Pictures - Sri Lanka to Chagos Passage
Harmonie
Don and Anne Myers
Sun 13 May 2012 10:25
| March 23, 2012 - March 31, 2012 Below are pictures from our Sri Lanka to Chagos passage. Old news, for sure, but we have internet access here in Mauritius for the first time since Sri Lanka seven weeks ago, so are now able to post pictures. Included are a few photos of the calm waters we encountered between Sri Lanka and Chagos. Odd to think these pictures were taken of the same ocean that later churned itself up into the seething windblown mess we sailed through on our way to Mauritius. We knew the Indian Ocean would be a fickle beast, and so far it's lived up to its reputation. This is one ocean we will be very pleased to put behind us. Planned vs. actual route: Sri Lanka to Chagos. The straight, logical, blue dotted line is our planned route, and the curved, meandering, purple dotted line is our actual route. The straight parts of our actual route were generated when we were motoring. The rest of the meandering mess is a result of our struggle to sail in five knots of wind. Once again, all of this just goes to show that when sailing, it is impossible to get there from here in a straight line. Ship traffic. The blue triangle with the green dot is us, the red line is our planned route, the purple dotted line is our actual route (we were sailing at the time and couldn't point any further west due to the wind angle). All the other blue shapes with black dots are ships. The orange labels are their names. Any ships traveling east/west or west/east in the northern Indian Ocean have to get around the obstacle of Sri Lanka jutting out beyond the tip of India (see the map above). The result? Lots of ship traffic from the tip of Sri Lanka to about 50 miles south. The information shown in the top right of the screen pertains to the ship Cosgrace Lake, which on the chart, is coming at us from the east. According to AIS (Automatic Information System), the closest point of approach of the Cosgrace Lake to us at this point was 1.26 miles in 21 minutes at a bearing of 35 degrees, which means the ship would end up going behind us. 1.26 miles is a little close for comfort when the ship is a huge tanker and you're in a little sailboat, but it was still daylight at this point so all was well. A little later we had to tack to avoid a ship approaching us from the northwest. There was no drama as we had plenty of notice via AIS that we were in the ship's way, so we turned once to give way, and then again to get back on course after the ship passed. By sunset on our first day out, we cleared all the ship traffic and had a quiet night. The Lorraine-D. This is a sailboat from Israel (the first we've seen) called the Lorraine-D. She was parked next to us on the blue floaty dock thing in Sri Lanka and we got to know her owner/captain a little bit over the course of our ten days there. He, Ziki, planned to sail from Sri Lanka, across pirate territory to the Red Sea, and then on to Israel. A risky plan for sure, but he had hired two armed guards for the trip, and was just waiting out here (about 20 miles off the coast of Sri Lanka) for his hired hands to arrive with their weapons. Just like the big ships, Ziki was not allowed to take on arms while in port, so had to stand off and wait for their arrival at sea. We talked to him on the radio as we sailed past, and he invited us to dinner. We politely declined as we were sailing well in good wind, and besides, how do you anchor a boat in 200 meters of water when your anchor chain is only 60 meters long? Ziki of course wasn't anchored. He was just drifting around waiting, so it's no wonder he wanted some company. We don't know how long he had to wait out there for his crew. We also don't know if he is safely back in Israel yet. The good news is we haven't heard anything on the news about an Israeli sailboat captured by pirates, so we can only assume that he is ok. Daybreak, Day 3. Front view - calm. Daybreak, Day 3. Back view - calm. Mid-ocean diving, Day 3. We stopped in the dead calm water so Don could jump in and clean the prop. The water was a brilliant blue, and so clear it's hard to tell most of Don's body was underwater when this picture was taken. Day 5 - crossing the equator for the third time. We were sailing so slowly (3.3 knots), it was easy to catch the GPS at 0 00.000 latitude. Sunset Day 6 or 7. Some of the cloud formations we saw along the way were fantastic, like this one. Next up: Chagos pictures. Anne |