Day 104, Year 5: World’s Best Shopping

February 8th, 2010

Day 104, Year 5: World’s Best Shopping
Date: Monday, February 8, 2010
Weather: Sunny, but Hazy; Temps in the 80’s;
Location: Bolgatty Hotel Anchorage, Cochin (Kochi), India

Panama was great for shopping, but I think India is better. Fresh fruits and vegetables in the open markets are unbelievably cheap. There are plenty of eggs, egg plant, cauliflower, red and green peppers, radishes, tomatoes, cucumbers, okra, green beans, snap peas, cabbages (both red and green), pumpkins, parley, mint, cilantro, potatoes, red onions, and a host of local produce that we can’t name. There are oranges of all kinds, limes, bananas, grapefruit, pomegranates, pineapples, and even strawberries And it seems you can fill your backpack for somewhere between $2 to $4 US. It’s a great bargain. Today we went into Cochin for lunch are our newest, most favorite place to eat, Saravana Bhavan, and met up with Ed and Lynne of Constance. After a fantastic Indian lunch we strolled down Market Road and just oogled at all the goodies in the different shops. There are shops that sell only eggs (duck and chicken), other shops that sell only potatoes and onions, shops for buying fishing supplies, and hardware stores that sell AAA batteries for 5 rupees each. Mark bought twenty for the price of eighteen which was less than $2 US for all twenty. Ed searched every shop for good red onions. He checks every one and buys only the best. Once he has supplied Constance with onions for the months ahead, I am going to ask him to pick onions for Windbird. He has the knack. There are shops that sell only Basmati rice and other shops that sell other types of rice. And then we came to the REAL food market with the array I described at the beginning. We found a thread shop that sold thread and elastic in all widths. We had searched Malaysia and Thailand for elastic and were so happy to find this shop. I bought 10 meters of one width, 5 of another, and 2 of another width, and the total cost was less than $2 US. I love it. And then there are shops that sell only silk and others that sell a wonderful variety of materials. We just walked away the afternoon looking at all the shops and the goodies found within. When you can shop ’til you drop and spend less than $5 US, it’s a great afternoon.

I spent my morning researching southern India and trying to narrow down the places and special events we will try and see while we are here. As soon as I have an itinerary, I will share that, but for now all I will say is that it is going to be very difficult to make the choices. Southern India is filled with spectacularly beautiful places to see and festivals to experience. We have been here almost two weeks and haven’t even begun to scratch the surface. So we are going to be busy tourists in the next three weeks.

Mark spent his morning fixing the leaks in the forward head. So far, so good with the patching of the leaks in the aft head, so he thought it prudent to continue the repairs. We are still waiting to hear if we can buy a new marine toilet here. We thought the answer was yes, but we still have not seen one. And we spent part of our afternoon battling with PayPal on the internet. We need to pay for the new refrigeration compressor that we found in the UK through PayPal, but since we have not used our account for four years, we are having to prove who we are and that we actually have the funds. This process could take the rest of this week, so the shipping of the compressor has been delayed. Hopefully this will all be settled by the end of the week and we will have the compressor by the end of next week.

So . . . repairs and plans for touring are moving along. In the meantime, we are just enjoying being in this incredible part of the world

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Day 103, Year 5: What A Difference A Day Makes

February 7th, 2010

Day 103, Year 5: What A Difference A Day Makes
Date: Sunday, February 7, 2010
Weather: Sunny; Temps in the 80’s
Location: Bolgatty Hotel Anchorage, Cochin (Kochi), India

After bottoming out yesterday, everything today seemed to go just right. We ran the engine to charge the batteries and everything worked as it should. We ran water through the toilet that Mark patched up with 5200 and so far, no leaks. I battled with Mark’s computer for three hours trying to place an order with Amazon, but was continually taken offline. So we installed the new modem in my computer and it has been working beautifully. So the issue with the old and the new modems was not the modem or the wireless service at all, it was Mark’s computer. It works fine for navigation, but everything else will have to be done on my little IBM ThinkPad.

