Alison Stocker | Photo: Little egrets waiting for a snack on a fishing canoe in Galle Harbour
...it was (among) the worst of passages. (With apologies to Dickens.) Of our various long-distance voyages, I cannot remember one that was so completely different from beginning to end.
The passage across the Northern Indian Ocean can be quite variable, ranging from a very pleasant downwind sailing, to lumpy conditions, to sudden cyclone development. Leaving in January, the latter should not be a problem, and the forecasts made it look as though a lack of wind might be more of a problem than too much. Our passage to Galle, Sri Lanka, (pronounced "guh-all" like an oak gall or ancient Gaul) should be about 1,130 nm and last between 8 and 10 days depending upon winds and currents. We were making the passage on our own but it soon became evident that there were several other cruising boats already going, or about to go, in the same direction.
As we were leaving the Ao Chalong anchorage off Phuket just before 7 am on Sunday (15th January), we were hailed by the crew on a boat that we passed by, Black Duck. Announcing that they would also be leaving soon, we expressed the hope that we would see each other again in Sri Lanka. Once at sea, we saw the AIS icon for SV Incentive, who had been on part of the Indonesian rally. They stayed just behind us for a couple of days, and we occasionally talked to them on the VHF radio. They were headed to Trincomalee in northeastern Sri Lanka, so once we had passed between the Nicobar Islands and the north end of Sumatra, on the morning of the third day at sea, they veered northward. Of our other cruising companions from the Indonesian rally, George on Eucalypt I was not leaving for a few days, CathayOz was ahead of us on their way to the Maldives, and Deo Juvante was staying in Phuket until the end of January.
We raised a double-reefed main before leaving Ao Chalong but motored in the light wind until we were clear of the south end of Phuket Island. While doing this, Randall was trying to send an email to our agent in Galle using the Iridium Go system. Unfortunately, he was becoming very annoyed because he could not remember exactly how to do it and it was not entirely intuitive. We had to be able to communicate with the agent before arrival and Randall was almost ready to turn around to return to Phuket until we had sorted this out. After all the different things that had delayed our departure, this was going to be the most frustrating. Luckily, just before we turned back, we managed to work it out, sent test messages to ourselves and the agent, and wrote ourselves some clear instructions. On our next passage, we must check that we remember how to do this
before we leave.
Things improved considerably after that. By 9 am, we had unfurled jib and turned off the engine. It was truly delightful to be sailing again. The wind was pointing us in the right direction at a good average speed of around 6 knots, the motion was comfortable, we saw hardly any fishing vessels as we left Thailand, and then none for many days.
The first three days were fabulous, and life was good. Of course, such smooth sailing leaves little of great interest to write about but that was fine with us. We enjoyed relaxing watches listening to music, reading, doing puzzles and crosswords, or gazing at the waves or stars. I always think that I am going to do so much writing, sorting photo, etc., on these longer passages, but I would really only manage that for a couple of hours each afternoon as I was sleeping or doing boat chores most of the rest of my off-watches.
On the second day, Randall was concerned about the possibility of chafing on the 2nd reefing line where it went through the grommet in the mainsail. So, taking great caution as he stood on the deck outside the cockpit and hanging onto the boom, he added some sail ties through the same hole and around the boom to take the pressure off the reefing line. It was just as well that he did this because there was some chafe on the reefing line that needed repairing by the end of the passage.
By the fourth day (Wednesday), we were well out into the Bay of Bengal. The wind started to weaken but the waves were still fairly large and rather sloppy, coming from several directions. This made conditions less comfortable and the sky that had been beautifully clear and sunny was starting to cloud over. There seemed to be more pieces of small trash in the Bay of Bengal than we had noticed in the Andaman Sea but there were still beautiful large spots of bioluminescence at night.
