TRINCOMALEE, SRI LANKA TO MALE,
MALDIVES
March 27- April 5, 2016
Trincomalee
was an interesting place to visit but quite limited in anything other than the
daily activities of a small vibrant city.
It has one of the world’s largest natural harbors and is very safe in
the harbor and on land. The locals are
friendly and accommodating.
Transportation around the city is done by “tuk-tuk” (a small three
wheeled motorcycle with seats and an overhead canopy): fast, cheap, efficient. The local open market is bustling with
activity and color. The vendors are
actively calling out their produce and prices.
The different varieties of fruits and vegetables are most interesting to
see. Within the market, there is a
section for fish and lamb. The lamb is
slaughtered early in the morning, hung up and still dripping blood: No refrigeration but the meat is very
fresh. We bought a small leg of lamb
twice and it was delicious. The chickens
didn’t look as healthy but they are slaughtered and plucked on the spot. We bought some eggs and the yolks were white! I can’t figure out just what they were being
fed to cause that kind of coloring. The
fish are mostly tuna, squid and small local catch. The stalls are clean and ice is used to keep
them fresh.
If one goes
into a local Sri Lankan restaurant and orders curry and rice, as many as eight
different dishes will be brought out with the rice. Most of these will be different kinds of
curries but fish and chicken will be included.
The price for this will be about $3.00 US. Sri Lanka is quite cheap if you eat the local
food. Phyllis and I had wanted to visit
the Tea Plantations but the transportation from Trincomalee was difficult and
involved an overnight stay. Since we
have engine driven refrigeration, it has to be charged twice daily. We are slaves to the refrigerator. I had wanted to upgrade the system with DC
refrigeration but still keep the engine driven unit. It wasn’t feasible and we weren’t going to
get enough out of the DC system to make it worthwhile for the money being
spent.
We departed
Trincomalee, at 1230 hrs on March 27th bound for Male, Maldives: 686
nm. The GRIB files and WX forecast
showed favorable winds for sailing SE down the eastern Sri Lankan coast but
dying out on the next leg to Male. This
is exactly what happened. We made good
time down the coast and got plastered with a Thunder Storm. Also, the Fresh Water Pump on the Beta
started to leak water.
On the
Eastern side of the Sri Lankan coast, there are several areas on the marine
charts that carry the cautionary note:
OVERFALLS. These are areas where
the seabed rises from many thousand feet to 300’ or less. This causes the seas to break heavily even in
good weather and need to be avoided.
These places are like a Witches Cauldron and present a real danger to
small vessels. We encountered a few of them on our voyage from Langkawi to Port
Blair, Andaman and the experience is frightening. The “Overfalls” on the Sri Lankan coast are
even worse. What I did to avoid these
areas was to stay well inside the 300 ft depth contour and observe any turbulent areas. This worked out well as we didn’t encounter
any.
At the bottom end of Sri Lanka we altered
course for Male, Maldives (04-14.5’ N; 073-37.5’ E). This is where the wind began to die out. From 0600 hrs (UTC +5.5 hrs) on March 31 to
0900 hrs on April 3rd, we had the lightest winds we have ever had to
deal with: 3-5 kts or becalmed. When winds get this light, it is impossible
to carry a mainsail because the least amount of swell will roll the wind out of
the sail and cause it to flog and slate.
The only effective way that we have found to deal with this is by poling
out a jib sail on the port or stbd side.
Even with the jib poled out to keep it from collapsing, it will still
drive one crazy with the continuous filling and collapsing.
Finally, on
April 3rd at 0830 hrs, we went from being becalmed to a wind shift
to the NW at 10 kts. This was, indeed,
glorious! We set the full complement of
sails: main, jib, staysail. This gave us 5+ kts. Male was about 127 nm distant so if we could
hold this NW’ly wind we would be making good progress towards the goal. I didn’t expect the wind to last but it held
on for us throughout the day and all through the night and into the next
day. At 1700 hrs on April 4th
in position 4-10.1’ N; 73-46.5’ E, I dropped all sail to lie ahull until first
light on April 5th. Later on
in the evening, I used a small reefed jib to close the Male coast and keep from
drifting SW.
On April 5,
2016 I entered the Customs Clearance are on the Western side of Male. The wind was blowing out of the West and
causing quite a chop in the area but even more disconcerting was the amount of
boat traffic. I have never seen such
intensity or the number of boats, ferries, ships moving about. The place is a beehive of activity. In spite of all this, our agent managed to
get aboard with the officials and we were granted “free practique” at 0900 hrs
(UTC +5) Maldives time.
The main
anchorage for Male is located on another island just to the north called
Hulumale. It is where the airport is
located. As I was approaching the
anchorage, our new Beta engine started to show signs of not getting enough
fuel. Most likely this was caused by a
dirty Racor fuel filter or low fuel in the diesel tank. The fuel tank showed ¾ full on the electronic
fuel gauge but these are notorious for giving bad readings. I was really concerned because the wind was
putting us on a lee shore and the waters in the Maldives are very deep until
they aren’t. Fortunately, two yachts
anchored heard me on the VHF and sent out their dinghies to assist if the
engine died. It didn’t and we dropped
anchor in Hulumale at 1024 hrs in 38’ water depth in position 04-13.266 N;
73-32.138’ E.
I have
ordered a new Fresh Water Pump from Beta UK.
It was shipped on Thursday and will arrive here sometime next week. I’m not sure what caused the leak but will
find out when I pull the old pump. It’s
very unusual to have a Fresh Water Pump fail at this early stage. When I observed the leak, the engine had less
than 120 hrs on it.
