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