The last three days have been nice, bluebird days with light, but not all too light winds. ...Apart from right now, in the evening, when we have been drifting in no winds for two or three hours. We're still in the current that pushes us in almost the right direction though. We thought we had lost it for a while, but now it's back. We have about 170 miles (a little more than 300 km) left until we are at the Maldives, and we're growing a little restless.
Yesterday we had finally worked up the motivation to look into the problem of our navigation lights that stopped working about a week ago. Sure enough, after about six hours of work we had established that the leak that finished off our ships library also corroded the wires to the lights. A little playing around with some tape and tools and; whips(!); we yet again had a light in the top of our mast. Halelujah! The job that had been progressing at a leisurely pace took a frantic turn towards the end, when some bad weather, with heavy winds and rain seemed about to hit us. Us at this stage included a boat with odds and ends ALL over the place. Having such a small boat sort of guarantees that if you wanna do something, anything, you're bound to move a lot of stuff to other parts of the boat, and yesterday we were working in three our four different places simultaneously. After our panicky finishing off and cleaning up, the weather passed behind us, without hitting anyhow. Well, well, it got the job finished.
Day 15, Wednesday, January 13th, noon; 126 miles left to Uligamu, Maldives
Most of yesterday afternoon and the evening in its entirety was spent drifting slowly, slowly towards our target. At midnight we resigned to motoring and have been since. ...Apart from a short spell this morning when there was a hint of sailwind, just enough to take a break from the engine-noise and set sail. Didn't last longer than a short hour though... So more motoring it was. We motored on for a few hours until we had a bit of wind again. This time it held out, and we could glide silently along at about 2,5 knots.
The big event the last 24 hours happened around ten in the evening. I was on watch and Egil and Kjell were Asleep (yes, with capital A). I was listening to an audiobook and watching the stars, waiting for shooting star number five of the evening when I thought I heard someone gasp for breath. Not very concerned I kept up the pace of what I was doing without missing a beat. After all it could have been something with my earphones, or it could have been someone gasping for breath. My dad was after all sleeping two metres away from my position.
Then, ten seconds later, and this time surely coming from outside the boat: PFFFFFF! - UUUUUUUH! After cringeing, taking cover in the bottom of the cockpit and frantically tearing off my headset, I risked peaking over the cockpit coaming. I heard the noise again, sounding like someone who's in the habit of sucking down 50-60 a day and has held their breath for a particularly lengthy visit to an english public toilet. After doing some rational thinking about the probability of being attacked by chainsmoking axe-murderers in the middle of the Indian Ocean I chanced a glance over the side of the boat. It took about a minute before I saw them when they surfaced again. There were two of them. Perfecly dinner-sized brownish whales of about four or five metres gliding slowly next to the boat. Whenever I shone the light on them they would dive and resurface on the other side of the boat.
We watched them until they took off for somewhere else after about 30 minutes. Finally we've had our first official whale-sighting. We've had another one, but Egil refuses to acknowledge it since he never saw it. Between you and me though, it wasn't much. Just a big, dark back several hundred metres out, visible for about 1/3 second. This on the other hand, was a close and definite encounter we could both enjoy.
Day 16, Thursday January 14th
Tomorrow morning we will arrive! For sure, unless the wind dies down AND the motor explodes and we're too far out to swim. Guess the odds say we'll arrive then... We're 50 miles off, and we're doing 4-5 knots in comfortable 7-8 knots of wind and agreeable seas, rested as they are after not having been moved by the wind for a few days. Four knots of speed means four miles pr. hour. In other words we can be there already in 10-12 hours, around midnight that is.
We're now at the stage of the passage where we are preparing our arrival a little. We're taking the anchorchain up from where it's been stored below, and putting it back in the chainlocker. The anchor goes the same way.
We're making plans for our time in the Maldives. Egil discovered a crack in the plate that is the attachment for the backstay of the mast. The crack might have been there a long time, but we can't risk anything. If the backstay breaks in a blow from the back we will, without doubt, lose the mast. We need to have a machine-shop make us a new piece, and we need to spend some time taking measurements and firing off emails east and west. Yesterday evening and night was a good one! The wind stayed between 3-5 knots, and we kept on gliding. The evening was rounded off by a good number of cardgames and a few glasses of wine. In our lack of a fridge we have finally discovered that we don't have to force down lukewarm beer, you can do the same with wine instead. It took us 7-8 months to figure out that one...
When I got up at midnight for my watch there was not a cloud, and no moon. In other words a perfect view of the stars. I had six or seven shooting stars, one of them one of those really good ones that leave a shining trail behind it. After two hours or so, just as I was getting a bit sleepy, the dolphins came to cheer me up. They played in the dark in our bow-wave for about 15 minutes, then they were gone. ...only to return as we were changing watches. Me and Egil stood silently in the bow watching the shining lines of phosphorescence crisscrossing in front of the boat and listening to their breathing. It was way too dark to see the actual animals, but the lightshow they were making were more than good enough a substitute. I left Egil alone with the dolphins and said goodnight, going down to spend four extremely comfortable hours sleeping. I've grown used to erratic sleeping-patterns by now, and four-plus-four hours is plenty. Normally I'm fully rested after four-plus-two, weird, I used to be such a sleeper... 
Day 1, 15 January, Friday 04.15
Anchored outside Uligamu, Maldives! Not seeing land for a couple of weeks makes your concept of claustrophobia a bit screwed. I almost decided against going in here in the dark because the entrance was a bit narrow. ...It's about a mile across. It felt like we were walking a tightrope though, with up to 15 knots of wind and a bit of current to help keep us on our toes.
Ingen kommentarer:
Legg inn en kommentar