Day 119, Year 5: Tour of Mattancherry and Fort Cochin
Date: Monday, February 22, 2010
Weather: Clear, Sunny Day and HOT
Location: Bolgatty Hotel Anchorage, Cochin (Kochi), India
Before getting into today’s little tour on the island of Fort Cochin, I’ll do an update on who is where. Our friends Robert and Tina of Shirena have less than thirty hours to go in the Gulf Aden before they reach Aden in Yemen. They are with twenty-five other boats and have reported the problems that boats are having and the way the convoy of sailboats have dealt with the problems. They have vowed to leave no one behind, so at least two boats are being towed at this point. All is going well, but there is just no wind. So it is motor, motor, motor. But there have been no piracy incidents and we can only hope that it stays that way. This first convoy was organized by Tom and Nicolette of Katanne, a boat from the UK. The second convoy that was supposed to leave Oman on March 1 was to be led by the man who organizes the Vasco de Gama rally. But evidently the boats coming from the Med are stuck in Eritrea and a number of people are very sick. So the organizer will not reach Oman in time to lead the March 1 convoy. We’ll see what happens with that, but it is obvious from the first convoy that cruisers can organize themselves. That is probably what will have to happen.
Now back to India. Mark took Ed and Lynne of Constance to shore at 6 am this morning. Ed and Lynne then went on to the Cochin Airport where Lynne was flying out at about 9:30 am local time and arriving in Dubai at 1:30 pm local time (noon Dubai time). Once Ed returned from the airport (which is about an hour and a half from here), we all took the ferry to Fort Cochin Island. We first went to Mattancherry where we could see the Pardesi Synagogue in Jew Town. This synagogue was originally built in 1568 but the Jewish people first came to the southwest coast of India in the first century AD. It is a fascinating story and we really enjoyed our tour of the synagogue. Photography was not allowed, but I bought a couple of postcards and took photos of those that I will post with this log. We then walked to the Matttancherry Palace, also known as the Dutch Palace. This palace was built by the Portuguese in 1555 and was given to the Raja of Kochi at that time. The Dutch renovated the palace in 1663, thus the alternative name of the Dutch Palace. We saw beautiful Hindu murals depicting Hindu legends in detail, walked through the gallery of maharajas from 1864 that had a great time line of world history intermixed with Indian history displayed, and saw a wonderful collection of palanquins (hand-carted carriages). It was definitely a good stop, but it was almost 1:30 pm when we got through the museum and we were very hot and hungry. So we hopped on an auto rickshaw to go across the island to Fort Cochin for lunch. I wanted to eat at the Dal Roti restaurant that the Lonely Planet had declared to have the best food in Fort Cochin. We had a good lunch, but nothing to compare with the food we have been getting in Ernakulam at the Hotel Saravana Bhavan for much less money. So we had an enjoyable lunch, but not the “best food in Fort Cochin” as written in the Lonely Planet. Or maybe it was the best food in Fort Cochin, but certainly not the best in the Kochi area. We then walked to the Bishop’s House to visit the Indo-Portuguese Museum. Unfortunately, it is closed on Mondays, so we just walked about the grounds. We then walked past a house where Vasco de Gama is believed to have lived. From there we went to the St. Francis Church which is believed to be the oldest European-built church in India. It was originally built in 1503 and Vasco de Gama was buried here in 1524. Fourteen years later his remains were taken to Lisbon but we could still see where he was originally buried in this church. We walked from here to the Catholic Santa Cruz Basillica. This is surrounded by schools and it was the end of the day. So we watched the school children leaving and getting on buses and autorickshaws to head home. The original structure built on this site was in 1506, but today’s Basillica was built in 1902. The interior of the church was quite interesting. But by this time, we had all just about had enough of touring for the day, so we made a bee-line for the ferry terminal. Our timing was great as a ferry was just about to leave. We got back to Ernakulam, walked the waterfront to the High Court Jetty, and then went on the Bolgatty Jetty to our dinghy. We dropped Ed off at Constance and then went over to the Bolgatty Palace Hotel to pick up a package they had called to tell us had arrived. It was our Amazon order of books about Madagascar. We used a gift certificate from Heather and Jed to order these books, and it was wonderful to get them. Mark has been pouring through the books all evening and is getting more and more excited about our visit to Madagascar. So thank you Heather and Jed for that wonderful gift certificate.
