6:35 pm local time

  Randal and I returned to Fort Galle today because we had enjoyed our first visit.  Sunday is kind of a slow day there but we had a nice lunch and walk.  And we used up some of our Sri Lankan money that is only useful in Sri Lanka.  Tomorrow we are off to Cochin, India.  Everything that needs to be fixed is.  Everything that must wait until Cochin will wait.  The weather is as good as it will ever be, a bit windy with swells.  That’s better for sail boats than for trawlers.  Our friends on Voyager just made the trip this past week.   Tomorrow morning I’m going to the nearby grocery store and load up on ice cream!  The heck with fruit and veggies!  Actually we’ve hardly made a dent in the supplies we stocked up on in Langkawi so we’ll be fine.  The fresh veggie selection here isn’t so great, anyway.  We’re opting not to do inland travel here because we just don’t feel comfortable leaving a heavy boat like DoraMac tied to this plastic pier.  And we’re anxious to get to India.  We’ll leave tomorrow late afternoon to time our arrival in Cochin during the daylight hours.  It should hopefully be a 3 night passage if we average six knots to cover the 350ish miles.  So my next email to you all will be from Cochin, India.

Ru

DoraMac

Fort Galle Second Visit

Our first stop was lunch.

I had basil chicken and Randal had curry chicken. Both were quite good and but more food than I needed even without eating my rice. They didn’t serve beer even in coffee mugs so we both drank iced lime juice. The bill came to 2140 Rupees, $19.50 which included a 10% service charge. We have certainly eaten more cheaply other places, but the Fort area is really where tourists eat and the prices reflect that.

We walked around the fort walls to walk off the meal.

Biodegradable drink container…a coconut.

Ramparts Hotel serves lunch but we opted for Mama’s the other day.

Many of the strolling women had their heads covered.

This interesting lock appeared on many of the doors.

Of course I had to go into the art shop.

The lovely clerk.

I bought a postcard or the “Galle Fort Map” by Catherine Hewapathirana which you see on the wall. It actually is a good representation of the fort area. She is standing in front of the light house but you can see the mosque to her right.

We left the fort area but you can see the walls are still mostly intact.

We didn’t take a tuk tuk because I wanted to walk back to the city center to buy veggies at a stand I’d noticed on our way earlier.

The fishing harbour

I’ve taken to spelling harbour the British way. These are some of the boats we had to avoid coming into Galle in the very early morning darkness. They do have lights, thankfully but still, Randal had to drive most of the time until it really was daylight and I thought I could see the boats more easily.

You know this fish is fresh!

Just outside the harbour gate is this compound where we went to speak with our “agent.” I think this might be the family home.

The shutters are to keep out rain and maybe some sun, but don’t have to be efficient to keep in heat.

The lovely front porch that can serve as a sitting room.

Many of the homes in the Fort area looked like this; low and open with large windows front and back for ventilation.

6:30 pm local time

You walk out the main gate stopping each time at the guard station to show them a shore pass (no photos allowed of the guard station) and down the short side road and then get to the main coast road. Just past the guard station gate I saw a monkey climb up to the electric wires crossing the road. It was the first monkey I’ve seen here and it seemed to be alone chattering nervously to itself. I did take a quick photo before Randal yelled to me that the gate guards weren’t happy with my camera.

When I got to the corner and the main road Randal was yelling to me, this time to get out my camera.

Bicycle racers!

Support vehicles.

The racers flew by followed by the support motorbikes and then lots of support cars. The support cars seemed as if they were zooming past us yet they couldn’t go faster than the motorbikes which couldn’t go faster than the bike racers who Randal says were probably going 25 mph. But it all seemed very fast to me. And loud.

Next we saw this family with their goats!

On our way back we saw this bovine pulling a wagon.

We saw lots of chickens, goats, dogs, and one large monitor lizard run through a grassy field. I found a small stall selling a limited selection of vegetables and bought some green beans and tomatoes. We had gone looking for a lunch restaurant but didn’t see one that looked particularly inviting. We stopped into the small grocery store and chatted with a cruiser there who told us to try the Closenburg Hotel.

The view from the Closenburg Hotel on the hill overlooking the harbour.

We walked up the hill to the old colonial Closenburg Hotel but decided against staying for lunch because they were having some kind of affair and there was just a huge buffet that we didn’t want to eat just then. Also, it looked like a storm might be coming and I didn’t want to negotiate the plastic pier in a storm. And our laundry was still on the line….It never did storm but I’m not sorry we skipped a huge lunch.