The wind strengthened again on Thursday, so we decided to reduce the size of the jib. Unfortunately, the black line that we pull in to furl the jib became jammed in the drum at the base of the jib (on the forestay). This has happened, and been fixed, before so we were not too worried, but it required Randall to lie on the bouncing foredeck to release the jam in the furling line from the drum. Once the line was freed, we could reduce the sail, and all was well again. If that was the worst we would have to deal with, it would continue to be a splendid passage.
Then the dominoes started to fall.
There had been very distant lightning visible most nights and gradually increasing cloud amounts and thickness. Early on Friday morning, we were getting rain in long squalls. It rained for most of the next 30 hours often with thunder and lightning but, luckily, nothing too close.
Randall in his Indonesia rain poncho (I am not sure why he has his headlamp on his head in the daylight...)
By 3 am, I found that in the 22 knots of squall winds, we were overpowered so I had to turn further downwind to the south. This was not ideal but would keep us comfortable until 6 am when Randall came on watch, and we could decide whether to reduce the size of the jib further. However, I had to wake him long before 6 am because at 3:20 am one of the lines on Susie the self-steering windvane snapped. This was a great pity as Susie had been steering us very well. In very calm seas we would be able to fix the line from the aft deck but not in these conditions. So, we had to turn on Otto, the electronic autopilot, and turn a little further downwind to make sure that it could hold the course with the current sail formation.
In addition to the rain, the absence of sun combined with using the autopilot meant that the voltage of the batteries was starting to become lower than ideal. So after five and a half days of peace, we started the engine around 3:30 pm to recharge the batteries. With frequent and some long-lasting squalls, we decided to furl the jib if we were going to be using the engine for a while anyway. We would turn off the engine and unfurl the jib again once the batteries were well charged.
Unfortunately, as we were trying the furl the jib, a squall caught up to us much more quickly than we had expected. Randall could not hold the black line or cleat it off before the jib unfurled completely. With the sheets (lines that control the position of the sail) loose, the jib was thrashing around before we could start furling it in again using the winch. Somehow in this mess, a section of the jib and its sheets became wrapped around the front of the forestay in the wrong direction. Randall suddenly and alarmingly found that he could not pull the furling line in any further, nor could he let it out.
We tried everything we could think of to release the partly furled jib, pulling the sheets, turning the furling unit by hand from the foredeck, and driving the boat around in circles, but the whole thing was horribly stuck with the top and bottom of the sail furled but a big flap in the middle was billowing free and further tightening the lines that jammed the furler.
Once, we had to admit that we could not untangle the mess as long as we were underway in significant wind and waves, we attempted to minimize the amount of sail that would be flapping. We tried to take a spare halyard and wrap it around the forestay and jib. But we soon realized that in the current wind, we could never get the spare halyard in the right position or tight enough to do any good. Instead, it would probably chafe the loose sail, so that idea had to be abandoned. Instead, we put a couple of sail-ties as high as Randall could reach around the bottom of the jib to reduce that part from flapping.
The partly furled but jammed jib. It looks fairly well confined here but when the wind increased, the white parts billowed out and flapped with sickening snaps.
It is bad enough when any sail flogs (flaps) occasionally due to a sudden change in wind angle on it, or when there is insufficient wind to keep the sail full in rolling seas. But it was truly painful to listen to the middle section of the jib snap and flap for three more days. It was not too bad when the wind was relatively low or was directly behind us, but above 15 knots it was truly distressing to hear. It really felt like having an animal in pain and distress and not being able to help it or put it out of its misery.
The only saving grace was that the noise was worst in the cockpit, and we were able to ignore it more easily when in the cabin and trying to sleep. I think that the painfulness of it was not just the potential expense of getting the sail repaired, or heaven forbid, replaced, neither of which we were sure could be done in Galle. Like keeping a domesticated animal, we feel responsible for the welfare of the sails and this felt as though part of our team was suffering horribly. It does not sound so very bad as I write about it now, but at the time it felt like we were helplessly watching and hearing an important component of our boat being torn apart. In stronger gusts, the flapping section of sail was causing the whole mast and rigging to judder. I was very thankful that we had just had the rigging inspected.