We are still waiting for our compressor to receive clearance and be sent from Chennai to Cochin. We will have to wait until morning to make calls about that, but tonight we will make calls to the US to track down tax information that has never reached our daughter’s address. So the fun continues!
Day 118, Year 5: The Neighborhood is Shrinking!
Date: Sunday, February 21, 2010
Weather: More Sunny, Hot, and Hazy
Location: Bolgatty Hotel Anchorage, Cochin (Kochi), India
When you are at anchor, the other boats around you become your neighborhood. And since we can’t walk on water, the only way to visit is by dinghy or by meeting at a place on shore. The meeting place is usually a little restaurant and bar onshore that has grown to accommodate the cruisers. But here we do not have a place on shore to meet other cruisers and we just haven’t gotten to know people. But what we do know is that there are now only six sailboats here, and no one is aboard any of them except Ed and Lynne on Constance and Mark and I. Judy and Dave on Freebird left for Salalah in Oman a few days ago, and then yesterday morning Rod and Lu on Skylax and the folks on a catamaran named Dejavu left. That left six boats, but the people on the other four boats must be traveling. It’s getting a little lonely here and as of tomorrow morning, it will be even lonelier. Lynne is flying home to the US tomorrow. Her mother, who is 88, took a bit of a tumble in the middle of the night a few days ago, couldn’t get up and wasn’t found for about 21 hours. She is now in the hospital fighting to recover. Her progress has been up and down, and finally Lynne decided that she just had to go home to see her. Since we live in such a small neighborhood, I find it uncanny that the only two “homes” with people aboard have both had family emergencies within a week of each other. And the other thing that I find uncanny is the reported difference in health care in South Carolina where my brother went to the emergency room and in Boynton Beach in Florida where Lynn’s mother lives. My brother-in-law Joe told me that he was absolutely amazed at the speed and competence in the emergency room where my brother was sent. On the other hand, Lynn’s mother was kept in the emergency room in Boynton Beach for over 48 hours because there was no room in the inn. The hospital is so overcrowded that they just cannot deal. But Lynne’s mother is now in a room and one of Lynne’s sisters lives close-by and is holding down the fort until other family members arrive. Lynne will leave early in the morning, fly to Dubai, sit for about twelve hours, fly to Atlanta, and then on to Florida. She will arrive on Tuesday and right now is slated to return on March 6. If that schedule sticks, we will stay here and wait until her return so that Windbird and Constance can sail south together. If she is delayed, we will have to make a decision at that point, but for now we will stay put and enjoy more of southern India. In the meantime, we can only hope that Lynne’s mother will recover rapidly and that Lynne will be back with us soon. Safe travels to Lynne and a speedy recovery to Lynne’s mother. Please know that we are thinking of you.
Today was a quiet Sunday. We started our day with a call to Justin, Jo, and Ziggy. Justin and Jo are doing well and are excited that there are signs of spring in the desert in New Mexico. Ziggy is now crawling FAST and pulling up to a standing position every chance he gets. During this call he was much more interested in the monitor screen and the keyboard than in calls in the past. But when the wooden blocks of buildings in London were brought out, he switched his attention. He played with the blocks for a bit and then he was off crawling again. He isn’t speaking in words yet, but he certainly gets his messages across. Tonight we talked with Heather, Jed, Sam, and Jonah. Jonah is also on the move these days, wanting to hold on to anything or anyone he can and then walk. He just started crawling a couple of weeks ago, but now pulling up and holding on while walking is his preferred method of transport. So both babies will soon be walking. Talking to Sam is whole different experience from watching Jonah and Ziggy. Sam is very much a three-year old. He typed us a Skype message while we were talking and drew a picture that he said he had to send to us. We can actually have a bit of back and forth conversation with Sam. We will hope to have at least one more Skype video call with Ziggy, Jonah, and Sam before leaving here. And then we hope to be able to call them from the southern atoll in the Maldives. After that it will be almost three months before we can call again. I can’t bear to even think about that, but I can be thankful that at least there is email. I really don’t think I could do this without being in email contact with my family.
Today I spent the morning cleaning the inside of the boat, while Mark worked on a sail repair project. Just after noon, Ed stopped by to introduce us to a local family that they had invited to Constance for the afternoon. They knew of the family from another cruising boat that spent eight months here. We were introduced, but I regret that I cannot remember their names. They were a lovely couple with two beautiful little girls, probably seven and three years old. Then I spent the rest of my afternoon getting packages ready to send to our kids. Once I learned that Lynne is going home, I figured it smarter to send things with her to be mailed from the US rather than risk that things sent from here will actually reach their destination.
