We eventually left the comfort and protection of the Lamu anchorage in a convoy of three boats and turned left to head north towards the a Gulf of Oman. Notoriously the most dangerous stretch of water in the world – sailing up the Somalian coast towards Yemen. Nearly all the yachts transitting the Red Sea come from India in effect bypassing most of the Somalian coastline but we were sailing right alongside the coast for over 1000 miles – the first boats for years to do this run. continue reading…

When we got back from Rwanda we spent a few days in Nairobi with Will again. Nairobi has hellish traffic and we were due to arrive at 5pm but didn’t actually get in till about 9pm which turned our 23 hour bus trip into a 27hr one! Add to that the hour it took to get to Wills place and we arrived very weary but happy to be upright!  The flat was full of people when we arrived and so it didn’t take long for the party to begin. Six degrees of separation reared its head when we discovered that one of their friends was a mate of my nephew in Buenos Aires so we promptly Facetimed him in Argentina…. the night ended up with drinking games until dawn- all fun and games in Nairobi – continue reading …>

 

We boarded the bus in Nairobi for Rwanda at 5pm and splashed out the grand sum of $44 each for the VIP seats. They were so wide that we couldn’t even sit next to each other but as most of the journey was at night it didn’t matter.  We all had to get out when we reached the Ugandan border but it was pretty painless and we were through within the hour.  We travelled through Uganda, which was much greener than I had expected and arrived at the Rwandan border early in the morning.  We were both stiff but managed to get some sleep on the bus. We headed straight for the hotel for a shower and some lunch followed by a lazy relaxing afternoon by the pool.
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Our daughters flew into the tiny island of Manda where we were able to pick them up by dinghy!! Just walked up the jetty and met them from the little plane.  I think that will probably be the first and last time we will ever be able to do that…  straight back to Indian Summer where Ian was like a kid in a candy store with all the spare parts they had brought over and I was thrilled to get my supply of licorice. It’s the only thing you just can’t get anywhere and I love it! continue reading …- >

We had a slow sail from Kilifi to Lamu due to headwinds arriving at midday to the waves of Proud Cat and Tiger Lilly welcoming us to the anchorage. Lamu is an island in the far north of Kenya about 55nm south of the Somali border just a couple miles off the mainland and is the favoured holiday spot for the continue reading….>

 

 

Kilifi has been a lovely stop – a sheltered anchorage on a secure mooring, a delightful little yacht club patronized by locals, a good well stocked town and a great gang of cruisers to play with.  A couple days after we arrived Ian was checking the port fwd cabin bulkhead and found some rot. Hopefully it was to be just a small section but the more he checked the more he found.  Solution? A complete rebuild of both the horizontal and vertical bulkheads in the cabin. He had some plywood and glass – not quite enough but with the Kilifi boatyard 100m away it seemed like the best option was to do it here.
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