We made our second visit to the International Book Fair and bought five books for $30 US total. The price at the book fair is less than half of what it would be back in the US. Not bad. We bought a Southern India cookbook, a Wilbur Smith novel about South Africa, Ken Follett’s The Hammer of Eden, Richard Dawkins’ The Greatest Show on Earth outlining the evidence for evolution, and A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking. After leaving the Book Fair, we walked to a restaurant that another cruiser had told us about. It is called the Saravana Bhavan. Nothing on the menu cost more than 50 rupees which is about $1.10 US. So for 151 rupees, or about $1.75 US total, Mark had Muttar Paneer Masala, I had Chanah Masala, we shared a wonderful lightly fried rice, had a side order of Naan, and shared a large bottle of cold water. And all of the food was wonderful. We kept watching these huge rolls of friend bread being served to others and asked what it was. It is called Masala Dosai and the next time we are in town for lunch or dinner, we will definitely try that. There were all sorts of little side dishes with the bread and we can’t wait to taste it.

Once I got over the frustration of spending the better part of three hours trying to place a book order with Amazon, I was able to do a lot of research online about travel in southern India. We’re hoping to do the waterway tour this week and the tea plantation and wildlife reserve next week. We have to wait until business hours in the UK tomorrow to get the information needed to send money for the compressor via PayPal. Once that order is placed, I think we will be able to relax and enjoy. At least let’s hope so.

So all things considered, it has been a good twenty-four hours beginning with the Kathakali performance last night. The high point of the day came at the very end when we connected with Heather, Jed, Sam, and Jonah for a Skype video call. Both boys are sick, but we got some great smiles out of Jonah and Sam pretended to be fishing for tuna and octopus and fed us right through the ethernet. Amazing. We then talked to my nephew Todd’s wife, Shelley, who just had Kyler Channing Martin on February 3. My brother Dickie and his wife Conda are the proud grandparents. Todd and Shelley have two little girls, and now a boy, so they are a very happy family. Our congratulations to the parents and grandparents.

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Day 102, Year 5: Wrong

February 6th, 2010

Day 102, Year 5: Wrong
Date: Saturday, February 6, 2010
Weather: Sunny; Temps in the 80’s
Location: Bolgatty Hotel Anchorage, Cochin (Kochi), India

I named yesterday’s log, “It Has To Get Better.” But, wrong, it does not. This morning we tried to start the engine to charge the batteries, and it wouldn’t start . . . again. Mark then bypassed the starting battery and tried to start it off the house batteries, as he has had to do many times before and it has always worked, but nothing happened this morning. So rather than try and troubleshoot the situation ourselves, we decided to have Nazar call Anil and get someone here as soon as possible. Actually, we needed an electrician, but what we got was a mechanic. To make a very long story short, the mechanic called in the electricians. While WAITING two hours for them to arrive, we kept working on the problem. Ed of Constance came over and helped troubleshoot as well and we thought we found the problem. We charge our starting battery with a small alternator, separate from the big alternator that charges the house batteries. That alternator did not appear to be working. So we figured the starting battery didn’t have enough charge to start the engine. So we tried using the house batteries, and this time it worked. This told us that the solenoid and the starter were fine, and when the electricians came they cleaned the terminals with a wire brush (which we had already sprayed with terminal cleaner) and all of a sudden everything was working just fine. The small alternator was charging and the engine starts. We can only hope that this is the end of our electrical woes of the past six weeks.

While Mark stayed on the boat waiting for help to arrive, I went to town to see if I could find out why our modem connecting us to wireless internet is not working properly. The short answer to that is because we plugged it into two different ports and needed to reinstall it. But I ended up renting a modem for the month that will give us twice the signal strength. We will try to connect with Heather, Jed, Sam, and Jonah later tonight to see if the new modem works better. If not I will take it back, but if it does work, we will keep it and loan our other modem to Ed and Lynne on Constance. But to back up a bit, when I got back from my little field trip to town, Mark told me that when he dropped me off this morning, our dinghy propeller got caught in a fishing net right at the jetty (it was low, low tide again) and he had to call Ed to come with knives to cut the net away. He then had to be towed back to Windbird so that he could bring the dinghy motor up on deck to finish cleaning it off. That got mud everywhere, but by the time I returned, the mud was mostly cleaned off and the dinghy motor was back on the dinghy and working fine. In fact, while they were waiting they fixed the lever on the dingy motor that lets you tilt it up out of the water.

