We arrived in Salalah, Oman early Thursday morning after a 13 day crossing from Cochin. We have finally crossed the Indian Ocean : the only ocean we have crossed. Of course it has been in done in four smaller bites, but we have never set out to simply hang around at sea for ages for the sake of it.

Our first "bite" was the three day crossing from Thailand's Surin islands to India's Andaman group: mostly an easy reach to light to moderate North East winds. The sea on this stretch was sometimes bubbly and confused, but never very rough.

The second "bite" was the 7 day crossing between Prt Blair and Sri Lanka. This was downwind most of the way with the first few days annoyingly lumpy and confused with squally weather at night. At least we were able to sail. Approaching Sri Lanka the wind increased to 20 to 25 knots or more and we whizzed along with the west going current. The last stage was in Sri Lanka's wind shadow so a plod along the south west coast to Galle.

The third "bite" was the unruly gap between Sri Lanka and India : the ill Mannared Gulf (Gulf of Mannar) : here the North East wind is funnelled through the gap and blows at near gale force on the western side. We had a rough 36 hour stretch across the gulf, but the rest of the three day trip was a leisurely cruise up India's west coast : lovely beam reach sailing, especially at night as the cool land breeze blew from the same direction as the North Easterly.

Our last "bite" was more diverse, and quite tiring. For the first two days we battled North Westerly winds from the Indian coast : coming from where we wanted to go. We had an interesting diversion in the Lakshadweep islands : we asked the authorities at Kavaratti island if we could drop the anchor for a few hours which they accepted, but then sent boat loads of curious officials to delay us with questions and form filling. We spent anxious hours entering the shallow coral lagoon, tying up to a buoy and jetty until we were free to have a sleep and rest : just time to admire the coral island scenery and the large numbers of turtles and other wildlife in the lagoon .

We then had five good sailing days with the wind again just foreward of the beam : fast sailing with our ketch rig. The wind then gradually died off to a complete calm : the ocean became completely flat and glassy for four days and all we could do was motor slowly on, keeping our revs down as we were not sure how long our diesel would last.

At least it was very comfortable and the constant motoring meant we could use the computers and make as much water as possible. The wind returned as a Southerly a day before the coast of the Arabian peninsula, still less than 10 knots and we were still motor sailing right up to the entrance to the port.

Apart from a few boobies, crabs and dolphins there was little of interest on the ocean. The VHF was by contrast incredible : daily, little dramas unfolded of coalition warships, nervous ships' masters and strange rude utterances on channel 16. There were four "pirate" incidents when ships reported suspicious craft nearby and requested help from coalition warships. Helicopters were sent in two of the cases, but all four reports probably involved undue paranoia about what were probably ordinary fishermen.

The next blog should record our observations and explorations of this little, relatively affluent part of Arabia. We leave next week for Aden and the mouth of the Red Sea with a large number of other yachts in convoy.