Back on the boat I made lunch and Randal worked on boat work and we spent a quiet afternoon. I am reading Empires of the Monsoon: a history of the Indian Ocean and its invaders by Richard Hall. Our friends on Labarque had given it to us knowing we’d be heading here. It’s actually quite good. I’ve just gotten to Marco Polo. I’m sure I won’t remember that much of the 500+ pages but the introductory maps are good so I will know where we’ve been and where we are going. I must honestly say that this is probably the only time or place I’d ever read this book but it is quite enjoyable.

Later today we’ll probably head back to Fort Galle for lunch and to use up some of our Sri Lankan money. We’ll also stop at the small grocery store and load up on the all important ice cream for the next leg of our passage. We’re thinking that we’ll head on out tomorrow, Monday or at least by Tuesday. Some of that will be determined by when the officials get around to responding to our request to leave and to doing our paper work. We are told that you have to ask at least a day in advance. Today is Sunday so we’re not sure how much can be done though this is officially a Buddhist country.

6:30 pm local time

Hi All,

  This is the story of the shave and haircut I promised.

Ru

Doramac

Shave and a Haircut

After our tour first at Fort Galle, we asked a tuk tuk driver to take us to the Post Office, an ATM, a haircut, and some fruit and vegetables. Our tuk tuk had cost us 200 rupee to go from our harbor gate to Fort Galle so we guessed it would be about 800 maybe making stops on the way back.

First we went to the Post Office and our tuk tuk man came in with me. I was mailing 3 post cards and a card with an envelope. The tuk tuk driver decided that he needed to handle the transaction for me. It cost 520 and I think the tuk tuk driver got a cut but I’m not sure and didn’t want to look like I was checking to see since it was such a small amount. Then we went off to an ATM but it limited the amount of rupees you could get so we went back to the Galle Fort bank..?… and used that ATM. Next we went to the barber.

Lots of traffic but not many cars, just tuk tuks or buses or minivans or motorbikes.

Tuk Tuk parked outside the barber shop.

Our driver thought that both Randal and I needed haircuts but I quickly corrected that to just Randal though I’m the one who really looks in need of a barber.

The “saloon” was in the center city outside of Fort Galle. It is less charming.

While Randal was being barbered I sat and chatted with our tuk tuk driver and the other barber. The other barber said Americans were “gentlemen.”

1. Getting started

2. How’s that so far?

3. Randal is smiling here because he hasn’t yet gotten the bill.

4. Now the shave

The man on the left is the other barber. The arm belongs to the tuk tuk driver who had to go watch Randal being shaved.

5. How much was that?

1500 rupee, about $14 and 3 times more than Randal paid in Singapore! I think our tuk tuk driver negotiated that fee too. Randal hadn’t asked the charge first because he was assuming Sri Lankan prices would be similar to Malaysian prices. That’s our tuk tuk driver in the light colored shirt to Randal’s left. Most cruisers say they are treated fairly by tuk tuk drivers and we have no complaints about any of the others.

After the barber we went to a book store but didn’t stay long and I only bought 2 pens. Then we stopped at the fruits stalls in the city and our tuk tuk driver helped me buy 4 mangoes and 2 oranges for 520 rupee. I have no idea if that is expensive or not. Nita on Passage said it sounded right. I’m starting to have no clue but if anything costs more that $2 I think it is expensive. I guess that comes from living in China where there was tons of fresh fruit and veggies and it the Philippines where there were less but it was still cheap.

The tuk tuk driver’s final bill. 1800 rupee. Fair? It seemed high but he did spend almost 2 hours with us. We should have taken a tuk tuk from place to place because we really didn’t need the driver to help with any of our tasks. Next time we’ll know better. And Randal tends to tip so if he had charged less he still would have done ok and we would have felt better about it. Meters would be a good thing rather than having always to negotiate.

The blouse ladies.

Subic Bay had the bracelet ladies and this small harbour has the blouse ladies who also sell expensive tea for 850 rupee. I picked 2 blouses but they were too big. So they measured me and made small blouses…that were too small. I went back for the third try and they made me try the too big and too small ones again and then decided to just take in the big ones. I agreed to that…they were just 350 rupee each; very light white cotton material and good for hot weather. And I’m a sucker for nice ladies selling things. I took them back to the boat and tried them on without a blouse underneath and they are still too big. I’d had to try them on over my own blouse because there was no place to do anything else. Tomorrow I’ll go back and ask what they can do. But they were nice ladies.

