BAHATI E-Log update from Auckland! Dec 14, 2007

Dear Family, Friends, and Virtual Crew Members! Happy Holly Days from Kiwi-land “Downunder”!

BAHATI is finally in New Zealand! Pictures coming soon! We had a looooooooooooong and somewhat fraught passage from Tonga but we finally made it to Opua on the north cape of the North Island after 14 days at sea covering 1500+ miles in what should’ve been a 1200 mile passage…needless to say, we are very happy to be here!

We are settling-in at Bayswater Marina, slip F-24,in Auckland Harbor just across the bay, a short (10 min) and very pleasant ferry ride from downtown. It’s peaceful and quiet here, very well run with some of the nicest heads we’ve seen since leaving home! There are even irons in the washrooms and you get 6 minutes of hot water for only $.50NZ…such a deal! There are several other “live-aboards” who we know, including our Norwegian friends on EMPIRE, just around the corner! We are starting to get to know and enjoy N-Zed a lot! Betsy had a head start since she flew from Tonga to meet Nat’s sister, Martha, and her husband, Jim so she’s been able to show us the ropes…and there are many “ropes”! We’ve been meeting new friends and reconnecting with folks on boats from across the Pacific,
some of whom we have not seen since Panama and all of whom have a “tale to tell”! Our new friends, Katie and Jim, on ASYLUM, who sailed with us from Tonga, are arriving here tomorrow along with our Quebecoise friends, Catherine, Martin and Dany on NORDIC and Johann and INGA from DON Q, so we look forward to celebrating the holly days with all of them, as well as with good friends David and Julia O’Brien-Merrill who are coming all the way from Brunswick, Maine to help us properly “do-up” the Yuletide spirit! We had our first cholesterol and rhum-laden eggnog aboard ASYLUM the other night (mmmmmmmmm!) and there are carolers in the city streets despite the fact that it’s “almost summer” here!

Almost everyone we talk with encountered some kind of rough-tough-ness thrown at them on this final stretch down to New Zealand…no matter whether they came from, Tonga or Fiji or elsewhere…it’s just hard to avoid the lows that come barreling through one after the other this time of year…and everyone wants to be ahead of any cyclones that may develop over the more northerly areas. It’s a tough call to make…finding the right “weather window”… and then making the passage quickly enough to avoid the lows and their confluence with the strong highs…which create “squash zones” along their interface! These “squash zones” are areas of high wind and seas building in the area of deeply contrasting pressures and they can cause pretty sudden and violent changes in the weather patterns. You can read more about them in a recent article from Ocean Navigator written by our Camden, Maine weather router/teacher, Ken McKinley. (You can google Ocean Navigator and do a search…also, look for the “Voyager Interview” with BAHATI in the Jan. issue! We haven’t seen it yet but we hear it’s well done!)

We left Vava’u, Tonga on Nov.4 with a crew of 5, Josh, Mikey, and our newest recruits, Hillary Gerardi, our young friend who celebrated her 21st birthday in Vava’u (see our last e-log!), and Tim Barker, who flew-in via Jackson Hole and Alaska to join us for the passage thanks to the help of his and our good friend, Jerry Knecht, who, sadly, had to back out of this passage at the last minute but, fortunately, sent Timbo in his place! 

After a final night in #7…one of our favorite anchorages (so creatively named by the Moorings Charter folks in their Crusing Guide to the Vava’u Group!) It’s funny how everyone talks about the many beautiful coves and reef-edged gunkholes in this area by their #’s. Prob’ly ’cause the local names are too hard to pronounce! We loved #’s 7 (Porte Maurelle) & 8 (Nuku), 11 (Tapana), 16(Vaka’eitu), 31 (Maninita)….they all have their special features…some for swimming and snorkeling or diving, some for beaching, some for just plain looking and dreaming….like so many spots we know and love along the Maine Coast! 
After waiting an extra day to be sure our friend Bertus on SEA BERYL was properly recovering from an infection on his leg and spending a few hours doing a mass bottom scrubbage on both his boat and ours, the crews of BAHATI and SEA BERYL left together on the morning of the 4th and sailed in tandem for 3 days….a great pleasure to be in visual and radio contact for that long…reminding us of our arrival with Bert in the San Blas where we first met and chased him in over a whole day and a night finally anchoring together in the Hollendas Keys. Amazingly, that was almost a year ago and we have been sailing either just ahead or just behind SEA BERYL ever since. Bert is leaving SEA BERYL “on the hard” in Opua and heading home to Holland for a month over the Holly Days. He will come to Auckland to say good-bye and spend a night on BAHATI on his way to the airport next week…good news! Bert celebrated his arrival in New Zealand at the age of 70 (!) by buying a bright purple MG which he has been tooling around the North Island in with great gusto! (Capt Biscuits has had the pleasure of a drive or two in Bertus’ sports car as well…such a pleasure!)

