Sri Lankan Surprise!
Helen flew in from Dubai, is now on board and we’re now en-route from Uligamu (in the north of the Maldives) to Galle (in the south of Sri Lanka).
The reason for this diversion from the original plan? Answers on a postcard, please:
Answer one: We were running out of tea, and I heard that Ceylon (Sri Lanka) has pretty good stuff available.
Answer two: The new government in the Maldives necessitates that to travel from the north to the south of the Maldives in our time frame; we must go via another country, such as India or Sri Lanka.
Yes, it is in fact answer two! A new government was elected in The Maldives last November – the first change in about thirty years. Widespread rumours that the new government are friendlier to cruisers have unfortunately turned out to be bull. I’ve received a wealth of information from different sources – cruisers, official websites, unofficial websites, agents… and at least one part of each source has turned out to be completely wrong.
The new government is making a point of visiting The Maldives independently as difficult as possible. If you take a moment to study a map, Galle isn’t exactly on the way from Uligamu to Gan…
I’ve developed a healthy attitude over the last few months and years of taking adventure from adverse situations (including this whole trip) and after a few days at being pissed off with this unnecessary diversion, have accepted the adventure in it. The cruising guide notes “Sri Lanka navy occasionally depth charge the harbour to dissuade Tamil activists…” How can we not be excited about the adventure in that!?
Seriously, we’d planned to attend our Sri Lankan house maid’s wedding last year but cancelled fairly late in the day due to a few Tamil incidents in Colombo around that time. We’d planned then to visit several parts of the country, including Galle and its colonial Dutch fort and town centre, so it’s great that we’re now getting that missed opportunity to visit.
We are making good progress, assisted by a one-knot current in pretty much the exact direction we want to go. We are aiming to arrive early on Friday morning.
I must check that my insurance covers depth charges…
23 April 2009
Having Laith and Bernard on board for the big leg from Fujairah was good for the company, but also as a couple of extra sets of eyes and hands for night watches and pulling the occasional rope.
What I didn’t figure on was that after a fair few days of this, I surprisingly found it quite stressful being solely in charge, responsible for the all of the key sailing, navigational and safety decisions. That’s one of the reasons I’m so happy to have my first mate back on board. It is great having Helen here to offer a second opinion (and often a first opinion!), and generally to share the responsibility with.
She noticed last night that the steaming light about halfway up the mast isn’t working. Helen’s also good at changing light bulbs… although she does take some encouraging to do the ones high up the mast. We’ll wait until we’re in Galle for that little job – a following sea makes it just a little bit more exciting than it needs to be as movements at deck level are amplified the further up the mast you go.
Helen is about eighty percent of the way through her RYA Day Skipper Theory qualification. I’d say that by the end of this passage she’ll be the most experienced candidate in her class.
Most of all, it is great having someone to share the magic of the experience with. We’ve had some stunning sunsets, dolphin shows most days, and then there’s just the awe of being out here so close to nature and so far from civilisation. I often catch myself relaxing in the cockpit, a lazy eye on the wind occasionally lifting the front of the sail, thinking just how much I luff her…
28 April 2009
The small wooden fishing boats that we’ve had a few games of ‘Fishing Boat Pinball’ with show up only faintly on the radar. When we see them now, we alter course away from them and power on. Thankfully, this is becoming quite rare this far offshore. I never thought I’d say it, but I prefer the huge ocean-going monsters with their big radar reflections and internationally recognisable lighting systems. All the same, we are now in the habit of keeping the radar on at night and whenever we’ve got the engine on (as it’s fairly power-hungry).
The radar has been great. I hadn’t intended to buy a radar but the Westmarine store in NYC had a great discount on a ‘bundle’ including the Raymarine Chart Plotter I was buying so I picked up the radar at the same time. The more you spend, the more you save…
It says on the box that the range is 24 NM, but I think it’s only really useful up to about 12 NM. That’s plenty for watching the traffic. We set up a doughnut-shaped protection zone around us so that any radar target (other ships, land, squalls….) entering this sets off an alarm. I know that people originally got excited about this stuff in WWII, but I still think it’s pretty neat being able to see other boat’s course and speed, and just how close they’re planning on coming to us.
Our Raymarine Chart Plotter was also a relatively recent purchase. It’s one of these pieces of kit that you don’t know how you managed without before you got it. I’ve had the manual out; well actually, it’s so big it comes in several volumes; and learnt a whole bunch of neat tricks.
I’ve been disappointed both by the Iridium satellite phone and by the company that sold it to us. It’s the most cumbersome mobile phone I’ve ever used; even simple things like having to press buttons multiple times to move through text instead of just holding the button down; make it a pain to use. It makes even sending a text message frustrating. It’s supposed to be super rugged, but the little rubber seals that cover the USB and charging ports don’t sit properly, the built-in antenna has stopped working (luckily we have an external one), and two lines of the dot matrix style display don’t work. When a piece of kit is so expensive that you have to sell a kidney to fund its purchase, you expect it to do its job.
The weather is being kind to us – gentle seas with a small and long swell. The wind is on our nose (sod’s law that SW monsoon has established the prominent wind direction. A westerly breeze like last week would have made for beautiful sailing all the way there…) and we have a little less than a knot of current pushing us due south. The wind hasn’t been strong enough to justify big tacks, so we are motor sailing close-hauled on low revs. We are aiming to make more west than south to start with, to give us more comfort of being a little closer to the Maldives and to shelter us from the strong westerly current we are expecting further south.
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