With the jib out of commission until conditions became very calm or we got to Sri Lanka, we would probably have to run the engine, at least at low rpms, most of the rest of the way. The only relief would be if we could achieve a good downwind reach with just the mainsail and had enough wind and sun to power the autopilot. This was very disappointing, and we were not sure how expensive or difficult diesel fuel would be to buy in Sri Lanka.
To add to the complications, by early on Saturday morning (day 7), I saw the first AIS icons for a line of fishing boats and nets that we had seen since leaving Thailand. With the net icons 8 nm ahead, a squall approaching from behind, and a tanker also about to cross our path from behind, I found myself gybing at 4 am to try to avoid the potential mayhem if these three complications convened on us at once.
A few hours later, a fishing boat came steaming towards us. The occupants waved and shouted at us with great animation, trying to tell us something about where to go, but the message was confused. They continued past us, so we turned away from their trail, a little further to the south, in case they had been trying to tell us that they were towing nets or long lines. By this time, we had been gybing in wide zigzags to keep the mainsail full, to avoid fishing boats, and to keep out of the way of the big ships. We were about 10 nm north of the main east-west shipping route that connected with the north end of the Malacca Strait. Being close to the route made fishing nets less likely to be a problem but meant we would have to pay more attention to the big ships.
By Saturday afternoon, my increasing concern about one of the seams high on the mainsail was confirmed. The stitching had broken and there was now a horizontal hole just below the top sail baton. Two panels of the sail were only held together at the leech (the long, hypotenuse outside edge of the mainsail) and on the luff of the sail next to the mast.
I solidly cursed myself for not getting the seam restitched when we were in Thailand. I had hand-sewn the shortest seam near the top of the sail after it separated in Indonesia in 40-knot winds, so I should have realized that the thread on the other seams might be just as prone to breaking on this 10-year-old sail. Although the hole did not seem to be affecting the performance of the sail very much, I was afraid that if we left it, the fabric might start to fray and degrade along the unstitched edges, making repair much more difficult. So, with great reluctance, we dropped the mainsail and I sincerely hoped that we would be able to find someone to restitch all the seams when we reached Sri Lanka. If not, I would be able to hand-stitch the opened seam, but we would then be worrying about the rest of them breaking open.
The only advantage of now having to motor the remaining 220 nm to Galle was that we could stop trying to keep the sail full and aim directly at our target. Provided that the wind and waves did not come from in front of us, we should be able to make good time even though it was going to feel sloppier without any sail to balance us.
Of course, this meant that the next thing to happen that evening was that the wind changed direction and for a short while, was indeed on the nose. By this stage, this somehow seemed entirely predictable. Fortunately, the wind just made a fairly quick sweep of the compass rose over a couple of hours, and by the middle of the night was back to being more or less behind us.
As each new challenge confronted us, I started to have the sensation that the likelihood of getting to Sri Lanka was receding, despite our actual progress towards it. During the jib debacle and after we dropped the mainsail, we had considered the option of returning to Phuket where we knew that there would be plenty of sailmakers. But that option was not very viable given the wind and wave direction. We carry old spare sails onboard but unless we could untangle the jib, we could only replace the mainsail and that would be difficult unless the seas calmed considerably. Still, as I wondered what could go wrong with the engine, all of these possibilities had to be considered. I call it the "Curse of Preparedness" when one is trying to anticipate how to cope with other potential problems, and in doing so are dwelling pessimistically on what all those problems might be.
Thus, when at 9 am on Sunday, I saw a 10-nm-long string of AIS icons on the chart-plotter that included fishing boats and "nets" lying perpendicular across our route, I was quick to worry that if we became caught in a fishing net and lost use of the propeller, we would really be in a mess. I turned south to go around the last icon marked "Buoy" which I hoped was the end of the net. It was also right against the shipping route, so any net seemed unlikely to stretch into the path of the big ships.
