Now that's better.

The boat repair hell I mentioned last time went on and on. It took four weeks to get our old, leaky diesel tank cut out, and our shiny new tank in. The last five days of it, I spent laying in a tiny crawl space inside the hull trying get a filler pipe fitting to work. Sometimes it's not good being the skinniest one on the boat.


Me and the tank in one of our more exasperated moments. (Diny's pic)

In the evenings, we would take a little swim off the back of the boat, still at anchor in a harbor near the Maldivian captial, Male. Then dingy over to the island to get some dinner. We became regulars at the restaurants nearby. One of the great things about cruising is that being in a place with a boat (ergo, needing to fix something that is broken), we get to interact with the locals in a way that you don't normally as tourist, even a scruffy backpacker sort of tourist like I normally have been. We had to figure out (among other things), where to get a steel diesel tank manufactured to our specifications, buy lumber for mounting the tank, and get local weather reports.


Max buying lumber for the tank installation. Everyone we dealt with in Maldives was really helpful.

Finally, the tank was in, the various other jobs were finished, the pantry and fridge were stocked (halal chicken hotdogs, mmmmm), the diesel and water tanks were full, and we were ready, ready, ready to go. For the next 9 days, we sailed only in the daytime. Partly this was because there are many coral reefs that aren't marked on our charts, and it would be very, very bad to hit one in the dark. And partly it was because we wanted to enjoy these beautiful islands and rest up for the long crossing ahead to Arabia. At night we anchored at a convenient island. Sometimes these islands were inhabited by locals, sometimes by a resort, and sometimes completely uninhabited.

I won't bore you with details of each stop, but after making you glad you weren't along on this fool's errand when we were suffering on our passage from Thailand, the least you can do is let me make you a little green with envy now.

We spent two nights at our first stop, Thulusdoo. With 1200 inhabitants, the clean-as-a-pin town occupies pretty much the whole island. It has a Coka Cola factory that supplies the whole country (the only Coke plant in the world that uses desalinated water) as well as some boat building and paper recycling industries. Sounds industrial, but the impression is of a neat little town. We met some locals who showed us around, including a little park islet attached to Thulusdoo by a bridge with nice sunset views. We were told that the inhabitants spontaneously build benches and swings to make the area nicer, but I suspect they are mostly young men motivated by needing to have a nice place to court.

In the evening they took us fishing from a dark beach at one end of the island. With barely enough starlight to see each others' silhouettes, we were suddenly illuminated by a meteor turning, splitting, and crackling across the sky.


Shady and clean, the streets of Thulusdoo are laid out in a grid. You can stand in many of the intersections and see the sea in 3 or 4 directions. The longest street is probably about half a mile long.



From what I can tell there are about 2 cars, 2 motor bikes, and 5 bicycles on the island of Thuloosdoo.




Reflections at anchor in Thulusdoo.

Our second day there, we went out spearfishing with our new friends, Shaheed, Yusef, and Hassan. We (okay, they, but with our moral support) caught an octopus, a boxfish, some oysters, and a sweetlips, which is a yellow and black striped fish that to me says, "Danger, don't eat me, or you will bleed from every orifice and die." But they apparently eat it all the time. The octopus spearing was the most amazing. They spotted it in a hole about 5 feet below the surface and Hassan dug it out with the spear, a sharpened metal shaft about 3 feet long. The poor octo sent its 2 foot long tentacles out along the spear, trying to find something it could fight. Impaled, he filled the shallow water with his ink. When Hassan lifted it out of the water, it's tentacles kinked out in all directions, twisting like the fingers of someone dying in pain. It was gruesome. But delicious. I helped them clean the catch in the afternoon, and we (Max, Diny, and I) were invited over for dinner. The next morning we were sad to leave such a mellow, friendly place, but already about 5 weeks behind schedule, we couldn't linger any longer.


The town islands like Thulusdoo all seem to be places where people sit and talk to their neighbors while the sun goes down. They're not rich, but not too poor either. It seems like a good life, but they are pretty much trapped there. It's too expensive for most of them to ever have a chance to leave the islands.

One of the other inhabited islands was our last stop before departing for the long haul to Oman. Dhidhdhoo is similar to Thulusdhoo. I took the dingy into town to try and find diesel, water, and propane, and returned with a small local boat with a 50 gallon drum of diesel which we pumped into our tanks.