We decided that after dealing with so many boat problems in one day, we needed a change. So we went to Fort Cochin to the Kairali Kathakali Centre to see a performance. Kathakali is a story told in mime with the actors using precise hand gestures and facial expressions to tell the story. The make-up, costumes, and headdresses are elaborate and the mime is accompanied by drummers and singers. We arrived just after 5 o’clock and watched one performer applying the intricate make-up. The performance then started at 6 o’clock and for an hour we watched the story of Bhagavata Purana unfold. Tonight there was one drummer and one singer and two actors. It was basically a story of seduction. We knew what was happening with no words needed. The stories performed were mostly written at the same time as Shakespeare was writing his tales in England, but the origin stems from temple rituals in the 2nd century. This was a wonderful introduction to Kerala culture.

We hopped on the ferry to get back to the mainland and then walked along the waterfront to get back to our dinghy (more than a mile’s walk). We ducked into the International Book Fair being held on the waterfront and oogled at the wonderful array of books. We will go back tomorrow and take a closer look but we did buy a novel about King Arthur and a book on the life of scientist Stephen Hawkin. So a good ending to the day.

And now we are waiting to try a Skype video call with Heather, Jed, Sam, and Jonah. Sam and Jed went to the lumber yard and are still not home, but hopefully we will be talking with them soon. I did talk to my sister Patsy and learned that the weather on the East Coast has been ugly and I tried to reach by brother Dickie with no success. I’ll try again tomorrow morning and report on the Skype call with Heather and company in tomorrow’s log.

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Day 101, Year 5: It Has To Get Better

February 5th, 2010

Day 101, Year 5: It Has To Get Better
Date: Friday, February 5, 2010
Weather: Sunny with Haze
Location: Bolgatty Hotel Anchorage, Cochin (Kochi), India

It’s been a long week of searching for boat bits and we know it has to better than this. We’re starting to feel like everything is going wrong, and we know that is not the case. We just need to get one thing fixed or at least ordered. Early this morning we got an email back from a Danfoss dealer in Florida who could send us the compressor for $475 and the shipping would be $450. Too much! We found out last night that we could order a whole unit from West Marine for $700 and the shipping would be about $200. Still too much. So our thanks go to Michael who reads our logs and sent us an email message that we search for a distributor in the UK. We did just that, and finally we had some success. We can get the whole unit for $550 and the shipping will be $150. This is definitely sounding better. And while emailing and calling back and forth with the distributor in the UK, we continued to call the Danfoss centers here in India to see if they could get a unit for us. We still have not heard back from them, so we haven’t placed the order yet, but it looks like we will be getting the new compressor unit from the distributor in the UK. If we place the order on Monday, delivery should be in seven days. So it is our hope that we are on to a solution for that problem, and Michael, we thank you for that.

Now to the toilet issue. Mark spent the part of his day, when he was not on the phone, patching cracks in our Jabsco plastic toilet base. We are letting it cure for 24 hours and using a bucket in the meantime, so success on that one will have to be reported tomorrow. And we are still hopeful that Anil is getting a new toilet for us, but he still cannot tell us what brand, so we don’t know yet if the new one will fit. One way or another, we are hoping the toilet issues are solved by tomorrow.

I spent part of my day defrosting the refrigerator and the other part researching those things we would like to do while here. We want to do a canoe trip through the waterways that trickle inland and do some village tours where farming continues like it has for hundreds of years. We also want to visit the tea plantations and go to at least one of the wildlife preserves that are only a few hours bus ride from here. We will make a small start tomorrow by taking the ferry to Fort Cochin to experience a Kathakali performance. ‘Katha’ means story and ‘kali’ means play. So a Kathakali performance is a story acted out in mime with music. The stories are from Hindu mythology and much of the grandeur of these performances is in the intricate make-up worn by the performers. We will see the make-up being applied from 5 pm to 6 pm, and then watch the performance from 6-7:30 pm. After that we will be treated to traditional Indian music and dancing. So we are definitely looking forward to this.

