The Chagos Diaries: #9 - All Good Things...

All Good Things

Mon Aug 03 2020

Just before we left the Maldives, I wrote that Chagos had long been one of my top 3 destinations on our circumnavigation, and if I’m honest I was a little worried that it might not live up to my expectations.

And it didn’t.

It exceeded them. It’s hard to put into words exactly why it’s so amazing here – there’s certainly no one element that is better here than anywhere else. I think it’s just the combination – scenery, clear water, wildlife, remoteness, and the knowledge that it’s a once in a lifetime opportunity. They all combine to make it special.

Like most sailors who make it here, we’re leaving well before our permit expires. In our case an entire week early.

Why?

It’s certainly not because of any urgency to get to our next destination. Fabulous though I expect Seychelles to be, I suspect we’re going to be there for quite a while due to Covid-19, so I’d rather extract every last amount of time from Chagos while we can.

The issue is weather.

Our original plan, pre Covid, was to sail from here to Rodrigues, Mauritius and Reunion - that passage is known to be one of the toughest in any circumnavigation, 1,000 miles to windward, in typically 25-35 knots of wind and 4-5 metres seas. Most boats which undertake it experience some damage along the way, and even if they make it through unscathed, every sailor who does it describes it as “an experience”.

In fact, it for just this reason that sailors are allowed to visit Chagos at all. Stopping here is absolutely forbidden for any reason, other than to make safe transit through the Indian Ocean – that is to stop and wait for an appropriate weather window to continue your journey.

Accordingly, you typically scour the weather forecasts while in Chagos searching for the most benign (or in actual fact, least malignant) conditions you can, and when you see them, you grasp the opportunity. One of our friends last year found such a window just 9 days into their 28 day permit here in Chagos, and they went for it.

Sadly, only Reunion is open of our next three destinations, and the next two countries after that (Madagascar and South Africa) are firmly shut too. So to keep our options as open as possible, we’ve decided to head to Seychelles which opened recently, and where we are allowed to stay for a year, and see how the world shapes up over the next few months before deciding what is to happen to our plans.

The good news is, Seychelles is downwind from here, so although it will be our longest passage so far at approximately 1,100 miles, it should be far less taxing than the original plan.

Our problem now is not enough wind! We can still expect to experience similarly large swells and waves as we would have done had we been heading to Rodrigues, but these are much less challenging when they’re coming from behind, so long as there is enough wind to keep the boat sailing reasonably quickly.

As our luck would have it, the next 10 days or so are unusually light winds for the area, so we’re going to grab an opportunity for some decent winds for at least the first half of the passage if we leave tomorrow, although the second half will be so light, we’re expecting to be slopping around in the giant waves and desperately waiting until we get close enough to the Seychelles that our fuel reserves will allow us to turn on the engine.

We did consider staying and applying for an extension to our permit until better winds arrive. These are sometimes granted, but you have to be able to demonstrate a genuine need, and I suspect extensions are more commonly handed out when safety is the main factor (ie too much wind) rather than comfort (as it would be in our case due to not enough wind).

Plus, who’s to say how long it would take for the wind to fill in, and whether it might not be too strong when it does come. Then what?

So tomorrow morning at 9am we lift anchor and say farewell to the sailors’ paradise that is Chagos, bound for the Seychelles.

I can’t say we’re ready to leave, but after a couple of days of preparations, at least the boat is, and I know we’ll always have a special place in our hearts for this place.