Indian Ocean - Maldives to Oman:

Redwings Round the World

Indian Ocean: Maldives to Oman

21 February - March, 1998

21 February, mid-day position: 7 deg 20 min N, 72 deg 30 min E / 24 hr run 141 nm

Note: 24 hr run is from 0800 current day to 0800 on the next day - i.e to 0800 on 22ond

Aaron - We awoke at 0730, made coffee, pulled the dingy on deck, weighed anchor and motored away from the idyllic Northern Maldivian island of Uligamu at 0800 - right on schedule.

Leaving Uligamu: Colleen and Kerry

We are trying a new cooking and watch schedule. Colleen is doing all of the evening meals and Kerry, Laura, and I are rotating lunch, dish, and trash duties on a three day cycle. Watches are now single with each person taking a three hour am and three hour p.m. shift. This system should spread the load of cooking and cleaning more evenly across the passage and hopefully minimize the dreaded Galley Rage. Well see how it goes......

Still no luck in the morning contacting Raffi and the gang on Malkat Singapore, the boat we plan to rendez vous with in Salalah (Oman) and then head up the Red Sea with. We had received a message via another boat that they were planning to leave yesterday from Cochin (an Indian port about 350 miles North East of where we are). However, just before we left, I was able to contact Ralph on Arjumond who is also in Cochin and he indicated that Malkat Singapore had in fact left yesterday, but then returned early this morning. We asked him to pass on a message to Raffi that we had left and would try him at 1300 GMT or about 6 p.m. Maldivian time.

With winds of only 5-7 knots on the nose, we motored most of the day and took the opportunity to make and use more water and further get the boat ready for sea. Given expectations of fairly light winds for the whole trip, we switched from our 130% heavy dacron Genoa to our 150% mylar sail - and waited for the wind..... which finally built to about 10 knots and shifted slightly to the North at around 1600. Time to sail! Up went the main and out furled the genoa and we were shortly doing 5-6 knots very comfortably.

Around 1700, the fishing reel started buzzing in earnest - as I grabbed it, the other two lines, which are hung directly off the stern and attached with shock cord so they don't break under load, came alive as well - we're in em! However, these were not the 5-10 pound skipjack we had caught on the other side of the Maldives, but perhaps 15-25 pound versions of some sort of tuna. We'll never know because one by one they all got away. Within a half an hour, we had a few more hits and lost fish. With the boat tearing along at over 6 knots, it was extremely tough to make progress towards bring these guys on board. Oh well, at least we know there are fish around and we have the right lures out.

Raffi made contact with us in the evening and it turns out he had a minor engine problem and had to pull back into port to pick up a new air filter, but was soon on his way again and is now following behind us. They will probably arrive in Salalah about two or three days after we do.

As the evening progressed, the wind built to 12-14 true and registered 15-20 apparent so we furled in a bit of genoa and let out a bit of main to flatten the boat out. Not so smooth anymore, but we are now making 6-7 knots down route 303 (303 deg is the rhumb line to Salalah).

Not a very exciting entry, but things are just running so smoothly and the weather is being so cooperative there simply is no drama.

Note: Colleen also wrote up this day and placed it under the previous section Exploring the Maldives - neither of us knew the other was writing it up! Interesting to compare different perspectives on the same day.

22 February, mid-day position: 8 deg 30 min N, 70 deg 34 min E / 24 hr run 140 nm

Aaron - Busy morning. After I roused Colleen for her 0600-0900 watch, I set the fishing lines out and by 0730, the reel was again buzzing and one of the stern lines taunt and zig-zagging through the water. Ok, no more messing around. I asked Colleen to pull in the one fishless line to get it out of the way, and then planned to have her bring the boat into the wind so I could fight these guys. However, as soon as she grabbed the line - WHAM another one hit and tore the line away from her and quickly snapped the 80 pound test as it ran. Finally we got the boat into the wind, but as the pressure on the rod line eased, that fish got off. One left. I grabbed the line, called for the gaff, and we finally landed a 20-25 pound albacore tuna.