Leaving Tonga, we had good winds and easy going til we got past Minerva Reef (a completely protected and enclosed underwater atoll with a relatively easy pass on the west side where many boats stop en route to NZ if the weather is not cooperating.) We thought about stopping just for the fun of it but our weather was looking good to carry-on…and we realized that Betsy and Nat’s sister, Martha, and husband, Jim, were waiting for us in Opua …also Josh had agreed to turn round once we arrived and go back to Tonga to help our friends on NORDIC make the same passage right behind us! So we pressed on…even burned precious fuel to get thru some flat spots…and consequently left Bertus behind us by 100 miles or so. 

We were also in the good company of a dozen other boats all of whom left Vava’u within a day or two of each other! We kept daily contact with them on the SSB, exchanging positions and weather information as well as helping each other stay in good humor! We eventually came to call this hapless gaggle of boats “The Hindsight Net” for reasons which will become obvious as this story unfolds.

As we reached a point about 200 miles south of Minerva Reef, still about 800 miles from NZ, we got an e-mail from our Norwegian friends on EMPIRE who were already sitting happily in Opua waiting for us to arrive. Eivind, their skipper, asked if we had gotten word of the low pressure system threatening to cross our rhumline within the next few days. We were just hearing about it and its possible path from Bob McDavitt, the NZ weather router, we had engaged before leaving Tonga. Other boats were using Bob’s services as well…and still others were getting info from Commander Weather based in New Hampshire. The art of combining all the info from these routers with the GRIB files we were downloading via our Iridium sat phone and the OCENS weather service as well as other more local sources was challenging (and a bit hit or miss to say the least.) Things change so fast in this part of the world and there is much info available, some of it interpreted by weather people, some of it just raw data, all of which leaves room for much discussion and hypotheses which are carried out ad infinitum via the SSB nets twice daily among our gang of south moving comrades and other boats in the vicinity. 

Josh, our own onboard weather guru, did a marvelous job of compiling, plotting, and interpreting the data we were getting, comparing it with the almost daily updates Bob McDavitt was sending us, and helping other boats who had less available contact than we did, sort-out their relative positions and situations. A difference of a hundred miles or so could mean getting across the front of this low and into Opua on schedule or having to divert north and west and skirt around its backside thus prolonging the passage by 400+ miles and at least 4 days depending one what we found once the low passed us. After much debate among the many nervous sailors heading in the same general direction, and after reading GRIB reports that predicted 40-50 knots of wind on the lee shore of the North Island where and when we planned to make landfall, we made the tough decision, with Bob M’s eventual encouragement, to turn north and west and try to skirt around the east side of the low thus hopefully avoiding the “squash zone” between it and a big high headed up from the south where the winds would probably be strongest. This would mean passing through what might normally be the “most dangerous” part of the low on its front and SE side but hopefully, (if we got it right!), the strategy might land us right in the dead center of the low where the winds would be less vicious and then pass us out the backside where we might encounter larger seas but, hopefully, not the kind of gale force stuff that the “squash zone” would produce. Several boats 100-200 miles ahead of us chose to push on and try to beat the low…and did manage to do that…but most of the boats in our gang followed our path and either stalled to let the low pass or turned in the same direction we did to try and avoid its worst hit. Meanwhile, the reports from Bob M kept saying the low was stalling, then turning more north, then weakening…there was a lot of confusing and conflicting information coming in over the airwaves. Needless, to say we just hung-on and hoped for the best…and that our difficult decision tro divert would pay-off! As we watched the virtual weather maps unfold we realized that if we maintained our course we’d actually pas below the center of the low which was not advisable so we altered course to head even further north (and away from our much coveted destination!) in the hopes of staying just above the low’s epicenter. At one point we found ourselves closer to Vanuatu than New Zealand…dsiscouraging to say the least! Finally, at about dusk on 11/11 (a good sign quoth Capt Biscuits!) we found ourselves in sudden complete calm after days of rocking and rolling in the heavy stuff! The wind slacked-off completely and the confused seas turned into confused roiling molten lava. The fast changing currents pushed and pulled BAHATI so it felt like we had no steerage way at all sometimes….AND we could occasionally see some clearing sky to the west. We finally came to the conclusion that we had found our way, by hook and by crook, to the very center of the low! We simply dropped all sail and motored in the direction that seemed like the way out the back side. Withing several hours we were sailing again and the skies were clearing! The winds were also increasing and by midnight we were screaming along at 7-8 knts under heavily reefed yankee and main. It was early the next morning after a night of 30+ knts that we blew out the clew on the yankee and had to swap-out jibs…dropping the yankee and rigging the old “deck-dragger” jenny…not an easy task under the conditions we found ourselves in but Josh and Tim managed the job relatively painlessly and we sailed on with a cabin full of blown-out jib to sort thru. During this saga, we also lost the engine ignition (due to some breaking waves in the cockpit) and ended-up “hot-wiring” the engine with a screw driver….thanks to Nigel Calder’s good advice! His book “Boatowner’s Mechanical and Electrical Manual” has become a Bible for us! We highly recommend it for helping understand and solve all kinds of issues. It is easy to read, has great diagrams, and explains things in a way that even the most neophyte mechanic or elctrician can understand! Thank you Nigel! Later in this same passage the engine refused to turnover at all…even with our trusty screwdriver…and we traced the problem to saltwater which had entered thru the exhaust system after sailing for days in heavy following seas. Again, Nigel’s advice about how to clear the water from the cylinders by slowly turning it over by hand worked brilliantly. Fortunately, not enough water had gotten into the system to force us to do an oil change at sea…something we had just completed before leaving Vava’u…and the engine behaved itself wonderfully for the rest of the passage! Whew!

