By sunrise the next morning, the heavier wind had abated completely. We had over stood our approach into Fogo, and now, we were creeping along in calm water. Leslie pops through the companionway to greet Andrew, just has he gives up the ghost and turns on the engine. “Where’s our wind?” Leslie asks.

“Gone.”

“Gone!?”

“Yeah, there’s a lull before the storm forecasted.”

“Mmmm,” Leslie says as Katherine Hepburn squeezes past her and skulks back to the cat-cubby.

“Where are our friends?”

“Steel Sapphire is almost to Fogo. Erie Spirit is somewhere about an hour behind us. Austin on Enchantress is already anchored at Fogo, so are Matt and Amy on Florence, and Chris and Paul on Georiga with their crew.”

“Oh! No kidding?” Enchantress and Georgia had both come from the Seychelles, Florence had gone through Mayotte, and we three Amigos had sailed from Tanzania. With thousands of miles of spread between these origination points, it’s wild to think we are all arriving at the same place at the same time. The seas are enormous, but it’s a small world after all. “I guess there was some consensus, then,” Leslie said, referring to the fact that the whole fleet decided to pull in and wait behind Fogo.

We waved to our new anchorage mates as Leslie steered my bow into place and Andrew dropped the anchor into solid white sand. Fogo Island had a beautiful beach stretching the length of it’s small perimeter. Sand glowed golden under the morning sun, and the water was turquoise and clear.

With my anchor secure, Andrew and Leslie went down below to clean up “passage mode.” Andrew boiled a kettle and the aroma of Zanzibar’s delicious coffee puffed with clouds of steam out of the French press. They sipped their coffee surrounded by turquoise waters, and waved as Florence’s drone zipped by to say hello. Steel Sapphire continued to hail various sailors in the anchorage over the radio to gather up everyone’s passage yarns.

Soon, we see some small boats zooming toward the anchorage from mainland, and everyone buzzes with nervousness. Are these the infamous officials coming to exact an unpredictable and unknown toll? Leslie peers through my binoculars and reports, “They are carrying a lot of big logs!” The RIB pulls up along the shoreline and a number of men disembark to carry the big logs ashore. They don't seem to bother with us at all. Everyone in the anchorage stops to watch, nonetheless.

Soon, a second RIB follows the first in, but this one approaches Florence and pulls along side. Leslie with her binoculars watches. “They don’t seem like locals,” she reports. Florence and the people in the little boat chat. Florences seem to be smiling; they wave as the RIB pulls away. Then Matt hails the anchorage on the radio. “Apparently, the island is privately owned, and that was the owner popping over to say we are welcome to stay. He also said to feel free to go onto the island for a look around.”

We all breathe a sigh of relief. Maybe we are safe here for the time being. “He also says Pete should reduce the wattage on his radio, they can hear you all the way over on the mainland, bloke!” This, surprises no one. Steel Sapphire’s radio antennae is like some sort of supernatural power. Whenever all the rest of us lose transmission, Steel Sapphire can still be heard chittering away.

The anchorage is....good enough. As the winds build over the rest of the day, waves wrap around the small island from both directions, converging in our anchorage to roll all the sailors from gunnel to gunnel. Andrew, Leslie, and Katherine Hepburn had wedged themselves into their beanbags in the cockpit for morning “Coffee with Kitty” hour when the clatter of broken glass splashed into the ocean across the way.

Mark on Erie Spirit waved and shook his head. “Well, that was the last of my glass on board.”

“Oh no!” My crew says, “Yeah, left the roasting dish unattended for a moment.” We all nodded in solidarity as Leslie slid sideways to be dumped into my cockpit footwell.

Pete fires up the radio, “May as well be sailing down the middle of the Mozambique Channel right now for as calm as this anchorage is!”

Surveying the anchorage, we watched as poor Florence rolled so heavily, her keel seemed to breach the water surface at times. “Ten dollars to the first boat that touches the waterline with their spreader!” Leslie says.

It didn’t take long for all of us to look across the anchorage and see Enchantress sitting far more pretty than any of the rest of us. “What the heck is going on with Enchantress?” I ask. Do you think they are more protected over there?”

Leslie squints, “no....the waves look the same.”

Leslie and Pete start brainstorming options via VHF for other anchoring techniques to consider, and Mark chimes in to say “that’s bollocks”, but you could try this another way. Soon, Austin from Enchantress paddles over on his paddle board and we are all let in on his secret, what shall henceforth be known as the “Enchantress Bridle.”

We up anchor, move to a shallower spot in the anchorage, and set up the Enchantress Bridle. Pulling a strong, but somewhat stretchy rope from the anchor chain back to Sonrisa’s primary genoa winch, we tighten down and it pulls my stern around. Instead of sitting bow to the wind, now I am a bit sideways to the wind but bow toward the prevailing wave pattern. I ride up and down rather than side to side.

“There!” Leslie says.

But, we all look doubtfully at this rope which seems to be under a fair amount of pressure from all the sideways force on my hull from the wind. “It will probably be okay,” Andrew says.

After a few hours, we found ourselves feeling a bit more confident in the situation but a lot more comfortable on board. Andrew and Leslie decided to swim to shore to meet the rest of the sailors for a guided tour of the island resort being built and a beer on the beach.

“So, does this count? Can I put Mozambique on the list of countries I’ve visited?” Sapphire Jen inquires to the group.

“I think you must sleep in a country in order to make it official,” someone else offers.

“Maybe,” Leslie says, but what about layover tours? I’d say I’ve been to Beijing because I walked on the Great Wall, toured Tiananmen Square, and ate Peeking Duck, but we never slept in Beijing because we slept on the plane.”

“Mmm...yeah, that definitely counts,” everyone agreed.

The sailors circulated varieties of circumstances that may or may not count for purposes of our Country-Count, until someone suggested a sailor-approved standard: (1) did your feet touch land (outside the airport); and (2) did you imbibe a new-anchorage libation while you were there.

They all surveyed the beers in hand.

“Ahoy, Mozambique!”

“I think this means we’ve visited Laos and Kenya, then, too.”

If anyone asked my two cents, which no one did, but if they did, I'd say it doesn't count unless you sail there! I'd at least require an asterisk. I count up the countries Andrew and Leslie have visited since we cast off from San Diego in 2016, based on this criteria:

1 Mexico, 2 Ecuador, 3 French Polynesia, 4 Cook Islands, 5 Niue, 6 Tonga, 7 New Zealand*, 8 Fiji, 9 Vanuatu, 10 Papua New Guinea, 11 Indonesia, 12 East Timor, 13 China*, 14 Australia*, 15 Malaysia, 16 Singapore*, 17 Thailand, 18 Laos*, 19 South Korea*, 20 Sri Lanka, 21 Maldives, 22 Chagos/BIOT, 23 Seychelles, 24 Tanzania, 25 Kenya* 26 Mozambique....and counting. South Africa is next at 27, I can only hope.

With Grin still lashed down tightly on board, Andrew and Leslie had requested that Mark keep watch and come fish them out of the ocean if they are not able to swim back from shore. They start their swim back out to me, and something about the waves in the anchorage and the falling evening light gives Leslie the appearance of a drowning rat. Mark paces on deck while seriously considering a rescue mission no less than three times over the course of her swim. Eventually, though, she makes it and I have all my crew back on board.

The wind howls that night, and Leslie peeks out the hatch around two a.m. to see a fishing boat taking refuge in the lee of the island as well.

We wait three days total to let the storm blow itself out and clear the way Southward. Then, at noon on Day 8 of our overall passage, we lift anchor and follow the whole fleet out of the anchorage. We are headed off for Mozambique Channel Passage, Part Two!