72 days passed from the day we departed Australia in Darwin to our arrival in South Africa. We spent 54 of those days at sea.

We knew that departing late in the season would mean long stretches of ocean and short stops, and we knew that the Indian Ocean is often the most challenging ocean circumnavigators encounter. We had prepared the boat accordingly – we made a series drogue, stowed the anchor safely away for every passage, kept a keen eye on the weather forecasts, and kept our sailing tactics conservative.

By and large, the entire crossing went by without any problems. We ran low on fuel on the way to Cocos Keeling, and ended up with a lovely diversion to Christmas Island. The biggest issues may well have been that we at one stage ran out of flour, and that our coffee has been impressively terrible throughout. Our gennaker tore itself apart on the way to Mauritius – a victim of old age, it sounded like a thirteen metre long zipper as it disintegrated in a very light breeze.

Darwin to Christmas Island

We spent a bit too much time in New Caledonia, then followed up by taking a bit too long in mainland Australia. By the time we were ready to depart, we could not afford waiting for a weather window, and set out knowing that there was no wind forecast for the first 800 miles. We had 5800 miles to cover before the cyclone season in the Indian Ocean set in – and about two months to do so. Sailing this distance takes us just shy of 50 days at our usual pace.

Those 800 miles passed easily enough, with the occasional hint of breeze and extended periods of motoring, but as our distance from Australia increased, the winds kept evaporating around us. Rather than head straight for Cocos Keeling, we opted to stop in Christmas Island to take on some fuel.

Though we did not linger for long, we thoroughly enjoyed our stay, largely due to a ridicously helpful local population that drove us and our jerry cans to the gas station, from the grocery store and the ATM. Genuinely wanting to go for a walk was difficult, as we would have locals stop at every corner asking if we wanted a ride. A few thousand Australians share the island with billions of crabs and a couple of thousand asylum seekers. We saw none of the latter, but there were plenty of Australian navy soldiers about. To us they were supremely helpful, though given their purpose on the island I’m sure the refugees do not hold quite the same views.

Christmas Island to Cocos Keeling

The Indian Ocean is supposed to be the windiest of the lot, and we did eventually get our fair share of wind. With 30 knots of wind and very lively waves smashing straight into our beam for many days at a time, all we had to do was hold on – with a triple reefed main and a heavily reefed genoa, the boat doesn’t need much input from us in all but very rough conditions.

Cocos Keeling is a tropical paradise with an interesting story to tell. Direction Island was for a long time the home of a key wireless and cable station, critical to communication during both world wars. The lagoon is on par with the best we have seen in the South Pacific – with the added joys of wifi, and inter-island ferry and regular flights from the mainland, all courtesy of the Austrlian taxpayer. We would have liked to stay much, much longer, but the looming cyclone season kept us going.

Cocos Keeling to Mauritius

We have a tendency to arrive at the end of a passage remembering only the good bits. This is probably good for the preservation of our sanity, but the memories we are left with are hardly a representative sample of how it really was. The first 1000 miles or so were blustery, albeit never problematic. Around the half-way mark, things started to calm down to quite reasonable levels. On arrival in Mauritius, we were relieved to have put most of the Indian Ocean miles behind us, though we knew that the roughest stretch by far was still ahead.

Mauritius was the first stop for many a month resembling a tourist destination non-sailors are likely to find themselves visiting. Island cultures and tourist dollars do not necessarily make for a pretty combination, and Mauritius certainly had its share of distasteful inequality and tacky commercialism. But with plentiful produce, most first-world amenities and a gorgeous lagoon, it’s difficult to find life all too distressing.

If we were to occupy ourselves comparing every aspect of every country with the best we’ve seen somewhere else, this trip would be a continual stream of disappointments. The landscapes will never be as stunning as in the Marquesas, and no fruit will ever match the taste of the pamplemousse and bananas that grow there. Alcohol will never again be as cheap as in Panama, yacht services never as easily accessible as in New Zealand. This, of course, is no way to live. All we can do is enjoy every sandwich.

A brief pitstop at Reunion

When we left Mauritius, the weather forecasts did not promise a lot of wind, and new updates downloaded while underway showed even larger areas without wind. We chose to make a pit stop in Reunion to take on more fuel.

We managed to visit the one week the harbour’s diesel pump was out of action, a rather unfortunate bit of timing. But the gents from customs were helpful beyond belief. After checking us in, they drove us to the gas station, where both diesel and jerry cans could be had – but the cans were painfully overpriced. No matter, the customs car drove all around town to find more reasonably priced jerry cans, and we soon found ourselves back at the boat with both fuel and new cans. After stocking up on some French necessities – cheese and baguettes, mostly – we were again on our way.

Reunion to South Africa

This is the part of a circumnavigation where sailors are mostly likely to come across the one dreaded wave that flips the boat over, the storm that tears sails to pieces, and a continual stream of gales that grinds apart the boat and your will to keep going. We got lucky.

We never saw more than 35 knots of wind, and even this lasted only a few short hours during the final night of the passage. For much of the trip, we alternated between a lot of motoring and slow sailing in quiet conditions. We messed around the southern tip of Madagascar for a few days, with fickle winds and currents doing their best to push us back east, but the current did eventually turn, and we approached the coast of Africa without any drama, and a fridge full of fresh fish. Even the best of planning is useless compared to sheer good luck.

We are happy to have arrived, happy to have put these miles behind us. A few hundred miles of South African coast lie ahead, and then we will be back in the Atlantic. It is deeply satisfying to trace my finger along our route from the Torres Strait to South Africa, knowing that we have covered all those miles, one wave and one day at a time. But every mile we sail gets us one mile closer to home, a reminder that the trip will be over before long; this too shall pass.