In Oman

I don’t know where to start with this post and I suppose most followers of my writings will have read my last entry which I wrote while in a state of shock. Further frightening events happen daily as the pirate action escalates and we are told that no yacht is safe out there any more. The remaining Rally boats are all secure here at present in Salalah but we all know of several yachts still in transit to Oman and others who have taken the bold decision to carry on through the Gulf of Aden (GoA). The latest reports which we now know to be true are that a Danish yacht with a family on board is in pirate hands and heading for Somalia. There was a news blackout on this event and we naturally feared the worst. Another smaller rally of about ten boats with whom we had some radio contact a few days ago are in the Gulf of Aden and we just hope they are travelling safely
.
The long 1500 mile motorsail from Mumbai to Salalah, long because of our pirate avoiding detour, was free of actual pirate problems though some of the more panicky members of our group believed that any boat nearby might be a threat and we had some quite comical sudden course changes going on around us as curious Omani fishing boats came close by for a look with big smiles and lots of waving. We kept a good visual watch from the cockpit as normal and muttered a little about the dependency of some yachts on their radars and AIS systems…hopeless against small fast skiffs which the pirates use and useless being down below over the chart table, seeing nothing.

We stopped overnight at an island, Masirah, just off the Oman coast to refuel having received permission from the sheikh himself to do so. John from Spirit of Nina, who were already safely in Salalah, very kindly arranged it all for us. It was my first step ashore in the Middle East since 1976 and the Esso tankers….. All the women were covered top to toe in black as this island is very traditional but the sheikh’s daughter wore the most extraordinary black mask that looked like a bird’s skull. I wish I’d had the nerve to ask if I could take a photo. I wish too that we could have stayed a day or two longer but there was a pressing need to get to safety and Salalah.

As dusk fell the next night we were motorsailing as usual just off the coast when I spotted the dreaded lines of polystyrene floats which have plagued us ever since Indonesia. These floats which are lit only at one end are the visible part of huge drift nets which can be several miles long and hang just a few feet below the surface. If you can sail the boat in between two of these floats, you won’t get tangled up………We were in the middle of dozens of them horizon to horizon and they became almost impossible to see as night fell. We had successfully led our team of five boats in a line across several nets and were starting to relax a little when I spotted the next one about four feet away in the gathering gloom. OK for us but lethal for Hans on Natibou, the cat behind us. He got well and truly caught up so the rest of us crept out to safety and then wondered what to do. Hans was in favour of diving under the boat in the dark to cut the lines away but this is just too risky with nets and currents. So we decided to hang around as a group til morning when the task of freeing the boat would be easier. A very long night was in prospect. As luck would have it, the next, much faster rally group were just a few miles behind us and hearing of our plight, they insisted on coming across to help with their superhero team of cool divers, The Men in Black AKA the SBS. In a very short time, they had cut Hans free and so we were able to continue ……

This was a very arduous trip with little respite from trying to be in a constant state of alertness apart from sighting dolphins and two killer whales and being treated to an amazing light show each night as the water became alive with bioluminescence from our wash. I’m now just really relieved we’re here though.

Oman is very pleasant….a little dusty but not too hot if one stays out of the sun and not too expensive either. We found a huge hypermarket that sells everything we could wish for apart from alcohol and pork products. I got carried away in the date section and sampled quite a few before buying some which are the best I’ve ever tasted. The women mostly cover up completely in black with their headscarves encasing some huge lumps on the back of their heads. I think they look weird, like Darth Vader (they glide along the floor.) or vampires even. Strangely, the men seem to think they look mysterious and alluring. Surely this isn’t what they are supposed to think? The Arab men can look elegant in their floor length white, cream or grey shirts …I think they’re called dish tash or something like that….as long as they don’t have big protruding stomachs that is. I haven’t the nerve to take a photo yet though they are all very friendly and tolerant of our general state of Western undress.

So, here we sit while the big guns in the rally, of whom there are several, formulate a master plan to get us out of our predicament. We are not supposed to reveal our plans for some reason as of yet but I’m sure it’ll all become clear soon. In the meantime, I can sit here on the boat and try out my new dongle. Everyone who travels with a computer should have one of these though it took me many months to find out what they were and I am now so pleased to have one. Lets hope it allows me to upload a photo or two now. ..............

