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
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.
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.
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.
Day 96, Year 5: Refrigeration and Trip to Fort Cochin
Date: Saturday, January 30, 2010
Weather: Clear, Sunny Day; Beautiful Full Moon
Location: Bolgatty Hotel Anchorage, Cochin, India
Who’s who in Cochin? It seems like everyone here is Nazar. We have Nazar on Boat No. 7, Nazar and Ibrahim on Boat No. 113, and now the man trying to fix our refrigeration system turns out to be Nazar instead of Anil. And the waiting game continues. Anil, who turned out to be Nazar, was supposed to arrive at the boat at 9 am. Zazar on Boat No. 113, who we thought was Ibrahim, came by at 8 am to tell us that Anil would be here at 9 am. But it was 10:30 am before Mark got the call to pick him up at the ferry dock. Anil, who ended up to be Nazar, checked things out and discovered that he needed a compressor to vacuum out the system. And, of course, the compressor was back in Fort Cochin which is a 20 minute ferry ride from here, but then you have to add the time waiting for ferry. So Mark took Nazar back to the ferry terminal which is quite a little ride from here. Nazar said he would be back in an hour, so at 12 noon when Lynne of Constance, Judy of Freebird, and I needed to go to the ferry terminal for our little ladies’ day adventure. Mark took us as he thought Nazar would be returning at about the same time. Well, Mark waited, and waited, and waited, until about 2:30 pm and then came back to Windbird and decided to go to Bolgatty Island is get more water. Naturally, as soon as he did this, Nazar called and said he was at the ferry terminal. So back Mark went. Once back on Windbird, Nazar realized that he needed 220 volts to run his compressor and we run on 110 volts. Mark had to run about the anchorage looking for anyone who could loan us a 220 inverter (ours bit the dust on the way here) and he found one on Hafskip. Nazar vacuumed the system and then discovered that our new tank of R134A gas that we bought in Ao Chalong was empty, so he couldn’t recharge the system. I guess Mark used more of the gas on the way here trying to fix things than he realized. But now we are on hold until Monday morning when Nazar will return. Our refrigerator is still running fine, but we just don’t have a freezer. So the refrigeration story will continue on Monday.
While Mark was struggling with the refrigeration saga, Lynne, Judy, and I hopped on a ferry to Fort Cochin. While waiting in line to get ferry tickets, we met a young woman named Catherine. She is a year older than our daughter Heather and is a biologist. She is from Montreal, but lives in the Yukon between Skagway and White Horse. I’ve been there, so believe me when I tell you that is in the middle of nowhere. She interviews fishermen for the Yukon Fisheries Department, among other things, races a team of fourteen sled dogs, and somehow manages to escape to India once in a while. She has spent most of her time in India in the north, but is now enjoying southern India. Once we arrived in Fort Cochin, Catherine decided to stick with us while we explored. We first walked to the area of the Chinese nets. These huge nets hang out over the water with system of large logs and huge rocks hanging from ropes above providing a leverage system. The rocks are raised and the nets go down. And only a few minutes after the nets go underwater, the rocks are lowered and nets come up. A fisherman with a big net goes out to gather all the small fish that have been caught in the net, and then the process starts over again. There is a series of these nets, probably eight to ten of them, and they seem to work in synchrony. The one furthest out to sea is lowered first, then the next one, and so on. We were standing by the one most inland. And as soon as it was lowered, the whole series started again. Fascinating. But we all decided that we needed something to eat and drink, so we started backtracking to find a place. Judy decided that we just had to go this swanky, swanky hotel on the water, so we did. It was EXPENSIVE, so we ordered lime drinks and a couple of appetizers that were way overpriced. But it was a lovely setting on the water and we luxuriated. Then we set off on our shopping expedition. We wanted to go this store called Fabindia. We found it and it did have fabulous Indian clothing that was really not too expensive. Then we went to another shop called Cinnamon which was a bit more upscale. There were lovely items for a price a little too steep for us. By this time it was getting late, so we had to abandon a trip to the third shop we were searching for and we headed through backstreets to get back to the ferry dock and said our goodbyes to Catherine. On the way to the ferry dock, we found a fabulous book store and another shop with beautiful rugs and wall hangings. We will definitely return to Fort Cochin just to browse the shops and see some of the major tourist attractions there like the Mattancherry Palace built in 1555, the Pardesi Synagogue built in 1558, and a Dutch palace from the same era, but we had run out of time for today.
It is a holiday here, the anniversary of Mahatma Ghandi’s death. We had planned to have Happy Hour on Bolgatty Island at the hotel, but Dave of Freebird did some reconnaissance and found that no alcohol could be served because of the holiday. We had hoped to find a place with air conditioning so we could meet in the evening without the threat of the voracious mosquitoes that live here. But that didn’t work out, so we gathered on Freebird. Beverly and Greg from Freemantle, Australia, came to join us. They have been here for fourteen months, and were here for a year in the 1990’s. They shared some of their knowledge of the area while we all watched the biggest full moon of 2010 rise. Cochin seems like an easy place to wile away the days, so we will continue to do that.
Day 95, Year 5: Bustling Kochi and the Anchoring Story
Date: Friday, January 29, 2010
Weather: Clear, Sunny Day
Latitude: 09 degrees 59.038 minutes N
Longitude: 076 degrees 16.214 minutes E
Location: Bolgatty Hotel Anchorage, Cochin, India
Our two mile trip from Willingdon Island to the Bolgatty anchorage went without a hitch. Sometimes the depths were as little as 2.4 meters and we need 2 meters, so we were just skimming by. Once we reached the anchorage, however, we had a nightmare of an anchoring experience. All is well, but I don’t want the three-hour anchoring saga to overwhelm the experience of our first trip ashore here. So that story gets told first.
And now for the anchoring story. We tried to anchor the first time, but the anchor didn’t stick. When we brought the anchor up, it had plastic bags wrapped around it. Mark removed those and we tried again, and again it didn’t stick. This time when we brought the anchor up there was fishing net around it. And then I lost the ability to steer and then the engine died. I tried to start the engine again. It started but as soon as I put it in gear, the engine died again. It become obvious that we had something wrapped around the prop, so we just dropped the anchor right where we were, even though we were much too close to a boat called Maud. Maud’s captain, Jim, had spent the day with us yesterday, waiting and waiting, while he was trying to check out of India. We got out the snuba gear so Mark could dive down and check out the prop and what he found was a royal mess. We had installed a piece of steel cable from our keel back to our rudder to keep things like nets from getting up to our prop. But a fishing net had caught around that steel cable, broken it loose and then the whole mess of steel wire and fishing net wrapped around our prop shaft. It took Mark an hour and a half in this not-so-clean water to cut things loose. But he survived and it appears that all is well. We dropped anchor the first time at 9:15 am and the final time at 12:15 PM. It was a long morning!
Welcome to The Voyage of Windbird . . . and Beyond. My name is Judy Handley and I live on Cape Cod in Massachusetts. For six years of my life, my husband Mark and I sailed around the world. I documented that story, one day at a time, in this blog that was then just called The Voyage of Windbird. Those daily logs from 2005 to 2011 tell the story of our circumnavigation.
