Richard’s Bay, South Africa is my last stop aboard SV Obelisk and my departure is definitely bitter sweet. I originally set out to sail across the Indian Ocean for a couple of reasons; to learn more about sailing, to see if living…
Passage: Madagascar to South Africa
The passage from Mahajanga to Richard’s Bay South Africa is about 1100 miles on and was to be my last aboard Obelisk. It’s a very technical and challenging passage for two main reasons; strong and extremely variable currents and the…
Madagascar: Mahajanga
Mahajanga is a good sized port city where pretty much all visiting yachts check out before heading to South Africa. It’s not a big international tourist destination though it is known as a place where Malagasy’s from inland come for beach…
Morumba Bay
Morumba is a gorgeous bay that is the most prototypically Malagasy place we visited. It’s made up of a couple of tiny fishing settlements, several islands spread out among a lagoon, and plenty of baobab trees and lemurs. The small…
Madagascar: Nosy Lava
After a full day and night of sailing from Nosy Be arrived at Nosy Lava, a small uninhabited island and former prison colony about 80 miles to the south. The island has a really nice reef surrounding it and is…
Boat Life: The Boat
Obelisk is the sailing boat version of a Sherman tank.The model of the boat is a Sky 51 which was an American design built in Taiwan in 1982. At 51 feet and 22 tons she’s much longer and heavier and…
Madagascar: Nosy Be
We arrived in Nosy Be in the late afternoon of 11/7. The anchorage was beautiful and we were surprised at how many other cruising sail boats there were (probably around 6). We talked with an American boat and learned that…
Madagascar: Nosy Hara and Mitsio
The sail to from Diego Suarez to Nosy Hara involved going over the northern cape of Madagascar, which can potentially be tricky, but for us it was really beautiful, maybe the most enjoyable day of sailing I’ve had so far.…
Madagascar: Diego Suarez
Diego Suarez sits in a gigantic deep water harbor and gets its name from the Portuguese sailor who discovered it almost 500 years ago. It’s one of the main commercial harbors in Madagascar and is probably the biggest city in northern…
Passage: Reunion to Madagascar
We all had a great time in Reunion, but by the time we set sail out of St Pierre on October 26th we were more than ready to get to Africa. Before we could start the big sail, around 550…