We heard from Robert and Tina of Shirena who are now in Salalah, Oman. They are dealing with problems with their auto pilot and their watermaker. They say the people of Salalah are very friendly, but they are not fond of the anchorage. Fatty and Carolyn of Wild Card are there and are hoping to leave in the next couple of days. Fatty’s one-year old battery bank has been giving him fits, and when he arrived he found a hole in one of the cells. Robert said he just sealed it, poured more acid in, and is going on. I laughed aloud when Robert said that he had contacted RayMarine about his auto pilot problem and they just said to contact a local dealer and use the back up (which they assumed all boats would be carrying) in the meantime. Robert said he was going to email them back and tell them that he would get the spare from the sailboat they are towing just for the extra parts! I laughed aloud when I read this.

We tried to do a video Skype connection with our daughter last night, but it did not work. We did have a phone connection, however, and found out that Sam has been having full-blown asthma issues and that Jonah has another ear infection. Sam really wanted to do a video connection, but we could not arrange that last night. But he did say the he misses us very much and that was enough to bring tears to my eyes. Oh my, how much we miss those grand babies. We will try for a video Skype call with Heather and gang on their Saturday morning. Hopefully that will work.

And we ended the day with margaritas and burritos on Constance. Ed has a secret recipe for margaritas and they were great. Before we left we got to see some photos of Ed and Lynne’s families and their new grandbaby. It was a delightful evening away from thinking about boat problems. We are looking forward to more times like this in the coming days.

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Day 100, Year 5: Putting the Pieces Together

February 4th, 2010

Day 100, Year 5: Putting the Pieces Together
Date: Thursday, February 4, 2010
Weather: Sunny with Haze
Location: Bolgatty Hotel Anchorage, Cochin (Kochi), India

Southern India has many puzzling parts that just don’t fit together. The tallest buildings in town are stores that sell clothing for weddings. And in a country where the average annual income is less than $1,000 US, the average cost of a big-city wedding is $12,500 US. How strange is that in a place where people are so poor that they have to row round, woven basket boats to get across the waterways to and from town? And then there are the men in town. All the business men dress in western-style clothing and have earphones for their cells so they can walk and talk. And then there are the other men who wear a dhoti which is a loose, long cloth pulled up between the legs so it looks like a short skirt. There is also the lungi which is colorful and more like a sarong and the mundi that is like lungi but is always white. But whatever color, often the men wearing these just stop wherever there is a crack in the sidewalk, stoop down, and pee. I have learned quickly to just walk around, but it is a little strange. All women that we have seen here dress traditionally in either saris that are a single piece of long material that is tucked and pleated into place and worn with a choli which is a short, tight-fitting blouse showing the midriff and a palloo that is the part of the sari that is thrown over the shoulder. The other commonly worn dress is the salwar kameez. This is a long, dress-like tunic slit up the sides that is worn over pants that have a drawstring at the waist and are tight-fitting at the ankle. This is worn with dupatta which is a long scarf. This is my favorite, but I just love looking at every woman I meet because all of their outfits are so colorful. But you don’t expect to see women dressed like this dancing wildly to modern Indian music. But sometimes when the tourist boats pass by us, there will be clusters of young women dressed in their saris dancing away on the boat. And here’s another one. You can go into a little internet cubbyhole that is down an alley and up some stairs with no sign and that has computers that are at least ten years old and have keyboards so worn that you can’t read them, but the machines have been upgraded and are super fast. The last incongruity that I’ll mention is that here in Cochin there are Catholic churches and schools at every corner and Hindu temples are very hard to find. And when you do find them, they are in disrepair and not anything like the Hindu temples we saw in Singapore with their beautiful, intricately sculpted towering tops. But here the temples have cows to pet, so I like that.