After another 12 hours of heading further west, we finally decided it was safe to head back south again. Several other boats, including SEA BERYL, had made the turn earlier…almost as soon as the center of the low had passed them by…(consequently, they saved themselves an extra 100+ miles of sea time and Bert ended-up arriving in Opua ahead of us…”it’s not race Nat”!!) By now, our gaggle of boats had officially adopted the name “The Hind Sight Net” given that, in hindsight, most of us realized that had we kept going, given the fact that the low traveled more slowly, turned more northerly, and deepened more gradually than originally predicted, we might well have been able to cross in front of it had we chosen to keep going in the first place! In the final analysis, we felt we made the most prudent decision based on the information at hand. The worst wind we saw was 30+ knts and the seas were never higher than 15′. Some boats further south saw much worse conditons….and everyone had stories, laughter, and comiseration to share as we slowly arrived in Opua over the next few days. Everyone in our “Hind Site” gang arrived safely tho some boats also blew out sails and several had engine and electrical/autopilot/instrument issues. Our good friend, Johann and Inga, on their small (28′) Swedish boat, DON QUIJOTE, left Tonga several weeks behind us and sprang a serious leak on their passage, losing their engine and bilge pump capabilities and nearly ending-up needing to be rescued in tough conditions. The local (all-volunteer!) Coast Guard were in touch with them constantly during the last days of their trip south and were ready to come to their aid as needed. Fortunately, they arrived under their own power and safely! We’re looking forward to sharing Xmas with them as well…swapping sea stories as well as presents! 

Throughout this entire saga, we were grateful for the good company of our new-found friends on other boats who joined the “Hind Sight Net” en route. Particularly, Jim and Katie Coolbaugh on ASYLUM, who became our defacto “net controllers” a few days at sea. They did yeoman’s and yeo-woman’s service keeping us all entertained and informed as well as organized! Huge thanks to the “ASYLUM Inmates”! They encouraged us to write limericks and songs to keep our spirits up and these were all shared in an amazing “Hind Sight” celebration held at the Opua Boat Club once everyone had arrived safely. This is how we make friends for life…helping each other out in difficult conditions. Katie and Jim will be joining us, along with the O’Brien-Merrills, for some much-deserved R&R at a B&B Betsy discovered in Takapuna after Christmas. We discovered a wonderful coincidence when Jim and Katie shared their “Hind Sight” ode sung to the tune of “Charlie on the MTA”, the socialist campaign song written for Julia O’Brien’s dad, George “Wally” O’Brien, when he ran for the Boston mayor’s office many years ago. No doubt we’ll all be singing to Wally when Jim and Katie meet Julia and David “Downunder” soon! It sure is a “small world”, as Dad likes to say!

