Fishing Boat Pinball
We are making good progress back to the Maldives, although the wind is coming from the exact direction we would like to be heading so we are combining long tacks with overnight motoring (when the wind tends to decrease) to get us where we need to be.
The journey out of Sri Lanka was pretty frustrating at times. The Navy exercise stopped us leaving early morning yesterday so we did not get as many daylight hours getting out of the heavily fished waters off the coast. We had asked in the local fish market whether they were using long nets so at least we could work out what was going on in the water a little better. The fishermen attach one end of their net to a lit buoy and then drift with the other end attached to their boat. The trick is to first spot the fishing boat then locate the marker buoy to work out the direction the net is running. We found out that the nets sit a couple of meters under the surface, allowing us to pass over them between the boat and the buoy.
A useful cruising website called Noonsite had some reports of potential pirate activity. The reality is that according to the International Piracy Centre there have been no actual pirate attacks off the Sri Lankan coast for some four years. Our experience last night suggests rather than pirates it is overzealous and desperately bored fishermen who want to pass some time. One, in particular, kept flashing and flashing us with a spotlight accompanied by frantic shouting and waving of arms. We couldn’t work out where the net was so could only assume they were trying to warn us. That said, whichever direction we went they seemed to get more animated. As a last resort, we approached them, with reasonable distance between us, but at least were in earshot of what they wanted to tell us so desperately. “You want fish?!” shouted one, waving a decent size tuna our way. “You have beer?!”, shouted another. “You have cigarettes?!” shouted the third. Ahem! Panic over and off we set, quietly cursing under our breath. The next few hours felt like a game of pinball though as we dodged and ducked and dived between scores of boats and their nets. After two hours of darkness, we slowly but surely got clear.
Not long after sunrise and almost a hundred miles off the coast and after preparing two batches of homemade bread and a fairly disappointing oven-baked rice pudding, I was tidying up in the galley when Bryan shouted down to express some concern about two fishing boats a few miles off our port stern. These guys had definitely spotted us and were powering in our direction. Not taking any chances we put our foot to the floor and motor sailed to get some distance between us. After a few minutes we were getting ahead and they seemed to get bored with the game. I am not convinced this was anything sinister, more likely boredom kicking in – but you really do wonder if they realise how intimidating they can appear.
29 April 2009
Midday and just starting my fourth book of the passage. The wind is working against us so we are motor sailing a good deal of the time. The engine noise is annoying but you do get used to it after a while. There is quite a bit of cloud cover today so we are keeping a constant eye on the radar. A few squalls have headed past us and we ensured we kept a good distance. Night watch last night seemed a little easier. We kept to three hours per watch and made sure we kept the discipline going to ensure the other one gets long enough for a half-decent sleep. The previous two nights were a real battle to stay awake, but we do seem to be catching up on sleep OK again now. We have found that it takes us a few days on a long passage to get into the watch groove.
We have a few things to do onboard. I need to write up my shopping list for when I get back to Dubai. Unfortunately, I have been a bit careless when emptying our ‘washing up’ bucket overboard. To conserve water we pull seawater on deck in a bucket and keep it handy for dishes as the day progresses. As the water in the bucket becomes decidedly murky it needs to be emptied and a fresh supply bought on board. On two occasions the bucket was not completely empty when I threw the water and the remaining contents overboard and have gifted a plate, some spoons, and a terracotta yoghurt/curd pot to the ocean. Hence some of my shopping is self-inflicted as I replace the items now drifting somewhere in the Indian Ocean. Given the speed at which we are reading, I will bring back a good supply of fresh books when I return to the boat in June. A few more magazines won’t go amiss too.
It looks like we have at least another three days before we hit land, although we expect to start heading down the Maldives coast in a couple of days. It is ironic, at night it is a blessed relief to know there isn’t another boat for miles and miles, but it will be a relief to know the coast is in reasonable proximity though I guess that will mean more boats to look out for too.
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