But still we cannot get out and enjoy the countryside because we are still seeking solutions to our boat problems. I did finally make it over to see Bolgatty Island this morning. The Cochin Golf Club is there, part of the Bolgatty Place Hotel, and that was fun to see. They use a horse on a tether to cut the grass. Great idea! And I’ve decided to call Nazar our agent instead of a boat boy, because he is no boy and that seems demeaning. He works hard to get everything we need, so agent he is. He put us in touch with a man named Anil who coordinated our freezer work and who has now found us a marine toilet. He called and we called Danfoss in India to see if we could get a replacement 12 volt condenser here, but the answer is no. So we are going to have to order from the US. We will stay up until midnight tonight so we can make calls during morning business hours to the US. Hopefully we can get something ordered and on its way soon. And tonight we again had the problem of the boat not starting when we turn the key and there is no apparent reason. So the problems just go on and on. The definition of cruising is working on your boat in exotic places, and that is exactly right!

We made a Skype call to Justin, Jo, and Ziggy this morning. The connection was not great, but we did get to see Ziggy in action. He actually sat in front of the computer for the whole time that we talked playing with wooden blocks that are replicas of buildings in London. I was amazed that he sat still for so long playing with the blocks, once in a while looking at the computer screen, and jabbering away. Justin and Jo say he is not talking yet, but his jabbering sure sounds like conversation. It won’t be long before he is walking and talking. He is an absolutely beautiful child, blonde hair, bright blue eyes, and it was a delight to see and hear him in action. We will try to call Heather and Jed late tonight which will be their Thursday morning and make arrangements for a Skype video call this weekend. We can’t wait to see Sam and Jonah and watch them in action.

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Day 100, Year 5: Day Trip to Mattancherry and Fort Cochin

February 3rd, 2010

Day 100, Year 5: Day Trip to Mattancherry and Fort Cochin
Date: Wednesday, February 3, 2010
Weather: Beautiful Day with a Little Haze
Location: Bolgatty Hotel Anchorage, Cochin (Kochi), India

Mattancherry and Fort Cochin are both on Fort Cochin Island which is back toward the entrance to Cochin harbor. Ed and Lynne of Constance, Judy and Dave of Freebird, and Mark and I were planning to take our dinghies to shore, hop on an auto rickshaw which would take us to the main ferry terminal, and then take the ferry to Mattancherry early this morning. But Nazar and Ibrahim who have become our Indian boat boys (for lack of a better term for they surely aren’t boys) came to see if we needed anything and when we said we were going to Mattancherry, they offered to take all of us on their boat at no charge. We still had to take dinghies to shore so we would have a way back to our boats later in the day, but then off we went. Everyone but Judy and I were going to find a man named John who runs the boatyard in Mattancherry, but they never found him. What they found out instead is that we just tell Nazar and Ibrahim what we need, and they will make sure we find it. Nothing here is straightforward. All requests or messages seem to be passed from one person to another and you are never sure the original message gets through. It’s kind of like playing the child’s game of Telephone. Judy and I went off with Ashbak in his Lamborghini auto rickshaw and had a not so good experience at a spice shop. We paid WAY too much for WAY too little. I think Judy and I just got caught up in the beauty and the smells of all the spices. Ashbak explained to us, after the fact, that it was because our skin is white and that we need to bargain, bargain, bargain. If the price is too high, just say no thank you. Okay, lesson learned.

While Judy and I were having our spice experience, Mark, Lynne, Ed, and Dave had a different spice experience in a warehouse on the waterfront. Their’s was way more authentic and cheaper. The boatyard contingency had not had any luck in tracking down anything, so they headed to the part of Mattancherry called Jew Town at the same time as Judy and I. We looked in more shops, all fascinating but expensive, met up with Rose and Tim of Rendezvous Cay for lunch, and then all split up going in different directions. Eventually, we caught up with Ed and Lynne at an internet café where we found out that 3G is not allowed in India. So now we will have to try a Skype video call with our 2G and just see what happens. Next, we walked all the way across the island to Fort Cochin stopping at a temple on the way and a few fruit and veggie markets. When we reached the waterfront in Fort Cochin, Mark and Ed got to see the cantilevered Chinese fishing nets in action, and actually got to go out and help pull the ropes. These fishing nets date back to the days of Kubla Khan in the 1400’s and the whole process is just fascinating. We took video and will edit that get it posted with this log in the not too distant future.