Phyllis

Phyllis was one of the four American hostages shot dead in the early hours of the 23rd February on board the pirated US yacht Quest that had been attacked by Somali pirates at dusk.on the 18th Feb in the middle of the Indian Ocean while sailing alone from Mumbai to Salalah, Oman. The other hostages were Bob, who had circumnavigated with Phyllis in their 36ft yacht on the previous Blue Water Rally, and the yacht’s owner/skipper and his wife, Scott and Jean. At the time the fatal shootings happened, Quest was surrounded by four US warships including a carrier and a battle cruiser and negotiations had been going on to free the four hostages for some days but in the end, a panic shooting between the pirates led to the warships closing in for action, panicking the pirates still further into shooting their captives. I can’t begin to imagine how awful those few days must have been.
I didn’t really know the owner and his wife as they had only joined the rally in Thailand at Christmas and we have been mostly at sea since then in different ports at different times. (The owner was a very determined character by all accounts and had decided to sail direct and alone from Mumbai to Salalah against all the advice). I knew Bob (who was very quiet) slightly better as he had been on various boats with the Rally fleet for some months and we met in Fiji. Phyllis however had been with the Rally since the beginning in Gibraltar, October 2009.
I first met her in Panama last year and she made quite an impression. She was very outgoing and chatty from the start with a strong American accent and a way of talking from the side of her mouth with her teeth clenched tight. She looked and sounded like one of those gutsy little female characters you see in old American movies who are propped up against the bar or looking after the menfolk on the ranch and always running the whole goddam show. She also reminded me a little of Liza Minnelli I think.
After circumnavigating with Bob in 2007-09, she wanted to do the whole thing again, this time sailing as crew on other yachts. She had sailed on several in the Rally for a few weeks or months before she joined Quest and I remember thinking that she and Bob would have felt very much at home with their own countrymen for the final legs of the trip across the Indian Ocean and up the Red Sea into the Med. We were always turning to her for her experiences from “the last time around”. She told me that the toughest part of the trip for her last time was the Pirate Alley aka the Gulf of Aden or GOA. Second time around, GOA had become less dangerous and Pirate Alley is now Pirate Pond aka the Indian Ocean. Unbelievable.
She was certainly a tough cookie. In October, she had hired a scooter in Kupang, Indonesia along with other crews and set off to explore the island. She came a cropper on the terrible roads and really scraped herself along one side when she hit the ground…..the scars were still very visible just a few weeks ago in Cochin which is when we last spoke. We hadn’t expected her to turn up in Cochin either as she had developed an extremely nasty corneal ulcer while in Sri Lanka which could have cost her an eye. The advice then had been for her to go back to the States immediately for proper treatment but she typically chose to grin and bear it and carry on with the Rally.
I think in a way that Phyllis belonged to the Rally and maybe embodied the spirit of the Rally too. She will be missed very much by everyone.
I just can’t believe that she’s gone.

Flotsam and Jetsam

The famous Taj Mahal Hotel, Mumbai. Moonshiner is about two hundred metres away.












In the famous Leopold's, Mumbai wearing garlandy thing and red spot...I was Hare Krishnaed, told I was being given good luck and then he asked for some money! Cheek!!










Val (Angel) and I went for a carriage ride around. Nice way to see the city and we were a bit of an attraction as I think they normally use these things for weddings.










This is Santa who worked very hard to pull us around. I love the ears. An Indian breed called kathiawari if I remember. Never thought I'd see one in the flesh!











And I just had to include Gandhi in his nappy...

Now for the other part that I wrote before......


I have never understood why some writers have to detail every single meal their characters eat unless the end result of all that food is something like terminal flatulence which might make the character behave out of character and is particularly relevant to the plot. I also don’t enjoy reading in a blog for example about every single course of a meal that someone has eaten. I’m talking Blue Water rally blogs here of which a number can be found on mailasail.com (click on “List all users” to find names if you’re ever so slightly curious….). Hmmm
So, having said all that, I am only going to write about food once although I have probably mentioned some of these things before…. We like meat and it can be very hard to find decent stuff. For some reason(!) most supermarkets in the second and third worlds only seem to supply strange chunks of unidentifiable flesh like chicken feet and backs and cow heels and pig tails. Yuk! I suppose all the best cuts go to the hotels and restaurants. We therefore try to stock up when we can. It’s quite difficult to buy meat in India as I expected. The only meat in the only supermarket in Cochin sold frozen things in poly bags called “veal bits” or “pork bits”, so we bought some! After pressure cooking, it was really quite nice. Enough said.
Other strange things I have eaten on the way round the world have been……

