Plan 'B' was to turn left and go west. This would mean departure from Galle in December to pick up the dry north-east monsoon for a 2,200 mile twenty to thirty day crossing of the Arabian Sea to Aden at the southern end of the Red Sea. There would follow a further six hundred or so miles of generally following winds to Port Sudan, half way up the Red Sea. Then seven hundred miles of strong headwinds and steep seas to Suez - no problem for vessels with powerful enough engines or with good windward sailing ability, but an altogether different matter for a beamy Chinese junk with a relatively small engine. Then ninety miles of the Suez Canal itself, fine as long as the political troubles of the 1970s did not flare up again (the canal had been closed from 1967 to 1975 due to the Israeli-Arab war which had resulted in the 'entombment' of some ships within the Bitter Lakes for seven long years). Finally the Mediterranean and a short two hundred and fifty mile hop to Larnaca Marina in Cyprus. Perhaps the whole voyage would take three to four months and be extremely enjoyable. Or just possibly we would not make it at all.
These were the two options, an easy passage to a fascinating country with a good climate just opening up to tourism and the charter market; or a difficult passage back to a Western country well used to tourists and yachts.
It would seem obvious. Go east. The opportunity was there. Change our original plans of becoming a charter boat in Greece or Turkey. Phuket and Thailand were so close. The potential seemed endless. And the cost of living was low. But...
The 'but' was Tin Hau. She needed attention. After the experience of living aboard her for well over a year in all sorts of conditions and climates, the list of improvements that we wanted to make filled eight pages of our 'defects book': improvements to the running rigging and other specialised junk matters; improvements to the interior; removal of certain rust traps such as the deck boxes; changes to features such as the sea-cocks, which were causing considerable anxiety; finally, we badly needed to have her hauled out of the water so that we could repaint the hull in local spots and apply antifoul paint over the whole area below the water-line.
On the latter point I was becoming disenchanted with the weekly 'hold your breath and scrub the hull' routine. I had always been a bit worried by the knowledge that just behind my kicking flippers there were probably sharks lurking, who might want a nibble, if hungry. At least in the clear waters of Chagos we could see them when they were in the lagoon. Galle harbour, however, was murky and polluted. The discharge point of the sewer serving the town was clearly visible on the beach one hundred metres away and there was abundant food for fish and other creatures of the deep. I would often have to flush wriggling creatures out of my ears and bathing trunks after a hull cleaning session, but the job had to be done. My three attempts to pay a local to take on the work all ended in failure. It seemed that no one wanted the job more than once, whatever the pay.
There was a slipway in the harbour which made a haul-out and repaint possible, at least in theory. Having heard about some of the disasters which had happened - boats falling off their cradles and so on - I did not want to risk losing Tin Hau in this way. All our enquiries about Thai or Malaysian boat-yards did not yield anything more promising than Galle. Whereas Larnaca Marina with its large travel lift seemed to present no problems. We could haul Tin Hau out of the water in safety and at an affordable price. We could spend months working on her with no worries about where to obtain certain materials; and there would be no anxiety that the immigration or custom authorities might force us to leave the country before completion of the work.
By about June we had made our decision. We would go west. We would aim for Larnaca Marina. A tentative booking was made for 1st April. Tin Hau would be given all the care and attention she deserved. Our infatuation with our ladycame first anyone who has ever owned and loved a boat will understand this. We would stick to our original plans and still try to become a charter boat in Greece or Turkey, even though there were one or two difficulties to overcome first before getting there.
So, by October or so, we were planning for our next voyage - Sri Lanka to Cyprus.
Arrangements were made with Darren (Pain), a twenty-five year-old carpenter and yoga teacher from East Sussex and Martyn (Kalina), a twenty-one year old decorator and Operation Raleigh veteran from near London, to join us. Darren only had to make a short journey from southern India. But Martyn had to fly from London (a flight which was to include a rip-off during a fuelling stop in India, when all transit passengers were persuaded to part with about £20 for an unnecessary visa). Both Martyn and Darren agreed to pay us £5 per day to cover food and certain boat costs; and to take full responsibility for the costs of transport in joining us and the costs of flying home from Cyprus or wherever. Having heard many horror stories from other yotties of crew arrangements that had gone wrong, particularly when items such as money and return flights were not discussed at the outset, we were always most careful in our choice of crew. For me at least, one of the highlights of our life afloat was the pleasure of getting to know those individuals who joined us on our longer passages. Darren and Martyn were no exception, although no one could beat Jeff, Jax, Barry and Jean-Marc on that very special maiden voyage.
