Crossing the Indian Ocean. Day -1

 We've gotten most of the tasks ticked off our list, including going up the mast for an inspection. Here's a view of Kuah Harbour from 65 feet up in the air. The rest of the items on the list can get thrown away as we grow new, more pressing, maintenance projects from actually being on passage.

The boat is heavier than she has ever been. Full fuel, full water, extra petrol (gasoline for you foreigners) for the outboard, and food for 3 to 6 months.  The diesel weighs over 1,100 pounds, the water over 1,600 pounds. We probably have at least 500 pounds of snacks onboard 😁

If you are like me, your geography of the Indian Ocean is probably pretty weak. Of course, I have an excuse. I graduated high school in Florida. 

The basic plan for this passage is to leave Langkawi, Malaysia, pass over Sumatra, under Sri Lanka and make landfall in Uligan, Maldives. Uligan is at the very top of the Maldives.  We will then take our time travelling down the Maldives island chain. Then leave to sail to the uninhabited Chagos islands. These are currently owned by the UK and managed by British Indian Ocean Trust (BIOT). After a few weeks there we will continue onto the Seychelles.

The passage from Langkawi to Uligan, Maldives should be about 1,650 nm (nautical miles) and take us 10 to 14 days in Georgia.

Well that's the plan at least. In Covid season you really can't be sure of much. Crossing the Indian Ocean is tricky enough timing wise, without having to deal with countries shutting down because of Covid. Right now we can enter the Maldives, we have a permit for Chagos and pre-permission to go to the Seychelles.

In a typical year boats leave Malaysia in December and head to Thailand. Then sometime in January or early February leave for Sri Lanka and then onto the Maldives. The north Indian Ocean is odd in that its cyclone season has two peaks. Jan and Feb are low cyclone months and also the strongest SE Monsoon time. This monsoon brings SE winds, making the trip across toward the west possible. The other monsoon is the SW Monsoon with its corresponding SW winds. These monsoons were well know to the Arab traders who could easily travel back and forth.

Thailand and Sri Lanka being shut now rules them out for stopovers.

We will update our position while on passage most nights. You can view it here

https://farkwar.com/boats/georgia 

Or see the same thing at the bottom of our blog (which you probably know how to get to as you are reading it now)

svjeorgia.blogspot.com

In addition, I will upload some, short text only blogs along the way.

We cleared out of Langkawi this morning: Port Authority, Customs and Immigration. That gives us 24 hours to get sailing. (Cruisers note: Port Authority required in-date boat insurance to clear out. The immigration guy told us to tell our friends that Malaysia isn't ready for cruises yet.)

Wishing ourselves Fairwinds and Clean diesel.

Paul

Circumnavigating Langkawi

 

As usually, the busier we get the further behind I get on blog posting. The last month has primarily been consumed with getting the boat ready to go to sea, including stocking the boat with provisions for an indefinite time frame, with a little bit of being a tourist in Langkawi. I'll fill this blog with some pictures and random comments covering our time in he SE Asian heat.

I've probably mentioned this on the blog before: my theory that boat that is laid-up for 7 months has just as many things break as one in use over that time. Here is a fine crack that I found in the bobstay (on the bow of the boat). Fortunately the builder, Phil at Outbound Yachts, was able to supply me with new one.

Now this next item isn't really maintenance, it is enhancement. Our new insurance company that covers us for the Indian Ocean requires an automated fire extinguisher system for the engine room. The red bottle in the upper left is ready to leap into action if needed.

We haven't used the dinghy outboard for almost a year. We dropped the outboard on the dinghy, put in some fresh petrol and fired her up. She ran for maybe a minute and half and then died and would not restart. So I did wat I have always done with these 2-cycle Tohatsu, pull the carburetor, take all the way apart, soak it over night in some cleaner, blow it all out, reassemble and try again. Pretty disappointing when she didn't fire back up and I was soaked with sweat from playing tug-a-war with it.

So, we put the outboard on our trusty, 10 year-old, Costco foldup cart, flagged down a taxi and headed into town to the 'motorcycle shop near the KFC' ---- that being the exact directions we had to find the place. Worked perfectly. They had the outboard for a day and sent me a Whatsapp message that it was ready. 90 Malaysian Ringits (USD $22), 2 new spark plugs, new gear oil and gasket, a carburetor adjustment and it was running fine. Very good investment. 

When we arrived back on the boat we found our lower backstay parted. It was made of 9mm Dyneema and broke in an area that has nothing to chafe on. Strange.

We found a good rigger, Chris at YachtWorx, over in a nearby marina, Telaga. That inspired us to get of our berth in Rebak and motor over to Telaga, not a long trip but a real break from being in one place for so long. Finding a rigger who knows what they are doing is one thing, but a rigger gives you specific dates to do the work and actually shows up on those dates is golden.

We got out a on some day excursions to check out some of the local handicrafts.

Chris and Anne got in a complete blur checking out the Batik cloth.

We did buy this recently finished batik. We now just need a wall large enough to display it --- someday. 

Chris and Anne (from Time Bandit) got out to a fancy lunch at local upscale hotel.

This is what they called lunch.

We even got dragged out on hike up to the waterfalls before the new MCO (Movement Control Order) went into effect.

With the MCO they closed the swimming pool at Rebak, putting an end to our afternoon relaxing swim. Must be time to leave?

With less people around the monkeys take over the hiking trails again.

Here we are in the back of a taxi waiting to get past a police roadblock. During the MCO you are only allowed to travel a maximum of 10km from your house and have a mx of 2 people in the vehicle (plus driver if a taxi).

We decided that we really needed to do some kind of a shakedown cruise before we leapt into the Indian Ocean. That brought us to circumnavigating Langkawi Island. Since we had all the sails off the boat during storage, everything had to be re-rigged. It is simply amazing how many lines there are on a sailboat and how ways there are to run them wrong. Every sail we raised needed at least one line rerun or adjusted.

Our first night at anchor we had nice view of he western horizon looking at the Andaman Sea (the eastern side of the Indian Ocean).  You can see the horizon is covered with bright green lights. These are the local squid boats out for their all-night squid hunting.

Hole-In-The-Wall was the most interesting anchorage we had while going around Langkawi. This is the narrow entrance.

Georgia anchored under the towering cliffs.

There are miles and miles of mangrove creeks to dinghy explore here.

Not that much wild life around, but these Brahminy Kites (at least I think that's what they are) like the updrafts.

Getting ready to raise he anchor and head back out of Hole-In-The-Wall for a good days sail.

One thing about Langkawi that is disappointing is the water just isn't clear. Pictures like this fool you.

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Now we did hear that there were a few changes back in the US.

That's the end of a pretty random blog post. I'll get one out in a few days discussing our upcoming Indian Ocean passage.

Paul