March 12, 2007 - Maldives to Oman, Day 1
by George & Merima

Hi Everyone!

Our month in the beautiful Maldives Islands has absolutely flown by. It seems like we just made landfall a few days ago, and now Male has dropped below the horizon in our wake. It's been a very relaxing and pleasant break to our journey across the Indian Ocean from Asia to the Middle East. We'll get onto a report about our time there when we get a moment, perhaps during this passage.

This morning at 0930 we picked up our anchor in the North Male Atoll for the last time and slipped out of the pass into the open ocean to the west. A sea turtle and two large manta rays were hanging out in the pass to bid us farewell. With very little in the way of wind, we motor-sailed for an hour or so till the breeze filled in to 8-9 knots and we were able to cut the engine and quietly glide along at 5-6 knots. With calm seas and low stress levels, the beginning of this passage has been a real joy.

Two good friends joined us in Male for the 1380-nautical-mile passage northwest to Salalah in Oman. Returning as Moo-Crew is Tim Prior, who was with us for the trip from Sydney, Australia to New Caledonia via Lord Howe Island way back in 2001. Tim is a marine biologist from wayyyyyy down under in Hobart, Tasmania. Thanks to his recent bride, Karin, for granting him a hall pass for the voyage. Kurt Boyle is a first timer on Moonshadow and this is his first bluewater passage, so we hope not to frighten him off of ocean sailing. Kurt, currently sporting a cool mohawk, is a businessman and minister from Auckland. He's one of the crazy Stewart 34 owner/sailors that I race with regularly during my summers in New Zealand, and happens to be a former classmate of Merima. He says he's already enjoying it out on the ocean with the volume of life turned down a bit. We also thank his wife Inger for releasing him from his work/family/home obligations for a couple of weeks so he could come way out here and play with us on the big blue highway.

From all the information that we've gathered, passages in the North Indian Ocean at this time of the year during the northeast monsoon are generally pretty benign and pleasant. We're on the trailing edge of most of the cruising fleet heading to the Mediterranean this season, and many of those before us have struggled with too little wind. I suppose our biggest challenges will be to sail enough miles to conserve our precious fuel, while keeping the speed up so we can meet travel schedules, and avoiding the myriad of drift lines/nets present in the Arabian Sea as we approach the Arabian Peninsula. Can we make it in ten days or less? We'll keep you posted daily on how we're doing.

As we close, the wind is up above ten knots from the northeast, just forward of the beam, and we're sailing comfortably in slight seas at just over eight knots, smack on the rhumb line to Salalah. Life is good!

Cheers, George, Merima, Kurt and Tim