The first leg of the journey was a 200 NM overnight passage from Aroha’s home port of Dubai Offshore Sailing Club (DOSC) to Fujairah, on UAE’s Gulf of Oman coast.  This was a mammoth voyage for Helen and me – the longest trip by yacht for both of us and Helen’s first night passage.  The offer of our friend Phil to crew on this leg was politely declined by Helen, believing that the sooner we work out how to do it independently, the better.  After the last-minute rudder repair, we had a day of last-minute provisioning and preparation and set off only two days later than planned.  Alas, about six hours out we had a gear failure in the foresail roller fuller when the furling line parted company with the Furlex drum in gusting conditions, resulting in it flogging and tearing the foresail.  At around the same time, the bumpy seas and 34-knot winds caused the autopilot and wind instrument to stop working.  We limped back to DOSC, feeling rather sorry for ourselves.  To add insult to injury, I screwed up the parking coming into our berth.  I would like to say that we were shaken but not stirred, but we were thoroughly both shaken and stirred and I admit to quietly questioning myself as to the sanity of the venture we’re attempting to launch ourselves into. I would never have thought it possible, but all those challenges were overcome, and we set off at about 2 pm the following day for Fujairah.  Talk about a team effort- lots more favours owed to a growing list…  The owner and two engineers from the local Raymarine distributor turned up and replaced the faulty masthead wind instrument and Rob and Kate loaned us their spare foresail.  But mostly they buoyed our sinking spirits and restored our faith in ourselves. 2 April 2009 With the exception of a bee sting to my eyelid, and a quick dusk scuba dive to remove a plastic bag from the prop in front of the Palm Deira, the trip from Dubai to Fujairah went pretty smoothly.  I don’t believe in fate, but surely all of our bad luck has been used up by now, simply in leaving Dubai? The passage from Dubai to Fujairah was Helen and my first night passage together.  We were a little nervous about just the two of us doing the night watches, but the only miscalculation was in the number of munchies on board for those long watches.  I’ve never drunk so much tea or munched on so many McVities.  I guess it’s a boredom relief thing.  The last two hours were negotiating through the mass of tankers and freighters anchored off Fujairah and Khor Fakkan ports.  That radar’s paid for itself already!  We tied up in Fujairah International Marine Club and hit the sack to catch up on sleep. As Helen and I rounded the Musandam peninsula on the way from Dubai to Fujairah on my first night watch I saw a mass of flashing lights ahead of us in the water.  I immediately brought the engine into neutral, thinking that they were strobe lights marking fishing nets and not wanting to tangle nets in the propeller.  As Helen dashed up from below, alerted by the change in engine tone, we realised that we’d driven across a group of presumably mating (or dating and showing off?) jellyfish.  The intensity of the pulses was amazing – if they were near the surface they were about the size of a soccer ball and as bright as a fluorescent light stick.  As we enjoyed nature’s light show, I wondered if I would get to a point on this trip when my first reaction to nature would be admiration and respect, rather than caution or fear. Fujairah is where Helen gets off and my friends Laith and Bernard get on.  It’s also where we meet up with Bernd and John, who’re sailing ‘Chimani’ to the Maldives at the same time.  Bernd and John were on good form, leaving Fujairah a bit after us, requiring a few extra hours to stow a few tons of extra ‘stuff’ on Chimani’s deck. The hardest part of the journey so far has been simply leaving Dubai.  We had six weeks of preparation time from our decision to go cruising to our original target departure date.  This date was subsequently brought forward by two weeks, so four weeks of intensive preparation was quite a good effort by anyone’s account.  Conventional wisdom says that you need to leave the Persian Gulf by the end of March to avoid the change of monsoon season that bring an increased chance of cyclones.  I managed to get all of the important stuff done, which involved calling on favours from friends all around, including a team of Emirates pilot friends working around the clock to carry an EPIRB, foul weather gear, and a replacement rudder bearing from distant corners of the globe. The final preparation for this trip has been insane.  As the economic outlook for Dubai decreased, and our chances of redundancy from a bankrupt government company increased, I spent hours researching additional kit and planning.  When the redundancy came (me first, Helen three weeks later) the plan swung into action to make the dream a reality.  The amount of kit that arrived within the ten days before departure included: dinghy and outboard, AGM batteries, satellite phone, anchor, EPIRB and foul weather gear. The biggest challenge (and stress) was replacing the lower rudder bearing which had become so tight that steering became an upper body workout.  A quick web search found this to be a common problem amongst our type of Bavaria.  The whole exercise took eight days, five of which were lost to hear “the bearing will be here in two to three weeks” from the local Bavaria agent.  Well, that’s not good enough- that would have taken us into cyclone season!  Those of you who have seen the determined side of Helen won’t be surprised that she contacted every Bavaria dealer in the world (not a typo…) and finally tracked down the required part in Sydney.  Twenty-four hours later it was on an EK flight on its way to Dubai, and another twenty-four hours later we had beautiful smooth ‘as new’ steering. Our last night before departure to the Maldives saw a violent thunderstorm complete with hailstones (in UAE??!  That’s got to be global warming!), reminding us that we’ll be at the mercy of the elements in a big ocean.  We had no major problems getting stamped out of the country with Fujairah International Marine Club (FIMC) help, and we left at around 1 pm. Follow and like us to be notified of future blogs! www.facebook.com/ripeningnicely