I recently completed a Westward circumnavigation on a 48 ft catamaran built in St Francis Bay South Africa. The boat is back at the factory for a refit while I am back in the US. Unfortunately, I left your cruising guide in on the boat and I was thinking of bringing her up to the Med in January. My preference would be to head north up the east coast of Africa and through the Suez, but I wondered what I should expect leaving Cape Town before the SW Monsoon.

Bad idea to head into the Indian Ocean during the cyclone season. I would suggest you take the route I sailed myself in 2005: Cape Town to St Helena, Ascension, north across the equator to Praia in the Cape Verdes, then to the Canaries (we stopped in Gomera), and on to Gibraltar (good winds during an SW depression – frequent in March). You’ll be on the wind north of Cape Verdes to Canaries, so take short tacks and also enough fuel from Cape Town (or St Helena).

Good luck!

Jimmy Cornell, noonsite

PS. Details of my voyage in my latest book “A Passion for the Sea” available at www.noonsite.com/booksale