In Dar we had enough time to hand over Arcecega, provision Opela, say hi and bye to some special friends before setting sail 3 days later to South Africa .   After having had 6 months off Opela it felt strange and familiar to be back on her.   Kevin had done some work on her while I was away and she was looking pretty good.   He had also done some provisioning - 42 cans of beef stew and chicken casserole, one packet of rice and a bag of muslie!   (no comment - but at least I know what he will be eating when he travels across to the Caribbean and that for at least 42 days he will not run out of food)   The first part of our trip down the coast of East Africa and the top part of Mozambique was spent beating, beating and beating while we took an extreme pounding as Opela seemed to belly flop and slap down hard after each second or third wave.   This is not my favorite point of sail/tack but Kevin and I both knew we would be sailing into headwinds and we both had quite a good work out w

Time flies with the wind as change rides on her back.   Never has anything been more relevant or shown to me more profoundly than the above, together with the fact that nothing stays the same and everything is constantly changing.   As the winds of time blew through Opela’s sails I was reminded time and again that everything is just a moment and that this moment will too pass.   As I now reflect on my past lunar month of sailing together with the past 7 years I have spent living on and off the water I can bring to memory all the moments of my latest sail together with those past   7 years, some of which included my moments of awe, wonder, joy, love, nervousness, fear, drunkenness, happiness, beauty and contentment as moments frozen in time, which moments make up a collage of my experiences and during this time I have lived, one continual moment, of which can now only be called happy memories.   Some of the more vivid moments during the last month of traveling that stand out in my