Aaron, Tuna, Basil, and Bannanas!

Note: I am not a big fan of "bikini, grape smuggler, bannana hanger, cheap hotels (no ballroom)" etc. etc. bathing suits, but hey, laundry is a concern and its a lot easier to wash fish blood and sweat off these things and it is 90 degrees and we are hundreds of miles from civilization so I don't want to hear any comments!!!

The cats, of course, were present from the first sound of whizzing line. They know that means treats. I filleted and bagged the fish - should be good for several meals. Meanwhile, before and during the fish catching exercises, Colleen and I were working the radio fairly hard. We now have 5-6 boats we are keeping contact with that are within several hundred miles of us making the same passage.

With the fish in the fridge, I decided to tackle a small job. The boom gallows had become increasingly wobbly and I noticed that the weld on the port side was about to go, so I planned to reinforce it a bit and stabilize the gallows with some line. Literally as I was approaching the gallows with my tools and rope, the weld broke. Colleen and I lashed and stabilized it. It looks like it will hold, but we will have to get it re-welded in Oman.

The rest of the day was pretty lazy, yet accompanied by near-perfect 12-14 knot winds just forward of the beam. Delicious tuna lunch by Laura, followed by more foccacia and a black bean soup dinner.

One minor neg is that our water supply seems to be a bit tainted by diesel. I thought it was just a bit of diesel in my cup the other day for some reason, but it definitely is the water. We can see a small sheen of it on the surface when we draw a cup from the tap. I'm not too surprised. I filled the starboard tank right up to the filler cap. This tank is already a bit suspect - we often see traces of diesel on the floor or in the bilge when it is full and we travel on port tack - which we have been doing. Also, our water tanks are not completely sealed on top and are located in the bilge below the fuel tanks. However, now that we have run the tank down a bit, there is no more evidence of leaking. We ran the water maker for an hour or so to make drinking water which we stored in containers. We will just run the tanks dry, and then completely fill them all the time further running the engine (we need to run the engine to make water) off the starboard tank - hopefully this will solve the problem.

23 February, mid-day position: 9 deg 39 min N, 68 deg 27 min E/ 24 hr run: 146 nm

Laura - The boat was rocking and rolling and I had a very squished and uncomfortable sleep in the forward cabin as Kerry, my teddy bear, two pillows, a sleeping bag, and I tried to keep from rolling into one another, getting tangled up, and then arguing about it. I think I was sort of in and out of sleep for a long time. I had a dream in which I had terrible acne (which I don't!).

Then it was my 9 a.m.-noon watch during which I wrote in my journal and kept tabs on a big fishing trawler that passed a half mile to stern. It was Kerry's lunch day and she whipped up the rest of the tuna. It was my dish day. Boo hiss. I emerged from the trenches of dish duty so happy to be out that I did a little dance on my way out of the hatch. Colleen nicknamed it the "Cry Freedom Dish Dance." It was that kind of a day. I also did a "Ripe Banana Dance," in celebration of the sweet little bananas we got in the Maldives that have been yellowing in a bunch that hangs off the solar panels, right next to the pumpkin. Aaron also demonstrated his Nepalese folk dance, which consisted of a lot of twitching and some eye popping and tongue-sticking-out.

So, it was all going well....until Colleen asked Aaron how many times he had pumped the toilet in the aft head. Hmm, he thought, probably not quite enough since he was in a hurry to make a radio call. And maybe there is some paper towel in there. Ooops. Clog. Our first plugged toilet. So, Aaron did some reading and came across a paragraph somewhere that read that maybe if you leave a plugged toilet alone for 24 hours it will unplug itself. With relief, he decided that must be the solution. So, we are all sharing the forward head that Kerry and I usually use.