Normally working as fishermen, these guys used their little dhoni to bring us diesel. See the mobile phone? As it turns out, most of the country is covered by a mobile network, and on the islands where the towers are, you can get wireless internet as well, though there aren't too many computers around. Yet.


The pilot of our diesel boat.

Other highlights included anchoring off uninhabited islands and making a campfire for dinner. I wish I could report that we fished en route and caught a big beatiful tuna which we prepared over the coconut husk fire. But in fact, there were hot dogs going bad in the fridge, so we had hot dogs and some of Diny's excellent cole slaw.


Diny celebrates her birthday underway. She would like me to inform you that she is 26 and single. I would like to inform you that I don't know any man who could keep up with her.


We didn't see another yacht after leaving Male.

Generally, we snorkeled every day on reefs with more fish than I have ever seen, some of them so unbothered by us that they would swim within reach. One morning, after follwing a 3 foot wide manta ray around a lagoon for a while, I turned to head back to the boat only to see a school of 6 mantas swimming straight for me. They parted to go around me and let me follow for a while as they slowly glided down to the 50 foot bottom, wings motionless in the ultra clear water. I dove down to them from time to time (I've been getting to about 40 feet, not so great by skin diver standards, but I'm pretty happy with it). Another day I swam with a sea turtle who didn't see me for a long time, then suddenly started and dove down deep and watched me for a while. I thought my tattoo would get me a better reception, but I guess not.

There's really not much to say about these places. They are quiet and beautiful. The days passed in a long glow of deep water so blue it was purple, shallow water so turquoise it hurt to look at it, warm sun, cool breeze, bright stars, lapping waves. Here are some pictures that capture a tiny bit of it.











We snorkeled on this wreck. The bow sticks up about 25' out of the water and the stern rests in 100' or so. Although it looks creepy and decrepit above, below it's a wonderland of coral and fish. Just as I swam around one corner, a school of foot-long fish darted by with two tuna in hot pursit. We scared the hell out of each other.


Max and Diny exploring one of our islands. This one happened to have a new resort being built at one end. We stopped by to see the construction going on (575 Bangladeshis are building the place and live on the island, but no photos allowed). Then we took the launch over to the untouched part of the island for an afternoon of book reading, sand castle building, and crab digging (unsuccessful, so thank god for Diny's unending creativity with what was in our pantry).


After nine perfect days, we headed out across the open ocean, course 300 degrees magnetic, making for Salalah, Oman. Obviously we made it, or I wouldn't be writing you, but not without some adventures. But that will have to wait for a later post.


Some of you have been asking to see what I look like without hair. I'm letting it grow back now, but at least I know I won't look too terrible if I ever go bald.

And then there were three . . .

So, the news gets sadder. Susie, Holly, and Sarah have decided to leave the boat. The reasons are a little different for each of them, I think, but the difficulties we've had with the boat are certainly a big part of it. I think those challenges sort of set the stage for some personality conflicts to come out that might not have otherwise. None of us have been at our best for a while now, due to to frustration and fatigue. Poor communication hasn't helped. It's like living in a very small house with six people: it wouldn't be easy on land. And being at sea just makes it a bit more difficult. It found our faults and split us at them. It has been, for the most part, adult. So I think everyone parts as friends. Maybe it's for the best.

I'm sad about it. There wasn't one of them that I didn't enjoy spending time with. And though I look forward to going north to India with Diny and Max, it just won't be the same. But I think we can shake it off and move on. We still plan to make stops at these beautiful atolls on the way up, which should do wonders for our mood. The old diesel tank is out. Good riddance, but we're having a tough time getting the new one in (custom built at a metal shop here in Male) . Imagine trying to get a new, 150lb couch out of your car (which never stops moving), onto your porch (which is also moving), into a very small house, and stored in a closet whose door the couch is too big to go through, so you have to start pulling out the walls (complete with plumbing and electrical wiring). That's what we're up against. But we're getting there.

I think I need a vacation from my vacation.

Oh, and Susie gave me a bad haircut for my birthday, so I had to shave my head. I'll post a pic sometime after I get it properly tanned. So far, the best think about it is how the wind feels on it and how the locals gasp when I take my hat off.

