Our last day in Cocos Keeling Direction Island’s paradise. We are sad to be leaving the extravagant beauty of this place and will miss the lovely views we have enjoyed each morning, but truthfully we are ready to make some practical use of this never ending wind. After five days and four near sleepless nights of the noise and galloping on the white cresting chop here in the bay, we are ready to say goodbye and have these tradewinds speed us on our way to Mauritius. Checkout formalities were quick and easy, and parting was made sweeter by the surprise of Tony’s delectable sugared donuts that captain brought back with him. What a fantastic treat! Tony is one talented guy! In our time here he orchestrated a steak dinner, fresh food boxes full of delectable produce, cheese, chocolate, and milk, fed us all pizza delivered hot from West Island via his speedboat, Phantom, oversaw a wonderful bbq dinner for the prize-giving ceremony and baked countless loaves of delicious sourdough bread, and has now sent us off with the sweetest finish of dozens of fresh home made donuts! Three cheers for Tony and a big shout out to Peter with his Sekali Goose taxi boat too for moving goods and people around. Also, a big big thank you to Stefano and Manel, our fearless yellow shirt leaders who dealt with the impossible logistics and schedules of Cocos Keeling with aplomb! Cocos is a very unique place. Direction island, where we were anchored is uninhabited, but fantastic for walking and camping, with a fabulous snorkel at the rip, across the lagoon is teeny Prison Island and a little sand quay that was perfect for kayaking to before the wind got up, then there is Home island, just 1.5 miles away, what locals call “The Shire” I looked and looked, but to my utter disappointment, did not see one hobbit...just friendly Malay folk. But that 1.5 miles is an eternity in 20 plus knots of wind! It is best visited by the twice weekly ferry! Five miles away is West Island, which was only a blur of green palm trees on the horizon to us. Were told it has a small airport, a market, 60 rooms for rent in various expensive venues, and of course, Tony’s magical cafe that was the source of so many gastronomical delights for us. Back in the 1800’s Direction island was a Copra plantation, and the coconuts were ferried from Direction island to Home island via small sailing vessels. (Evidently, this wind has always been a thing here!) where they were dried then exported to other countries. In the early 1900s there was an undersea cable station here complete with tennis courts, billiards and a cricket pitch. Today only a few red bricks at the end of Direction island rest mournfully in the sand, languishing alongside the biggest collection of lost flip flops I have ever seen. Everywhere in the island are flip flops. I dubbed it the island of lost soles, there are so many of these silly shoes scattered about like autumn leaves on a lawn in October. The palm trees remain, and are beautiful against the surreal aqua water surrounding the pristine white sand beaches littered with mismatched summer footwear. A most unusual paradise. We upped anchor at 11:00 and were almost run over by an eager catamaran crew that came zooming up behind us at the start line...again...I am aghast at the lack of seamanship displayed by these folks in the WARC. Where I come from the overtaking boat YIELDS to the boat being overtaken, but I guess in the WARC “fun” competition traditional rules of the road go out the window. Very stressful and annoying for the cruising , non racing mentality I possess. I have repeatedly asked Captain if we could just skip the Startline circus since we are NOT in the racing division, ( the other non racing captain’s skip the start palaver, and it seems to me that we are just unnecessarily cluttering up the start line for the real racers), but my entreaties are in vain. The start was rough, but the sailing was fast all day despite the huge waves and southern swell that made us rock and roll like barrel riders in a stream. It feels good to be sailing again in our Sweet Dream!
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