Indian Ocean Crossing.

Day 1 Wednesday 4 April: 

We finally received the B&G Zeus3-12” plotter, 4G radar from the UK and C-Maps for the Indian Ocean (IO) and SE Africa, from the USA. The plotter and radar was stuck in Langkawi Customs for three weeks, as the authorities has introduced a very heavy and cumbersome procedure that required me to get various permissions and Knut and Kristin (K&K) had to fill in loads of silly forms. A very frustrating and cumbersome procedure, where we were dealing with the Malaysian bureaucrats and loads of paper shufflers, which were too scared to to take any decision.

K&K had prepared the cables while we were in Phuket - a huge and difficult job - so as soon as I arrived on board with the equipment, it was installed withing a day.

It was great to set sails again Wednesday morning from Telaga Marina and we left the anchorage with big smiles on our faces.

By now I had spend three months, this year, in Pangkor and Boat Lagoon Marinas trying to get New Dawn ready for the Indian Ocean. K&K had been on board for one month. Many of the workers and companies are good, but a lot of them were incompetent and they had no idea of time management. I still have a list of things that need attention and need to be redone. For example to Mechanics, that were hired to re-wire the Generator's AC power part, told me it would be done in 3-4 days, but they only returned with the part after 6+ weeks, and they messed up many other things.

Well let’s turn the page on SE Asia…..

The timing of our departure is not optimal as April is the changing time from the E Monsoon to the SW Monsoon which will start in May. This mean we will have variable winds for April month, rather that the steady easterly wind in the proceeding three months. This will slow us down and so far it has been a slow process, with hardly any wind, apart from yesterday’s thunderstorm, which gave us strong wind and rain, resulting in our top speed of 9.8 kn.

K&K are both good cooks and had prepared some nice meals for the first days and make it easier for the cooking. We are settling into our watch system of each  three hours at night time and five hours during the day time. As I write this, at 01:20, the wind has dropped to only a couple of kn and our speed is a modest 1.5 kn. From the GRIP files received, I believe we should get better winds Saturday with E winds of 15-25 kn, and that would be great.

The distance from Langkawi, Malaysia to Uligan, Maldives is 1.610 NM, which under “normal” circumstances, we can cover in about ten days, but with the light winds here and again south of Sri Lanka, I assume it will take us at least two weeks. As we are now seriously delayed, we have dropped visiting Sri Lanka, which is a pity, as we had looked forward to visit that country. Thus  we now sail directly to the Maldives, where we plan to spend 3-4 weeks, as we also plan to visit Chagos (BIOT), where we have the cruising permit for the months of May, but I am in contact with the UK authorities to change the dates. One is only allowed to stay in Chagos for up to 28 days and it is very restricted where we can anchor. If you are interested, I can recommend you to watch the YouTube documentary “Stealing A Nation”, which give the story on how the UK and USA kicked out the local population, so they could build a military base.

The Malacca Strait run from Singapore to Phuket and it is very heavily trafficked with commercial ships. We have at the moment eight commercial ships around us and they show up well on the radar and the AIS. The Strait is also well known for its huge amount of thunderstorms and rain. I have experienced a lot of this during my two years in the area and they come with a huge amount of lightning and torrential rain.

Day 2 Thursday 5 April:

Today the wind dropped almost completely and we had an unpleasant swell. During my PM watch, I reluctantly woke up Volvo so we could make some progress for seven hours. After dinner Knut put it back to sleep, but we only had 3-4 kn wind, so our progress dropped to 1-2 kn, but at least we did not have to listed to Volvo, but instead to the flapping of the sails; what is best??

The weather forecast has changed and we might not get the 15 kn wind promised for Saturday. We shall see what will come our way. So far we have only covered 130 NM in 37 hours. Usually our average is about 154 NM/24 hours. Still have 1.479 NM to go.

Hardly seen any commercial ships today, but we are approaching Banda Aceh, where I expect the big ships will also turn  west - like us - and there should be more ships close by and to watch out for. Remember it was the Banda Aceh that was badly hit in the 2004 Tsunami.

Day 3 Friday 6 April:

At 03:55: Difficult sailing all night.with loads of thunderstorms and squalls, as well as little or variable wind coming from all the directions. As my watch started at 03:00, we were getting into a couple of squalls that were moving slowly and contained a lot of rain and strong wind, with lightning all around. It felt like going down the red carpet at the Oscar Gala evening….