In the afternoon, we began another Hearts tournament. I have to say that I must just play better when the boat is moving or something. I cleaned up with a score of 4, largely because I got the Jack of Diamonds three times in a row. In some ways, I may have an early advantage that I will soon lose. I'm the only Hearts player who grew up playing that the Jack of Diamonds can be 10 points in a player's favor, thus reducing Hearts and the Queen of Spades. Once the others make the Jack second nature, I may not be bragging anymore.

Dinner was a bit more tuna mixed in with olives and artichoke hearts and transformed into a delicious pasta sauce.

Then there was the evening radio schedule. Aaron seems to live for it a bit these days. We used to comment on how much Ralph from Arjumond was on the radio all the time, but Aaron is a bit of a social butterfly on the airwaves these days. Dracamarus, La Scala, Arjumond, Malkat Singapore, and Asteroid are all regular chat partners. We expect to hear from Marbella any day now too. Everyone compares positions and wind velocity and direction. There's a bit of bragging about boat speed and fish catching, of course. Last night, Raffi said his crew was watching Liar, Liar on video. What a set-up. We'd forgotten he has a VCR. I guess they need it to take their minds off the wind, which hasn't been as good as ours.

After supper we did a little water-maker action to fill the drinking jugs. Basil and Sybil meowed.

Then I crashed out in the main cabin for an hour or so until it was my 9 p.m. to midnight watch. The wind, which had been strong all day, was light and kept changing directions so that when the auto pilot made us fall off too far, the boom would clank and the sails would snap and we'd rock like crazy. I tried my darndest to re-set the auto pilot to steer us, but the thing just wouldn't. So I cursed it up, down, and sideways, letting my best, most creative insults fly into the night. Every once in a while I'd feel embarrassed because a porpoise would surface near the boat and as they are very smart I didn't want them to think poorly of us. But, I may have overdone it in my condemnatory language because that auto pilot never did behave. I wound up hand steering for nearly three hours until Aaron put me out of my misery by turning on the engine.

24 February, mid-day position: 10 deg 49 min N, 66 deg 16 min E / 24 hr run 154 nm

Aaron - Yeah.... Roger that..... I see.... Romeo to that..... as Laura correctly observed, I'm getting caught up in the daily radio nets. The pace and content of the radio-speak brings back memories of my college summers when I worked on salmon fishing boats in Alaska. One of the skipper's "jobs" was to bark on the radio and gain key recon info on fish and weather. While a lot of good info is and was passed, most of the time is spent hemming and hawing. It's fun now to be the skipper and have these hemming and hawing rights and to have a good excuse to have to do something "important" every morning and evening.

Anyway, another "model" passage day. Clear blue skies, cool winds just forward of the beam at 12-15 knots, regular and steady three foot seas, porpoises on the bow, tuna for the catching when we want them, hot foccacia...... We are moving well making 6-7 knots straight down route 303. Redwings' motion is real comfortable - everyone is sleeping great, cats included.

Everything is also working. A study session of the autopilot manual improved our mastery of some of the controls and it is now sailing the boat where we want it to go when we want it to - even for Laura. A two hour session of taking apart and reassembling the toilet was successful and Colleen and I are flushing away happily again. A small blockage of "stuff" (iewwww and whewww) at the seacock and broken valve - which fortunately I had a new spare for - seemed to be the problem/problems.

So rather than bore you with details of a pleasant, yet uneventful day, I'll do a couple of book reviews on Tuesday's with Morrie by Mitch Albom and Laughter in the Dark by Vladimijr Nabokov. I started to read The Ascent of Everest, buy John Hunt, but its so loggy and superfluous to the core story that I could not stomach it. Pity as I would like to have read a good account of the first successful ascent of Choomolunga (those who souls who participated in the Tibet odessey during the summer of 1997 will recognize this as the Tibetan name for Everest).

25 February, mid-day position: 12 deg 4 min N, 64 deg 2 min E / 24 hr run 148 nm

Laura - So many of these days start to seem similar to me as the schedule of watches roll by. Yesterday was bright and sunny as usual. I tuned in the Voice of America to pick up some morning news. We are relieved to learn that the United States and Iraq have come to some agreement on the weapons inspections. Still, I wonder what sort of sentiments await us Americans in the Middle East.

