February 1, 2007 - Headed to the Maldives, Day 2
by George & Merima

Hi Everyone!

It has settled into a pretty lazy day out on the Indian Ocean. The weather is stuck on beautiful - not too hot, not too cool, trade winds in the 12-17 knot range - not bad for sailing.

Yesterday afternoon was interesting as we were making our way along Andaman Island. Port Control radioed us and asked us to move as quickly away from Ross Island as possible as they were planning on firing live ammunition. The Indian Navy sent out a chopper to check our progress and they buzzed us - too close for my comfort zone - for about ten minutes before heading off to target practice. We were still close enough to hear the shots.

While we're getting our sea legs back, we're experiencing some of the joys and annoyances of passage making. Last night around dinner time, we had an unexpected visitor. A sea tern landed on the dodger just above our heads and wanted to hang around. After a few photos, we tried to convince him that this was the closest he was going to be to land for awhile and should get back to his home. We're all a bit short on sleep as we get used to the noise and motion of the boat and the ocean. On his early morning watch, Graham was the target of a misguided flying fish. It apparently flew over the bow, in through the dodger window and pinged him on the hand. We're not sure who was more stunned and surprised, Graham or the fish, but both are back to normal, if you can call it that. Thane spotted dolphins off the starboard quarter this morning - the first we've seen in ages. After breakfast, we landed a huge wahoo nearly five feet long weighing in at 36 pounds. The freezer is full again and the fishing line is having a break.

At the moment, we're rolling along nicely with the genoa poled out to windward and sailing close to our course, which takes us to a waypoint off the south coast of Sri Lanka. We've got 600 miles or about three and a half days before we round the corner.

Our first 24-hour run was about 180 miles, but we only made good about 142 miles towards the waypoint as we had to weave our way in and out of the Andamans yesterday and last evening to get into open ocean. Now it's a long way to anything hard that we could hit.

Cheers, George, Merima, Thane and Graham