But once out of the squalls, the wind dropped again to nearly nothing. So far we have only sailed 142 NM in 43 hours and have still 1.468 NM to go.

As to wildlife encountered so far, we have today seen some pods of Dolphins, that played around us for a short while. They were rather small and came in small groups. Plenty of Flying-fish, but so far none of them have asked for a free lift on the deck. Hardly any birds seen so far, which is strange, as we are usually followed by several different type of birds. We are trailing the fishing line, but not caught anything, so far. I believe that the seas around Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia  are over fished and there can’t be a lot of fish left to catch anymore(?).

It is very hot and the teak decks gets too hot to walk on during the afternoon. We bought Fippers/Flip-Flops to be able to walk on the decks.

This PM we woke up again Volvo as the wind was again Zero; at least we can make so progress.

Knut baked bread today and his mix the flower with raisins and Muesli, which is nice. Knut has a lot of initiative and energy and is enjoying to be back at sea.

Day 4 Saturday 7 April:

So far the forecast has been wrong, and we should have 15+ kn wind today, but we only got 2-6 kn, so more motor sailing. If we continue like this we risk running out of fuel, as we still have 1.278 NM to go.

Loads of shipping around us and usually we see 15-20 ships near us. They all “seem to have copied my WP’s” at least to the southern part of Sri Lanka.

It seems like the Pangolin position reporting don’t work as yesterday’s email bounced. Will try again. The propagation is already a problem, so it is almost impossible to connect to the Brunei Radio and that is the only one that works in the N IO, as far as I know.Today I failed to download the emails, except one from Chris. The other five emails failed to download.

Again we had Dolphins around us, but they seems slow and less playful than usual, so it was impossible to film them and take photos. Yes Gabriel, I will try another day to film them for you and I am sure there will be other opportunities.

Day 5 Sunday 8 April:

This is a very difficult sailing with either no wind or a lot of thunderstorms/squalls. Last night was particular problematic and both Knut and especially my watches had continued thunderstorms and torrential rain. The wind came from all directions as we switched off all the instruments, it was difficult to see our heading. On top of that, we had to watch out for the commercial ships,especially when the wind got us into 360° turns.

I have always been told that the IO is complicated to sail, and our last few days here, has proved it is extremely difficult sailing. The weather forecasts, seems unreliable, although, so far today, it appears to be more or less accurate.

We have only sailed about 400 NM in four days and used the engine for 29 hours. We still have 1.213 NM to go to Uligan.

One good news is that we caught a smallish Tuna fish. As I hauled it in, Knut showed it to Kristin, but unfortunately he dumped it before I could take a photo of it. Next time.

Plenty of Dolphins playing around us today for well over an hour and I hope the videos I took of them, can be used for a next entry into the blog and YouTube.

Day 6 Monday 9 April:

We have had - finally - a good east wind since yesterday afternoon, of 12-23 kn and we are thus covering an acceptable milage, but it is rocking and rolling. The forecast shows that we “might” continue with this wind for another day or perhaps two, but then it should - unfortunately - drop to nearly nothing and even turn to west, which is on the nose and is no good for us. We start to “bet” on who can guess our arrival date in Uligan. Kristin is the most optimistic and think we will arrive on 18 April; Knut forecast 19 April, but I am more conservative and forecast arriving on 20 April.

As I write this at 04:00, a thunderstorm/squall is passing us on star board and we received a bit of rain and wind, but nothing nasty, this time. We have, so far, covered 476 NM and have 1.134 NM to go.

Day 9 Thursday 12 April:

A beautiful “Starry-Starry-Night” as I am writing this on my watch at 04:30, with stars allover us and as the moon has still to show up, I can better see the stars; beautiful.

Wednesday gave us good sailing, although the wind was light and came from aft. We made good progress with the sails set on a wing-on-wing configuration, but at dinnertime, the wind dropped and we took in the spinnaker pole and the sails started to flap again.Slow progress continued and in the end, I woke up Volvo for its watch, as our speeds had dropped to barely 1.5 kn.

We are now half way to Uligan and have thus 805 NM left. So far this night we have only had a few rain showers and the lightning have all been far away. We can see the lightning, but they are too far away to hear them. That is good in itself, but we don’t get the wind these thunderstorms usually bring.