9:35 am local time

Hi Everyone,

Randal’s new name is Diesel because that’s what he smells like most of the time these days as he eliminates the air bubbles in our fuel line. 

Galle # 2 Fort Galle http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galle_fort

Yesterday Randal took a break from boat work and we spent a few hours at Fort Galle. “The natural harbour at Galle has a long pedigree. It is claimed by some to be the ancient harbour of Tarshish which traded with the Egyptians and Persians and with the Levant in Greek and Roman times. It was visited by that great traveler Ibn Battuta in 1344 and later the Portuguese, Dutch and British made it their own as evidenced by the architecture in Fort Galle.” P 130 Indian Ocean Cruising Guide. Galle’s history seems quite similar to Malaka and George Town who were first owned by the Portuguese, then Dutch and then British. But for some reason it feels more like the Philippines and Fort Galle reminded me of the Old City in Manila. No real reason, just feelings. Sri Lanka’s previous names have been Ceylon and Sirandib “the Isle of Rubies,” so maybe here is a good place to buy tea if not rubies. Like the Cameron Highlands of Penang, Malaysia, the highlands of Sri Lanka are home to tea plantations. We tuk tucked from the just outside our gate to the fort and it took about 15 minutes.

Since it was about noon and we’d had a small breakfast about 6 am, our first stop was lunch. Our tuk tuk driver stopped at a rather large restaurant, but I said we really didn’t want “tourist” or “fancy” so he took us away to a place that had good, cheap food in large portions. Unfortunately it didn’t open until 1:30pm so we went to Mama’s instead.

There were several dining areas and since we were “lunch tourists” and not hotel guests (my guess) we were taken up to the roof top area.  In the shade it was actually quite lovely.

The lighthouse view

The mosque view. We also were treated to a suzerain “singing” noon prayers.

Chicken curry for Randal and vegetable curry for me.

Randal had ordered the grilled chicken and vegetables and I had picked Mama’ special soup. But the waiter told me it would take a while to make the soup and then he said it would take a while to make the grilled chicken, but the curry was ready now. So we picked the curry and it was quite good, but pretty spicy hot! Randal’s beer was served in a chilled holder that eventually started to chill the beer. I had iced lemon with not much ice but lots of lemon. We ate all of the chicken, green beans, potatoes, but couldn’t finish the dhal, Jackfruit? the rice or the puffy things. Too much food! I think spicy fills you faster than bland. We also enjoyed chatting with the other folks who came to eat. One young woman worked for the police in Norfolk England.

The puffy things in the basket tasted like popped corn but were like a thin bread cracker. We’ve had similar flat crackers in Singapore in the Nepalese restaurant.

Wikipedia aerial view of Fort Galle area.

Look at it as a rectangle. The right corner close to you has the white light house. The water just beyond the far right corner is the harbor where DoraMac is tied. Keep going past the land on the far left side of the photo and you get to India in about four days at 6 knots.

There goes a tanker now….

The light house.

When we first arrived we anchored in the harbor not far from the light house. The light was moving around in the top though during the day you can’t see it.

From the harbour I had thought this a church, but at lunch today noticed the crescent moons on the points and then we heard the suzerain sing at noon.

Challenge #543! To get to the light house you had to walk the planks. As a kid I loved this kind of thing and then I went to Outward Bound and developed ZERO confidence in my balance as well as somewhat of a fear of heights. (I obviously stunk at the rock climbing and rappelling that we had to do. Unfortunately I stunk at sailing and knots too.) So I looked around for an alternate path. Randal came back to “encourage” me but I still didn’t want to go. Then a Sri Lankan young man and his giant western pal came along and smiled and told me I could do it and took my hand and lead me across. Just like the young men in the Philippines at Subic Bay and our crazy Cousin Izzy in the jungle of Kumai.

Alternatively, if one were a teenage boy, one could jump across. Or a teenage girl!

The Galle Fort area is a UNESCO site but people work and live within the old walls and there are lots of small hotels and restaurants. Lots of gem shops too. I walked past this woman and then back tracked to ask if I could take her photo.

Many men opt to wear a sarong rather than trousers.

School’s out for the day!

The school day goes from 7:30 am until 1:30 pm. Notice my hair growing over my ears. I just gave up on finding people to cut my hair when it became a bother in George Town and in Langkawi. So I’m just letting it grow. Our neighbor Anita Ferreira on SV Passage has lots of long thick curly hair like mine and I’m quite jealous. It is still too short to clip back; a really annoying stage.

