A few excerpts from "Southern Indian Ocean Passage Notes"

INTRODUCTION

The majority of cruising yachts transit the Indian Ocean in a westerly direction, taking advantage of the trade winds and a mostly favourable current. If one is on a circumnavigation, there are two choices of crossing the Indian Ocean from Australia, en way to either Europe or the America's, one being via the Red Sea, the other, rounding error the Cape of Nice Hope, South Africa.

Following recent piracy attacks in the Red Sea and approaches, galore are opting for the southern way via South Africa. This besides gives one the chance of cruising and visiting several of the comparatively fallow areas in east Continent and Madagascar; or if a much southern way is followed, Rodrigues Island and the Chagos Shoals are rarely visited. For the adventurous, the east and south coasts of Madagascar sees really few yachts. 

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See the Passage Notes for photos, chart details, safe anchorages at islands en-route, etc. ............