Several friends, that have spend the last few weeks in Trincomalee, Sri Lanka, plan to soon set sail for the Maldives and Chagos. We are one month delayed and will miss some of them. One AUS couple, Karel and Phil on S/Y Tahini.Li, whom I met in Pangkor Marina, asked me to buy them in Langkawi, a 15 HP Yamaha outboard. It is now stored in the Lazarette and we will see how and when we can transfer it to their boat. They will skip the Maldives, for economical reasons, as it is very costly, and plan to leave Trincomalee on 20 April to arrive Chagos ten days later.

Whereas the sea water in the Malacca Strait is very polluted and murky, once we rounded the top of Sumatra island the water started to get clean again and so far we have not seen any big pollution, apart from the odd plastic bag caught in the fishing lure. I am also able to make fresh water when needed.

The commercial shipping is still heavy and most of the cargo and tankers have a west or east course and can be seen on the AIS and the Radar. It is amazing to see the large numbers of commercial ships passing this area. We have, so far not seen any pleasure boats since leaving Langkawi.

The new Radar (4G) and Plotter (B&G Zeus3 - 12”) is a huge improvement from my old Simrad (CA42/DS42 and 4 Kw), as well as the Standard Horizon (CP300i/Si-Tex). The screen is impeccable clear and the radar seems to pick up even the smallest items on the water. In addition the plotter has a huge amount of settings and possibilities, which, especially K&K enjoy using and playing with, as they are both keen on computers, smart phones and screens in general.  

Day 10 Friday 13 April:

As we are approaching the pirate risk areas, we start to see more and more ships that have rigged water hoses and cannons along their sides to prevent Pirates boarding. Apparently most of the commercial ships have now armed guards on board and many pick the guards up in Galle, Sri Lanka and drop them off in Djibouti and visa-versa. It is a bit worrying to see this. We will enter the “Voluntary Reporting Ares” (VRA) south of India in about 3 days time and the Maldives are inside the VRA. But we will not enter the “High Risk Area” (HRA) for obvious reasons. Several yachts have disregarded the warnings and will sail up the Red sea and the HRA and, so far, several have made it safely, but only a few weeks ago, a yacht was attacked, but managed to get away with the help of the Naval force.

Again the winds is light and we have been motor sailing for a good part of the last 24 hours. So far Volvo has looked after our progress for 45 h since leaving Langkawi and that is, for me, by far too much.But we are close to the Equator and thus the Doldrums territory, where light and variable winds are the norm.

This morning at 04:00 we had another nice night with stars all over us, but no wind and no moon. Also as we are approaching the Sri Lanka ship separation zone we see more and more commercial ships. I spotted on the AIS the 400 meter "Maerskmckinneymoller" container ship that was travelling at 20 kn. It is, I think, one of the Maersk group’s biggest ships. Just like in the Panama Canal, it is interesting to see the large number of Maersk ships each day and most of them are heavy loaded. No wonder Maersk is the world’s largest shipping company. But I have also noted several of the MSC container ships, but none, so far, of the Evergreen Line, which is surprising, as they are an Asian company; wonder what happened to that company?

As I started my watch at 16:00 we were still on motor, but soon after the wind changed from east to south and that was good and the angel became 60° true, as our course is 270° T. Thus Volvo was put on its siesta and I rolled out the sails. What a release it is to be back on sails and with 6 kn true wind New Dawn was sailing 5.5 kn. We have no big waves, but a 2-3 meter swell from the south.

We had the pleasure of a visit of a large group of big Dolphins this PM. I managed again to film them and hopefully I can find a way of edit these films and put them on the Blog, so Gabriel can watch them.

After a while a fishing boat started to chase us and I did my best to sail fast. Their speed seemed to top at about 5.5 kn, so when the wind dropped I started again Volvo to increase the speed to 7.5-8 kn. They were waving flags and screaming at me, but I gave signs to them that they should stay away. They persisted. In this area no one are happy to be approached like this. If they want to trade fish with cigarettes, water or booze, they usually hold up the fish so we can see them, but these did not, so I avoided them getting close. There are many bad stories in this area, but off course there are serious and honest fishing men as well, but how do we know their intentions, before it is too late?

We have, so far, sailed 1.000 NM since leaving Langkawi on 4 April, about 9 days ago, and we have 588 NM to Uligan.

Unfortunately the wind dropped again around dinner time, so Volvo took over.