Unfortunately VOA doesn't choose to carry much news on Monika Lewinski, which is our other interest. And for some reason we haven't been able to pick up a good BBC station out here.

So, I was listening away when Aaron came up and said "So, are we going to miss that ship?" I had just checked the horizon, but apparently not well enough. When I looked again, sure enough, there was a white thing out there. Now, fortunately this baby was moving to the east because it was the biggest thing I've seen in the water. In fact, it looked like it had grain silos on the stern and I was quite convinced at first that it was a platform of some sort. Just a supertanker.

Pizza was my contribution to the culinary delights of the day. It took a while, but it turned out pretty good with a nice thick crust and some pesto. The only problem was that I used some cheese that came in a can from Male. It was pretty rigid to begin with, but then it declined to melt. Instead all the pieces turned brown on the outside. Most diners opted to pick it off. I'm not sure I came close to satisfying Kerry's craving for chicken-parmesan pizza from Antonio's in Amherst. She cries for it, practically. Then she made the mistake yesterday of reading the information about the marina where we will dock in Israel. It has lots of tempting restaurants, apparently. I don't know, I haven't dared read it. Now, I think Kerry's stomach is tuned to Israel, which is still more than a month away.

So, we had a leisurely lunch and even wandered onto the topic of what jokes we plan to play on April Fool's Day. Yes, we must be getting a bit crazy to be planning this far ahead. And no, I'm not giving any hints as all of you are potential victims. We also discussed the prospects of getting sunk by a pod of Killer Whales. They all made fun of me because I immediately went off in search of the book "Dangerous Marine Animals" to learn more about Killer Whales. Hey, it doesn't hurt to be informed. Then we wandered on to how we are all in better moods and more comfortable than during the last passage. Aaron said that's because this passage is so cushy. "This is as good as it gets," he said. And then, he said, that passages should be more grueling; that we should just be praying to get to land by the time we are done. Yeah, yah, yeh.

Of course, an hour later....Gee those clouds look different than any we've seen yet. Whoosh, the wind picked up and was soon honkin' at 20-25. We pulled the genoa in part way and put a reef in the main. We pulled off a very nicely controlled reef job in just a few minutes, which made us all pretty happy. We had moved the car through which the reefing lines run further inboard on the boom a bit and that seemed to make a big difference in how things went. I personally was happy because earlier in the day, when we were polling out the genoa, I had stupidly (and painfully) got my hand jammed in the downhaul line right near the cleat. As there was a great deal of tension on the genoa and I wasn't being very clear in my shouts for assistance, it took everyone else to help me get free. No harm done, just a bit of rope burn and a lesson learned, but I felt much redeemed after participating in the reefing job.

So we scooted along at 7-8 knots, rolling smoothly over seas that had risen to about 10 feet. Colleen made quiche and jam tarts for supper. I was still so full of pizza I didn't indulge, but the meal got strong reviews. During supper, we watched poor Basil make a valiant attempt to reach his cat box on the stern. It was wet and rocky and he just couldn't get his claws in for purchase. Like an exhausted mountain climber, he turned back toward the cockpit with only a foot to go. Colleen felt badly for him and gave him a lift into the box. Aaron spent much of the evening organizing things in the snug berth in case the weather got worse.

The evening yacht radio schedule revealed that Raffi has a broken water maker and only 12 gallons for his four-person crew for the next eight days. No handwashing. Bummer. We suspect Aaron managed to slight Bin on Dracamarus. Bin, who was also getting 25-knot winds, said he was getting rolled about a lot. Since they are a large motor boat, it's probably true. But, Aaron said "I don't really feel sorry for you since you will be there in two days having gin and tonics." He was joking of course, but Bin said that comment was "a bit cheeky" and he would sign off now.

The wind apparently took it's toll on our banana supply. Now our only source of fresh food is battered and mushy.

