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Wednesday, May 30, 2012

Just us at Chagos
Found Nemo
Dorothy really enjoyed our made in Sri Lanka kayak
Beautiful blues of Chagos, stranded NOAA bouy
Old church one of many ruins
Oodles of coconut crabs hiding on shore

Recent wreck at Salomon Atoll, lots of little boat bits to be had
Brian drawing water from one of the many wells at Chagos
Speedy beach crabs Chagos
Cruiser gathering area at Chagos
Beautiful Salomon Atoll at Chagos
House of coral rock Gan Maldives
Tagish at anchor Gan Harbour
        Comfy chairs/benches found around Gan

                                                Typical street in Gan Maldives

Monday, May 21, 2012

Chagos to Rodrigues



Our month was soon up and it was time to leave the Chagos Islands for Rodrigues 1100 miles to the SW. Three yachts left about 5 days ago and they had a rough passage. Winds 20 to 30 knots mostly with a few days of 30 to 40 knots. They had lots of leaks from windows and toe rails at hull deck joints as course is a bit to windward making for hard going in the winds.  One yacht diverted to Mauritius as he was getting so much water in through a window over his electronics, going to Mauritius gives a easier angle on the wind.

We waited a day past our permit for what looked like a good weather window and left the anchorage with Cats Paw 4 another Canadian yacht. We shut off the engine a half hour after leaving the pass out of Salomon Island. The sailing was good until the second day when we got a light headwind from the South. Motored for a few hours as we did not want to loose our Easting, as it was going to be tight to make Rodrigues as it was.

The wind soon went back to the SE and we sailed in good wind to Rodriguez. The first six days were superb sailing and then the wind picked up to 20 knots and often up to 30 knots. The seas got very big and rough with lots of spray flying over the boat as we bashed the waves. Occasionally we would hit wave so hard the whole boat seemed to be knocked sideways and shake and there would be a loud bang inside. One huge wave soaked Dorothy and her breakfast and several gallons would have gone below if we had not had the main door closed. A boat a few days ahead of us had got there cockpit flooded and a bunch of water below when hit by a huge wave. Their starter switch shorted, the engine started and the starter burned out, so they could not restart their engine and had to be towed the last mile into port.

The boat looked after us well and kept the water out, no leaks except the very forward, windward side window leaked a few drops, under the extreme fire hose conditions it was taking. I hung a fender over it from the handrails to block the worst of spray. We used our staysail a lot for this passage as wind was just forward of the beam. We had three reefs in the main for most of 3 days and took the staysail down for some of it as wind got worse and just used a scrap of the head sail. We managed our 120 to 130 miles a day still in the conditions.  This is the first passage we have made where we have had to keep the cabin door closed, we have an aluminum door rather than drop boards and sliding hatch.

We kept in radio contact with Cats paw and 2 other boats, Mr Curly and Matajuicy, who left a couple days after us. It was nice to compare conditions and exchange weather information and keep track of each others positions.

The sea conditions eased our last two days at sea with winds dropping to SE 18 to 22 knots. Cats Paw beat us into Rodriguez by a day,only because they are a 40 foot boat of course. We arrived after 9 days at sea about 4:30 in the afternoon and got through the pass just before dark. We called the coast guard to announce our arrival and they told us to tie up along side the cement jetty to complete our check in. We saw 4 officials over the next hour and the immigration guy did not come until the following morning so we escaped paying overtime as it was Sunday night. Another yacht who arrived earlier had to pay $50 overtime.

After the officials left we could finally relax, had dinner and we crashed for an early and restful night. We were looking forward to exploring a new place.



INFO

-We left Chagos on May 4 and arrived in Rodriguez May 13

-We choose to go down the West side of Chagos bank, All the yachts ahead of us had gone down the East side, the thinking being to get as much Easting in you can at the start, but they had two days of hard motorsailing to windward to get around and down bank. I did not want to motor and with our small boat (smallest boat at Chagos While we there) it would have been tough going. In hind site we made the correct decision as we got to sail all of it and after we passed the bank we kept going due South until we intercepted the rhumb line you would draw if going from East side of Chagos bank (Rhunb line from Diego Garcia). Cats Paw came down the West side of bank as well. It is good to get your Easting in while still up North and in the smaller waves and winds. After we arrived at the Rhumb line we headed straight for Rodriguez, well almost, we still tried to get a bit South and East of the Rhumb line just to have a bit in the bank in case we had to ease off if the winds got real strong or more South in them. If you are going to Mauritius you will have an easier time, but they say if going there you should still aim for Rodriguez to start with if possible.  Another yacht that left 12 days after us could not make Rodrigues because of South winds,

-If you get to Rodriguez after dark you can anchor outside in Mathurin bay. Cats Paw 4 did and said it was okay though a bit rolly, but better than another night at sea. They used entrance WP 19 38.91S 63 24.86E and then anchored at 19 39.88S 63 25.70E in 17 meters.

