16 March 2019 – On passage to India
We arrived safely in India after a 9.5 day, 1280nm passage. Before setting out from Sabang, Sumatra Indonesia, we topped up with 270 litres of Indonesian diesel (very dark, although surprisingly clean) and hoisted our Code Zero light air sail on a flexible furler. This is what it looked like on a beam reach.

This is what it looked like on a downwind run, with the boom on the opposite side.

We bought this sail and furler 3 years ago (from Far East Sails in Hong Kong – while we were in Fiji), but never really had an opportunity to try it. In summary, I can say that we do like this sail, very much. Its easy to deploy and mostly easy to put away. But, you have to be careful not to leave it up in high winds (greater than 16 knots), or it can be a bugger to furl properly.
Our crew Gabriele and Mariona did a sterling job. As time passed, they assumed more and more responsibility and learned more about our boat and its systems. They did all their shifts, and called if there were any problems. We are really hoping that they will come back to join us for the next leg in January 2020, from Kochi to Cyprus through the Red Sea.

Its not always a hard time, is it?

Gabriele was very eager to fish, from Day 1. After 10 years of cruising, I hate to admit it but I have become lazy when it comes to fishing. You won’t catch fish if you don’t put out a line! I showed Gabriel our fishing gear and he took over. Over the 9 day passage, he caught two tuna and one Mahi-Mahi (dolphin fish) – usually at about 5pm. Here’s a good practical photo of me reaching down (its a long way) to try and snag a tuna with our gaff. It can be a little challenging when the boat is rocking back and forth.

The tuna were relatively easy to bring in, but they still took work. Here are shots of tuna numbers 1 and 2. There was lots of blood with the second tuna.


This Mahi-Mahi was a real fighter. Gabriele played with him on the line for 15 minutes to try and tire him out. We even let the sails out a bit to try and slow down. It took both of us to haul him in. He changed colour from green to silver in about two minutes once on deck.

Gabriele caught all the fish – and Gabriele and Mariona cleaned all the fish. A couple of hours later, they were busy in the galley and made incredibly fresh sushi and ceviche (a seafood dish typically made from fresh raw fish cured in citrus juices, such as lemon or lime, and spiced with chilli or other seasonings). Wow, that was good — its goes without saying that we all ate the fish.
As we were sailing very close to the shoreline of Sri Lanka (about 10nm), we could barely make out the island features (low profile and haze) but there were plenty of fishermen, and many came out to great us and ask for water, smokes, beer, wine etc.

This is something new to me. I took a photograph of our OpenCPN Chartplotter AIS target. Its a commercial ship called SELINA and the destination says “ARMED GUARDS ONBOARD”. I know that many ships in these waters have armed guards, but putting this in the AIS information box is new to me.

This is a new source of frustration for me. I bought a new Garmin GPS chartplotter when in Indonesia 1.5 years ago, and its under “2 year warranty”. The GPS date shows July 1999. That’s bizarre and no doubt will be a pain in the ass to get sorted out.

As we were approaching the 500 foot shelf of Indian waters, we came across about 60 fishing boats in open water at least 20nm from shore. Each boat had about 30 men onboard and they were all hand-line fishing. The boats were not at anchor but using their motors to stay in a fixed position. It was much more crowded than the photo shows, and challenging to safely pass between them.

We sailed for nearly all of this passage, 80% of the time under full sail, on every point of sail from dead down wind to this close reach.

Now, we’ve been dockside in Kochi India for a week – and we’re still eating frozen fish cooked on the BBQ and in the rice cooker. We’re busy with boat jobs, and installed a second air conditioning unit in the main cabin to help keep the heat and humidity down. Its working. With the next blog, I’ll talk about India.