Please excuse the delays in updating our blogs. We’ve written several, but our main computer crashed, and Sima has spent the better part of a week recovering it. We’ll back fill a little bit as we sail along now.

We’re off to sea again in about two hours, starting a long journey across the Indian Ocean and into the Red Sea and then through the Suez Canal to the Med. Three months of mostly sailing. But the seasonal winds seem to have died a month too soon, and we may have missed the monsoon winds to carry us across the Indian Ocean. (Hey, maybe that’s why it’s called the Monsoon — because it dies a Month to Soon!) We’ll take it in baby steps, motoring to Sabang, on the tip of Aceh, in Indonesia, and then to Sri Lanka, and then the Maldives. But then we’ll still have a 1,300 mile trip in front of us, from the Maldives to Oman, and, if there’s no wind, not sure how we’ll get across. We’ll see.

After that, we get rewarded with the famed run through pirate alley off the coasts of Oman and Yemen. Then, the real treat, a long beat against the winds up the Red Sea. So, we’re a little bit anxious as we go. But, focused on each step, we’ll take it easy. Worst case, we suppose, is that the winds aren’t there, and we’re forced to spend another season in SE Asia. Things could be worse than that.

Sima complained to her mom about the challenges in talking with her last night, and her mom said, “But I thought that this is what the trip is all about — being faced with such challenges and learning how to deal with them and go with the flow.” Well said, Selma.