We’re just under a day away from Mauritius and all is well aboard LUSH. That “potential” tropical storm I mentioned in my last blog hasn’t fully developed to anything of concern yet and isn’t in our path at the mo. We will come into more breeze in this next 24hours, poss up around 30knots which LUSH is well able to handle.

Luckily the lads have always stayed ahead of any problems onboard and this trip has been no exception. They discovered a snapped/stretched shackle on Reef 1 when doing the final rig check in the Cocos. The shackle had managed to hold the sail in place on the previous passage but it certainly wouldn’t have held on this one, which would have been a real killer as we’ve been on reef 1 for most of our 10 days at sea. We couldn’t have replaced it easily and safely at sea and might have had to sail underpowered on reef 2!

Yesterday morning Paul heard a slightly different sound to usual coming from the lazarette (aft storage compartment). I couldn’t hear anything different myself. It’s amazing how he picks up even the slightest difference in tonality anywhere on the boat. Anyhow, investigating this further, it turned out the joint which attaches the autopilot to the rudders had worked its way loose and was about to break. This would have led to further issues which with poor weather approaching would not have been ideal. Alan, our mighty engineer got straight to work on it, not easy in rolling seas and driving rain, and managed to fix it for now. In fairness we’ve just logged 20,000 nautical miles so it really shouldn’t be a surprise to have some wear and tear at this stage.

And now for the latest on our fish score… well this really isn’t good news… they’ve come back at us just when we thought we had the upper hand! The current score is 7 to the Fish Vs 6 to LUSH!!!!! Disaster!! Al and Paul really are at a loss to know what move to make next. With very little fishing gear left they are now only using one rod! We’ve had some massive marlin bite but the problem we reckon is that we can’t slow down quick enough to haul them in, next thing we see them jump and then they’re gone! I guess after an adventure like this sailors and fishermen return with stories of the ONE that got away, the problem for us is ours will be the story of the TWENTY PLUS that got away… I’m afraid it’ll be too long a story to tell L

There’s talk of Eddie taking the lads sport fishing in Mauritus so maybe they’ll pick up some tips then! Here’s hoping!

No doubt ye’ll all be glad to hear (back home) that we’ve been experiencing plenty of good oul Irish weather on the last few days (grey mountainous seas with driving rain) and have had to take out our oillies for the first time since leaving the Canaries. At least it means we’ve started going through the massive box of cuppa-soups I bought in Southampton which we honestly haven’t had an appetite for till now! Plenty of Irish music on the go too! Happy days!!

Lots of love,

Audrey xxx

Day 5 at sea and we’re monitoring a depression developing to the Northeast of Mauritius. We delayed leaving the Coco islands by a day to avoid this same depression and we considered delaying for another day however we decided against that and opted to capitalize on some decent wind outside of the low giving us good passage time to Mauritius. That decision certainly paid off and LUSH has averaged over 10knots since we left the Cocos. We normally calculate our passage time based on an average of 8.5knots, so as you can imagine we’re all delighted onboard to be clocking up the miles at this rate. To recap we’ve logged 974 miles after 4 days at sea and 262 miles in one day has been our best day so far.

One thing’s for sure, we’re grateful to be sailing the oceans in this day and age, where we can get decent weather information at sea. It’s only really in the last 10 years or so that yachts have used sat phone and Internet for weather forecasts. Prior to that it was mainly all on HF radio. So once a day we connect to the Internet through our Sat phone and download the GFS model gribfiles with Zygrib in the States. We can get hold of weather faxes too if we want and also Eddie Scougal (from Oyster) has been sending a daily email to the Oyster fleet with an update from UK Met Office.

There is a chance that this depression may develop into a tropical cyclone which when mature can generate winds in excess of 63knots (Force 12). Tropical Cyclones are found around the world in both hemispheres developing within a band between 5 and 20 degrees latitude from the equator and mainly during the summer months. The tropical cyclone season in the Southern Hemisphere is from November to April. Within the eye (centre) of the cyclone winds are light and in the wall around can blow up to 180knots and decrease towards the outside of this wall. A young cyclone moves at a rate of around 15knots and normally in a westerly direction angled slightly away from the equator. It slowly picks up speed until one of two things occur: either it reaches land, or it

recurves (South and then East!).

And now the Good News….

· We are all tracking this with regular forecasts

· UK Met say that there’s a weak to moderate chance of it developing into a tropical cyclone

· Our gribfiles show the max wind speed at 50knots

· We will be over four hundred miles away from where we estimate the centre of the cyclone to be at it’s closest to us (general rule is that outside of 100miles winds are rarely more than gale force)

· We can slow down if we’re concerned of coming into contact with it

· Fortunately the barometre has been steady, as normal, with a regular daily rise and fall of a couple of millibars peaking at about 10am and 10pm and reaching it’s minimum at about 4pm and 4am. Any pressure falling outside this normal daily range will be an early warning for us of approaching weather.

And the Best News of all…..

· I have a load of army ration packs to feed the crew so I won’t be venturing into the galley if the proverbial hits the fan!

And finally some Fishing News….

Well our fishermen are back in action and are currently holding a score of 6 – 3 to LUSH (no flying fish included this time)!!! Rejoice!!! We’re not cursed after all…… well actually there is a footnote coming up……

We had to throw 4 of the fish (Wahoo/Spanish Mackreal) back in the ocean as they were riddled with parasites and worms!!!

One Life…. Currently sailing and fishing through it!

Lots of love,

Audrey and the mighty crew and skipper aboard the goodship LUSH

xxx

Hi all,

Just wanted to touch base as we haven’t blogged in about two months!!!! Clearly having way too much fun to spend even a moment typing on this computer!! We have just pulled out of the Cocos Keeling islands in the Indian Ocean and are setting our sails to cross the rest of this magnificent ocean.

LUSH flew down here from Bali averaging 12knots!!! These islands are class and we’ve had an absolute blast here. The wind blew all week in our anchorage so Paul and I managed to get some kite surfing in and am pretty shattered from it now and with a massive smile on my face!! 😉

Looks like we’ll have plenty of breeze for this next passage!! We’ve sailed around 1,200 nautical miles to here from Bali and we have over 2,345 left to sail, which will take us about two weeks. Bring it on!!!! LUSH and her crew are ready!!

Our fishing record hasn’t been going too well of late, however Al managed to catch a shark (black tip reef shark) in the Cocos so we’re hoping that’s the end to the 9 week fish drought… We reckon the fish in the Indian Ocean might just be that bit more clever than the Pacific ones. Our two resident “fishermen” (Al and Paul) have been changing all the lures around and coming up with all sorts of new tactics to catch something….. here’s hoping!! One thing’s for sure my freezer is looking very empty these days L

Love to all at home

Audrey xxx

PS Blogs to follow on Oz and our most favorite country yet… Indonesia but first I must return to deck and trim those sails… Mauritus awaits.

One Life…. Loving it!!

Mayo for Sam!!! Audrey is doing her bit out here in Indonesia converting two legendary sporting dubs to support Mayo!!!! Enjoy! One Life…..Live It!! :0)