Hi All,
Well we had another great Christmas and New Year in Kemer. A group of the marina live aboards decided to go skiing at Ulu Da, near Bursa, Turkey. This was a great experience for Darwinites and Gail learnt to ski. She also played cards every night with the night owls in the group.
In February we were told that Gail's father had Alzheimer’s Disease. Gail's sister Sue, was in Adelaide until June and then Gail would need to take over caring for him. As this was an open ended task we decided to sail back to Darwin. Gail shopped for supplies and Stephen readied the boat for sea. When asked if she had got beer for the trip Gail said yes plenty, later it was found that she got 12 cans of beer for the twelve week trip!! On the 8 of March we departed Kemer and sailed to Pt Said and down the Suez and the Red Sea. We had a good sail down to Asseb, Eritrea, where we spent a few days waiting for a strong Southerly to abate.
We then sailed to Aden, which had improved since our first visit, and caught up with our old friend Omar, took on water, fuel and supplies and sailed towards Oman. We had nice fresh headwinds all the way to the eastern end of the Gulf of Aden. On April the first, our wedding aniversary we passed the spot where Gail had been shot back in 2000, what a great anniversary present for her!!! The wind died as we headed for Salalah, Oman, so we had to motor. When about 20nm from Salalah we caught a net on our port prop, it was about 9pm and the wind was just starting to come up. So Stephen had to jump overboard and cut it free while Gail shone a spotlight on him so all the Tiger sharks could see their supper. Refueled in Salalah then sailed off towards Sri Lanka. Once again the wind died so we motored most of the way across the Arabian Sea. The bearings on one water pump died, so we altered course for Male in the Maldives to fix it. The parts had to come from Australia and they arrived six days after we got there. This delay meant that we would now be in the Bay of Bengal for the start of the Tropical Revolving Storm(Hurricane) season. Refueled and provisioned and then set sail for Christmas Island. Of course we met an unusually early TRS and got to try out our parachute anchor. We hung on this for three days, and we must say that it worked perfectly. The noise was really bad and both of us lost our voices trying to communicate, had to put your mouth in the other persons ear and yell as loud as you could, several times to get the message across. When we thought that the wind had dropped, we recovered the parachute and turned down wind. We were doing between 11 and 14.5 knots under bare pole(no sails), and rooster tails coming off the rudders. I guess the wind was still very strong. Before dark we trailed about 20 lines from the stern, this slowed us down to under 9 kts and made the waves break before they got to our stern. Late the next day we could at last put up a small amount of jib. Later that night we hit something that damaged some stiffeners under the bridge deck. Two days later a rudder bolt broke, but was noticed and replaced before any damage was done.
As we sailed down the side of Sumatra the wind
died and we ended up motoring into Christmas Is at 9pm at night and took up a
mooring. At first light a lady we had met in 1999 came alongside and told us
that the moorings were not in the right spots, so we should dive and check out
which one was OK. The chain on ours had broken, it dropped to the sea floor and the link second from
the end had snagged on a piece of coral. We quickly moved to another that was still
in working order. Went ashore and spent the day at the Golden Bosun. That night we
heard a guy calling for help on the vhf, was a RAN rib doing night dives
that had engine problems. He wouldn't let us come to his aid so had to
motor around to wake up the watch on his ship, who then went to his aid.
Got a very relieved thanks over the radio. Refueled and provisioned, including
2 cartons of beer, which surprised Stephen, then set sail for Darwin.
When we cleared for Darwin the officer said "see you next week". It turns
out that nearly all of the very few yachts that try this trip turn back as they
get sick of beating to windward. We had a hard sail to just past Bali and then
the wind eased. We managed to contact our friends on Uhane Kai who were in
Langkawi, and they gave us some up to date weather info. It was due for a 5
day period with no wind, so we stopped at Roti and took on some diesel and off
loaded foodstuffs that would be taken by customs/quarantine in Darwin. At this
point Stephen found out that the beer Gail had bought in Christmas Is was
on special because it was out of date, much swearing and cursing followed. He
could only drink half a bottle as the bottom was full of lumpy stuff!!! We then
had an easy motor to Darwin, arriving on June the fourth, just 4 days short of 3
months from Turkey. After catching up with family and friends we hauled the boat
and drove to Adelaide. Gail has spent the last half of the year
looking after her dad and Stephen got a part time job for some money and to keep
fit. Caught up with more family and friends from the yacht Scotty and friends
from the catamaran La Liberte who were flying around
the world looking for a new place to live.
Gail's dad is still ok but has deteriorated in the short time we have been here, so not sure what next year will bring.
Hope you have a Merry Christmas and a great New Year.
Gail & Stephen