After a twenty minute walk to the ferry terminal, a twenty minute ferry ride, and a two mile walk back to the dinghy, we made it home and collapsed. It was a good day, but a tiring one. The good news is that when we went to the internet café to meet Ed and Lynne, Mark got online and found that there are three Danfoss (our freezer compressor) offices in India that make reference to a 12 volt compressor, so Mark is hopeful that tomorrow he might be able to contact these offices and find that we could buy a compressor here rather than having one shipped. We also have Anal (the man who sends us our refrigeration guy) working on finding a marine toilet. So it seems that all of India is searching for what we need. Let’s hope they are successful.

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Day 99, Year 5: World Wetlands Day

February 2nd, 2010

Day 99, Year 5: World Wetlands Day
Date: Tuesday, February 2, 2010
Weather: Daytime Temps in the 80’s; 75 degrees F Overnight
Location: Bolgatty Hotel Anchorage, Cochin (Kochi), India

February 2 is World Wetlands Day. Now there’s a bit of information I’ll bet you were just waiting to hear. But I find it fascinating that I found this out by buying The Hindu, one of India’s best daily papers according to other cruisers. In today’s issue, and maybe everyday, there is a Young World insert like Parade Magazine in weekend US papers, but this one is a complete newspaper for children. What a great idea. And in this children’s newspaper I learned that the Vembanad Kayal here in Kerala (Carol-uh), a brachkish water system that weaves in and out of this large urban and industrial area, is a threatened wetland. There was a section for News This Week, a course on peace education based on Gandhian values, children’s book reviews, a fun page, a Nancy cartoon, a math page, and of course, a Sudoku puzzle. From the fun page-What is as big as an elephant but weighs nothing? (answer at the end of this log)

Now to what we did today. We both hopped in the dinghy early to rid the sides of the boat of salt. Mark held the dinghy and I did the washing and rinsing. I still have some stainless polishing to do and we have to wash down the dodger and bimini, but then we can declare Windbird clean on the outside. At least for now. Then we went to town to try and find a SIM card for our modem that would allow us to have internet on the boat. We first went to the Vodophone office close the waterfront. They are they major provider of phone systems here, but they told us we could not buy a SIM card for our AT&T modem. They insisted that we must buy one of their modems that can only be used in India. So we hailed an auto rickshaw and said we wanted to go to Varney’s Supermarket on Mahatma Ghandi (MG) Road. We used the supermarket as the destination thinking that would be a place any taxi driver would be familiar with. But no. We drove south along the waterfront for what seemed like forever before turning back inland. We kept telling the driver to turn left, but he kept saying no, no. When we did turn left we were evidently on MG Road but far from where we wanted to be. The driver pulled over and let us show our map to another driver, and he just motioned to keep going. We finally got to an area that looked slightly familiar, so we hopped out and then had to walk only a short distance until we found VIJronics, the little shop that we had visited on Saturday and whose owner thought he could help us find a way to get the right SIM card for our modem. Well, he could and he did, but it took three hours of waiting. This is a little shop but it must be one of the busiest in Cochin. The owner, Azism, rents phones, so every couple of minutes someone came in to rent a phone. He was working on his Acer laptop on getting our modem set, renting phones, and talking on the phone continually. He was definitely the picture of multi-tasking. I finally left and went next door to do some clothes shopping which must have taken at least 45 minutes. When I returned, Azism thought he just about had us all set, three young men came in who were from the home office of Tata Dacomo, the type of SIM card we needed to buy, and they needed to take over Azism’s computer. They apologized to us and said it would only take 15 minutes, but time just went on and on. Finally, Mark and I went to a hotel down the street and had lunch (which costs about $2 US for the two of us). When we returned to VIJronics, the place was empty, but it still took a bit of time to get everything set up. So three hours later, we hailed another auto rickshaw and went back to the waterfront. I bought some fresh veggies as we walked to the dinghy. Once we got back on Windbird, it took Mark a little time to figure things out, but we do now have internet. We thought it was going to be 3G so we could do video Skype calls, but it is looking like it is only 2G. We’ll have to figure that one out on another day. But for now, we’ll declare today as a success, even with all the waiting, as we now have internet on the boat for what appears to be about $5 US for the month.

