The Voyage
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The Voyage
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WAS IT WORTH IT? Clearly, a circumnavigation on a sailboat is not to everybody's tastes, the cost and the time involved are considerable, there are some risks to be faced, and nowadays it would be possible to fly to most of the places we visited and even to locally rent a sailboat, if you wish. Fact is that we would have never gone to many of these places, if not for the fact that they were part of our itinerary. And certainly travelling on our own devices you are getting in touch with the places and the people in a way that would never happen if you fly there, get inside a resort and get out only for a sightseeing tour by bus, or even if you jump into an already-provisioned sailboat and then move to anchor at the nearest beach-front restaurant. I don't mean to criticise anybody, we are often travelling like tourists ourselves, nothing wrong with it. It's just something else!
The most frequent question we are asked is, rather obviously, "what are the most beautiful places that you have visited?" Actually, thinking about it, we should clarify whether we mean places which are beautiful to visit, maybe just leaving the boat in port, or places where we enjoyed sailing, and the latter were surprisingly few! Speaking of places that we liked visiting, the first answer, maybe a little simplistic, is "all of them!", and to some extent this is true because all places we saw had some merit, and after all the Rally itinerary is crafted to choose the best places along the circumnavigation's general route. At the same time, we obviously have some preferences, and so here are at the top of the list the nicest places which, not by accident, are the most difficult to visit other than by boat: - the Tuamotu islands, in particular Tahanea, a large, un-inhabited atoll (well, we actually found TWO seasonal inhabitants!...) where we spent few days swimming among brightly coloured fish and doing beach-BBQ's under the moonlight... - Aitutaki, one of the Cook islands, surrounded by an absolutely gorgeous coral reef, with white sandy beaches crawling with thousands of hermit crabs of all sizes and shapes, and stingrays swimming among the giant clams in the lagoon... - Uligan, a small island in the northern atoll of the Maldives, where tourism has not arrived yet and the inhabitants, kind and helpful, have been a pleasant surprise after Sri Lanka... And then, in no particular order: - Lanzarote (Canary is.), with its thousand volcanoes and dramatically spectacular sceneries - The Caribbean, which is still pleasant to sail leisurely, despite the crowds and the high prices, and in particular: - Nelson's Dockyard, the romantic marina set in the ancient British Caribbean naval base - Bequia and the Tobago Cays, first sample of life in the tropics - Bonaire, with its pink flamingos and its plentiful fish, swimming without fear in two feet of water - the Galapagos islands, surprising despite the media over-exposure - the Marquesas, with their spectacular sceneries and their people, proud of their nearly-forgotten traditions - the Society islands, despite all, Huahine above all, but also Moorea, Tahaa, even Bora Bora - Fiji, with their friendly people, the traditional dances and the kava ceremony - Vanuatu, still little-exploited and unspoilt (but no bungee-jumping, it wasn't the right season!!) - Indonesia, Komodo and Rinca with their dragons crawling on the beach, the welcoming fishermen of the islands, Bali with its unique culture and Borneo with its navigable rivers in the forest and the orang-utans - Singapore, despite the noisy and uncomfortable Yacht Club, huge multi-ethnic city-state mixing tradition and modernity - Malaysia, of which we knew very little and turned out to be interesting and welcoming - Thailand, despite the negative aspects of too much tourism - Oman, un-foreseen stopover in a country little-equipped for tourism and still welcoming, andour first impact with the desert! - Djibouti's interior with its very poor but dignified inhabitants (quite unlike in the main town...) and the spectacular landscapes - Karnak, Luxor and the Valley of the Kings (they may be full of tourists, but they are still fantastic places) - Crete with its history and the Cyclades with
their white cube-shaped houses THE DISAPPOINTMENTS... Very few and most at least partially compensated by some interesting aspects: - Tonga Islands, although I must admit that we were in the wrong mood, having reached the islands riding a very dangerous storm just to be greeted by 24 hours of torrential rain and then by mysterious engine problems and finally being forced to anticipate our departure due to a schedule mis-communication by the Rally organisation... - Australia: we were allowed too little time to visit this huge Country and the sailing in the Coral sea was somewhat spoilt by the murky waters, infested by killers of all kinds. - Sri Lanka, especially due to the people's attitude, although this seemed to be a problem mainly in the tourist-infested places, and the country is interesting and full of history - the Red Sea: strong winds, mostly on the nose, cold
and murky waters, the ever-present "baksheesh" culture REGRETS...(Places we didn't see) - Tuamotus: yes, I know we did go there, but we would have liked to stay longer and visit some more islands! - Maupiti (an atoll just west of Bora Bora): unfortunately this island is accessible only with good weather, and just for a change we were late leaving from Bora Bora, so we opted to go to Aitutaki instead; luckily, it was a worthwile visit as well! - Palmerston and Suvarov: two atolls some 6-700 miles North-West of Aitutaki, reported to be very beatiful and belonging to the oceansailors' lore. Unfortunately, they were too far off-course to go there during our leg from Aitutaki to Tonga.
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Webmaster: Gianfranco Balducci - email: gfbalduc@tin.it Last Update: 11/11/2014
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