I loved their long dark braids.

Many women wear full saris or tops with long flowing skirts. I like long flowing skirts but I’m not a sari kind of person as I learned at our sari demonstration back in Kota Kinabalu at the end of a Malaysia Rally.

Where were the other boys?

We saw hundreds of girls, but the boys must go to a separate school. The girls appeared to come from a school connected to the Methodist Church. You can see one of the original gates into the fort and you can walk the fort walls most of the way around the historic area.

Many of the buildings within the fort area looked a bit (very) seedy. But some were gentrified and the area was really very charming and the local people very friendly though English is sparse.

Anura in front of her restaurant.

We ate our first Galle meal here Full Moon Day last Wednesday. Today we stopped in for some ice cream (Randal) and coke light for me after our walk around. They don’t have a liquor license so serve beer in coffee mugs! At least on Full Moon day they did and when friends Rick and Suze ate there too. Anura is one of those lovely people you’d like to know more about.

Then we got into a tuk tuk and went off to the Post Office, bank, barber, fruit market and then back to Doramac. But that’s another email…

Ru

DoraMac

8:05 AM local time

Hi Everyone,

  We still haven’t seen much beyond the harbor.  Randal has been and is still working on the air bubbles in our fuel system.  After that he’ll try to find what went wrong with our primary autopilot.  Today, however, we will do a bit of exploring in center city and the historic Dutch fort area. 

Ru

DoraMac

Galle # 1

Mediterranean Mooring

We’re on the end of this plastic floating pier. The way it works is this: you drop your anchor and then back up to the pier where your stern lines are then fastened to the pier. The anchor and lines hold you in place so you can park next to another boat without the benefit of finger piers between the boats. It also means that you have to climb off and on over the back rail of the boat and then quickly squeeze under the constantly moving dock lines. It sounds worse than it is and anticipation was worse than actually doing it. Getting back on is definitely easier than getting off.

Climb over the swim platform rail and go under the lines kind of like a kid’s rope game.

The plastic path sways and makes walking a bit tricky: the stairs up to the dock aren’t so bad.

It really heavy winds I think I would crawl rather than walk so luckily this isn’t a heavy winds time, supposedly. We are at the far end across from what looks to be a commercial boat yard of some kind. This is Galle Harbor and not a marina so there aren’t facilities or luxuries. The concrete docks have power lines to the boats but not water. The docks are full with the Blue Water Rally boats probably going toward Turkey. When they leave here, maybe we’ll move to a concrete dock. If we don’t we most likely won’t do any land travel because we don’t trust these plastic piers and don’t want to bash into the sailboat next to us or into anything else for that matter.

Once you are safely off the blue pathway and up the white stairway, you walk through a commercial / government area (also a field where men play cricket in the evenings) to the end of the complex where there is a guard stand. No one goes in or out without a pass. We were given one by the officials yesterday when we checked in. We, like everyone else, used a clearing agent who helps with the paperwork, officials, forms, etc. Entry and exits from a country, or from different states within a country, can most often be done without an agent. Some countries like Singapore, where we didn’t but should have, Indonesia, where we did though we didn’t know we were, and here, where it seems to be required have different rules and you just have to do what they say. And they are pretty strict here. You have to come close to the harbor and contact your agent who tells you to drop anchor just outside the harbor. (You must come in daylight hours because the harbor is closed off with a boom and the military won’t take kindly to a boat approaching at night. Sri Lanka had the “issue” with the Tamil Tigers.) Shortly after dropping anchor you are visited by some men with big guns who drive around the boat several times and then ask for cigarettes. We had bought some in Langkawi just for this purpose. Then we waited for several hours until two naval officers came aboard DoraMac. We chatted a bit and I offered them something to drink and some cookies and one asked for more for the 3 men in the boat who transport the officials. Of course we handed out more drink and cookies. The two uniformed men filled out some forms and then asked to look through the boat. They opened drawers, looked into closets…. One fellow helped himself to some chocolate bars and then opened a canister of peanuts and took a handful. One of the officers was greedy, the other just seemed to ask for what he needed which was a pair of sun glasses. We had none that weren’t my prescription lenses. Our agent was not on the boat at that time. The officers seemed to be looking around more from noisiness than to really find contraband which we didn’t have anyway. They asked about guns and we said no. On our form we said we had some cases of beer, a few boxes of wine, and two bottles of spirits. They didn’t hunt for them or pull up carpets to open hatches though they did want to look under our settee where Randal keeps boat parts. They asked for hats but I told them they couldn’t have my Red Sox hat. NO WAY! They absolutely believed me. We gave them some Pen Marine hats we’d been given in Batu Maung during the Malaysia Rally. They stayed on the boat with us as we entered the harbor and helped us attach ourselves to the plastic blue pier. I gave another group of men who also helped something to drink and then they asked for hats! Well, we only have so many hats that don’t have some sentimental attachment. But I came up with 3 more hats and again explained that NO WAY WERE THEY GETTING MY RED SOX HAT!