2. The Fleet
By 21st November, 1987, most of the current year's Red Sea Fleet was present in Galle Harbour. With the help of a German friend we had made in Galle, Volker Otto, I recorded the historic moment on video camera. Of the twenty-eight boats moored in the harbour only Nick White's Alepha was to remain; and he had already done his fair share of cruising from Madagascar to Sri Lanka via Kenya. Nick had built Alepha himself and had received some divine help when the launching problem was resolved by a convenient flood!
The most dramatic vessel was the one hundred year-old eighty-five foot wooden Norwegian brigantine, Svanhilde, a comfortable home for four families. Even the youngest children had a part to play in the running of this beautiful ship, of which we were to see more in the Red Sea.
Probably the next most interesting boat (besides Tin Hau, but we were biased!) was a wooden schooner named Passat, formerly a Portuguese trawler and about sixty feet in length. She had been brought in to Galle about two years earlier by a German crew, only to suffer a mysterious fire whilst on the slipway. The fire had been put out, but rumours were rife that it had been started deliberately with an insurance claim in mind. The new owner was an American called Mike, who lived in England. He had plans to sail her up the Red Sea with the rest of us. “How do you aim to do it, Mike”?I asked. “Easy”,he said, “Just motor up the middle”.
We were to see more of Passat, but not until much later in Larnaca, where she created quite a stir not just by the story of her voyage but also by a strange event that happened there in front of many witnesses.
Of the other twenty-five yachts in Galle Harbour on 21st November, ten originated from Australia. Many of these were built by their owners, often of steel - yachts such as Dalliance (owned by Charles); Top Knot (Ted and Barb); Lady Catrin (Robert and Liz); Yemanja II (Rick and Julie); Roama (Doug and Yvonne); Sundancer III (Noel); and Endurance II (Steve, Warren and Michelle). There was also Koonawarra (a wooden yacht owned by David and Gail), Quiet Achiever (a thirty-three foot plywood catamaran owned by Graham and Gillian); and finally Aquilla (also a plywood catamaran, owned by Bob and Judy, who had with them their four children, Clare, Bruce, Lucy and Emily. One of the children later helped save Tin Hau from a serious accident while we were absent.)
There were three yachts from the United States - Verity (a fibreglass sloop owned by Karl and Patty); Sauvage (a fast aluminium schooner owned by a Pan-Am pilot; so fast that we never got to know him and about the first yacht of the year through the Suez Canal); and St Combs (probably the most luxurious of all the yachts in Galle that year - a fifty-foot fibreglass sloop with all mod cons including two Perkins 4.236 engines to our one and a desalination plant. St-Combs was a beautiful yacht, owned by Alan and Gwen Buchan of Washington state).
Three yachts came from Sweden Miss M
y (a fibreglass sloop), another fibreglass sloop whose name we never learnt, and Lady Rosi (a fibreglass sloop owned by Roger and Siv, who had with them their three year-old daughter, Rosita. This was to be the only yacht we ever encountered well out to sea in the Indian Ocean.)
Two yachts came from Holland Narai (a catamaran - we never met the owners) and Klepel (owned by Nico and Hennie, whom we were to meet again on several occasions).
Two yachts were Swiss - Fam (a steel sloop owned by Ramon and Erica), and a ketch whose name we never learnt.
Arnak was the only yacht from New Zealand, a forty foot fibreglass Spray replica built by Geoff and Linda Gentil, immaculately maintained. Geoff was one of those people with a positive outlook on life, the ability to fix just about anything, and the generosity to help anyone in need (us included) at a moment's notice.