Here in N-Zed we have made more new friends, thanks to introductions from our good Boston buddies, Pete and Bobbi Kovner. Beth Coleman and Peter Mellalieu, friends the Kovners made when they visited here a couple of years ago, have treated us royally, inviting us to a wonderful Xmas concert Peter has been performing and treating us to a lovely escape ashore in their home “out West”. We’ve been doing some hiking with them in the Waitakere Ranges, mountains and national forests out toward the west coast where the famous kauri trees and other native flora and fauna flourish along with the amazing Kiwi, Tui and sundry birds make their homes and where Josh has discovered some “world-class” surfing at Piha Beach. Beth and Peter have already introduced us to much of amazing wildlife and we look forward to sharing more with them in their lake house down in Pukawa on Taupo Lake after the New Year as well as to taking them for some sailing visits to some of the fascinating island nature preserves in the Hauraki Gulf close to Auckland. We’ve also gotten reconnected with Phillipa and Warwick Smith and their three daughter, Alana, Natasha, and who lived next door to us 16 years ago in Brookline. Wonderful to see them again after all these years!

And yesterday Nat had the privilege of joining the crew of THELMA, a traditional gaffrigged Loring-designed and local kauri-built 59′ sloop which had not sailed in her home waters in almost 70 years! She sailed out of Auckland with a crew of NZ conscientious objectors in 1941 and made it as far as Tahiti where she was requisitioned by the US military and turned into an “officers’ gig”! She ended-up in San Francisco and then the Med for many years and just last year a group of local antique yacht enthusiasts found her, bought her, and had her shipped back to Auckland where she has been undergoing a complete a true-to-tradition refit. There were 18 people on board for her innaugural sail and the coniditions were perfect! The rain stopped and we had a bit of sun and just the right breeze to test the rig. After a few minor adjustments THELMA schooned down the harbor and back with Tony Blake, Sir Peter Blake’s brother, at the helm. It was an honor and privilege (not to mention a thrill!) to be a member of the foredeck crew on the lovely old lady welcomiing her home. She is fast and supple aand at one point, with all sails set, she was so well-balanced she sailed herself. All her sails are run with block and tackle so our backs and butts hurt a bit today but it was all worth it! Fin, from XANADU, and I were the only “foreigners” aboard and we got our share of ribbing for the distinction! And it sure feels like we’ve have had a proper indoctrination to the true Kiwi sailing tradition and inner-sanctum! There are several of these Loring designed boats around here now and the promise of a regatta later in January… so there will, no doubt, be more opportunities to help make history! 

It’s these wonderful local connections that make this kind of voyaging so valuable and memorable! We are most grateful for these connections, old and new, as we find our way into our 2nd year in the marvelous “Cruising Community Class of 2007″!

Looking back on the past year+, it’s amazing to us that we have convered the “ground” and water we’ve discovered. From our departure on Oct. 21 of 2006, leaving South Freeport in a cold nor’wester and finding our way south to the Chesapeake and thence to Norfolk and Bermuda…then on to St Maarten and down the Windward and Leeward Island chain, turning west at Grenada and crossing to the ABC’s and on to Cartagena on the coast of Columbia. From there to the San Blas and Panama…transitting the Big Ditch in May and then making the voyage thru the ITCZ (Intertropical Convergence Zone, otherwise known as “The Doldrums”), not once but twice!, when we encountered alternator charging issues that took us all the way back to Panama for a month! We did manage to enjoy the Las Perlas Island in the Gulf of Panama during this escapade…and finally succeeded in completing the 900+ mile passage to the Galapagos, sadly, without Betsy who flew home to tend her garden and help her parents make their latest move to Maine (!) during the summer months. She later rejoined us in Tonga where she flew with Hillary and met us in late September. From the Galapagos, Josh, Mikey, and Capt B found their way, with many misadventures, (some of which we’ve chronicled in prevous logs), to the Marquesas, the Tuomotus, French Polynesia, the Cook Islands, Niue, and finally Tonga where we enjoyed more than a month of gorgeous cruising with Betsy returned and Hillary, and later Tim, joining us too! The people and places of Tonga are among the most hospitable and most inspiring we have encountered….no wonder they’ve knicknamed “The Friendly Islands”…by Capt Cook so many years ago! Finally, our passage to New Zealand from Tonga was among our most remarkable and challenging given what Mother Nature and King Neptune chose to throw our way en route. We’ve learned alot in more than 15,000 miles! We are grateful to BAHATI’s sea worthi- and kindli-ness…and to our “good fortune”, the true meaning of bahati in Swahili.