Just to add to the complications, as we headed towards this marker and the busy shipping route, the signals for the AIS started coming and going. This happens occasionally but this was a really bad time for it. Eventually, the icons returned and I marked each one on the chart-plotter with a waypoint in case they faltered again. Frustratingly, as we approached the "Buoy" icon, another "net" icon appeared in the same line even further south. It was well within the route of the many ships heading westward and I decided to ignore it, as were the ships that were bearing down on the "Buoy" mark. I watched carefully as we widely rounded the "Buoy" mark and saw neither any buoy nor any net.
Now we were heading due west towards the southern tip of Sri Lanka, we were well and truly on the edge of the shipping lane with the ships closest to us going in the same direction. The rest of the day, the chart-plotter was littered with AIS icons for ships going east and west and numerous fishing boats scattered all around the southeast side of Sri Lanka. Amazingly, none were on a collision course with us, and only one fishing boat came fairly close during the night, steaming past going in the opposite direction about three boat-lengths away.
A small, inshore fishing boat passes us off the coast of Sri Lanka
By early Monday morning, we were off Dondra Head, the southernmost tip of Sri Lanka and we had left the Bay of Bengal and were officially in the Indian Ocean. There is a short stretch of charted shipping channel with traffic separation zones off this headland and we skirted by on the north side of this busy area. By daylight we could see the coast and we also saw flocks of terns, the first birds that we had seen since leaving Phuket. With broken clouds and sunshine, reduced waves in the lee of the Island, and our destination within sight, it finally felt as though we could relax and enjoy the prospect of arriving in a new country.
Slightly to our surprise, as we approached Galle Harbour, we could see a large cruise ship anchored just outside the entrance. Rather immodestly this ship was called "The World" and tenders were taking passengers to shore and back. Later we learned that this was no ordinary cruise ship but according to Wikipedia:
"MS The World is a private residential cruise ship operated like a condominium complex, with large apartments that can be purchased. The residents, from many countries, can live on board as the ship travels. Some residents choose to live on board full-time while others visit periodically throughout the year...The ship has 165 residences (106 apartments, 19 studio apartments, and 40 studios), all owned by the ship's residents. Average occupancy is 150-200 residents and guests." The residents choose the ship's itinerary through committees and a board of directors. Apartments sell for around US$1 to 7 million, while the penthouses are about US$20 million (plus maintenance fees). It sounds like a cool idea if you have that sort of money, but the fuel used by a ship that size with only 150 to 200 passengers aboard seems pretty wasteful.
The residential cruise ship, The World
It was tempting to make a loop around the cruise ship so that we could say that we had now been around The World, but we focused instead on finding out where we would be docking. We called Galle Harbour Control on the VHF radio and they advised us to call again as we entered the inner harbour, inside the breakwater. Coming into the bay, we could see parts of the Galle Fortress to the west. With big walls, a lighthouse, clock tower, and attractive old buildings, this looked like somewhere well worth a visit once we were settled.
The lighthouse and part of the walls of Galle Fortress
Once inside the breakwater, we were directed to the "New Jetty". This instruction was not very helpful on our first visit, but we were told to look out for the dockers who would take our lines. We hoped it might be a new floating dock which would be very much better than the concrete wharf mentioned in other blogs.
Instead, we realized that the dock-dudes were waving at us from huge wharf intended for big ships. Apparently, we would not go into the inner yacht basin for a couple of days, after the tenders from the cruise ship no longer needed the space. These parts of the "New" harbour were within a Navy Base which meant that it would be very secure and vessels of the Sri Lanka Coast Guard and Navy were nearby on another dock.
The large "bumpers" on the wharf were intended to keep big ships from rubbing on the concrete. However, with Tregoning moving back and forth in the surge, their size and spacing made it difficult for us put our own fenders in a good place to hold us off the bumpers. Once our lines were tied, one of the dock-dudes was hoping for some cigarettes or cans of beer. We had neither. A packet of cookies was accepted but with obvious disappointment. The other dock-dudes were more friendly and less demanding, but I made a note to buy more packs of cookies before we moved to the inner harbour.