We installed the BBQ and connected it to my new gas bottle. Knut grilled sausages and they made mashed potatoes and became yet another nice dinner, made by K&K. BTW: We don’t drink alcohol and only drink soft drinks and water at sea. This is one of my rules on board and K&K agree to it. Thus, the hangovers will be for when we arrive and have dropped anchor.

Day 12 Sunday 15 April:

We have now sailed over 1.300 NM since Langkawi and have another 300 NM left for Uligan. Unfortunately Volvo can claim too much of the milage as it has worked for about 100 h and that is a first for me. Total Volvo hours since I bought New Dawn in 2003 is close to 2.500 h for a distance sailed of about 75.000 NM.

All systems have been checked again and most works well with the exception of the Navtec Vang that is leaking its oil and perhaps the Lewmar hydraulic furling, which seems to have developed a noise. This noise might come from the central pressure unit, or perhaps we need to grease the furler again. For the Vang, I have extra seals on board and we wait Navtec France to advise us how to change the seal without loosing the 1.000 PSI gas in the upper part of the Vang, if that is possible. Chris has been checking around and have spoken to Mr Honoré at Navtec, whom I know well since years and he has been on board New Dawn in Beauvallon. We hope to repair it once at anchor, but failing that, we will develop a system D.

We were again chased by a fishing boat, shouting and screaming at me. But I did not stop and now knows these boats are not able to go faster than 5.5 kn, so we can out sail them, which I did this time again.

Day 13 Monday 16 April:

Again a mixed bag of light winds and some more motoring. Am getting used to this weather pattern in the Indian Ocean at this time of the change of Monsoon season.

A little bit of tension has developed on board and I think it can be caused by tiredness and the inexperience of long distance sailing, which is a pity, but although the watch system has been adapted accordingly, I believe this problem will sort itself out once we have dropped anchor and can go for a walk on land.

For my part, I am fine being at sea for long distances, albeit on a slow trip, like this one and I have several tasks to occupy me. But I am never bored. One of the things I appreciate is, for example, at night to watch the star filled sky. It is beautiful and a pleasure to watch. Also to listen to the the wind in the sails and hear the water passing the boat, as well as watching the many Dolphins visiting us, jumping and playing around the bow of New Dawn is absolutely great. Small things for small mind….. How many can and have experienced all this pleasure and how many more/is able to appreciate these magic moments? At least I do appreciate these moments and wonder how many of them I will still get - I hope for many more years to come……..

Not much traffic around us and today Knut have seen just one ship 19 NM away, but nothing else apart from the empty horizon all around us. The shipping lanes for the Horn Of Africa and the Arabian Gulf seem to have parted from our course and the ships are now well to our north.

Day 14 Tuesday 17 April:

Again no wind since last night and as we have only 63 NM to go, I have slowed down the speed to nothing, as it will be best to arrive in daylight. The sunrise should be 06:00 and that is the time I am expecting to arrive. Thus the plan is that, if we still don’t have wind, to start Volvo around midnight and motor to time our arrival to after sunrise. So for the moment we drift and wait.

The agent Asad emailed me telling that friends would also be arriving and it will be good to see them again.

Day 15 Wednesday 18 April:

It is 05:08 and I have also taken Kristin's watch and plan to stay awake until we arrive, so it will be a long night for me. Kristin can thus get some needed sleep. As agreed, Knut started Volvo around midnight and we are slowly approaching Uligan. At the moment there is a huge thunderstorm over SW India with almost none stop lightning, a bit like the 15 August fireworks in the Golf of Saint Tropez. I guess India is having a good wash tonight.

We have now 28 NM left to go and the radar starts to pick up the first islands of the Maldives. As far as I can see, most of the islands seems to have holiday resorts on them, but nothing else.

Absolutely no wind to speak about, but the few kn’s wind we have tend to come from all directions and take a 360°turn, now and then. That is a pity, as I had preferred to arrive Uligan on full sails and not on Volvo power. Too bad.

Otherwise things seems to have settled a bit. Kristin seems not to be able to sleep at night but sleeps better during the day. I took her five hours morning watch today. I believe it is tiredness that is the cause and suspect it will regulate itself after a few days at anchor. I have seen similar patterns on other crew in the past, especially those that are new to long distance sailing and Kristin has only done 1-2 days sails before. We have now been at sea for about 14 days and that can be long for some.

I think there are whales around us, as a few minutes ago it smelled strongly of fish coming from the port side. I suspect it might have been the breath of a whale, as I have experienced this before. But I did not see, or hear them. It only lasted a minute or so.