No word on the freezer compressor today. We were told to check back again tomorrow. So tomorrow morning we think we will take the ferry to Fort Cochin. Mark will go to Kondo Syokai Marine, a boatyard and boatbuilder. According to the Indian Ocean Cruising Guide this yard builds the junk rigged Gazelle designed by Tom Colvin and it appears to be the only place here to find out anything about getting marine repairs done. We have tried to call with no luck, so a face-to-face visit is needed. While Mark does this, Judy of Freebird and I will do a little window shopping in the fabric area. She went there yesterday and said the shops are phenomenal. So that’s the tentative plan for tomorrow.

Answer to the elephant riddle: an elephant’s shadow

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Day 98, Year 5: February Letter to Family and Friends

February 1st, 2010

Day 98, Year 5: February Letter to Family and Friends
Date: Monday, February 1, 2010
Location: Bolgatty Hotel Anchorage, Cochin (Kochi), India

My, how time flies. I wrote a letter to family and friends on December 1 and planned to do the same on the first day of each month. That didn’t happen in January, so I’m starting again by writing on the 1st of February and am hoping to be able to continue this on the first day of each coming month. We were still in Malaysia when I wrote in December. We left there on December 7th and had a wonderful trip north to Phuket, Thailand. We stopped along the way at places we had not seen last year and really enjoyed our second trip north through the islands of Thailand. We arrived in Phuket on December 14 and spent a month doing more shopping and boat work to get ready for our voyage across the Indian Ocean. We spent Christmas in the very southern most anchorage on the island of Phuket, lovely Nai Harn Bay, with our good friends Robert and Tina of Shirena and Gerry and Donna of Scot Free II. We then moved to Patong Beach for New Years Eve and saw an absolutely incredible fireworks show that went on for hours. Shirena left for Oman, Scot Free II is staying behind for another year, and on January 16 we left Patong Beach in company with Ed and Lynne of Constance headed for India. Eleven days and nine and a half hours later we arrived in Cochin (Kochi), India. Except for our first night out when we got caught in a squall with too much sail up and ran with the 30 knots of wind for more than three hours, the rest of our passage was wonderful. We had to motor way less than we anticipated and really enjoyed the beautiful sailing. We are just beginning to experience the sensory overload that southern India provides. There are just so many people, and the traffic is insane, but the sights and smells of the markets overflowing with beautiful fresh fruit, vegetables, and barrels of spices are just wonderful. It is winter here. The temps are in the mid-80’s and the humidity is not bad. The days are sunny and the people are friendly. We think we are going to enjoy our time in Cochin.

In the December letter, we announced that we had a change of plans. Instead of going through the Red Sea to the Mediterranean we are now on course for heading around South Africa. If we could head directly for South Africa, we could be there in a month. But you can’t do that because of the weather patterns going from the Northern Hemisphere to the Southern. We had to leave Thailand in January to get the good winds to take us west. Now we have come 1,500 miles west but we still have to wait until October to head for Richards Bay on the Northeast coast of South Africa, and we will have to wait there until December or January before we can round the Cape of Good Hope and arrive in Cape Town. So this cruising season is all about finding exotic places to sit and wait. We chose southern India as our first stop. We will be here until the end of February when we will head south to the Maldives. By the first of April we will be in the Chagos and we will sit there for two full months. We can’t complain about our destinations. All are supposed to be paradise. So we say, if you have to wait out the weather, then let it be in paradise.

We would love to hear about your most recent adventure, so write when you get a chance. But please remember to delete our message when you hit the reply key and note that we can receive no attachments. We are looking forward to experiencing southern India and will report on that in our March letter. Until then, here’s wishing each of you the very best.