St Lucia….breadfruit….incredibly boring
Guyana…guinea pig…tastes a bit like chicken
Vanuatu….cassava/manioc…..looks feels and tastes like soft paraffin wax (don’t ask!)
Mackay, Oz….kangaroo…...looks and tastes like horse…better stewed than eaten as steaks!
Darwin, Oz……crocodile….tastes (you guessed) a bit like chicken
Singapore…..durian fruit…..tastes and smells like onion that has already been digested!! Don’t try it unless you’re barking mad!!!!
Indonesia……café luwak……the most expensive coffee in the world; tastes very nice and even smells like the civet that previously ate the coffee beans…..so there!

In Salalah, Oman, we may be subjected to eyeballs………….no thanks!

In the meantime, we are now happily and thankfully sitting peacefully at anchor in Mumbai. This is an unscheduled rally stop but one that has become slightly necessary for reasons I am not at liberty to divulge. Make what you will of all this!! We are slightly bemused by it all too.
The 650 mile slog here from Cochin with an overnight stop at Goa en route was not without incident…..surprise surprise! It went like this:-
I was just about asleep and going on watch in four hours when Dick woke me up to say we had a problem. The boat was filling up with water! No immediate panic but some concern to find where it was coming in before the level got too high and things started to get damaged. Just why do these things always happen in the dark with horrible lumpy seas to boot? I “womanned” the pump and managed to get the level down but was really hoping that I wouldn’t have to keep on all night. We called the nearby Rally boats to stand by just in case and started to look for the leak. It turned out to be just ever so slightly funny (if you can imagine being in the situation). An incontinence pad (!) which was used by the engineers in Thailand to mop up excess oil had been left under the engine where it couldn’t be seen and with just enough water in the bilges from seas over the bow, it had started to float, risen up and jammed the stern gland which in turn led to more than a trickle of water coming into the boat where it really shouldn’t have. A bit of skilful manoeuvring under the engine by Dick brought it under control within about an hour. Phew!!
So no more peaceful sleep for me after all that. It didn’t help that we were in the middle of hundreds of fishing boats at the time too meaning that we should have been keeping a permanent lookout.

First impressions of Mumbai? I spent a couple of hours ashore and it seems like an amazing place, bursting with colour, sound and life. It’s also pleasantly cool and February is the best month to visit so they say. Angel Val and David and I managed to find the famous “Leopold’s”, as described in the book Shantaram which you must read if you haven’t already. Not sure if I want to find the infamous Madame Zhou’s brothel though (as also mentioned in the book) but it must have been nearby…….
Tomorrow, we try to book a tour of the city as we have only a couple of days here and we must also visit the awfully posh Bombay Yacht Club before we leave. I shall try to get a couple of photos to go with this post but no promises… No idea at the moment if I can get online either but hoping.

After this, I have no idea when I shall next be online. Our arrival dates in Salalah are a bit vague for security reasons but it should be before the end of this month I hope. If not, you may hear about it on the news (only joking!). We have to take the threat seriously of course though there is very little risk to yachts apparently…we’re just not enough of a catch…..nice to discover how much you’re really worth!

We are trying to stay upbeat but some yacht crews are more nervous than others. We want to stay with the brave ones!

Watch this space…….

More photos first before the wordy bit....

This charming little place was in the ladies loo at the Customs building. It got worse!











A protest march going on in Cochin. Something to do with Anglo Indian rights which I'm sure they are perfectly entitled to. We just loved the colourful saris on display.

Val being dressed in the sari shop and looking very much like the Columbia Pictures lady I thought. David was in the background being "man in dress shop" but I couldn't possibly put the photo of him on this blog could I?

A few coracles twirled past the boat....... India is amazing!!

Having a go at stone polishing in Sri Lanka. Pity the poor person who buys my effort!

With Colin and sarah from Moonbeam on our "day out". Moonbeam have now decide to leave the Rally unfortunately as they had too many problems with the boat after the storm and wouldn't be able to catch up with the rest of us. A real shame for them and us too.

My pal "Monica"

Astride the lumbering beast!

And how to clamber around whilst aboard!

Just getting there!

