by Judy Handley | Mar 12, 2010 | Passage to Uligan, Maldives, Sailing Logs Year 5 |
Day 137, Year 5: Passage to Maldives, Day Two
Date: Friday, March 12, 2010
Weather: Overcast; Variable Winds Clocking NW to E
Latitude: 08 degrees 40.440 N
Longitude: 074 degrees 48.078 minutes E
Miles Traveled to Date: 131.75
A-salam alekum. This is ‘hello’ in the Divehi (Dhivehi) language of the Maldives. When we reach Uligan on Sunday (that is the hope at this point) we will kani (eat), nidani (sleep), hingani (walk), and fatani (swim). Until we get there, however, we would like to duvani (sail). But we have lost our wind and are now slowly motoring to the SW.
Today has been a mixed bag. The good thing was that we did get to sail through the night and into the morning, but then the winds started clocking going from N to NE to E with a little SW during a mid-day squall that produced mostly thunder, a dibble-dop of rain, and three ugly water spouts. It was time for my late morning off-watch nap when the squall came through and I slept through the whole thing. Mark had to come below to close the hatches and he reefed the main and rolled up the headsail, but I heard nothing. The winds did not get above 18 knots as the storm passed, so he really wouldn’t have had to reef, but better safe than sorry. The scary thing was the water spouts, but they dissipated before they got close. So all was well. It is evening now and the sun is going down in a still totally overcast sky. We had to start motoring just after the mid-day storm passed as the winds have been very light since then. And what little wind there is comes from behind us. This means rock ‘n roll, and the seas keep building so that we are getting even more rock ‘n roll. Nothing dangerous, just not as comfortable as it could be. But you get what you get and adapt.
Even though we had no sun today, we decided to slice some tomatoes and try drying them. Another boat in the Bolgatty anchorage, Koukouri, with Claude and Carmen aboard were drying tomatoes on a board in their cockpit, so we decided to try it. You evidently just thinly slice the tomatoes. Put them in the sun for three days, bringing them in at night, and then bag them. You could also put them in olive oil, but Claude just bags them and then reconstitutes them in water when he wants to use them in cooking. Claude has been doing this for years and says it works perfectly, so we are giving it a try. I bought about nine kilos of tomatoes before leaving India. I bought the least ripe that I could find and wrapped them individually in newspaper. But at some point they will all start to ripen at once and I’ll just sun dry them if we find this process works for us. And now I have two pots of sweet basil growing and a pot of Thai basil and arugula. These ingredients should make great pizza while we are in Chagos.
by Judy Handley | Mar 11, 2010 | Passage to Uligan, Maldives, Sailing Logs Year 5 |
Day 136, Year 5: Passage to Maldives, Day One
Date: Thursday, March 12, 2010
Weather: Sunny with Hazy Blue Sky; Winds 8-10 SW
Latitude: 09 degrees 45.586 N
Longitude: 075 degrees 47.329 minutes E
Miles Traveled to Date: 35
Ah, the magic of a little wind. We left the Bolgatty anchorage at 7:45 this morning and by 10 am the sails were raised and we were sailing. We didn’t expect any wind, but the last thing I said to Lynne was that I wanted her to work her magic to make this passage as good as the one from Thailand to India. She did and we are sailing a close reach toward the southwest with 8-10 knots of wind from the southwest. Since the wind is coming from the direction we want to go, we sailed a little west today and just tacked to put a bit more southing in. After six weeks of sitting in a city anchorage with very little wind, this feels WONDERFUL. So now it’s all about our next destination, the Maldives.
