No more Cocos

Serendipity
David Caukill
Mon 21 Oct 2013 11:59

Monday 21st  October 2013, Indian Ocean,  12.27.369S 95.45.158E  

Today's Blog by Richard (Time zone BST +.6.50; UTC +7.5)

 

Well, we left Cocos about 10 hours ago on our long passage to Mauritius. Right now, the wind is light, and in the wrong direction so we're having to sail 5-10 degrees below our course to generate any reasonable boat speed. We also seem to have up to a knot of current against us - rather annoying. So, we certainly won’t be continuing the 200 miles a day average we achieved on our way from Bali in the very near future.  Most of the other Oyster yachts are leaving Cocos today so it will be fun to see how we fare against them.

 

We all enjoyed Cocos Keeling - quite a special place, being right in the middle of the Indian Ocean. Not much happens there but it is idyllic, nonetheless. It is particularly noted for its unique golf course, which is the only one to cross an international airport runway. Just as well they only have one or two flights a week. The people are very nice and the sea is warm and clear.  Home Island is occupied by Malay muslims so there is a clear dress code, particularly for young western women and no alcohol. West Island, by contrast, seems to be mostly Aussie expats, who speak like you might have expected them to do decades ago. For example, an employee of The Shire (local government) asked me how much "grog" we put on board before an ocean passage! When I told him we calculated 5 cans per person per day, he declared "dinkum, mate"! Honestly.

 

We've had a couple of parties and BBQs with the fleet and some of the Cocos locals (there are only a few hundred of them). The first was a combined Champagne Fest and Pub Quiz Night (as you do). It’s a big event with, I would estimate, over a hundred people attending. Yotties were allowed three or four tables between them for the quiz, in which we participated with some trepidation as it was an Aussie quiz. However, the table we were part of, “Miss Spent Youth”, won! This has a lot to do with Terry’s encyclopaedic knowledge of music and to Tim, who is an Australian. Anyway, a result. We also had a couple of beach BBQs (one of which provided by Oyster – many thanks, Debbie!). Here some photos, including Terry being driven to smoking again. (Lenie, it was my fault but he hated it and will never smoke again, I think).

 

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And here is a picture of an invasion of crabs that came to clean up after us.

 

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I suspect that interesting photos will be difficult to come by from now on – even “I Spy” gets boring as the few items one can see mostly begin with S!