We spent 6 days in Sri Lanka, two of them to recover from the long sail and to sort out one or two things with the boat and also to attend the all important (and top secret!) Rally briefing about the long trip from Cochin, India to Salalah, Oman where we have to stay away from the pirates…… Well, we are certainly going to stay a long way away, that’s for sure! The main problem for the boats is going to be fuel. The winds may be light for 1500 miles and so we may run out……… Hmm

We had to see something of Sri Lanka so we and Colin and Sarah from Moonbeam booked a day tour of the area with a driver for $20 each… a good price. Most of the other boats had already done an incredibly expensive and somewhat disappointing (lunch for example was a sandwich on the bus!) 5 day tour of the interior…tea plantation, elephant sanctuary etc but we were far too late arriving for that so a day would have to suffice.

It was a good day. We packed in visits to several places… you know the sort of thing…..a museum, an ayurvedic medicine place, a moonstone mine (I loved that!) etc. My favourite part though was the elephant ride and the pictures may accompany this piece if I can get a decent connection.

Sri Lanka was a nice place and I’m sorry we couldn’t stay longer. It was even quite cool at times in the early morning with a lowest temperature I saw of 24.5 C. I know: I’ve spent too long in the tropics quite obviously!

Most of the other boats had left a few days earlier for Cochin, a 400 mile, 3 day hop with the promise of exciting winds in the acceleration zone between Sri Lanka and India. The grib (weather) files were actually giving 25 knots which usually means up to 10 knots more. Our first day was pleasant enough as we cleared Sri Lanka but then we hit the acceleration zone and things livened up dramatically. A day later and I was saying it was the most uncomfortable 24 hours I had ever spent at sea! The winds were steady at 30 knots plus on the beam and we’ve seen much worse than that, but the sea was unbelievable. The waves were very steep, about 3 metres and relentless so that the boat constantly plunged in and the lee rail was permanently under as we heeled at over 30deg for a whole day. We were doing over 7 knots the whole time with both sails heavily reefed and the boat wasn’t exactly under control! Truly horrible, all the banging and crashing and difficulty getting around the boat or finding a corner to sleep in for an hour or so. The worst thing was the saloon table suddenly deciding to free itself after 30 years of staying put. It flew across the saloon and landed on me. I was in a state of shock for a while as I sat there pinned, wondering just what damage had been done to me. It was just bruises in the end but a few scary moments nevertheless.

The two other boats (Angel and Bali Blue) sailing with us had an equally uncomfortable time and reported big seas flooding compartments and things being washed off the deck. Angel lost two sails which were lashed down on deck. A very expensive day for them! The next day brought light winds and motorsailing with few problems until we blundered into a huge fleet of small Indian fishing boats, horizon to horizon. They have no correct lights and motor around haphazardly while we try to sail around them and not get tangled up in lines. All three boats spent the whole night on lookout….. very little sleep once more!

Still, we arrived here in Cochin, Kerala, India relatively intact and prepared ourselves for the checking in procedure. This was going to be a whole day experience…. We Brits certainly left the Indian people a great legacy. We ended up trudging backwards and forwards around the port area with bits of official paper, then, seemingly hours just sitting and waiting in various old colonial style buildings (in serious need of a paint job!) while the locals were somewhere else. These places were piled high floor to ceiling with dusty papers that will never be looked at again. Everywhere was showing signs of neglect and decay. It was like being in an old pre war hospital I should think. The whole process took about five hours and we missed lunch!!

Never mind…this was India and I was looking forward to experiencing some of it during our short stay here. Kerala is more affluent than the other states. They have tried, not totally successfully, to remove the beggars and to clean up a little I suppose. It is still quite incredible though to see huge piles of unmentionable, stinky stuff absolutely everywhere sitting smack bang next to stalls selling food with filthy skinny old men squatting amongst it all and brilliantly coloured women in gorgeous saris wafting by….. The constant noise too is amazing, tuk tuks (three wheeled cabs) everywhere, motorbikes and huge painted buses and each one constantly honking their horns. Crossing the road takes precision timing and an agile body! I couldn’t live here for a second but I’m glad I’ve seen it…and of course I had to buy a sari or two….. Angel Val and I spent a couple of hours totally immersed in a huge sari shop which must have had a million on display. Talk about spoilt for choice. One cost me just £2.50 and the other which is seriously luxurious just £12. I just need a little practice to perfect the tying technique now…….