Our compressor is still in Chennai waiting for clearance, so we are thinking that we will go to Fort Cochin tomorrow to do some more sight seeing, and then hopefully we will receive the compressor on Tuesday and start the process of getting that installed. In between any of these activities, we will continue the reprovisioning. Departure is now two weeks away, but I know that time will go quickly. We’ll never feel like we have all the provisions we need. But we will travel on and we will do just fine.
Day 117, Year 5: One of THOSE Days
Date: Saturday, February 20, 2010
Weather: Sunny, but Hazy; Temps Near 90 degrees F
Location: Bolgatty Hotel Anchorage, Cochin (Kochi), India
The good news today is that our compressor has arrived in India, but it arrived in Chennai which is on the east coast. It was shipped via DHL and when we got online this morning we saw that it had arrived in Chennai and but had a clearance delay. We called a number for DHL India and got a wonderful woman named Gracie took our phone number and email address and assured us someone would contact us. Mid-day, we were called and told that there was no invoice with the package. So we emailed the invoice that we had received as an email attachment and it now looks like either clearance will happen on Monday or Tuesday or we will receive it on Monday or Tuesday. That part was not clear. So we will just have to wait and see.
The real bummer of the day is that we realized that there is something wrong with my computer. My little IBM ThinkPad is like a best friend. It is small enough and has been tough enough that I can take it into the cockpit and write even when the weather is wicked. I have two batteries for it and between the two, in the past I have been able to work for four hours without recharging. Lately, the batteries hold no charge at all, so I have had to be plugged in constantly. And today we realized that my little computer is using more power than everything else on the boat combined. So I spent the afternoon backing up everything in the eventuality that it should fail completely. Mark thinks the fan is not working and that we might find someone here to fix it. We will certainly give that a try, but in the meantime I’m without my best friend.
In between working on backing up the computer, I baked bread, banana bread, and granola. Mark worked on finishing up the filling of screw holes on deck with Epoxy and he worked on the spinnaker pole. It is old and hard to use and he was trying to loosen up some of the connections. We also went over to Bolgatty Island to see if any of the packages that we are expecting have arrived, but they have not. We are expecting books from Amazon, a toilet repair kit from West Marine, and a package from our daughter Heather. All should be here by now, but Indian mail is notoriously slow and unreliable. I guess we’ll be lucky if we receive these things.
So I’m looking forward to a better day tomorrow. Maybe it’s time to just relax for a day and then start in again on Monday.
Day 116, Year 5: Waterway Explore Date: Friday, February 19, 2010 Weather: No Change–Still Hot, Hot, Hot Location: Bolgatty Hotel Anchorage, Cochin (Kochi), India Today we experienced the backwaters of central Kerala aboard a houseboat designed like a rice barge (kettavallam). The boat’s name was Jalarani. Our captain was named Jud and our guide was Shajas. We traveled with a couple from Austria, two couples from India, and seven students from Portland State University in Oregon. We ate authentic Keralan food, drank tea, visited villages to watch coir making (rope spun of coconut fiber), palm toddy tapping, rode through the manmade canal system in a country boat which is a large open canoe-style boat powered by a man who used a bamboo pole to push us through the water, and then we got to see how the boats are made. There is a 900 kilometer network of waterways in southern Kerala. We certainly didn’t see it all today, but we were fascinated by what we did see. And we are beginning to see why Kerala is referred to as God’s Own Country. This is the tourist slogan plastered everywhere, and our trips through the jungle, the tea plantations in the mountains, and today’s trip though the waterways help us to understand how this slogan developed. We spent the morning on the ketavallam or houseboat floating quietly down the river system through an area referred to as Poothotta. In Sanskrit, Poot means flower and hotta means garden. Three of the districts of Kerala can be seen at one time when out in the waterway-Alleppey, Cochin, and Kottayam. The rivers we traveled today begin in the mountains to the east and trickle their way here to the sea. The herbs used in Ayurvedic treatment grow in abundance in southern Kerala and today our guide showed us which plants are used to cure particular ailments. Ayurvedic medicine is widely practiced here. In Sanskrit, ayu means life and veda means knowledge. Well, the people here seem to have the knowledge and I am particularly fascinated by this. Mark was more fascinated today by the way the boats are made. They are double-ended, made of wood planks “sewn” together with coconut fiber twine and caulked with coconut fibers bound to each seam by the same coconut fiber twine that holds the planks together. There are ribs to which the planks are riveted with crude home-made rivets. The shear or top edge of the boat is finished by sandwiching the planks between two other boards and seats are riveted to those top planks. The result is a