Mark and Judy
S/V Windbird

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Day 98, Year 5: W & W Day

February 1st, 2010

Day 98, Year 5: W & W Day
Date: Monday, February 1, 2010
Weather: Warm and Hazy
Location: Bolgatty Hotel Anchorage, Cochin (Kochi), India

W for work and W for waiting. That is what today was all about. Mark spent his entire day waiting for Nazar to come to work on the refrigeration and then once he came, waiting to see the outcome, and then waiting for Nazar’s boss to come to help make a final diagnosis. Not good. The diagnosis was that our compressor does not have the pressure necessary to run the freezer system. So Nazar and his boss are going to try and find a 12 volt compressor, but it is not something they think is available in this country. Because we are in a 220 volt world and on a 110 volt boat, we will probably have to order from the US or just do without a freezer. Ouch!

While Mark was waiting, I decided to work on the stainless. I actually thought that I would just work for an hour or two, that Nazar would come and fix the freezer, and that Mark and I would go to town in the afternoon to try and find the SIM card for our 3G modem. We still do have not internet on the boat and if things keep going as they have, we might never make it to town to see if the SIM card is available here. Instead of cleaning stainless for an hour or two, I worked the entire day until Nazar and his boss left around 5 pm. And still I probably have another whole day of work to finish the job. Ugh!

I an exhausted from working all day and Mark is just as exhausted from waiting all day.
So our plan is to go to bed early, get a good night’s rest, and go to town in the morning to get our wireless going on the boat. After that, we’ll just go with the flow. Ed and Lynne went to town today and went to the International Book Fair that is part of the Arts and Cultural Fair that is happening on shore. Evidently the Book Fair is really fantastic, so we will stop by there tomorrow as well. One of these days, hopefully VERY soon, we will be able to relax and enjoy Cochin. But for now, it is work first, play later.

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Day 97, Year 5: Crappy Day

January 31st, 2010

Day 97, Year 5: Crappy Day
Date: Sunday, January 31, 2010
Weather: Sunny Day with a Little Haze
Location: Bolgatty Hotel Anchorage, Cochin, India

Today it was all about toilets. We have two heads on this boat and our hope was that if we had problems with one, then the other one would serve us. But now both have leaks that seem to be irreparable. Our main head had only a slight salt water leak, but in trying to fix that, it seems like everything starting leaking. We will search Cochin to see if a marine toilet can be bought here and in the meantime continue to try anything and everything we can think of to deal with the leaks. But it is truly a crappy situation.

So while Mark spent his day in the head, I continued cleaning the deck. We don’t remember a time when we finished a passage with a dirtier boat. Everything white has a film of gray over it and needs to be scrubbed. The canvas on the dodger and bimini are also streaked with gray. And salt is everywhere. We can’t make water here as the water is just not clean enough for that, but we can go to the Bolgatty Hotel and get as much water as we want for 100 rupees a week (that’s about $2.22 US). The water is not drinkable, but it can serve for showers, laundry, and washing down the boat. I have finished the first once over on the deck, but it needs much more attention, so this process will continue. After finishing the cleaning, I turned by attention to canning the meat that we had to take out of our freezer when it went down. I immediately cooked the chicken and pork, but let the minced beef and beef sausage sit in the bottom of the refrigerator for a few days. Then I cooked it, and today I canned it. I made spaghetti sauce with the minced beef (that’s what hamburger is called in the South Pacific, Australia, and all points west) and canned the chili spiced sausage in V-8 juice. Canning is s-l-o-w as I can only do one pint jar at a time and it takes an hour for each jar. So I have managed to heat the inside of the boat to about 93 degrees and am still going strong.

Tomorrow morning the refrigeration repairman comes again, supposedly at 10 am, but that could mean anytime between 10 am and 1 pm. Once that job is done, we will go to town to try and buy a SIM card for our 3G modem so we can have internet here in the anchorage. We still have a few more days of boat jobs to do, but at some point, we promise ourselves we will get out there and see the beauty of southern India.

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