Soon our agent Nuwan Windsor came and he was a very polite, professional, young, and we both immediately had great confidence and trust in him. He helped us fill out more forms. Then the customs man came. Before his arrival our friend Bill from BeBe had given us a photocopy of a sign he had photographed. It said in three languages that asking for or offering bribes was a punishable offense. We’re not sure if the customs agents saw the photocopy, but they went away happy with the “gift bag” we had made ahead of time having been warned ahead by other cruisers. The bag had all kinds of stuff. A 6 pack of “aged” Tsing Tao beer imported all the way from China, some “airplane sized” bottles of alcohol, cigarettes, coffee packets, flag bandanas, chocolate. The agent asked Randal how much whiskey we had on board and Randal said two bottles and showed him the two in the “gift” bag. (One of the original bag bottles had gone with the greedy naval officer who had looked inside the bag and had wanted a bottle. At least he hadn’t taken the whole bag!) The customs agent laughed, took the bag and he and his assistant opened their empty briefcases and tried to stuff the bag inside. That didn’t work so they just climbed off the boat carrying the bag. We were literally afraid to leave any of the officials in the boat where we couldn’t see them. It was a “head shaking” experience and a sad introduction to a new country. That was Monday, January 17^th and 11 days after we had left Rebak Marina.

On Tuesday I went for a walk out of the complex to top up the 3G SIM card that had been passed along to us by Rick and Suza from Voyager. I walked the blue plastic dock path, up the stairs, and around the small park and up to the gate. The officers looked at my pass and wrote down the pass number and out I went. We had been told there was a shop to buy phone minutes just past the gate short of the main road. I saw the shop that sold Dialog phone cards, went in. Instead of asking for a card, I asked for more minutes and confused the shop ladies. Luckily a tuk tuk driver had come in to buy some cigarettes and he helped me explaining to them what I wanted and to me what I should ask for. He showed me how to check the time balance on the phone and how to add the 400 minutes. 400 minutes cost $4. One Sri Lanka rupee equals about 1 cent US.

These small vehicles are tuk tuks and seem similar to the small vehicles we used in Subic Bay in the Philippines. Randal says they are different, and maybe mechanically they are, but visually they are similar. And you climb in and out the same way.

Street scene.

I really didn’t walk far; still a bit tired from our passage and it was very humid.

I walked to this near bye “grocery store” where the prices seemed high though probably not. I bought Randal a Snickers bar that cost 150 rupee, so about $1.50, a loaf of better wheat bread for 300 rupee and a few other things. That came to 580 rupee and I paid with a 2,000 rupee bill. 1000 Sri Lanka rupee equal about $9 US

On Wednesday, Randal and I went out to the center city and Dutch fort ruins, but it was January Full Moon Day so shops and offices were closed. The ATM was available, thankfully though we’d earlier traded Indian Rupees for Sri Lankan Rupees to Rick and Suza so we did have about 3,000 R. We had lunch in the Fort area and tuk tukked back to the boat.

English is about the 4^th language on the list spoken here and it is spoken in a way that makes it hard for us to understand. We, of course, speak no Sinhalese, the main language. The main religion is Buddhism.

Hi All

We are getting our bearings in Sri Lanka. I have been addressing boat fuel issues and this morning I changed out the engine saltwater pump and realized I had the incorrect rebuild kit for the old oil leaking one which is made different from the one I replaced it with and had bought the kit for. Marlin, the “go to man” outside the gate has the old one along with one of my engine fuel filters to see if he can find replacements for me.

I have been polishing (filtering) the 400 gallons of fuel in the main tank since we arrived and have drained at least one gallon of sludge out of the filter housing. I’ll bet I’ll make it a point to never leave port without making sure we have clean fuel.