The Lakshadweep Islands (formerly known as the Laccadives) sit just to the west of Cochin and head southward. The Maldives look like an extension of the Lakshadweeps and actually they are as both are part of the submerged Laccadive-Chagos Ridge. As the name would indicate, the Chagos Archipelago is also part of this chain. We will travel about 270 miles from Cochin to the northern most atoll in the Maldives. After spending a few days in absolute tropical paradise, we will then sail 500 miles to the southern most atoll in the Maldives, the Addu Atoll. And then from there about 300 miles to the Chagos Archipelago. The Maldives area includes of 26 atolls with islands to numerous to count. Ihavandhippolhu and North Thilahunmathee Atolls are the northern most and our destination is the island of Uligan (Uligamu) in the Ihavanhippolhu Atoll. The atoll names are all impossible to pronounce, so the government divided the 26 atolls into 21 administrative districts and named the districts by the letters of the Thaana alphabet. So from now on I’ll refer to the northern most atoll as Haa Aliff-much easier than Ihavandhippolhu. I read some statistics about the Maldives in the Lonely Planet today. The Maldives are 99.9 per cent water and that water is pristine and is dotted with some of the world’s most beautiful white sand beaches. The statistic I liked the best, however, was that the number of shark attacks since 1976 has been zero. The Maldivians joke about having the world’s friendliest sharks. I like that.
The bad news about today is that the brand new $1,500 auto pilot drive arm that Ed and Lynne had shipped to India is not working. Not having a freezer is an inconvenience, but not having an auto pilot to cross the Indian Ocean would be devastating. So Ed spent his morning upside down installing the old drive arm. By 1:30 this afternoon, he had it working. We can only hope that it holds.
A final note about India: I totally forgot to mention in last night’s log that we had dinner at the Bolgatty Palace and Island Resort. Ed and Lynne went with us. The Bolgatty Palace sits next to the island resort and looks like it might be used only for large gatherings. It is the oldest Dutch palace outside of Holland. We enjoyed our dinner, but found the food to be not quite as good and four times as expensive as our little vegetarian restaurant that we have been visiting regularly in downtown Ernakulam. But it was lovely to sit in the air-conditioned splendor and enjoy our last evening in Cochin with Ed and Lynne. Unfortunately, the air-conditioning didn’t keep the mosquitoes out. And going to the Bolgatty for dinner gave Ed a chance to get one more gerry can of water. The Bolgatty graciously received our mail for us and provided us with unlimited water for washing and showers. So thank you to the nice folks at the Bolgatty who help make life for cruisers in Cochin just a little easier.
by Judy Handley | Mar 10, 2010 | India, Sailing Logs Year 5 |
Day 135, Year 5: Unplugged and Ready to Go
Date: Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Weather: Baking Weather-95 degrees F inside
Location: Bolgatty Hotel Anchorage, Cochin (Kochi), India
Check-out of India went so much smoother and faster than check-in. Nazar picked us up in this boat at about 10 am and by noon we were officially check-out. We had to do a bit of waiting, but really not bad. We had lunch at the government complex and then Nazar took us over to Mattancherry to meet his family. His father who is 85 met us at the dock and then we walked to Nazar’s home. His wife is Kaneth and she is absolutely stunningly beautiful. They live on a narrow dirt lane with homes side by side. A home is a very small living room, a tiny kitchen overstuffed with cooking pots of all kinds, a bedroom just big enough for a bed, and then an outside area with a deep well for water for washing clothes. Nazar has two children but they were at school and we did not get to meet them. We learned today that Nazar is 40 years old and he is very proud of the fact that he owns his boat and his motor. He rents the home for about $65 US dollars a month. He charged us almost nothing for all of his services, so I really don’t know how he makes a living, but he and his wife seem to be very happy. He has been reliable and helpful and we would recommend him to anyone sailing this way. Visiting his home was a great way to end our visit here.
Once we returned to Windbird, we did our last check of email and then headed to shore with the 3G modem we have been renting while here. Unplugging that was really hard. But we will still be in touch through our HAM email system. That means we can only check our Winlink email account, so if you want to reach us, send emails directly to Winlink. We will be able to check the Gmail account when we reach the Maldives, but once we leave there, it will be Winlink exclusively.
We did our last bits of shopping at the market in Ernakulam. The beautiful piles of veggies and fruits, the huge sacks of red onions and potatoes, the stalks of bananas, the barrels of spices, and the sounds of the market will forever be in our memories. I LOVE the market area here and am going to miss it very much. I’m even going to miss the hustle and bustle of the honking horns, the crazy traffic of rickshaws and busses, the swishing of beautiful saris, and the smiles of the Indian people. But I think the one thing I will miss the most is the head woggle. When you ask a question here, people look at you and answer with a head woggle. The upper body stays still and the head woggles jauntily from side to side with a special rhythm. You are never sure if someone is saying yes, no, or maybe so. It is quite unique.