water-tight, seaworthy construction that is easily poled, paddled, or driven by an outboard motor. Watching the coconut fiber rope making was also fascinating. There are two motor-driven metal spinning wheels about 10 meters or 30 feet apart. A woman carrying a load of raw coconut fiber bundled in her sari walks backwards from one of the wheels where the beginnings of rope are attached and then spins a fiber line out of each hand. She ends up with a fiber line in each hand. When she reaches the other wheel, she connects the two lines of spun fiber and walks back to the other end assisting the two lines in twisting into a rope. This is one you have to see to believe, so we promise to get photos and video posted this weekend. It was a full and interesting day. When we got back to Ernakulam, we had our driver drop us off on Market Road. We stopped at the Current Book Store that Deepali (student we met in Kumily) had recommended, went to the food market to buy more onions, and then went to the dinghy dock to meet Nazar. He brought us in this morning so we didn’t have to leave a dinghy at the dock all day and picked us up tonight. We met a most interesting Indian man with two of his students on the dock. I won’t go into great detail here, but I would categorize this gentleman as a born-again Beatnik from the 1950’s, although he was born in 1959. He could quote the lyrics to more songs than I could even name, has seen more American films than I have ever heard of, thinks of John Lennon, Janice Joplin, and Jack Kerouac as heroes, and believes that all humans must watch the video from Woodstock to become whole. This is a country of extremes!
Day 115, Year 5: A Little of This and A Little of That
Date: Thursday, February 18, 2010
Weather: No Change–Still Hot, Hot, Hot
Location: Bolgatty Hotel Anchorage, Cochin (Kochi), India
Today was one of those days when we did just a little of this and a little of that. We did a lot of things, but nothing major. We booked our all-day waterway tour tomorrow. I did a laundry and washed all the cushion covers in the cockpit. Mark stripped out chalk and removed screws on the teak deck when it appeared that they might be leaking. He then filled those areas with epoxy. We went to town and bought six kilos of red onions (the only type available here), four kilos of basmati rice, and a couple of pumpkins. That was it for provisioning today. We also went to the main ferry terminal and paid for our waterway trip tomorrow. So as I said, our day was spent just doing little bits of things.
Early this morning, I talked to my sister-in-law Conda and her two sons, Tommy and Todd. I got a full report on my brother’s funeral. It was wonderful to talk with them, but it made me more than a little homesick but it was still wonderful to talk with them. Last night we talked to Heather and Jonah and that also made me homesick. But it is still wonderful to be able to talk with them and see them. So we will continue to make these Skype video calls while we are here, because after leaving here, there will be a very long period of time when our only communication will be via email. We will have internet in the Maldives, but we will be there only a short time before going to the Chagos. And there is nothing in the Chagos but beauty. I know we will enjoy our time there, but it will be long stretch with no Skype video of grandchildren.
So tomorrow we go on our waterway tour and get a glimpse of the traditional villages that still exist here. We are looking forward to that trip, but we have decided to stay close to home this weekend and most of next week. We are hoping that our compressor will arrive early in the week and will be installed and running soon after. Then the next weekend, we are traveling north to experience an Indian festival. And after that, we will be leaving here and heading south to the Maldives. Time does fly when you are having fun.
Day 114, Year 5: Beginning the Provisioning . . . Again
Date: Wednesday, February 17, 2010
Weather: Still Hot, Hot, Hot
Location: Bolgatty Hotel Anchorage, Cochin (Kochi), India
Now that we are back in hot and polluted Cochin, we are starting to think about getting ready to leave here. Even though we still have two and a half weeks here, but it is time to start the provisioning process. We are enjoying our time here, but the air is always hazy with pollution and the boat literally turns a little gray after about a week. The canvas is absolutely filthy and there seems to be no hope of rain. It should rain at least two to three times while we are in the Chagos for two months, but it will have to be a deluge to clean the sail covers. So for now I use any clothes washing water I have and wash the boat down the best I can. We can get all the water for washing that we want on shore for about $2 US per week and we use that for showers, dish washing, clothes washing, and boat washing. But carrying the heavy water jugs is no fun, so I still try to conserve the best I can. There is no way we would run the water maker in this dirty water, so we are using the water in our tanks for drinking and cooking only. We are still on our first tank of two of drinking and cooking water, so that should last us until we leave here. Our friends on Constance are really getting tired of the dirt and I think they are going to head south sooner than we do. We liked traveling with another boat, but there are still things here I want to see and experience. So if they travel on, we’ll meet up with them again in the Chagos.