-Navionics and cmap are off about a tenth of a mile, our track was right out of the marked channel on chart. Channel entrance WP is 19 40.17s 63 25.61E 19 40.27 63 25.57 and follow red green markers in.

-For checkin Qurrantine charged us $65 dollars and then there was no other fees. And $50 overtime possible on a weekend.

-Can stay on the wall for a few days if you want it seems until supply ship arrives. We stayed just one night as not liked the tires on wall and bugs at night and no wind. Wall position was 19 40.81S 63 25.21E. We then went out and anchored at 19 40.70S 63 25.17E in 33 feet. Good holding it seems, in sand. Get more wind out in anchorage.

-The provisioning is Okay but a bit limited. Found my baked beans and had to hunt a bit to find rolled oats. There is a veggy market near by and most stores 5 to 10 min walk. Got my Indonesia internet dongle to work though a bit slow.  Eating out can be fairly cheap if you look around$4 or $5, and other places you can spent $10 per person.

- I got some diesel and gas at the local gas station which is beside the small boat harbor. So can take dinghy up small inlet to West and park it on boat ramp 50 meters from gas station. Dinghy ride is 5 minutes from anchorage. Diesel was 42 rp per litre . Exchange rate is 30 rp to the dollar currently. Water in large quantities not easy to get. Harbor clean, can run watermaker. Or wait for some rain. One yacht called a water truck in to give him water at the wall. There is a couple of water storage tanks nearby you can take a few gallons of water at a time for laundry etc, probably can drink it as well.  There is no proper running water system on island.  Some local people wiil do laundry for you though a bit expensive, ask at the dock wall. No marine Chandlry stuff here that we saw.
 I could not find any place that would fill our propane tank, so I borrowed a American connector and hose from another yacht and bought a local 6kilo bottle and managed to fill my tank from it (see photo). We did not have the connector for local bottle so just put a hose over the threads and a hose clamp to hold it in place and in 45 minutes we emptied the 6k bottle into my 9k bottle.  Had to open and close the bleed screw on my bottle to bleed air as bottle filled.

Wednesday, May 16, 2012

To The Chagos islands

We left Gan on April 3 about 10am for Salomon Island in the Chagos islands about 280 miles away. The BIOT British Indian Ocean Territory administer the islands. They were colonized in the past and then the people were moved of them in the 1970's. Now no one lives here and the only way to see the islands is by private yacht
Diego Garcia about 100 miles South which is now a military base and the reason the people were kicked of he islands by the british. It sends out a patrol boat occasionally to check permits. You need to apply to the Britsih for a permit and pay 50 pounds a week for the privelage to a maximum of one month stay.

We motored out of the pass at Addu and headed wsw course to get some westing in because of the current the East flowing current here. Motored all night and had one big squall go over us. Started sailing at daylight and continued sailing for most of the day. Then back to motoring. The current did not seem to be more than a knot against us and then it disapeared for the last 150 miles. May even have a half knot current with us last 100 miles.
The booby birds are back, had one on our mast head all night, stopping our windex that shows the wind direction from turning. Again too much motoring for this passage. The last 35 miles the wind came out of the west and we had the best sailing since Gan. We slowed boat abit so we would not arrive until about 10am at pass entrance as we wanted good light to see the coral heads at entrance as well as inside lagoon.

We arrived right on time and motored through pass no problem. We talked to Mr Curly on the VHF and they were anchored at the Fouquet anchorage, but the West wind was making it a bit unsafe and they decided to head over to the Boddam anchorage. So we followed them over.
We dropped anchor a half hour later off Boddam island after 4 nights at sea. A beautiful spot. After a few days here, (April 11) one of the yachts with email and satphone capability heard there was an 8.6 earthquake off Sumatra and could be a tsunami. Most of us then evacuated the lagoon for a few hours until they heard it was safe.