So tomorrow morning we head south to the Maldives. The Maldives are a series of 26 atolls that on a map look like they drip southward from the southern tip of India. We are traveling less than 300 miles from here to the northern most atoll where we will stop in Uligan (formerly Uligamu) for a few days. This is a little developed part of the Maldives where the water is clear and the underwater sights are beautiful. The Maldives are a partly traditional island nation with a very strong Islamic culture and identity. Some Muslims there claim that only Saudi Arabia and the Maldives are the world’s truly Islamic nations. One thing is for sure. The miles from here to there will transport us into a totally different world than we are in here in southern India.
by Judy Handley | Mar 9, 2010 | India, Sailing Logs Year 5 |
Day 134, Year 5: When is Enough, Enough?
Date: Tuesday, March 9, 2010
Weather: HOT with No Breeze
Location: Bolgatty Hotel Anchorage, Cochin (Kochi), India
Our roller coaster ride with the freezer compressor continued today. This morning we got a call from Anthony, the manager of General Engineering, telling us that the compressor had been checked out and that it was fine. We didn’t get too excited as we have been told this before. But Anthony said they would be coming at 2:30 in the afternoon to reinstall. We worked like crazy to go get water from the Bolgatty, do the laundry, and get ready to go shopping so we could be back by 2:30. Just as we were ready to go ashore, Anthony called back and said the team would be here in one hour. So Mark took me to shore to go shopping alone and he stayed on the boat. I don’t mind shopping alone, but I can carry only so many kilos in my backpack and in carry bags. This meant I would be making multiple trips. At this point we were both asking ourselves, “Just when is enough, enough?” We have spent half of our time in India dealing with this freezer compressor situation. But I headed out alone to do the provisioning, and Mark once again waited on the boat. I bought tomatoes, 4 more kilos of onions, 4 more kilos of potatoes, 60 eggs, another kilo of garlic, a kilo of ginger, some flower pots for growing more basil and arugula, and headed back to Windbird. I was carrying about 16 pounds on my back as well as the carry bags and that was about as much as I could handle in this heat. When I got back to the waterfront, I called Mark on the VHF portable radio to have him come get me at the dock. I was a bit surprised when Mark showed up with Nazar in Nazar’s boat. They took me back to Windbird where Nazar the refrigeration guy, Ajayan the mechanical engineer, Anthony the manager of the company were sitting in the cockpit waiting for the freezer system to be vacuumed. I decided I wasn’t getting on that boat, so I dumped all the food, gave Mark instructions to wrap the tomatoes in newspaper, and took off again with Nazar to continue shopping. When we got to shore, Nazar walked with me to the market area by the jetty. He told me that he would be taking us to check-out of India in the morning and then said we would be going to his home to meet his wife and two children, a girl aged nine and a boy aged six. This was a bit of a surprise, especially since time is short and there is still so much to do. But we would like to meet his family and we’ll just have to squeeze in the time. On this trip to shore, I had lunch at our favorite restaurant. Just as I was finishing, Ed and Lynne arrived, so I stayed for a bit and talked with them. I have hardly seen Lynne since she returned from the US, so the lunch break gave us a bit of time to catch up. I filled my pack with rice and whole grain flour, cabbage, cauliflower, more tomatoes, backpacks for Nazar’s children, and hurried back to Windbird. It was about 4 pm and I thought the refrigeration team would be long gone. But no. Mark explained that despite their best efforts, the compressor was still not able to keep the necessary pressure to cool. So when we arrived at Windbird, I got onboard but saw that Mark and Anthony were deep in discussion in the cockpit. So I busied myself taking down the laundry. After folding each piece I threw them down the front hatch into the v-berth. Mark and Anthony were still in an intense conversation, so I just dropped down through the front hatch and landed on the v-berth when I heard, “Madame!” Nazar and Ajayan were in the main salon and very surprised to see me drop down the hatch. I thought they were in the cockpit with Mark and Anthony and was a bit embarrassed by my not so graceful landing. But it gave them a chuckle. They explained to me that despite their best efforts, the compressor was just not going to work. So the bottom line is that we are out about $900 for the compressor, shipping, and Custom’s duties, and Anthony is out for seven days of work. It is our understanding that we are not paying for the work since most of the time was spent undoing problems they created. Anthony still believes the compressor is fine, but because it arrived with connectors not compatible with our system, and since connectors are not available here, Anthony believes the “fashioned” connectors might be the problem. Some other year when we are back where connectors are available, we’ll give the compressor another go. But for now we are without a freezer. We just simply have to learn to live with that fact.
