Galle-ing!

Rhiann Marie - Round the World
Stewart Graham
Wed 13 Apr 2011 07:47
Wednesday 1132 Local Time 0612 UTC (Sri Lanka has a strange half hour time change)
 
05:58.69N 080:07.40E
 
Well here we are still seven miles off Sri Lanka .......... except that we have been into Galle to spend a pleasant couple of days filling in forms and waiting for "ten or fifteen minutes" for many hours several times!
 
We eventually got into Galle Harbour approaches and anchored up in the bay just after Midnight Sunday night/ Monday morning after some beautiful sailing through the day along the coast of Sri Lanka where a slight gradient wind was reinforced by the seabreeze which we anticipated and was forecast. After ghosting along for days tanking along at times at ten knots in just over ten knots of breeze dramatically changed our arithmetic and ate up the remaining miles quickly.
 
On entering the bay at Galle we were immediately approached by a gun boat as we expected, to check us out. Sri Lanka has been troubled for many years by a bloody conflict with the Tamil Tigers in the north. This conflict was dramatically ended several years ago when the Tigers were driven back to coastal ground and defeated thoroughly.
 
The security at Galle harbour which is a naval base however has continued. They used to regularly throw grenades into the harbour to deter and Tiger frog men from entering and blowing up any navy ships there - this has stopped now though which was at least something......
 
Both the security and beurocracy in Sri Lanka, at least at Galle is, what shalll we say, not conducive to speedy clearance in and out. We really just wanted fuel and water and to collect parts but we spent the first thirty six hours clearing in and getting fuel and water and the next twenty four hours reversing the process to clear out again.  In between we had to provision and there was some jewelry shopping as Sri Lanka is famous for its Blue Saphires..... We also spent last evening at the most splendid old colonial hotel in the centre of the old Galle fort having dinner. It was a real treat after a frustrating couple of days.
 
Another annoying aspect of the offialdom at Galle is the expectation from every single one of the many many officials and security, and Navy and Customs and Immigration and, and, and..... that come aboard, is that they all want some "compliments". Cigarettes, beer or mostly spirits especially as it is the Singhalese New Year time. 
 
On Rhiann Marie it is our normal practice to affer all those that come aboard, officials, other sailors or whoever a cold or hot drink whichever they choose. However in Galle Harbour this is not enough they ask for and almost demand something more, generally spirits. I am told by someone out side the docks that this is not normal Sri Lankan behaviour but a habit that has developed inside the port. At the the end of the day I don't generally get too bothered about it. In the whole scheme of things you will probably spend thirty quid or so on "gifts". And they have the capacity to make life very awkward for you if you fall out, so whatever happens always stay smiling and don't stone wall them. Here is a couple of ways it can go though. When we had Immigration aboard they asked for "compliments". So like any other bargain you don't show your whole hand and give everything away at first request. This will just lead to further requests once they know you are a soft target. So stay smiling and play dumb, potter around doing other things and don't engage the request. Offer some more tea. In the long silences don't be first to say what can I give you or some such thing. Mostly talk about what you would like them to do for you. For example can we get a speedy clearance out. OK? Then we will bring a gift to your office when come along tonight to get our outbound clearance. Stay smiling get them laughing. Remember, laughter, it is an international passport. So it was arranged that we would go to the immigration office that night with a bottle when they would also contribute a bottle of local Lemon Gin (mmmm...) and we would have a party. Don't fight the system in another country such as this, you cannot win, but you can play a blinder. As it happened we could not make it, as we had been waiting for fifteen or twenty minutes for five hours or so for our fuel and my night was spent scrubbing deisel off Rhiann Maries decks....
 
The following morning though I called in to apologise for not making our suaree and brough a bottle of wine as apeace offering and asked for the local Lemon Gin they were very proud of and that they said they would contribute to the party. They were most amused at me turning the tables and brought out a bottle of Lemon Gin and poured me a large glass of it while we did the immigration papers and they also agreed to clear us out last night ahead of time. This was a good result.
 
However when around the dock and trying to do anything, officials and uniforms of every type will get involved to try in some way to claim some of the authority for getting things done, which in fact would happen much more efficiently if they stayed out of the way. They need however a) to feel they have some importance and authority in any even no matter how small and b) they can then have some licence to ask for "compliments" because they "helped" getting the fuel or what ever aboard. As I said I don't believe in giving anything to these guys before I can get some value back from them, and some security guys on the dock had asked blatantly several times for some "whisky" without giving us any help at all. So when the first thousand litres of our fuel arrived at night in a bowser aboard a pick up truck which needed a power supply to pump the fuel to me. I spotted the security guys in the dark around the fuel man. He then told me that the security said he could get no power unless I gave them some some "whisky". So this is a different game, the security were not critical to our processing through (though they could potentially like anyone else make our lives difficult) so I stormed up to the Captain and in an exaggerated and annimated way told him that I anm always happy to oofer gifts in return for some favour but to be forced (making a strangling and pistol at my head signs) in this way was the same as somebody stealing from me so it was completely unacceptable and that they should clear off out of the way. I would not want, need or accept their help and showed the fuel man that gravity would in fact feed the fuel albeit it would take a little longer. It was fine judgement but drew a clear line they could not step over and they were "black listed". As a matter of fact they were then very helpful even throwing off our lines for us, while still pleading for some alcohol. I explained though it would have to be next time and first they should be doing something to help, not interfering or demanding, before requesting some compliments. I even suggested they could try the radical idea of not asking but waiting to be offered..... C'est la vie. 
 
Though I have been in India around Mumbai and Pune, before which made the area of Sri Lanka we were in look sparsely populated and and possitively prosperous the sights and sounds are still very much of the Indian sub-continent. We didn't spend much time around but I wil try to post a few photos which convey a little of the flavour of the small part of Sri Lanka we visited.
 
On another note there were three large vessels, one fire tug and two two hundred foot plus motor yachts (none of which have the owners aboard) heading for Salallah in Oman. They will no doubt in the case of the moror yachts be able to make 15 - 20 knots but I was impressed to see they were all fitting the same sort of anti boarding protection that I had started preparing for while in Lankawi. That is, one and a half metre steel bars or tubes (32 in my case) bolted to the stanchions with the clamps all of which I had already bought and then razor wire running round it all. This could deter a boarding at first attempt and delay ten minutes or so which may be critical but if the Naval Forces are not onthe scene quickly and the Somalians pull back and fire RPG's then it is game over.
 
This is also not these vessels only defence. They are all boarding armed security from three separate companies all of whoom I contacted too. Yesterday I spoke with the four guys who would be boarding a large motoryacht whose name I guess I should not quote and today right now behind us another is motoring outside the twelve mile limit to board their four guys. From the radio coms I have been listening to they "security guys" sound Russian or Chechynian or some such thing. I wish them all luck.