We spent a lesurily month here. Few chores to do, just relax and enjoy. No place to spend money. There was lots of sosializing with other boats, lots of walking on the islands. collecting and eating some coconuts. Watching all the coconut land craps which get quite large. Lots of swimming and snorkling and people did a lot of fishing. Read lots of books and when done we just trade books with other yachts. There was 5 yachts when we got here on April 7 and a max of 15 yachts before boats started to leave.


INFO
-For Routing it was suggested that we should get some westing in as soon as we leave Gan. Which we did, we went about 15 miles past the Longitude of Salomon, but I don't think we needed to go past the actual longitutde of Salomon. Since we were over we came in on the west side of Speakers bank.

The equatoral current disappeared for the last 150 miles and a boat behind us noticed the same thing.

-The pass entrance waypoint off our track is 1. 05 18.296S 72 14.522E

2. 05 18.539S 72 14.666E and we saw minimum 22 feet going thorough pass and minimal current.

We anchored in 48 ft at 05 21.37S 72 12.74 There are many boomies in this area so care is needed. There is several wells on the island which we used for laundry, some people say you can drink the water. We put a bit of bleach in it before putting in our tanks. We dont drink our tank water just us it for washing, and drink the watermaker water which goes in jugs.

The anchorage off Baddom is good for wind protecttion but the bottom is all coral. We had our chain snag under some coral thus short scoping us as a small squall blew through. We decided to take a mooring closer to shore after we examined it at low tide and put a new rope around the existing chain. The long chain was wrapped around a huge coral head. Had a bit of difficulty getting chain and anchor up to do our move.

We walked around Boddam island in just over two hours started an hour before low tide. There is several good trails on island which we walked most days.

Over the weeks we had lots of squalls some with winds from S or SW at up to 35 knots, sometimes very little wind and often 15 to 20 knots for short period during squall. Very little lighting and thunder. The first week we had light winds from every direction of compass. Then mostly W to SW to SE winds. We got one blow out of NW for a few hours that blew around 30 knots near end of our stay.

Only one yacht went over to Peros Banhos and only a few boats stayed a few days at the Fouquet anchorage, probably because there is 3 wrecked yachts over there showing how unsafe it is.

Tuesday, May 15, 2012

Leaving Galle and a Detour to The Maldives




We left Galle on Mar 24 for Chagos about 800 miles South West of us. The last 2 days in Galle were hectic as we topped all our supplies up. There would be no resuppling for up to two months, so our small boat was over flowing with food. We checked out through our agent the Winsors, no hassles with the officials, it was only our agent that asked for a "gift" and I said sorry spent all our local money.

We called up port control on the radio for their okay to leave and the boats beside us helped throw off our stern lines and we were away. After an hour of motoring we picked up the wind and were sailing along nicely in a 12 knot beam wind. Two hours later we had crossed a busy shipping lane, 12 ships on our AIS screen and lucked out that none came near us.

The wind came more on the nose and we still sailed but could not quite make our coarse. There is a knot or so of current helping push us along. We sailed all night except for an hour to get around a tight group of fish boats. The fish boats were moving strangely could just see their lights in the dark and then seemed to be coming at us, so we shut our lights off and altered course until they disappeared. We kept our radar on through all this

The next day we had to motor most of the day and then sailed all night. A big squall just missed us during the night, we could see it on the radar which we turn on every hour or so. It uses too much power to leave on full time. Sometimes we use the timer function which turns the radar on every 5 mins for 20 scans. A 60 foot fish boat we saw in the distance changed course and came for us which had us worried. As no one around but them and they had about 6 people on board. They came right up along side us gesturing that they wanted cigarettes.  We threw them a pack and they left.

Our first propane tank that we supposedly had filled in Langkawi at Kuah ran out today. I brought it half full to the guy to fill it and later wondered why he not charge me much, I dont think he put anything in it. So we hope our remaining tank will get us to Mauritius. We are talking to 3 other yachts on the SSB radio every morning to exchange weather info and positions.

Now mostly motoring seem to have lost all our wind and when we did have wind it was right on the nose. Crossed the equator for our third time since leaving home. Still motoring. We have decided to alter course slightly to go to Gan on Addu the Southern most island in the Maldives to get more diesel. It is not much out of the way. We arrived off the pass about 9am, sailing for a change in a light wind. We arrived March 31 after seven days at sea. Still almost 300 miles to Chagos Islands.