Nazar was coming to get the refrigeration team but was not yet here, so we left them on the boat and headed to shore to do one more market run before the end of the day. Mark wanted a new set of fan belts and we went on a wild goose chase that got us nowhere. It was now after 5:00 pm, so we went to the market to get limes, oranges, more tomatoes, more cabbage, another pumpkin, eggplant, and okra. Then we walked to the supermarket near the waterfront and got even more whole wheat flour, more toilet paper, a couple of packages of frozen chicken breast that we will have to eat quickly, some freeze-dried peas that make a wonderful addition to almost any dish. By this time, I was quite ready to get back to Windbird. Again, we were asking ourselves, “Just when is enough, enough?” One little sailboat can only hold so much stuff. We had hoped to have sundowners with Ed and Lynne, but it was too late when we got back. Hopefully things will be more relaxed when we reach the Maldives and we’ll get to be sociable once again. In the meantime, we wrapped tomatoes in newspaper, wrapped limes in aluminum foil, covered eggs with Crisco, and decided to use our freezer space to store pumpkins, cabbages, egg plants, and ginger. After I finish writing this log, I still have to find space in the overloaded refrigerator for the remaining veggies.
Tomorrow is check-out, meet Nazar’s family, do our last bits of shopping, take back our rented modem (so no more internet after tomorrow morning), and get ready for our trip south. It should take us only two to three days to reach our first destination. We’ll still be communicating from there, but only by HAM radio, so no more Skype calls to our kids. We have heard that once we reach the southern most atoll in the Maldives that we might be able to connect to the internet by phone modem. That will be a great present if it proves to be true. Because after that we have three months with absolutely no way to communicate other than the HAM radio email. I am going to miss those Skype connections with the kids terribly, but we have been out here for 134 cruising days, and I really don’t feel like we have gotten started. So it is time to unplug and move on.
by Judy Handley | Mar 8, 2010 | India, Sailing Logs Year 5 |
Day 133, Year 5: Little Things That Make You Smile
Date: Monday, March 8, 2010
Weather: Cooler, but Still Hot
Location: Bolgatty Hotel Anchorage, Cochin (Kochi), India
Ziggy Milo, our son’s baby boy, started our day with a smile. We finally connected via Skype video. Ziggy and Justin were just getting out of the bath when we called, so Ziggy was in the altogether. Thank goodness Justin put clothes on! Ziggy has been sick with some sort of virus that has been circulating, so he was not his usual smiley self, but Justin and Jo were able to cajole a few smiles out of him. We might get to have a video Skype call from the southern Maldives, but after that it could be six months or more before we have internet that can handle video. There is internet in Madagascar, but it evidently is not working most of the time. So Justin and Jo sent us a video through Skype of Ziggy playing, eating, crawling, and giggling that we can watch over and over during the next few months. We had no idea that you can send video via Skype, but you can. How wonderful! Both the Skype call and the video made us smile.
Nazar arrived just after the call with Justin and Jo, so we loaded our outboard engine on Nazar’s boat, and Mark and Ed headed out with him. They went to a Yamaha dealer on Fort Cochin Island. Mark was very impressed with the professionalism in the Yamaha shop, and thankfully, the motor checked out fine. It seems the vibration problem is coming from water in the fuel. So we’ll filter the fuel and hope all is well. We were just glad to hear that there is nothing major wrong with the engine. Hope the guy is right about this one. Nazar then took Mark to General Engineering. This is the company that has been doing the refrigeration on the boat. Mark went to vent and to let them know that we out about $900 US and that we don’t intend to pay them for the work done unless they can get something working. Since they have already told us that the new compressor doesn’t work, we don’t really expect anything to start working. But evidently Mark made an impact as they came to pick up the new, non-working compressor this afternoon to check it out in their shop. We have almost zero hope that something can be done, but at least they are checking into the issues.