26 February, mid-day position: 13 deg 9 min N, 61 deg 50 min E / 24 hr run 148 nm

Colleen - I've been nominated to chronicle the day's events, as its my... 30th birthday! With our potato/pumpkin/onion only fresh food stock, needless to say the celebrations were not food-based. In fact I think, on this day 6 of the trip, we all reached an energy lull for haute cuisine. My ill-timed quiche and jam tart exercise of the evening before in a 25knot breeze finally took it out of me.

The day started around 2:00 am when Kerry valiantly tried to shake out the reef in the main by herself. We were awoken when she needed help with the last stage. Unfortunately, instead of going back to sleep we had to get up to reset the the shaft lock which had slipped out of gear when we headed into the wind to do the reef. 20 minutes later we couldn't resist the urge to take apart our bed and examine a worryingly squeaky steering quadrant (located under the bed). A little of that magical WD40 seemed to do the trick - Aaron says he will properly grease the sheaves when we get to port.

When finally awoken for my 6:00am-9:00am watch, I was not ready to face thirty with vigor... I slept in the cockpit for an hour. Every 10 minutes I hopped up to check the horizon for ships. It's still dark between 6 and 7am as we have moved West by almost 1,000 miles over the past week. And we're starting to feel the more northerly climate. I need two sweatshirts in the morning. Aaron and I listened to the radio sked at 7:00am. Very bored, Aaron informed the other boats of my birthday. The typical Australian (Dracamaris and La Scala are Australian boats) response to the information was "good stuff". Not surprising as, we've noticed, that is actually the response to everything we say on the radio. "We've got 12knots of breeze here coming from the Northwest" Reply: "good stuff, good stuff".

When Laura awoke at 9:00 am for her watch, Aaron, the cats and I headed back to the aft cabin to "read". That lasted about 10 minutes before all four of us were fast asleep.

Kerry, obviously also burnt out on complicated meal preparation, served us Campbell's chicken noodle soup for lunch. I spent most of the day reading my 800 page book, History of Modern Times, by Paul Johnson. I'm determined to finish this baby before I reach Oman. It seems to dominate my life... I've been reading it since Thailand. Luckily, I'm at the good part; the 70's. Only c. 130 pages to go.

Aaron's fishing rod hooked what seemed a massive fish that he fought for a while. Unfortunately, before he could reel it in a shark must have come and bitten the body of the fish off the hook. All Aaron was left with was a 5-10lb. fish head (of what looked to be a 25-30 pound Albacore tuna) when he finally got it aboard.

I made hummous for dinner, and served it with Japanese miso soup. Aaron and I enjoyed the soup, but unfortunately, Kerry and Laura didn't really even want to try it. I think they found the seaweed and the tofu off-putting. Aaron tried to make a cake for desert, but it was a bit sad as he neglected to notice we're missing some major ingredients like baking soda, etc.. He put a sparkler on my piece, which I was told to throw overboard and make a wish, in place of blowing it out.

We spoke with Stacy and Raffi of Malakat Singapore on the evening sked. Raffi, who fancies himself a psychologist, offered to counsel Aaron on how to be a good husband. Aaron's response to the teasing was pretending that the radio line was unclear. When I tried to tease them back by asking if their water shortage (their water maker is broken and they have only 12 gallons to last four people for one week) had led them to start drinking their urine yet, we noticed a distinct sense of humor failure from the other end...

27 February, mid-day position: 14 deg 23 min N, 59 deg 40 min E / 24 hr run 138 nm

Aaron - The wind dropped steadily during the early morning hours to 10 knots and backed to the East giving us an increasingly poor sailing angle for such light winds. As a result, by 0700 we were sailing 25 degrees above rhumb line to keep the wind on or slightly forward of beam in order to keep the sails filled in the still moderately large seas. During the 0700 radio chat we heard from Dracamaris, now 150 miles ahead of us, that the wind had just come round to the Southeast for them (which would be dead down wind for us to the ever-closer waypoint) and had dropped to 6-8 knots. We are not purists and had sailed the last 1,000 miles without ever engaging the engine.... so lets crank her up and get there. By 0800, we were making 7.5 knots at 1,600 rpm heading in a straight line for Salalah. At this pace, we will make it before nightfall on 1 March - the target landfall date we set even before we left Thailand. We've obviously got plenty of fuel and it will be good to give the engine a work out, fully charge the batteries, and make lots of water.

