Timshel - Cocos Keeling to Mauritius Day 1

It's finally time to leave Australia after a few days at the beautiful Cocos Keeling Islands way out in the Indian Ocean. We'd all been busy with various tours and activities - probably too many as the best day was the last one where we had the briefing for the next leg, the prizegiving and lunchtime BBQ and all chilled out together at the Shelter on uninhabited Direction Island where we were anchored. And we got a prize - 1st in Class B on corrected time. This was mainly due to not having used the engine at all as others were penalised by an extra 1.8 hours for each engine hour added to their time. Our friends on Misto got 1st in the multihull class, with Madrigal 1st in Class A. On departure Steve had to clear out with Cocos Police ashore, unfortunately once this was doen there was not a lot of time for us to get the outboard and dinghy hoisted up, dinghy deflated and everything stowed, It's alright for those with davits, I think we are the only ones with a fully deflatable dinghy. After a frantic rush we got to the start 8 mins late but were not last over the line. Misto was acting as committee boat - she is staying at Cocos for another week waiting for skipper Ros to return from US - she had to back to sort out the ravages of hurricane Florenec on their home and possessions in North Carolina. we are quite envious really though of course they will have only a short time in Mauritius. Once clear of the islands, we set course with main and yankee wing and wing. Unfortunately the light wind died and died - where was the 17-22 knots promised in the weather forecast? Also it had been blowing 15 -20 knots almost all the time when we were in Cocos, making trips to shore in the dinghy very wet and bouncy. Eventually we started the engine and put sails away for 4 hours - so no clean sheet for Timshel this time. We set sails again 4 hours later and sailed very slowly all night.