Last night there was more drama as we attempted to start the gen-set. It would run for a little while and then cut off. Knowing I had fuel issues I changed the Racor and the engine filter but it still would run for a few minutes and then cut off. I noticed the oil pressure gauge needle and the temperature gauge needle were flickering back and forth in time with each other. I had not noticed this before.

I decided it was the auto shut off stopping the engine. I sent off an email to Barb at Hatton Marine in Seattle where I had bought spares for the gen-set and main engine describing what was happening. At 1:00 AM I got up to check my email and she said the problem is easy to fix. Find a 10mm bolt on the side of the gen-set with wires going to it and tighten it up. I couldn’t believe it could be that simple but when I did fine the bolt it was extremely loose and the wires were ground wires. I tightened it and the gen-set ran perfectly.

We are attached to a very flimsy plastic dock. It is the equivalent of tying the reins of a horse to a horseshoe. I’m afraid Dora Mac is going to wonder off like the horse would invariably do. If we can get moved to a concrete pier when some of the boats leave we may leave Dora Mac for some inland traveling. Just because we did not plan to stop here does not mean we cannot enjoy some of the sights.

10.5 hours ahead of Eastern Time

Hello all,

  This is a bit more about our passage from Rebak Marina, Malaysia to Galle, Sri Lanka.

Passage to Sri Lanka

We had lots of wind, waves, swells. We had fuel problems that caused engine problems which kept shutting down the engine. We had autopilot issues and we were already relying on our secondary autopilot because the primary never even made it to the start of the trip. We had to cruise around to and fro and hither and yon, east and west, north and south, all to avoid going directly where we wanted to go and into the path of the storm. Thankfully we had Randal’s brain to contend with all of the boat issues and friends Nick Spence, Bob Silvers, and Bill Kimley to give us weather reports and offer other suggestions about boat problems. We also maintained contact with other cruisers during the morning radio report where cruisers call into a pre-agreed upon single side band radio channel and share information about location, weather and such. Randal never gave up though at times he was very discouraged and only once did I see him really worried. At that moment I was less worried than he because though he may have lost faith in himself for that moment, I never did. As the passage continued and we seemed to just wait for the next problem to occur, I started to realize just how well Randal knew the boat and its systems and how they all work. And as the weather calmed, so did our fears. We even got a bit bored…but bored is great! We love bored.

The trip definitely had its lows, and far too many of them. But there were a few bright spots too. We had dolphin visits twice and saw a sea turtle float past. We had our first radio call from a huge tanker to us. He was behind us following the same course as we and wanted to let us know that he would pass on our port because passing on our starboard would put him too close to a tanker that was to the right of us. That took place in the middle of the night on my watch

Our wonderful AIS Automatic Identification System showing boat traffic in the shipping channel.

Doramac is circled in Red. Huge cargo and tanker ships are shown as triangles. One has just passed us and one south of us is pointing to go behind us heading north. As we left Langkawi for Cochin we had to pass through busy shipping channels. Very soon we altered course to take us north of most traffic.

Our COG Course over ground is 272 degrees on a compass. The tanker Polaris Leader coming up in back of us at about 17 Knots had a COG of 272 degrees or very close to that. The overtaking vessel is the one responsible to avoid collision though everyone truly is responsible. There is a line sung by Sancho Panza in the musical Don Quixote that goes something like this. “Whether the hammer hits the jug or the jug hits the hammer, it’s not going to be good for the jug.” We’re the small jug out here. But the Captain of the Polaris Leader politely called us and asked if we were towing something, probably because our speed was only 7 knots. We said no, that we were a small pleasure boat. Randal, who I had just awaken from his off-watch sleep, asked the Captain to pass on our starboard. But because of the other boat on our starboard, the Captain asked to pass on our port. Asked ! Everyone tries to stay polite. And with the variety of accents speaking English, the language of the sea as well as the air, it can be a bit tricky. The Captain had called us on our VHF radio over channel 16, “designated as the international Distress, Urgency, Safety, and Calling radio telephony channel”. One interesting thing I just read is that Channel 16 only allows one person to speak at a time. You hold down a button then speak. To hear you must release the button. That way you can’t be speaking over each other and making the situation even more complicated. Once you make contact on 16 one party suggests an alternate channel like 69 or 17 and you move there to free up channel 16. It’s actually all very sensible. Every now and then some bored soul will get on channel 16 and sing what sounds like a very drunk rendition of a love song in the language of his country. Channel 16 is a “line of sight” channel which means that you have to be within a certain distance of the other vessel. That keeps the traffic on 16 manageable in small areas around the world. If everyone could use it anywhere, that wouldn’t work at all.