Tregoning tied alongside the "New Jetty" with the black bumpers visible between her and the concrete wharf. The inner yacht basin is just visible on the far right.
Having secured the vessel and fenders, we quickly got to work on untangling the jib. This was relatively easy once we were able to undo the jib sheets and rotate the furling drum by hand. We dropped the sail on the deck and were glad to see that although part of the sail fabric felt softer, "older", and more worn, there were no tears and only a few small sections of the protective Sunbrella fabric would need patching.
During this time, two Navy personnel had arrived to greet us, along with Uresh, our agent from Windsor Reef Navigation. They clambered aboard over the bumpers. While Uresh started the reams of paperwork, the Navy chaps took photos of each other with us. A biosecurity person stopped by briefly to give us the Certificate of Pratique (health) for the vessel. Two immigration officers also came but they did not want to try to board the boat over the bumpers. I took our passports to them on the wharf so that they could peer at the photos and at us before they left.
Two members of the Sri Lanka Navy greeting us
Uresh had plenty of forms for us to sign and stamp and, yes, Sri Lanka is a place where they love to use the ship's stamp. We then followed him to the on-site Immigration Office, Base Security Office, and Customs. Once the appropriate papers had been submitted, we received documents allowing us to pass in and out of the Navy Base through the security checkpoint. Uresh also agreed to look into the options for getting our sails repaired.
The use of an agent is required in Galle. Windsor Reef charged US$300 for their services, dockage, and all of the customs and other fees for 30 days. We heard that some other agents were cheaper, but we were very satisfied with Uresh and considering all the things that we needed help with, particularly repairing the sails and getting diesel, we felt that he certainly earned the fees.
On the opposite side of the wharf from us, was the fishing harbour which was jammed full of brightly colored boats. We could not imagine how these boats were organized so that the ones trapped on the inside could get out when needed. We also could not imagine how crowded the seas would be if all of these boats were out fishing at once.
An offshore fishing boat leaving the packed fishing harbour
In the mornings, outrigger canoes paddled around us in the inner harbour, with little egrets keeping watch for escaping or dead fish (introductory photo). These canoes were quite deep but very narrow.
A narrow outrigger fishing canoe
It is clear that the pandemic and plunging economy are putting extreme hardships on many people here, so they work hard to get food or money as best they can. The crews of two or three in these canoes would patiently cast and pull in their net, shaking the trapped fish into a bundle. In the US we would assume that such small fish would be used for bait, but here we saw them for sale in the market. I do not know how many hauls of small fish were made in each canoe, but it was hard to imagine that they would make much money from them.
A haul of small fish from the inner harbour
A depressing sight on the wharf was a couple of boats that had been abandoned in the harbour, with the owners no longer taking responsibility for their upkeep or harbour fees.
This has become a major problem in many harbors and marinas since the pandemic when people left their boats and stop paying fees. In the long-run, what can be done with these boats?
Randall walking past an abandoned concrete boat that was lifted out of the inner harbour
On a more cheerful note, we were not only very pleased to have made landfall given the worries of the second half of the passage but we were quickly excited to hear and see many birds in the Navy Base. It did not take us long to wonder if there were more individuals and more species in our immediate surroundings than we had seen in all of Indonesia! We would soon be trying to identify and survey them.
Red wattled lapwing (to 35 cm or 14 inches) and white-bellied drongo (to 28 cm or 11 inches) seen on the Navy Base
There was also quite a collection of mid-sized dogs hanging around the Base. This was quite a change because dogs are considered unclean in Islam, so we saw relatively few in Indonesia and Malaysia. We assume that they are here to help control rats, which is a good thing. Even when they form a pack of six or more dogs, they do not seem threatening to us. I suspect that any aggressive behavior to humans is not tolerated by the workers here. There were also quite a few squirrels scampering about on the rooftops. I think that these are Indian palm squirrels which look like a cross between a grey squirrel and a large chipmunk.
