Saturday, April 9, 2016

TRINCOMALEE, SRI LANKA TO MALE, MALDIVES

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. 

No comments:

Post a Comment