It is a very easy big pass to enter the lagoon waters of Addu and we then motored across to where the anchorage is between Gan and Feydhoo. Gan is only 40 miles South of the equator so very hot here. The entranced to the inner anchorage is a bit tight and had to be careful entering. We tried to call the Gan coast guard but got no response so waited for customs people to arrive. Later we saw another yacht getting some fuel delivered so we got his agent to call the customs people for us and they eventually arrived about 4:30pm There was 5 of them sitting in our small cockpit and after a half hour all the paper work was done and they left. The only problem was it use to be free if you only stayed for three days, now they charge $130 dollars and if you stay up to 7 days you pay an extra 50 because then you must have an agent. This is bit of a rip off as it is very expensive for only three days. There is some political changes going on in the Maldives now and the rules will probably change again next year.

We spent a busy three days here. Got our diesel and some water and a bit of food though not much here for fresh food as is very remote. Did a bit of snorkeling around the pass to inner anchorage, water very clear and Dorothy saw several huge fish and grouper by the pass entrance, but not much corral. We walked around the two islands we anchored between quite a bit, found the post office on Gan by airport. It was interesting to see this area, the people here are all Muslim. No beaches around here. Generally the people were not that friendly, more reserved. Though there were notable exceptions of some people coming up to us and offering a ride or water and just wanting to talk.

The second day we went to check out and then they give you 24 hours to leave so you get 3 days. We had to take a bus all the way to far end of islands by port terminal and spend 2 hours going around to all the officials. All very old fashioned. Then we tried to take a bus back but got tired of waiting and walked the 6 or 7 miles back. It was actually an interesting walk and glad we did it as bus goes up the back streets and we walked the water front road.



-INFO

- Routing- From our experience and some boats that came behind us it seemed it is better to try to get west as soon as you leave Galle rather than do the rumb line like we did. Then you could sail the head winds that we got.

-After first day at sea we saw almost no boat traffic, just a few fish boats and a couple of ships.

Gan Info

-We anchored at 00 41.146S 73 08.631E The channel entrance Waypoints are 1. 00 41.055S 73 08.746E 2. 00 41.073S 73 08.728E But you want good light to enter as is very narrow and use eyeball navigation as well. There is two steel posts that you keep to starboard as you enter. It is deep enough for boats at least to 9ft draft and then gets deeper inside. With mostly sand but some rocky patches and some cables crossing bottom. Try to stay away from main inflow by bridge. A couple of bigger yachts we saw anchored just to the South of pass entrance to our anchorage, in about 30 meters.

-Call Gan Coast guard, they might answer. The customs officers seem to ask each boat did you call the coast guard, yes but they never answer. The rules just made this year is $130 dollars which includes check in and out for a 2 day stay and then allowing another 24 hours to leave after checking out for a total of three days. If you stay longer you need a agent for another $50, dont totally trust the agents they may try to charge you for other fees they make up, check with customs on what fees you must pay, this from two another yacht we talked to. For check out you need to get your self down to the other end of islands by taxi, rent a scooter or by bus. Best to catch bus up by 3S store, at bus stop sign. Buses wont stop except at bus stop signs. Note: I was amazed that our Phone with the Galle sim card worked here in Gan as we had time left on it from Galle. We used it to call customs +960 775 1085 we left the phone off when not using as it said roaming activated.

-For diesel you can go to the hassle and expensive of getting your agent to arrange for you. One yacht the agent just drove the guy with his cans to the gas station and then drove him back, for a fee. Or you can do it like us who don't like to waste money on silliness. Just take your dinghy up to small boat harbour. Ten minutes with our 5hp engine. Leave dingy at far end of wall and walk up to gas station another 300 meters up street. Fill your gerry cans and carry them across street to sea wall and then go get your dinghy and motor up to sea wall ( may not want to do at low tide.) and load jerry cans into dinghy with one person holding dinghy. Need to carry cans down 5 feet of rip rap rock breakwater but not a big deal. Diesel was just over a $1 a liter. They were out of gasoline when we first arrived, but got some in later, so maybe wise to get all your fuel when you first arrive.

-It is not easy to get a lot of water here. They had no big jugs of water here they said were out of them. A local gave us some water out of his rain catchment system which every body uses here. There is a hose by coast guard boats at sea wall in inner harbor where we anchored but it is not drinkable they said, for washing only. We used it for laundry.

-The best supermarket is the 3s store up by the small boat harbor but still not a lot of stuff there. Not much for fresh fruit and veggies. Saw cans of baked beans in other store by bridge at North end of Feydhoo. The bread we bought was pretty gross. Definitely better to provision in Galle.