Mark and I had planned to go to the Post Office this afternoon to mail off tax forms, and then go food shopping. After that we were going to pick up the alternator. So we left the compressor on Constance and called Nazar to tell him to pick it up there. We took a rickshaw to the Post Office and then another one back to the market off Jew Street. We did a hunt and kill shopping trip for garlic, carrots, and potatoes, and then hailed a rickshaw to take us to pick up our alternator. Since the alternator shop is in a different town, we were very surprised that the first driver we stopped seemed to know exactly where we wanted to go. He said something about it being the end of the school day and then we took off. Shortly we understood the importance of knowing about the end of the school day. He stopped and picked up seven little bright-eyed girls, ages five to nine, and off we went. This is in a rickshaw that is meant to seat two, or at most three adults. We did the ‘quick tour’ of the suburbs outside of Ernakulam delivering the little girls to their homes. This was an unexpected side trip, but it was very interesting. We drove down one street that was lined with homeless people staking out their territory with bags of who knows what. We turned the corner and there were lean-to homes made of sticks and old pieces of tarp. We have not seen this kind of poverty here before. But then we entered the ‘burbs’ with narrow little lanes lined with walls and gates. Behind every gate there was a neat little home right next to another one. We dropped off one little girl at a time and with each departure, we would wave and they would smile and wave back. And we would smile. When we reached the alternator shop, he dropped Mark off and told me to stay in the rickshaw. He said we’d return in 20 minutes. So I stayed in the rickshaw to deliver the last four girls. We then went back to pick up Mark and drove back to the Bolgatty jetty. Although we had not bargained for all the side trips, it was a highlight of our day.
Tomorrow is a shopping day. We have to buy all of the perishables that you put off until just before departure-eggs, limes, oranges, more potatoes and carrots, and green peppers. We will probably wait until Wednesday afternoon to buy bananas. We are coming down to the wire. I have to share one funny thing that happened this morning. I was on the back deck doing laundry. One of the tour boats that constantly ply through the anchorage cut right in front of us and someone yelled, “Live Free or Die.” Concord, New Hampshire, is the home port printed on our stern and evidently someone from the US was on that tour boat. Small world.
by Judy Handley | Mar 7, 2010 | India, Sailing Logs Year 5 |
Day 132, Year 5: The Day After
Date: Sunday, March 7, 2010
Weather: Weather Changing, North Winds and Cooler
Location: Bolgatty Hotel Anchorage, Cochin (Kochi), India
I’m still not rebounding from the compressor disaster. I’m spending way too much time being ‘musu.’ Mark is doing a little better, but still very upset. We have still not been able to reach Anil. He is the head of General Engineering and he is the one who sends people to our boat to “fix” things. No matter what your religion, Sunday is a day of rest here, so we will just have to catch up with Anil tomorrow. There’s probably nothing that can be done, but Mark really wants a chance to vent. But then Mark is headed to the local Yamaha dealer tomorrow with our dinghy motor, so he won’t be here. Unfortunately, our one year-old dinghy motor has been idling roughly, so just one more thing to add to the list.
Today was cleaning day on Windbird. Mark dove down and cleaned the prop. The water is so murky that he really couldn’t see the prop, but he could feel it and actually it wasn’t too bad. The whole bottom is covered with a jelly-like layer of algae and some small barnacles, but we will wait and clean this when we reach Uligan in the Maldives. I hopped in the dinghy and washed the top sides with fresh water and cleaned the algae from the waterline. By mid-afternoon a film of yucky stuff came in with the tide and made a mess of my cleaning job. I’ll have to clean the bottom half of the top sides once again before we leave. And I continued soaking, washing, and rinsing every rope on this boat. The next big job is buying and storing fresh produce. We need kilos of potatoes, more kilos of onions, limes, carrots, green peppers, oranges, and bananas. We still have eggs left from Thailand, but we will buy fresh eggs here to take over when the Thai eggs have run their course. So there is plenty to fill our time before we leave here on Thursday. I thought we were leaving on Wednesday, but Mark and Ed talked this morning while getting water from the Bolgatty and decided that the tide is more favorable on Thursday. So March 11 is departure date.