Hope you are well wherever you are and that your couches all fit.

Hello from the Maldives. For those of you who haven't recently asked your rich and famous friends where they prefer to vacation, this is the place. A series of coral fringed atolls that grew up around long gone volcanoes, the Maldives are one of the lowest countries on Earth, consisting of thousands of tiny islands organized into little loops in the middle of the otherwise deep Indian Ocean.

I arrived here a few days ago aboard Reflections, the same boat I sailed on from Australia to Malaysia three years ago. It's a different crew this time, like a different season of Survivor. There are six of us, five Americans and one Dutch.

The star of the show, Reflections, at anchor in Male.

The crew. Left to right: Diny, Max (the skipper), Leigh (who was only with us in Thailand), Susie, Sarah, and Holly.

The boat had been out of the water for several months when we all came together in Phuket, Thailand to get started, and we spent two weeks getting her ready. Lots of projects, large and small. I worked on installing the propeller, installing a new autopilot and GPS system, installing a new faucet, and a dozen other projects that I probably don't remember. The worst was the autopilot: it took about 5 days to get all the cables run. When we finally put to sea, it actually worked, which was a big relief. So now we can tell the autopilot display, which is in the cockpit, what heading we want, and it talks to the computer (in the aft cabin closet) which talks to a gyroscope and sealed compass (in the same closet) and to a rudder position sensor and a rudder hydraulic (both under the aft cabin bed), and steers the desired course. It can also talk to our GPS and steer toward a waypoint. And of course all these little electronicky bits have power and data cables connecting them.

A quiet morning at anchor in Thailand. Sarah drools when she sleeps.

Our crossing from Thailand to Maldives was tough. Lots of problems with the boat. A leaky fuel tank (one of two) led to a couple of days of trying to get fuel out of the bad tank and into the good one and into any other containers. This left us with less fuel than we thought, so we calculated a schedule of sailing when the winds were strong enough and motoring when they weren’t that would get us to Maldives before we ran out of food or water. Originally, we were shooting for India, but the prevailing winds said otherwise, and advice from other boats that we were in contact with via radio said Maldives would offer any repair services we needed. It wasn’t really a close thing, we had plenty of food and water, but nonetheless, we were conserving: no showers, washing dishes in salt water; we even tried cooking noodles in sea water, but they were a bit to salty to repeat.

Diny is a great cook, even when we can barely spare a hand from holding on to the pitching boat to cook. She also serves as our nurse (which is her profession, in addition to being a professional raft guide and world tramping do-gooder). She's pretty cool, even though she's Dutch.

For the first couple of days, the winds were light, and we were moving along at a stately 3 kts, about walking pace (imagine walking from Thailand to India!!). At such low speeds and in such calm seas, we were able to swim behind the boat to bathe (with lines out to hold onto as needed), which works pretty well, but left our skin feeling pretty waxy after a couple of days.

The daily salt water bath. Good for the soul if not so great for the skin.


Dolphins visited us several times. The best was during one of my 4am to 6am night watches when a dolphin launched 10 feet out of the water, glowing green with bioluminescence. It looked like a glow in the dark toy.

Via radio, we were being promised good winds soon, but I was doubtful. The guy on the radio kept referring to the any-day-now arrival of the "Northeast Monsoon", which sounded ominous, but its hard to believe too much can happen when all of my prior experience in the Indian Ocean has been of very mellow seas. The sea was as calm as a mountain lake in the afternoon breeze: just a light chop. But one afternoon, just as I was about to recommend we start up the engine because we weren’t able to sail at the minimum speed to keep to our schedule, I noticed a line of innocuous looking clouds stretched across the sky. As they passed us, we got a couple of puffs, but the sky was clear behind them, and we thought we’d lose the wind as fast as it came. But the puffs became a breeze and the breeze became a wind, and over the next few days, the wind and the seas built and built. The wind never got over 20 kts (a nice sailing breeze), but further north the winds were stronger, and the swell they created was rolling down on us as 9-12 ft waves. Not bad, but not the most comfortable ride, either. We were making great speed towards the Maldives, and enjoying the sail. Mornings on the boat were quiet, each of us taking our two 2-hour watches (mine is from 4-6 am and pm) while others napped or did various jobs on the boat. In the afternoons we cranked up someone’s mp3 player to hear some music while dinner was prepared and served (one night on cooking, one night on dishes, 4 nights off).

