Day 30 - Leg 3 Day 1 at Sea Departure From Cocos Keeling
Seaduced
John & Jane Craven
Fri 24 Jul 2015 10:46
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What a fabulous place, the Cocos Keeling Islands.
We anchored next to the quarantine buoy just off Direction Island
around 10am. I contacted the Cocos Police by radio, 12 miles out and once
again once we had the anchor down. After a few questions, they cleared us
to go ashore and said that they would come to see us to go through the paperwork
later in the day. How civilised is that??
Once we had dropped the anchor, we were immediately
surrounded by 6 or 7 reef sharks who had taken a great interest in
Seaduced. There were only 2 other boats in the anchorage so maybe they
thought that, as the new kids on the block, we may feed them. Some of us
went for a swim around, but the sharks were more nervous of us than we were of
them.
Following our swim, we went ashore in the dinghy to
refold our storm jib. We had taken this out of the locker when we were on
anchor, just before leaving Darwin, to test it out, but it was a bit of a bugger
to refold and repack on deck. Half way through repacking, I received a
call from the Cocos Police to see if I could meet them back at the boat.
Two very nice gentlemen turned up and, after half an hour of paperwork, combined
with a lot if banter, formalities were completed.
As it was getting close to 'beer o'clock', I
loaded the cool bag with beers and snacks, jumped back in the dinghy and joined
the boys ashore. The island we were on, Direction Island, is totally
deserted, palm trees, white sand, turquoise water and fantastic
views across the bay to the other islands. We also had the most spectacular sunset to enjoy along with
our beers. All in all, not a bad day.
The slight anomaly with Direction Island, which we found
out the following day, is that there is a wifi hotspot under one of the shelters
on the beach and also a phone that you can purchase phone cards for from
one of the other islands!!!
The following day, we started on some of the jobs, from
stitching sails, fixing watermaker, washing the boat down, laundry etc.
Later we jumped in the dinghy and went across to the neighbouring island, Home
Island, to do a bit of shopping. We had already been warned
that provisioning in the Cocos Keelings was particularly difficult but, in
fact, we could get the basics - meat, fruit & veg, bread
etc. However, as Home island was originally settled by Malaysians, it is a
Muslim Island which means there was no beer, wine, spirits or any kind of
alcohol to be had. Surprisingly, they sold pork!! There are around
500 inhabitants on Home Island, but no cars, so everybody rides around on quad
bikes or small motorbikes.
So, the following day, we dinghied over to Home Island
and, from there, we caught the inter island ferry to the 'Big Smoke', West
Island. It turns out that there are around 150 people on West
Island! As the airport is on West Island, (it shares its runway with the
golf club), the island is slightly more westernised and, we had been
reliably informed, this was the place to stock up on alcohol, being duty
free. Ok, the supermarket was about twice as big as yesterday, but you
could only buy one type of lager, one type of bitter and a sparkling, but
non-alcoholic, grape juice. Tescos it ain't!!!!
We also managed to take some time out and snorkel
through a cut in the reef where there were quite a few reef sharks and large
fish. I also took Ant for his first ever dive and we paddled around a few
reefs for half an hour, visited by the ever inquisitive, but nervous reef
sharks.
Anyway, after a bit of swimming and wifi earlier today,
we upped anchor around 16.00, and motored out through the reef.
We are now on Leg 3 of our trip, from The Cocos
Islands to Reunion Island, a journey of approximately 2,500 miles
which should take us 14-15 days.
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