof, tired of the concern over marginal medical care for Elaine, especially after the disaster in Thailand, tired of the uncertainty of possibly getting stuck in another country again, then being forced to leave during a non-sailing season, similar to the events that materialised in Malaysia, not wanting the possibility of dealing with import taxes for Paw Paw, if we were to get stuck again in say, the Seychelles or Mauritius, never mind the never ending expense of agents to navigate through the officialdom of these countries during unprecedented times, then still having to deal with the ongoing border closures, particularly in Madagascar and Mozambique, where cruisers are being harassed and receiving threats of their yachts being impounded when they’ve had to stop at the outer islands to shelter from weather while transiting the Mozambique Channel, making this passage even more precarious than it already is and the list goes on.

In the end, this was the best decision for us, but at the expense of not seeing family and friends in South Africa (by yacht anyway) and then, so as not to worry everyone, having to cover up our decision on leaving the Maldives, until we arrived safely in Djibouti this afternoon after transiting the MSTC (Maritime Security Transit Corridor) and the IRTC (Internationally Recommended Transit Corridor) around the Horn of Africa.

Our apologies to everyone for not disclosing this change of plan and intentionally not disclosing our actual location during our correspondence and daily blogs, but this was necessary so as to avoid causing undue stress and worry to loved ones.

On the upside, we had the UKMTO (United Kingdom Maritime Organisation) and the MSCHOA (Maritime Security Centre - Horn of Africa) tracking us, the IRTC was patrolled by various navies of the world, using ships and aircraft, plus, not only did we had to provide a daily written report to them, but we were regularly contacted by the various warships and surveillance aircrafts and we had emergency contact numbers had anything untoward materialised. This corridor is a mandatory zone for registered vessels only and we had to sail between the westbound and eastbound shipping lanes, essentially going up the middle where the patrol ships were for additional safety. Our thanks to this coalition for the service provided. It certainly helped us rest easier while we were in the corridor.

The other positive is that we’ll be back in civilisation once we reach Europe, we’ll be back “home” without visa issues to deal with, etc and we can then make plans to visit family and friends around the world, without all the palaver of being stuck in some far off land or indeed leaving Paw Paw somewhere and not being able to get back to her, a position many of our cruising friends still find themselves in.

It was a few hours after we anchored at 1245 that Kandiba (Zehra and Hasan) arrived and the evening net revealed that Talulah Ruby III (Andy, Paul and Crew) and Golden Spirit (Caroline and Michael) would be arriving tomorrow.

Delighted to have arrived safe and sound, we spent the rest of the afternoon giving Paw Paw a well deserved freshwater wash-down, cleaned her interior, had a shower, followed by a light dinner and went to bed, but not before we’d revealed our actual location to the family, answered a flurry of messages and phone calls, thanks to the SIM card the agent had brought out to us, albeit with limited data.

We now have a number of celebrations to enjoy properly, specifically my 60th Birthday, St Valentine’s Day and successfully crossing our second ocean with Elaine’s health holding up surprisingly well, considering the circumstances and the distance we’ve sailed, as well as enjoy our explorations of another country and savour all the French delights; café au lait, French pastries, French cheeses and wines. Yum!