Before the NE Monsoon arrived.

A view of the jibs. The round thing is the radar transceiver, mounted about halfway up the mast.

At some point during all of this, we started having power problems. Two of our four house batteries had gone bad, and in so doing, overworked and killed the other two. We had to run our small generater for most of the day to have enough power to run our systems. Then, during the biggest day of swells (about 10 days into the trip), the main sail ripped. So we put on our harnesses and went out on deck to bring it down and put up a smaller emergency sail. This was fun: climbing a few feet up the mast with the boat rolling around and waves higher than the pilot house bearing down from behind. Beautiful and engaging, and not all that dangerous (really, Mom). We were clipped onto the boat, and not once did I need that connection to stay aboard.

The end of it all was when we arrived in Male on day 11, and couldn’t get the engine started. Our power problems seemed to have spread to our starter battery. We tried to sail into the harbor, but there was a massive current, and without the mainsail, we just couldn’t quite get in. We could have sailed out of the strait and made another pass, but it would have meant for another night at sea in a low power situation, so in the end we radioed for a tow. A tug called Ox was dispatched and pulled us in. All in all, it was a tough cruise, trying to keep everything going, but we had some fun too.

Holly working on a sail change.

So, we’ve been in Maldives for about a week now, and I’ve spent most of that time inside the diesel tank underneath the floor of the boat with a grinder trying to get the damned leaky thing out. Sarah, Max and I have taken turns at it. We bundle up in coveralls, protective glasses, face mask, and earplugs, fold ourselves down into the bilge and then lay out inside the tank and then hold a grinder, all sparks and steel-ripping screams, a foot from our faces while we carefully cut the 100 gallon tank out, piece by piece. I say carefully because on top of the tank are various hoses and cables that can’t be cut, and underneath it is the fiberglass hull which, obviously, can’t be cut, and in between are our fingers and noses, which can’t be cut. After an hour or two, we switch out and go jump in the sea to cool off. We’ve made steady progress and should have it out in a day or two.

An old chestnut of cruisers is, "Cruising is going to exotic ports and working on the boat." So true. But I learn all sorts of new stuff, so I don't mind so much. However, I think I've learned enough on this trip.

Really, I think I've spent half the trip in the bilge.

Male (rhymes with volley), the capital of the Maldives, is a surprising place. Imagine an art deco-ish sort of town, populated by Muslims, and packed wall to wall on an island about 1 mile square. It's a pretty cool place, marred only by the inability to buy a beer (however on the resort islands you can get anything you want).

A few days ago, we took a break. The whole crew was picked up by a boat here in Male and taken to a tiny, one-resort island a few miles south for a day of snorkeling and napping. Saw some beautiful fish, some decent coral, and a lot of pasty Europeans on holiday. The best part was being able to shower just as long as I wanted. We all did some laundry as well and hung it out on the balcony of the room they gave us for a day. We were sort of the white trash coming to the resort with dirty finger nails and leaving rings in the bathtub.

Even lower-end resorts are pretty posh. The room they gave us for the day had a glass panel in the floor so we could see the fish swimming by underneath on the reef.

It seems like every island has a resort, this one is pretty typical, but there are some islands where locals live. I hope we get to anchor at some of both.

The crew is pretty tired. So's the skipper. It's hard to keep morale up when we've had to work so hard for over a month now, with really only a handful of days that could be called easy. But hopefully we have shaken out all the loose bits and will have a much easier cruise on the next leg. Today, Susie said she's staying here in Maldives (she's a dive instructor, so she can probably find work here), and Sarah and Holly said they're leaving in India. It makes me sad to see them go after we've been through so much together, but I can understand it. Everyone expected to work on the boat, but the effort required on this trip was definitely not in the brochure. So it goes with boats.

We’re here for a few more days. We have to finish getting the tank out, get the new tank in, provision, fix the main sail, solve our battery problems, and do a dozen other little tasks to get this boat ready to go again. Next stop will be Cochin, India, with a few anchorings along some of these beautiful atolls on the way. At least that's the plan.