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This is the greatest fairy love story I’ll ever tell you. I leave the island where my name is written in the sand before it has time to disappear on the high tide. I sail on south and spend two nights anchored off Nosy Lava, the old prison island. The ruins of the prison are...

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I leave Honey River dripping with memories. I will miss it, like I miss every place I’ve ever sailed to on this fantasy landscape known as Earth. The wind is above the beam and howling in the gusts. Local boats are sailing to one of the myriad of nearby islands. The sun is a butterfly...

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RUSSIAN BAY I never found the wild river hog ham in Russian bay but it was there somewhere waiting to be hunted. I suppose everything is somewhere either waiting to be hunted or hunting. Think about all the energy on this earth is made up of hunt and survival! The Russian Bay village is made...

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I said goodbye to the homemade guitars and flower faced women of Nosy Komba. Gosh that was hard. It hit me like a gust. Anyway, I did it — I departed and made it all the way to Nosy Mamoka, which is only 30 nautical miles south of Komba. I wish I would have stolen...

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It's been too many heartbeats since I last wrote. Not because I forgot you — I think of you each time the wind blows — but because transitioning from sea to land is always exhausting, a little uprooting, and space alone is vital. You know how I like to cocoon and contemplate the meaning of...

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The rising light and the dying light are both gorgeous here in Madagascar, where water costs more than beer. I fill my boat tanks with river water gathered high in the mountains and even that comes at a cost. Strange how a basic need became a commodity, because somewhere along the way we spoiled, poisoned,...

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I drop my anchor in Ampanakana Cove around 16:00. Libre is anchored just off my port and has been waiting for me here for a day. I have just gotten off the phone with my mom, and she is crying because she is so happy I made it to Madagascar. I am crying too. The...

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The conditions have mellowed a touch. The wind is spiking from 28 knots to 37 in the gusts, but the sea state seems more tranquil somehow — waves with less energy, less height, less gusto. I clean all the moldy fruit out of the fridge — oranges, limes, apples — so long. I tidy the...

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I’m in the witches’ cauldron — that bewildering compression zone at the northern tip of Madagascar, where the Mozambique Channel collides with the Indian Ocean in a tangle of currents and tides and wind rips. Even under sunny skies, the water behaves like it's a full blown storm. Local fishermen speak the water's confusion as...

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Whoever has been praying with me for fairer winds at the cape, thank you! I'm seeing 35 knots up there on the latest forecast instead of 40. A lot can happen between those 5 knots, and it feels like a real blessing! A prayer answered. I've come to the conclusion that tomorrow the wind just...

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