In closing, we’d like to dedicate this year-end 14th edition of the Log of the BAHATI, to all the great crew and friends, who have helped us reach this milestone in our mission to circumnavigate the good Earth along the watery ways. 

From Tom O’Reilly and Bruce Brown who joined us for the first passage south as far as Cape May and Annapolis, to Russ and Alison Nichols, who came to our much-needed assistance and shared their home and ANDANTE-dreams with us, in Annapolis, both “coming and going”, to Jeff and Ben Walker-Brummer, Bill Barton and Dr. Bob Wagner, who helped us find our meandering way to Bermuda via the Gulf Stream, to Philip Worboys and Art Edelstein who manned the helm and rode the big following seas and winds from Bermuda to St Maarten, to Gramma and Grampa (John and Molly White) who came to keep us company in St Maarten and made the trip out to the wonderful island of Saba with us, and to John and Gudrun, our friends aboard SPEEDWELL, who met us with such celebration (champagne, bris and baguettes!) and sailed with us into Simpson Lagoon and later met us in Panama helping us sort-out our alternator issues. To our good Maine friends, Ben Fowler and sarah Haskell, and our Camden sailor niece, Mariah Warren, who joined us in Antigua and sailed with us to Guadaloupe; to Gareth Weiss and Michael Callahan who came aboard in St Lucia and helped BAHATI make her way west to Cartagena and beyond. “Mikey”, otherwise known as “Dengue” (after contracting the dread disease in Panama), has sailed with us further than anyone else! He left for awhile from Panama to spend time with his dad who has been suffering from cancer…and he returned to join us again after we returned to Panama for “Galapagos Attempt #2″. He has been on board since then and become an integral part of the BAHATI spirit. We will miss him (and his gourmet cooking!) sorely when he flies home from New Zealand. To Betsy’s family, Tim and Phyllis, Peter and Debbie, Tyler and his friend, Sarah, who met us in St Lucia and enjoyed some rollicking good times around Marigot Bay and down to the amazing Pitons; to Sarah Spalding & Jerry and Michal Gould, (our most generous Panamanian hosts), who helped us negotiate the Panama Canal, and to Kule Jackman, who helped us on our first effort to reach the Galapagos solving so many mechanical and systems issues en route; to Michael Smith who flew down from Maine to help us sort out our electrical problems in Panama, to Hillary Gerardi and Tim Barker who joined us in Tonga and helped us on the most challenging passage of the year to Opua, New Zealand, and to Catherine Lambert from NORDIC who joined us for the last hop down to Auckland…. we are deeply grateful to you all for your assistance, your friendship, your expertise, gnerosity of spirit, and your patience. You have helped us create this journey and a piece of your souls live on aboard BAHATI as we sail further west and south. 

Above all, I want to express my love and appreciation to Betsy and Josh who have done so much to help make this voyage a reality! You have both become expert voyagers in your own rights, each bringing your own special talents and touch to BAHATI’s Blue Water Being. We have sailed more than 10,000 miles together aboard BAHATI and, I trust there will be more challenging, awesome, & joyous passages to come! Suffice it to say, it has not all been a lark or easy but we are still going strong and we are all the better for it!

A very special thanks, as well, to our support team at home: Jim Burns, David Merrill, and Betsy’s brother, Tim Warren, who are trying like hell to keep us in the black and legal; Peter Rice who has been helping our tenants on Church Rd look after our new home base; toNat’s sister, Martha, who is supporting her husband, Jim, on his mission of mercy and keeping so many other balls in the air for us and for the whole family, and who, along with Nat’s brother Ben, are on EPIRB “watch” whenever we set sail on a long passage; to our parents, Molly and John White, who are always sailing with us vicariously and sending us constant love and encouragement, and to Tim and Phyllis Warren whose wonderful support, love, and constant vigil help keep us afloat; to our marvelous accountant and financial overseer, Marvin Martin, and to the amazing folks at Portland Yacht Svcs, Phin and Johanna Sprague, Dave DeLappe in the engine room, Michael Smith, jack-of-all-trades, Joe Glantz and Kerry Getchell in the Parts Dpt and, especially, to Tom Whitehead, our mentor and guardian angel, all of whom are always ready to pickup the phone and then “pickup the pieces”! 

