Have bananas, will travel - Galle, Sri Lanka

Harmonie
Don and Anne Myers
Fri 23 Mar 2012 08:25
6:01.902N  80:13.676E

March 23, 2012


Ok!  We're off to Chagos.  We'll be without supplies for six weeks (one week enroute to Chagos, four weeks in Chagos, and one week enroute to Mauritius) so have loaded up on all the essentials: diesel, fruit and vegetables.  We even bought a few cans of creamed corn to be used only when faced with severe vegetable emergencies.  Other than that, the 45 tomatoes, 6 cabbages and host of other stuff should carry us through.


One of Galle's very colorful fruit market stands.  I'm sure I paid an extraordinary price for the kilos of imported apples purchased…...but nothing keeps better than apples - especially if kept refrigerated. 


This is the route we will generally be taking - a total of about 850 miles.  We don't plan to stop in the Maldives, but we will point that way just in case we run low on fuel or something else comes up.  Bruce tells us there is no wind, so it almost doesn't matter which way we will be pointing.  Hopefully that won't be true for the entire trip.  A passage highlight will be our third equator crossing.  Maybe this time we'll actually see the darn thing?  We'd put champagne in the fridge in preparation for the occasion, but there's too many apples in there.

We'll update the blog daily while we are underway, starting tomorrow.  A distance of 850 miles would normally take us about 6 days, but with no wind, we expect it will take us longer.  No worries, we've got plenty to eat.

This is the last of the blog pictures for the next six weeks (blog text-only updates will continue).  We'll still upload/download email every day using the satellite phone, but we won't have access to the internet and our cell phones will be useless.  There are no people in Chagos.  Except for one island which is leased by the Brits to the US for a military base (one we are not allowed to approach), there will be no one there except a few other boats - many of which we've already met here in Sri Lanka.  Leaving here tomorrow will be two other boats heading generally the same way, so we plan to keep in contact with them via SSB radio daily.

More tomorrow from the high (more likely flat) seas!
Anne