Boreas was – surprisingly - the only French yacht, a small aluminium sloop owned by Gilles and Christine. Possibly, most French cruising circum-navigators take the alternative South African route around the world as opposed to the Red Sea route - we certainly saw a number of French yachts in Mauritius, often constructed in aluminium.
Tara of Meath was the only Canadian registered yacht, a small steel sloop. The owner, Mike Kelly, was English, having originated from Porkellis in Cornwall. His family were known, he says, as the 'poor Kellys'. We never ceased to marvel at the courage shown by Mike in overcoming a horrific accident in Canada which had left him in a coma for months. In spite of this - and still suffering from his injuries - he had managed to sail Tara most of the way around the world, often on his own. His ambition on reaching England was to continue life afloat, but in less strenuous circumstances in a canal narrow boat with his wife, Liyun. All of this he achieved.
Finally - besides Tin Hau - the only boat in harbour not yet mentioned was a small fibreglass sloop (a Nicholson 31) named Baraka-A. Although flying a British flag (of convenience), this yacht was special in that it was crewed by the first Saudi Arabian man, Jameel, and the first Egyptian woman, Sherry, attempting to sail around the world. I later witnessed the official welcoming in Suez when their circumnavigation was nearly complete. Some years after this we purchased their book - The Voyage of Baraka A - and learnt that they did complete their circumnavigation, on reaching Casablanca in September 1988. They had many adventures. As is so often the case, it was their guts, determination and perseverance that got them around the world, not their initial sailing experience, which was almost nil.
Two yachts had left Galle already - the first being the twenty-four foot engineless sloop Tola, the baby of the fleet. Mike and Karen, the American owners, wanted to spend some time exploring the western coast of India before setting off for Aden from the former Portuguese colony of Goa. When we next saw them we learnt that Karen was pregnant, as there had been problems - discovered too late - with their Indian condoms. It seems that in India it is quite normal for ants to make small holes in condoms. Beware!
The other yacht was the Freedom-rigged Bonaventure II, the first of the Australian yachts to arrive in Galle and crewed by the owners, Bob and Dawn Buick. Again, we were to see a lot more of this boat, which always seemed to be at the centre of the action. Bob, like many of the Aussies shortly to arrive in Sri Lanka, was a keen radio ham.
Four other yachts did arrive in Galle after 21st November - and before our departure - the American sloop Windsong (owned by Dick and Bonnie Bhyre); the New Zealand yacht Freedom Hunter; the Hong Kong yacht Dreamtime (owned by John Watson); and, on the day before we left, the British yacht Didicoy, with a mast temporarily held together with G-clamps and crewed by a retired couple, Bill and Betty, from England.
We did come across a further dozen or so yachts in the Red Sea proceeding northwards with the fleet. However we were still nearly alone in being British. Why were we seeing so few genuine British cruising yachts?
It was also surprising that in spite of so many people dreaming about cruising and sailing around (or part-way around) the world - people with the time, money and skills to do it - the number of boats actually passing through the Indian Ocean in 1987-1988 (with stopovers) was so few. I would estimate there were one hundred and fifty at the most.
3. Preparations for the Voyage
By December we were starting to prepare in earnest for the voyage. Our immediate destination would be Salalah, in Oman. This was six hundred miles east-north-east of Aden along the coast of the Arabian peninsular, and not far off our route. Reports from yachts which had visited Salalah the previous year were very favourable. It would be interesting to have a quick glimpse of yet another country, although whether we actually stopped or not would depend on the strength and the slant of the north-east monsoon. If it turned out to be under-strength, or too much from the north, we would be forced to head straight for Aden.
It was disappointing that we would have to miss India but all recent accounts of the behaviour of the customs officials in the nearest major port, Cochin, were discouraging. Apparently, it was normal for the captain of a visiting foreign vessel to be asked, on arrival, to list every movable item to be found on his boat or ship. On departure, any items spotted by the eagle-eyed customs officials as 'not on the list' were immediately confiscated. For this reason the skipper of just about every yacht in Galle harbour decided with regret to give India a miss. I wonder if anyone in India noticed?