The other side to us being in India now was to plan the Rally route through the N Indian ocean to the Gulf of Aden and on up the Red Sea which we must manage by March before the weather makes it impossible for yachts to navigate. There have been many obstacles. The NE monsoon should have arrived so that we could sail the long distance without fuel shortages except that it hasn’t yet so all boats have had to buy lots of extra diesel and we will need to stop further up the coast to buy more. No one wants to run out of fuel in the middle of the ocean where one would become a sitting duck for the Somali pirates. The pirates are everywhere now so they say and no route is totally safe. We take comfort from the fact that they are not usually interested in yachts…..yet.

The other problem that cropped up was the unrest in Egypt. We just hope that it has calmed down again by the time we get there in a couple of months. There has been an awful lot of discussion among the boats and many official meetings to try and formulate a plan. The mood is quite sombre. It is all top secret of course so I can’t say anything but watch this space for an update in a few weeks! We are currently hoping for an armed escort for part of the way. It’s all such a long way from the gentle life half way across the world in another ocean………………..

Crossing the Bay of Bengal

And it was all going so well……..
We had checked out of Thailand and stocked up on provisions, enough for a month or so, then, having left the Royal Phuket Marina at the earliest opportunity when there was enough tide and after a night at anchor in the lovely Nai Harn Bay on the south coast of Phuket, we headed out, under sail, westwards and a little south on the 1100 mile passage to Galle in Sri Lanka. The Blue Water Guide promised us an “exhilarating sail” with NE trade winds and I was really looking forward to a pleasant ocean passage…for a change. Ha! The guide frequently gets it wrong as we have discovered. They ask us to give them updates based on our experiences so here goes………..

OK, so the wind was actually from the East for that first day but we sailed along very well with the Yankee poled out to port and the main set with the preventer rigged to starboard making 8 knots on occasion and eventually doing over 170 miles for that day’s run. Then the wind started to veer, not a good sign, swinging around to the SW and forcing us to start the engine (which was now purring happily I should add!) Still, motoring is not a good idea so early on, on this long trip, as there has to be enough fuel to actually arrive at the other end……

The wind persisted from the SW and increased so that we were having to battle against it and could only manage about 2.5 knots for the next three days. Concern over fuel consumption was growing. We were getting nowhere fast, making about 60 miles a day by then. We had heard from other yachts that had set out a few days earlier that they had experienced strong head winds with one or two boats having sail damage and fuel shortage problems though most had made it to Galle safely (especially the bigger faster boats that usually motorsail everywhere anyway..but I won’t go into that here!

We were seriously reefed down by now( with some difficulty I might add) and had set the staysail which is tough enough to withstand a real pasting by the weather. We had a couple of very nasty squalls with black skies and 35 knot sustained winds (gale force 8) and wondered just how long this patch of inclement weather might last. In the gloom as evening approached, I saw a yacht sailing under reefed headsail only…in the opposite direction. Strange! No one sails from Sri Lanka to Thailand I thought? We couldn’t identify it but thought it might be a Rally yacht and it was quickly gone from view.

Then an email was received from “Rally control” about the cyclone. Eek!! There are not supposed to be cyclones in the Indian Ocean between December and March. Well, someone got that wrong. This was one!!

Things were beginning to look a little dodgy..the wind was still from the SW and increasing… Reports started to come in over the radio from other boats nearby who were experiencing winds of up to 50 knots and 12 foot seas. Time to leave the area! We turned southeast away from it all and motorsailed through the night and on through the next day until the sea and sky looked the right shade of blue again .We had done exactly the right thing in the circumstances but now what?
We needed up to date weather reports and quickly. Where was this cyclone headed and would it get any worse?

We established radio contact via the Rally daily net on the SSB that next day having heard various reports through the night of boats having quite a time of it but each boat was heading either north east or south east to clearer skies and hopefully safety. There were seven of us in total. One boat, a big fast cat, had goe right through the centre of the storm and experienced 60 knots plus. We were furthest SE and hadn’t had nearly such strong winds. There was no damage to any boat or person but we were all worried about how the cyclone would move or if it would get any worse. It turns out that weather reporting is this part of the world is appalling ie there is hardly any. Great! Dick made an iridium call to the weather people in Exeter for info and got some vague details. The Rally coordinator waiting for us in Sri Lanka found some expert in London who said he would value our input if we could supply him with details so that he could produce a forecast for us. Thanks for that mate!

They ended up predicting that the storm would intensify and head SW. Well, it didn’t get worse thank goodness but we were all sitting on its outer edges, hove to, waiting for reliable information so we could carry on safely to Galle. There was also the problem that some boats were going to run out of fuel as they had spent such a long time powering into the strong winds……..like us! We had turned back on our course about 100 miles which we were obviously going to have to make up.

