January 2008 - Thailand to the Maldives
Bondi Tram
Peter Colquhoun and Sandra Colquhoun
Fri 8 Feb 2008 12:29
We had a fairly uneventful passage of 10 days. The
highlight was catching a small tuna, and the low points were breaking the
spinnake halyard in a squall, and then
the jib halyard went 2 days out of Male. This was
unfortunate as a small screw in the furling foil had come halfway out and
prevented us from taking the jib down.
The first three days in Male were spent running new halyards
and fixing up the screws in the furling foil, as a number had come out with the
jib thrashing at times. Fortunately Mali is a great place for getting
anything to do with boats, they have so many here. Better than Phuket or
Singapore.
Male is fascinating and a great place to visit.
Peter Van Roekel joined us on the 31st. and will be with us to
Egypt, so we are looking forward the luxury of 3 hours on and 6 hours off watch
for a while.
We will be leaving on Saturday 9th. We will head for
Salalah in Oman, 1390 nautical miles, but we may decide to go straight to Aden
at the mouth of the Red Sea depend on weather and how we feel. We expect
to get to Oman in 7-9 days, but if we go to Aden then it will be 12-14
days.
Leaving Yacht Haven Marina, Phuket
Sunset
Another sunset...with passing jet
Dolphins on the bow
Crossing the shipping lanes just south of Sri Lanka .. tanker
heading east into the swell
Counted 18 ships on radar within 24 nautical
miles
Here's dinner.....
.....now what do I do with it?
The jib rolled on deck and still pulling
Male, capital of the Maldives
The airport and seaplane base. You have to take the ferry
to get to the airport from Male as it's on another island
Local taxi
Fixing up the furler...10 new screws to put in and loctite on
all 24
Male street scenes
Island goods for the market
Disembarking from the ferry
Local restaurants
Resort island near our anchorage off the airport
Suburbs...on the next island
Frank and Ming arrive at Male with their 2 children.
Franck worked for Simpson Marine at Raffles Marina and
they lived on the boat in the marina. Now they are on
their way to France via South Africa
Our new crew member, Peter Van Roekel
Someone forgot where the reef is.
Laguna resort. We spent 4 days anchored here and had
wonderful snorkeling on the reef
The yacht is Seren Wen from Wales...we last met them in
Raffles Marina 18 months ago. Small world
Bird on the beach at Laguna