This afternoon we headed into town to start buying food for the next leg of our trip. We started our trip to town by walking to the main ferry terminal to talk to the woman at the Tourist Information Office. She was very helpful. She gave us a brochure outlining the waterway trip sponsored by the state tourist office and gave us all sorts of information about traveling to other locations for festivals. After leaving the ferry terminal, we took an auto rickshaw out to the train station area where I bought a backpack on my walkabout day. Mark needed a backpack as well, so we found one for him this afternoon. Good quality packs cost about $30 US, but they are really good quality, so we are hoping they will last longer that our last packs that we bought in Borneo. We then took another auto rickshaw back to the Varney’s Supermarket on Mahatma Gandhi Road. We were looking for liquid Tide laundry detergent that Mark swears he saw there the other day, but it was not there today. We then hiked down Jew Street which has a store dedicated to almost anything you can think of. I bought mailer envelopes from a stationary store, little rag rugs from a rag rug store to put on the cockpit seats where we enter and exit. Then we went to the big produce and fish market to look for garlic, onions, and tomatoes. We have found a grocery store with frozen chicken breast and pork roast, so if we get our freezer fixed, we can buy some meat to replenish. And we can surely buy all the fruits and vegetables that we will need in the market place. We have learned since being here that rice is not just rice, bananas are not just bananas, and that a whole sundry of other things are just not what they seem. When you go to buy rice in a US supermarket, you have a few choices. Here there are shelves of choices. I know that I like long-grain Basmati rice and that is very expensive here in terms of Indian prices. I have to pay 72 Rupees per kilo for this which is about $0.75 per pound. In the scheme of things, that is not expensive, but it is much more expensive than other types of rice. There must be more than a hundred different kinds of bananas here and more vegetables than I can describe for which I have no names. So shopping is interesting, but most anything in the world that you might want is either on Market Road, Jew Street, or in one of the three major supermarkets. So that at least defines the limits, and none is too far from the waterfront where we come to shore with our dinghy.
Our good friends Robert and Tina of Shirena are probably leaving Oman for Yemen about now. Because Yemen in nearly in civil war, their stop in Aden will be very short. They have had a mixed time in Oman. People are friendly but dealing with officials can evidently be very “interesting.” Here’s what Robert reported about their experience in trying to rent a car to do inland travel. “In Salalah we have fun with authorities and other matters. Yesterday we needed six rental cars and… none arrived. The agent did not order them! He had to take the drivers to the rental company to collect the cars. It was quite an experience! The agent walked trough the yard with some nice as well as crushed cars. Some cars had flat batteries thus he jumped started them. Later people forgot about that and turned the engines off – well, they had to jump start them again. Our car had a flat tire and… no spare one. We were promised we would get the spare but that never happened. Nevertheless we traveled to Mirbat, a town about 70 kms from the port. This was where we anchored on the way to Salalah. The town still has ruins from the war forty years ago but it is a good place to visit. We went to a restaurant that overlooks the bay. The food was good and we enjoyed watching fishermen pulling out fish traps with plenty of fish, some very big. In the evening we went with others to have dinner in Lebanese restaurant. It was again great food. Fatty will soon have the name that fits him!”
Robert is referring to Fatty Goodlander. And here he has a story about Carolyn Goodlander, “Today, we went to do last shopping before the departure. On return to the harbour we were stopped by the police at the gate. Usually, they check our passports and let us go. Sometimes they do not even check the passports. This time the guard requested a permit for the car! We did not have one. He sent us to the other gate. There they requested rental papers – what rental papers!? We returned to the gate to the port hoping someone would take our shopping and we would just leave the car there, since we can go but not the car. Carolyn decided to have a go at the policeman. She won! He let us go!”
We wish Robert and Tina, Fatty and Carolyn, and the many other cruisers that we know that are headed to the Red Sea safe travels through the Gulf of Aden. We will certainly be anxious to know they have arrived in the Red Sea safely.
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.