Then one of the boats a long way to the south and west of us (about 180 miles) radioed that they had lost their engine. They had had just about the worst weather and had quite a lot of other damage to their boat. This was not good news at all. There were three of us who were about two days sail away from this boat and so two of us decided to try to motorsail across south and west to get to them so we could tow them. We made this decision because they still had plenty of fuel and wouldn’t be needing it!! We could take some of their fuel and use it to get us both safely to Galle. A sort of Catch 22? The other boat with us, Natibou, a Swedish registered cat stayed within VHF distance and called called us up every two hours to monitor progress. Hans, the owner, turned out to be a brilliant coordinator, language barrier non existent too.

So we made our way towards the engineless yacht staying in contact the whole time via radio and hearing after a day or so that they were being swept away at 4 knots (that’s fast!) by an unusual current. All these events were unusual. This meant that we had to motor extra fast just to keep up with them and we reached over 9 knots at times….but the engine didn’t let us down!!!!! It all took rather a long time though and we were seriously low on diesel by the time we reached them so we were all very relieved to see each others sails about seven miles away from each other. We motored alongside in perfect calm conditions, both being taken now at 4 knots( SW towards the Cape of Good Hope) and took several cans of diesel from them. Then we attached the tow rope without any problems and set off heading north west for Galle. Interesting to be on the right end of a tow for a change! This was a much longer trip though than any we’d been involved with before at around 150 miles.

It took us about 30 hours in the end, motorsailing as fast as we could. We had to battle back against the weird 4 knot current first of all, this time with Moonshiner pulling nearly 30 extra tons of boat…but the engine carried on working perfectly. Phew!

As we approached the harbour and Dick and I were shortening the tow rope ( an enormous effort, winching in by hand over 60 metres of heavy rope which was either trailing in the water or pulling 30 tons of yacht…a 54’ Oyster by the way), the heavens opened with the heaviest rain we’ve yet seen. This was going to be our most dramatic entrance yet!
We had to pull our tow, Moonbeam (yes, we are now called the Moonies!) alongside us, go through the harbour entrance and into the marina side by side where all the other cyclone survivors were waiting to catch our lines. All the time, the rain got heavier and heavier and lightning flashed all around. Dick managed to get us both alongside very well thank goodness and we attached ourselves to the horrible wobbly plastic pontoon. Then it started to seriously blow with horizontal rain and securing ourselves properly became quite an issue. The skippers of the other boats were all on board both our boats helping, each with their own ideas of the best way to attach lines and kedge anchors. It took a long time and there was a lot of shouting! We were all as wet as it is possible to be and leaks through the deck appeared in places I’d never seen before. Anyway, the rain and wind did eventually subside and so Dick brought out the Mount Gay special vintage rum which we shared out between 10 of us……. the whole bottle We’d earned it!

A day or so later when we had managed to catch up on sleep, we attended a general pre arranged meeting for all the Rally yachts. There was much talk about the tropical storm some of us had been through and Moonshiner was hailed as a bit of a heroine. I believe some of the snottier types among the Rally participants had thought that she wasn’t up to much, even a bit of a liability, but she has proved them wrong. Tee hee!!!!

Moonbeam’s owners are Colin and Sarah Seaman from Suffolk and we are now good friends. They had joined the Rally in Darwin and we hadn’t had much chance since to meet each other. Colin is a retired pilot and he and Dick probably bumped into each other in the past in Aberdeen. Sarah went to Blanchelande (Guernsey) College so knows Guernsey well. Small world isn’t it?

We had a day out together in and around Galle, Sri Lanka yesterday and I (with Sarah) managed a tick on my “bucket list”….. a ride on an elephant! Photos to come soon. Oh yes, I almost forgot, on the way to find Moonbeam, we saw a huge solitary male sperm whale who did a spectacular lobtail for us, and all around us on our towing into Galle, there were blue whales spouting in the distance…. No close ups unfortunately.

Sorry it's taken so long to post this blog...the internet connection here is a twenty minute walk from the pontoon and we have been too busy to make it here yet. We are due to leave tomorrow for Cochin in Kerala, India and then after a few days there we set off on the long and secret voyage across the N Indian ocean to Oman. All the talk now is about the pirate threat which is real enough, but not for yachts......so far.