Even more on route, five hundred miles out of Galle, was the small island of Suheli Par, one of the Laccadive Islands administered by India. It seemed that we would have to miss this too. Again, the problem was the unpredictable behaviour of officials. Apparently, the previous year, two yachts had been detained there for three weeks for no good reason. We definitely could not afford a delay of this length.
So, bearing in mind that our provisioning would have to last for nearly four months (with some additional fresh food provisioning in Aden, Port Sudan and Suez), we made a final shopping visit to Mike and Bandula at 'Somebody Stores' to top up what was already held in Tin Hau's larders. Together we worked out a large order. In all we spent 9,804 rupees (£204) on non-perishable items such as beer, arrack, cigarettes (necessary 'currency' in the Red Sea), tinned and bottled goods, brown sugar (about eighty kilograms of the best), tea (again, of the highest quality), coffee, milk powder, flour, rice, liquid laundry soap, toilet paper and so on; and we spent a further 3,672 rupees (£76) on perishable items such as potatoes, tomatoes, a large branch of a banana tree complete with unripe bananas, eggs, cheese, bread, margarine, chocolate and meat. We also took on a good supply of Sri Lankan 'specials' such as locally produced strawberry jam labelled 'GUARANTEED NO STRAWBERRIES', marmalade labelled Orange Marmalade Jam and the excellent locally made curd, packaged in terracotta bowls which were useful afterwards as ash trays.
We sadly said our farewells to the two brothers in their family room at the rear of the shop, where they entertained us royally and made a formal presentation of two traditionally carved and painted Sinhalese face masks. We learnt from Bandula two pieces of news: the good news that he was about to get married and the bad news that he would first have to work for two years or more in Saudi Arabia to save up the money needed to pay for the wedding. This is in fact exactly what he did.
A train journey was made to Colombo to collect US dollar traveller's cheques and cash (in small denominations) for the onward voyage. Dollars were considered the best currency to use in the Red Sea. I noted that we had spent about 210,000 rupees (£4,400) during our eight months in Sri Lanka, 115,000 rupees (£2,400) on Tin Hau; 60,000 rupees (£1,250) on our personal food and other living costs; and 35,000 rupees (£750) on our trip to England.
Darren moved aboard Tin Hau on 7th December and started helping on tasks such as hull cleaning. We paid particular attention to the propeller, knowing that in Galle harbour (with its polluted waters and sea temperature of thirty degrees centigrade) it only took six weeks or so for even a well-anti-fouled propeller to be rendered totally useless by the barnacles and other growth.
/> Similarly, we started on the long task of cleaning the two bow anchor chains and the two stern mooring lines. These had expanded to a diameter of about six inches with material that would have fascinated a marine biologist. Armed with a knife and chisel, it took us about six hours to clean each line.
Martyn arrived on 14th December, bringing with him a video camera (a gift from my mother) and some vaccine for meningitis which Lynda duly administered by injection. We were now ready for anything that Aden might throw at us - or so we hoped.
Christmas newsletters were hastily written, copied and posted. Last minute visits and preparations were made. Gas, diesel, petrol and water supplies were topped right up. The sun awnings were taken down. Bizzy was deflated and stowed. Clearance papers were completed. Knot Often was secured in the davits.
On 17th December, as planned, we were ready to go. The two anchors were successfully pulled out of the oozy seabed and cleaned. We motored slowly out of the harbour past the other yachts. By midday we were clear of the breakwater and all three sails were hoisted fully.
We were free once again.
4. Galle to Aden
For the first four hours we motor-sailed in a slight sea up the coast of Sri Lanka towards Colombo. It was good to view, from the seaward side, so many of the little settlements that we had come to know. But by four o?lock, the true wind had revealed itself. It was from the north-north-west - right on the nose. The sea state had increased to moderate, and we could no longer motor into the steep six foot waves. There was no alternative but to turn well to port, go onto the starboard tack, set Number Seven and head west out to sea under sail alone.
As night fell we settled in to the watch-keeping routine, Martyn being partnered with Lynda, Darren with myself. We adopted the watches we had grown to like for a crew of two or four on Tin Hau, which worked well for Lynda's meal preparations and my sextant sights at dawn, mid-morning, noon and dusk:
Cutting the Dragon's Tail Page 23