An Indian palm squirrel (to 40 cm or 16 inches including tail)
Outside gates, as Uresh had warned us, were a few people hoping to provide us with services or tuktuk rides. Marlin, a facilitator who was quick to approach new yachtie arrivals, was quite helpful, getting us a Dialog SIM card for our phone and taking our laundry. The latter proved to be very expensive as the laundry was priced per item. It was my mistake for not asking the price before I gave it to him. I would not have been quite as irritated if it were not for several items feeling quite damp when they were returned. We were surprised at the price as laundry services have been very cheap since we left Australia. We wondered if there were cheaper options away from the marina area.
It was quickly apparent that Marlin and his colleagues would love to organize everything for us, including day tours all over southern Sri Lanka. We have to firmly keep telling him that we will let him know what we want and when we want it. When we needed to go to an ATM to get some Sri Lankan rupees, Marlin arranged a tuktuk driver for us, Pahan, who we have used ever since. After visiting an HSBC Bank ATM, he gave us a quick tour of the town, proudly showing us the international cricket stadium, the Fortress, and main shopping street. It was our first experience of using a tuktuk and seemed much better and safer than renting a moped as we had done in Indonesia. Our 20-minute trip cost 500 rupees or about US$1.50.
Pahan and his three-wheeled tuktuk
Despite the dire economy and inflation, we have only been approached by panhandlers (to use the American euphemism) a very few times. We try to be generous to the people that help us. When we walk out from the Navy Base, we pass a police station and small but busy hospital on our way to the main waterfront road. Along the main road, we found several small supermarkets stocked with various imported items and noticed quite a few European people wandering around.
Bags of different kinds of rice in a small, local supermarket
Galle is a surfing/beach resort area, possibly like Goa on the west coast of India. Although the neighboring beach is pretty narrow at high tide, it is a popular place for surfing lessons. Of course, based on our rule of not anchoring near surfing beaches, the surge in the yacht basin should not have been a surprise despite the protection of two breakwaters.
Bonavista Beach, just around the headland from Galle Harbour, a popular place to learn to surf
On Wednesday morning, we moved from the New Jetty into the yacht basin, in the place where the tenders for the cruise ship had tied up. It was much easier to get on and off Tregoning. Once we had secured the dock-lines and fenders in the best positions to keep us off the concrete wall and black rubber "fenders" hung on the wall, it was a relief to be inside the inner basin. There were a few other cruising boats, including a Danish one, Atreju. Our British friends Clare and Andy from Tintamarre had spend much time in French Polynesia with Troels, Sanne, and their daughter Sally during the pandemic. Troels, had four crewmates with him (his wife and daughter had already flown ahead) as they were making a passage straight to Djibouti at the mouth of the Red Sea. They left a few days after we arrived, so we did not have much time to talk. Perhaps we will catch up with them somewhere?
Tregoning in the yacht basin - when there is much surge she moves around a bit, but luckily the small tidal range makes it easy to tie lines that do not have to be adjusted
Once it was easier to get on and off Tregoning, we were ready to take the jib to Padmini, the sailmaker. Her shop was just down the street and Uresh was able to carry the sails in his truck and take care of the customs paperwork both going out and coming back into the Base. While she worked on the jib repairs, we got the mainsail down and swapped the sails when she was ready. She also made us courtesy flags for Sri Lanka, Maldives, Djibouti, Turkey, and Greece. The flags and work on both sails cost about US$100 and was finished within a week, so we were very satisfied.
Not long after we moved into the yacht basin, Black Duck, the boat that we had passed as we left Ao Chalong on our way out of Phuket, arrived and were tied up on the wall just in front of us. We soon got to know the lovely young couple aboard, Klara and Reilly, who, much to Randall's delight are also keen guitar players. Inviting them aboard the following evening for sundowners and music made the perfect closure of the circle of our passage. Now, we have much to get in order on Tregoning with, hopefully, a bit of time to explore this part of Sri Lanka.