The wind shift came sooner than we expected and it was gently coming from the South-Southeast by 1000 at 6-8 knot winds in confused seas left over from days of 15-20 knot Northeasterlies. Glad to have the donk on. Lots of sleep and reading for all of us today I think. Its strange not to be healing to port anymore.... we have become so used to it. Not much else to say... the wind stayed light and behind us and we motored all night.....

28 February, mid-day position: 15 deg 41 min N, 56 deg 57 min E / 24 hr run 180 nm

Aaron / Laura - The winds picked up again in the morning and we were able to make good progress towards Salalah at 7-8 knots helped along a bit by a friendly current.

In the late morning, we hooked a big Marlin. The fish was magnificent as it skimmed across the surface, taking the line with it, in an attempt to break free. Finally it did and walked away with the lure. We estimated that the body, not including the bill and tail, was about 6 feet long and thick as a keg of beer. Tough to say how much it weighed, but probably at least 150-200 lbs.

Like the previous day, the wind died a bit in the evening and we cranked up the engine and motorsailed making excellent time. Overall, another easy and pleasant day. Nothing has failed us on this passage and all systems seem to be ticking over flawlessly.

1 March, mid-day position: 16 deg 33 min N, 54 deg 57 min E / 24 hr run 132 nm

Laura - The GPS indicated that we were continually 9 hours out of Salalah. As the day wore on, the wind dropped. And we'd had an engine problem overnight. Kerry was on watch and noticed the oil pressure gauge needle was fluctuating and then rose sharply. She awoke Aaron who checked the oil and found there was none - just a froth of salt water. Hmm. Not good. By 0600 he was knee deep in the engine room replacing the oil cooler, which had apparently developed a leak and was allowing oil and salt water to mix and be pumped through the system. After replacing the unit (there was miraculously a spare purchased by the former owner of the boat), he ran through some outboard oil, mineral oil, and transmission fluid to clean the system and then put in the last of the engine oil (he had already used up 15 liters trying to diagnose / solve the problem). The engine worked and the new oil cooler seemed to solve the problem, but the oil in the crankcase was still pretty watery and we did not have any more engine oil to flush it out with so rather than using it we decided to save it for an emergency and or our final entry to the port. The result was that we had a long slow day, sometimes making 1 knot over the ground due to a 1-2 knot which was current against us.

I guess we shouldn't have sat around the day before talking about how trouble free the passage had been, although our speed didn't really matter too much because it was quite calm and we knew we'd get there sometime.

It was a day of naps for many of us as the shifty waking hours of a passage, no matter how smoothly it goes, can get to you.

2 March, Salalah, Oman

Laura - We were outside the harbor just after 4 a.m., staring at the Red Sea Pilot to give us some guidance on entering Raysut Navy Base, inside which the yacht anchorage is tucked. When I was roused from my post-watch slumber, I stuck my nose out to find that the place looked like a mall at Christmas. There were blazing lights everywhere, indicating buildings, roads, boats and what not. So, we did our best. We were looking for a red light at the end of a breakwater. Kerry and I were on the bow, when she said "Isn't that the breakwater?" and pointed straight ahead of us. Oops. We came kind of close to smacking it. So the red light turned out to be white. Then there was the big floating, poorly lit raft of barges lying across the mouth of the harbor. After we got around that, there was the massive dredging operation. Turns out that everything in the harbor is lit up, except the spot where the yachts anchor. Only Dracamaris had left an anchor light on for us. Those guys...Motel 6 couldn't do better! But, we finally made it and dropped the hook and fell asleep.

Continued in Arabian Nights: Oman and Yemen

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