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September 6, 2010
Dear Friends,
We hope you are all well.
Please excuse this newsletter instead of a personal note; we are using our sailmail and have no Internet connection at this time.
After our gut wrenching decision to turn back from our planned voyage to Africa last month we have spent a month of soul searching, but also relaxing, at Rebak Island Resort in Langkawi where we sort of recovered our mental balance. This period of calmness has been beneficial. It has allowed us to look at things with a better perspective. Unless we wanted to sell the boat which we are unwilling to do at this time because living on Wings and sailing is still our life or stay in Malaysia permanently, which we also don't want to do even though we have liked it there for this month, we needed to do something about getting Wings on the move again.
One option which we explored was shipping Wings (on a big cargo ship) back to North America where we could live, in Mexico for instance, and not continue traveling. Shipping is expensive but possible. This was a workable option and we were actually progressing down that path.
Now however we have decided to accept the help of a good friend and former crew member from Singapore, Pierre, to sail Wings to Africa.
Judy came up with this idea after another mutual friend Tessa told us Pierre was available. When we contacted him a few days later he agreed and was even excited about the idea. With Pierre on board many of Judy's concerns are lessened and he is a big help. She can even opt out of the crossing from Reunion to Richards Bay if she wants. Plus her back has been fine. All of these factors added up to us making the choice to again face the ocean, this time with the addition of Pierre. We still have plenty of doubts, but we now feel that this is a doable trip. After we get to Africa we will still have some decisions to make but we will have been thinking about it for months, not hours, like last time.
The itinerary is similar to the last one except we will skip Chagos due to lack of time. We expect to be in South Africa by mid November if all goes according to plan.
We left Langkawi on Sept 4 and are now on the west coast of Sumatra. We did a lot of motoring but had some great sailing as well. We will cruise Sumatra for a few weeks and depart for Rodriguez, in the Southern Indian Ocean around the end of September. That is the big jump, over 2400 miles.
We will send email updates and update the blog when we can.
Love, Judy & Fred, SV Wings, Sumatra