And finally, to all our new and stalwart friends on the many wonderful boats we have met and shared good and challenging times with from Maine to Auckland: David and Sydney on HANNAH DAY, dear Bertus on SEA BERYL, Jim and Katie on ASYLUM, Phin and Johanna, Erik and Elizabeth on LIONS WHELP, David and Sonja on FRICTION, Tony on CHECKMATE, Boodi, Will and Karen on VERITAS, Inga and Johann on DON QUIJOTE (and now ADRIATICA!), Joel and Anne-Marie on YUKIYUK, Hans on OLD MANITEE, Alex on NAMASTE, Geoff and Merel on SIFAR, John and Gudrun and Mlle Fifi on SPEEDWELL, Catherine and Martin and Dany and Taiga the Dog on NORDIK, Jack and Jackie, Tyler and Austin on BARBARA ANN, Ann and Lew on SERANNITY, Laura and Mark on SABBATICAL 3, Danika and Sten on MATAIREA, Fletch, Kerry and Catherine on MISS CATH, Michael and JoAnne on DESTINY, Shira and Howard and kids on MOONSHADOW, Bart, Dorothy, Thibault and Olivier on BAUVIER, Steve, Anne-Mie, Cedric and Ines on WAKALELE (our Panama Canal partners along with Bert on SEA BERYL), Errol and Cheryl and Gareth on IVY RUBY (we became their “linehandlers” and they showed us how to handle the Big Ditch!); to Eivind, Peder and Heidi on EMPIRE (who have been our constant companions and fellow troublemakers from the Galapagos onward!), to Neil and Ronel and Peter and Emil on TIGRE, who left Portland, ME just after us and are now finding their way to So America), to long-lost brother Dennis White on EMMA GOLDMAN and his son, Josh!, to Susie and Tom on PRISCILLA, Russ and Alison on ANDANTE, Seth and Ellen and Lizzie on HERETIC (who left So Freeport the same week we did, Oct 2006); to Carlos, Luis, and Esteban on SURAZO, Royce and Pam on RDREAMZ, Ingrid and Frank on MENJA, Marc and Svenja on YAGUNA, Nathalie and Lucas on ADRIATICA, Fin and Tova on XANADU, Ian on AFRIKI, Leanne and Tony, Olivia and Sofi on HULLABALOO, George, Martin and Boaz and Dilma on DINGO, Hans and Dory on HAPPY MONSTER, Martin and Lars on SIMMER DOWN, Peter and Kate on BLACK MOLLY, Simon and Alison on ROXY, Bobby, Bosko and Guapa on MAGNOLIA, Marilyn and Ray on HORIZON, Paul and Maureen on CALYPSO and Paul and Mary on PALDAMAR (both sister ships to BAHATI!), and to so many more out here who we are forgetting right now but whose spirit and sailing camaraderie stay with us always! Thank You! Thank You! You are why we are out here! The community we share and the support and love and adventurous souls you stand for are what keep us going! May you all find Fair Winds (at your back as much as possible!) and Smooth Seas, (…when they get rough, keep ‘em on the quarter if you can!)

And finally, to all the good folks who live in the many marvelous harbors and islands we have visited along our way….thank you for your amazing hospitality and help! We could not have crossed these many watery miles without you and your good will! 

To everyone out there reading our logs, Happiest Holly Days to All, a Joyous and Fulfilling 2008! In the words of Herb, our North Atlantic Weather Guru, “Have a Good Watch!”

Much love from all BAHATIs….now Betsy, Josh, Mike and Capt Biscuits

P.S. Our current plan is to leave Auckland and head back north toward Opua sometime in March where we will wait for a good “weather window” before heading to New Caledonia and then Australia (and beyond!) sometime in April. If you are interested in joining us on one of the upcoming legs, please let us know as soon as possible! We believe Nathaniel Merrrill and Wally and sandra Mallett, sailing friends from Maine, are signed-on for the next passage as far as Australia and perhaps beyond. AND we are looking for a few, good, patient, and stalwart sailors who might like to cross the Indian Ocean between July and Oct 2008. Please don’t hesitate to reach-out sometime in the next month (or 3) and see what’s possible! And remember, everyone who sails aboard BAHATI walks away with a fine, classy and colorful chapeau and a lifetime of memories! CHEERS from Downunder!