AIS on our chart plotter.

If you put the curser over a ship symbol, you get basic info like the ship’s speed 14.3 k; how close it will get 1.114 nm, and when it will get to that ‘closest point of approach” 00h15m33s.

Full AIS information is also available.

The length of big ships is given in nautical miles! The width of this tanker is 194 ft. Ours is 14.9’. Our draught is 6’ and this ship’s is 61! Our ‘closest point of approach” CPA was 1.119nm and that was to be in 15 minutes. It was going to KR YOS where ever that is and it was underway using its engine. The Captain of the Polaris Leader could call us because we transmit AIS info that shows our name and location.

Ruth “freakin “scared! January 9^th, 10:45 am

Not a flattering photo, but a picture is worth 1,000 more words.

Journal entry. “ 2:15 pm. Just showered for the first time! That was the plan for this morning. French toast and showers. But we had engine issues from and oil leak so Randal had to work from about 9 am until 1:20pm when we restarted the engine. Really scary! Luckily we are now north of the shipping lanes – Randal had decided to move us away from the traffic last night- so we didn’t have ships to contend with as we floated around in the current, no longer under power and practically stationary at .9k.” I had gotten really scared because nothing seemed to be fixing the fuel leak, the problem, and you can’t continue with a fuel leak in the engine room. And Randal looked really distressed and that scared me even more. Ultimately Randal decided to by-pass the leaking fuel polishing system inserting a hose instead. This fixed that problem though somewhat dirty fuel was still and is still a problem.

Starting my rest time at 7:30 pm.

Randal and I slept in the cockpit so we would be easily available if needed during the night watches. I woke Randal a few times with questions about passing vessels and he woke me once when we had an engine issue and he had to work on the engine while I kept watch. That involved turning off the engine and turning on the genset to generate power to keep our navigation lights on to keep us visible. Then when the engine was working again the genset was turned off. In all of our years cruising we’ve never had engine problems.

A beautiful sunset with our Seahorse flag flapping in the slight wind.

There were a few lovely times too with a sunset like this and visits from dolphins to reassure us.

Night Watch schedule:

7:30 to 10:30 Randal 10:30 to 1:30 Ru 1:30 to 4:30 Randal 4:30 until after breakfast mid-morning Ru Then I would take a nap. As we moved further west our watches started later but I was still trying to go to sleep too early so really only slept well after my first watch because I was exhausted. During the really bad weather spells caused from miles away by the storm, we would roll and bounce so sleeping always generated odd dreams involving some type of vehicle and water and odd images. During the roughest weather, and before we deployed our stabilizing fish, it felt as if you were on a carousel, roller coaster, and tilt-a-world all at the same time. And you know when you’re on a plane and hit turbulence? This was like that too, only the voice told you that the turbulence would last for days and you had to take turns driving the plane!

Randal’s niece Tammy, during her visit with us last March, had written a message we’d put into this bottle and then had forgotten to toss it overboard. I added a message and on the outside wrote our location and website.

My message in the bottle about to be tossed into the Indian Ocean January 14^th.

You can see the weather has calmed. I even managed to do 3 loads of laundry because Randal made water with our water maker and we were sparing on the showers. Also during the stormy days no one really wanted to eat so there were few dishes to wash. Randal was too seasick and I was too scared. During the worst days, the only time I wasn’t so scared was when I was sitting right next to Randal holding on to him. When I had to sit in the help chair just 4 feet away, I had to tell myself that I could and had to do it and Randal was really just right there. I was ready early on to hail a passing freighter and abandon ship. REALLY! Sadly, our friend Keith on Bacchus had to do just that. He was further into the storm and his steering and electronics stopped working and the boat was taking on water. He and his two crew were picked up by a freighter that had been called and were taken to the port of the freighter’s destination in Malaysia. The boat was left at sea….. Other boats got battered and several were towed into Galle with engine or other issues so the fact that we made it in on our own power is all because of CAPTAIN RANDAL NEVER GIVING UP!!! It’s amazing what he knows about all of the systems.

I was able to make French Toast one morning!

And I actually could paint a picture in my journal of Randal at the helm.

