Photo - Fourteen hour haul out operation in Sri Lanka.
Posted on www.noonsite.com. August 2008

We left Aden, Yemen, in mid January and were blessed with crazy but good winds to sail the 600 miles up to Salalah in Oman, although we had to engine the last 100 miles. The trials and tribulations of our passage down the Red Sea were now well behind us. We had to tack relatively little and pondered the "NE" monsoon repeatedly, with easterlies and south easterlies giving beam and close reaches much of the time. After refuelling and good provisioning we left Salalah for passage to Galle in Sri Lanka in early February and were again rewarded with good winds. Marie had returned aboard Sänna in Salalah with my brother Gary hopping off back to the UK. The Piracy risk from Aden to Al Mukallah and Salalah meant that it was unwise for Marie to be away from Henry with his broken leg. Initial F6/7 NW winds pushed us along very well until the wind turned N and then NE, F5/6 for much of the passage and we were able to follow our rhumb course line pretty much all the 1700 miles across the Indian Ocean to Galle, arriving in 13 days from Salalah. We then left the wonderful island of Sri Lanka in early March bound for Langkawi in Malaysia but then had no winds at all for five successive days and sailed from thunderstorm to thunderstorm to claim the wind.

After burning much of our diesel reserves against the currents we decided to retreat back to Galle using what little winds we had to either await the SW monsoon or increase our diesel reserves as there was again little wind in prospect. Many yachts travelling westwards had motored all the way from Malaysia/Thailand to Sri Lanka. So we decided to investigate the possibilities of hauling out in Galle through the Agents GAC. Consequently, we are now hauled out in Galle Harbour. I'll leave the sorry and amusing tale of our fourteen hour haul out operation to a later blog...

There are now a few yachts gathering in Galle to go eastwards and we are pondering the best time to leave. At the moment the consensus seems to be early June when the Cyclone season's worst has passed and the big seas have not yet built up. In the meantime, we are enjoying this amazing Island, alongside our very good friends Peter & Dagmar aboard the German SY Iltis and the inimitable and unsurpassable Swiss couple Lucy & Romeo aboard SY Miou De Mere. We have also made good friends with Serge & Maire aboard their French yacht La Bulle. Serge is to tragically die in appalling circumstances after departing Sri Lanka.

We also spend our time avoiding the infamous Saman, Secretary of the so called 'Galle Yacht Club'. Three hour chases are not uncommon...
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