We had problems from the morning we left until….well, ask a cruiser and the answer is that there are always boat problems. That’s why you carry “a boatload” of spares! Yesterday evening Randal went to recharge our batteries and the Genset wouldn’t work. The temperature and oil pressure gages were jumping around and the automatic shut down switch kept shutting it down. (Thankfully it did work while we were at sea and had to turn off the engine all those times!) Last night, about 7 pm our time Randal emailed a company in Seattle where he had bought lots of Genset and John Deere spare parts in November of 2006. Barb, the clerk had been so helpful that Randal had brought her some flowers. Luckily Barb is still there and this is her reply to the email which Randal read about 1 am our time. “I spoke with our electrician. The problem is easy to fix. If you look at the genset from the engine end, there is a 10 mm bolt on the lower right side of the J box. That bolt holds a bundle of wires. Just tighten the bolt and everything should be fine. Happy Cruising! Barb, Hatton Marine, Seattle. About 6:30am this morning Randal tightened the bolt and we now have a working Genset. “How on earth did he know that?” Randal kept saying to me. Because you told him all of the information he needed to make the right diagnosis, I said. Without a working Genset we would have to run our big engine to recharge the batteries or have no power and no lights, frig, etc. To me the sound of an engine no longer sounds like noise, it sounds like music.

Ru

Doramac

We got caught in a storm, had engine issues, had navigation issues, and ran out of ice cream way too soon.  But today we are safe in Galle Harbor waiting for the officials to check us in.  We hadn’t intended to stop here but after the rather difficult passage we needed a break before we continue to Cochin.  Also, the weather after today looked iffy so we stopped to deal with stuff here and maybe tour the highlands before continuing on.

Thanks to our weather guys Nick Spence, Bob Silvers, and Bill Kimley, we avoided the real horrors encounted by others who were ahead of us.  We turned around and back tracked for days and went round Robin’s barn just to avoid going further west into the storm.  We had to let it pass west of us before we got to where it was going.  Other boats “hove to” and sat in horrible seas, but sailboats are built to do that.  We had the fuel to move around and felt safer than just sitting and rolling around, though we certainly rolled a lot and walls of water coming at you are not a sight you want to see.  But DoraMac did fine with the rolls, it was the engine that kept quitting or the navigation equipment that kept going odd.  Thankfully, for every problem we had, Captain Randal had a way to make it work and keep us going.  I cried, he got seasick, but together we got through it and he was truly amazing.  I didn’t pray that the boat would be ok, I just prayed that Randal could keep dealing with things.  Red Sox are on their own this year; I used all of my wishes for us to get to Galle.

So you’ll get to learn about Sri Lanka over the  next several days.  Randal and I had over 90 emails in our boxes so hope to respond to you over the next several days.

So that’s it.

Ru

Arrived safely in Galle Harbour, Sri Lanka this morning at 10:15 AM, 7:45 AM local time. We are waiting for an inspection by the Navy before we can enter the inner harbour and tie stern to a pier. We don’t know which one we will attach to but I understand they have a concrete commercial pier which is what I ask for but they also have a plastic flimsy floating dock. We should find out shortly.

It is now 10:30 AM local or GMT + 5.5.

Our position is 06 01.890 N 080 13.309E For you with Google Earth the inner harbour is: 06 01.989N 080 13.774E.

Randal

DATE: 1/16/11

TIME: GMT +8 12:00 NOON

POSITION: 06 00.700N 082 41.176E

SOG: 7.1 KNOTS

COG: 263

WIND: OVER THE BOAT, 7.8 KNOTS OUT OF 270 DEGREES

SEAS: 1 METER OUT OF THE NORTH

SKIES: SCATTERED CLOUDS, MOSTLY SUNNY

TEMP: 29C 85F

DISTANCE MADE GOOD: LAST

TO DESTINATION: 145 NM

TIME TO DESTINATION: 23 HOURS

ONBOARD: RUTH & RANDAL JOHNSON

COMMENTS: WE SHOULD ARRIVE IN GALLE AROUND THIS TIME TOMORROW. THERE WE WILL GET SOME MUCH NEEDED REST AND ADDRESS SOME BOAT ISSUES. THERE ARE SOME TOURS TO THE HIGHLANDS AVAILABLE WE MAY TAKE ADVANTAGE OF.

THEN WE WILL WAIT FOR A WEATHER WINDOW FOR OUR THREE DAY RUN TO COCHIN, INDIA. BECAUSE OF THE MOTION OF THE BOAT IT IS DIFFICULT TO WEIGH YOURSELF AS THE SCALES GO UP AND DOWN. THIS MORNING I WEIGHED SOMEWHERE BETWEEN 170LBS AND 230LBS.