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March 22, 2005--THIRD PASSAGE TO ADDU
by Al & Beth Liggett


	Addu small boat basin.

We arrived in Addu, Maldives, in the late afternoon of February 28. In fact, it was so late that it was hardly afternoon anymore, more like evening. It was almost dark--almost, but not quite. A good thing we had been in and out of the small boat basin on two prior visits, and that another yachtie had given us an update on the markers for the little channel. As it was, a dinghy from one of the yachts anchored inside came out to greet us with an offer of assistance. Not necessary in this case, but appreciated nonetheless.

If you haven't already looked it up, Addu is the last atoll of the whole string of Maldive Islands. And I guess after the Tsunami, everyone now knows where the Maldives are. Addu is just south of the Equator--in fact, our Latitude is 00 degrees, 41 minutes South. We didn't see that great dividing line as we crossed the Equator; we didn't even feel the speed bump!

We lost the wind the night before and turned on the engine. We thought that if the wind came back in the morning we would just sail slowly all through the day and hang off the island during the night.

Even though we have been here before, we wouldn't have wanted to chance going through the reef passes in the dark. But no wind was forthcoming in the am, so we increased the engine revs a bit and picked up a little more speed. That, plus the free miles that the current was giving us, was just enough to give us the edge over the sun (total net gain from current--140 mi.).

The passage was a little slow--13 days, 8 hours (1700 miles)--with light winds predominating. On the other hand, we were able to sail quite well. We were surprised, as we are quite loaded down with fuel, water and stores for Chagos. We don't mind slow sailing as long as the sails aren't flapping and flogging around. Then it's engine time. We'd rather buy diesel than a new mainsail!

It didn't help that the first time we put up the cruising spinnaker--our most useful light air sail--it split right across one of the lower panels. We did a patch with special tape, but that pulled out too. Too bad--that was a sail we could have really used in those light airs. Fixing it is at the top of the "TO DO" list.

A few events from this uneventful passage:


Yellow fin tuna.

FISH. Caught a whopper of a yellow fin tuna, so big that Al had trouble trying to hoist it aboard, and while that was going on, the tuna managed to spit the lure. Maybe that was a good thing--it would have taken the rest of the day just to clean that huge fish!
Next day, another escapee fish--what, we don't know, but it bent the hook out at a 90 degree angle! What we did bring aboard was a nice sized mahi-mahi. We also caught 2 other mahi-mahis, but so small that we released them so they could get on with the business of growing up!

DEBRIS. Quite a topic of conversation for all of us heading west in the paths of the tsunami destruction. Quite a few boats staying more north reported large patches of floating stuff, big logs and trees, etc. We saw just the normal variety of Styrofoam and other plastics, coconuts and branches, nothing dangerous.

SHIPS. They were all just where they were supposed to be--between 6 deg 15 and 5 deg 30 North. We crossed this band as close to perpendicular as sailing would allow. Had no confrontations. Saw a couple of long-line fishing boats--or maybe the same one, twice?
But the real worry were the 2 small fish boats that altered course and headed straight at us. I'm sure they just wanted cigarettes, but we didn't want them anywhere near our new topsides. Period. We were sailing about 4.5 knots; turned on the engine and gave her plenty of revs and speeded up to 6.5 knots. This was enough speed that they could not catch us. After about a half hour, they turned around and continued on their way. Whew.

WEATHER. There wasn't any. We have before never had a 2-weeks passage in the tropics, especially this close to the Equator, without squalls and thunderstorms. I've already noted the light wind conditions. Our wind instrument has a "highest gust captured" feature; it was 21 knots. How and when that happened I couldn't tell you. There was one rain shower 2 nights before our arrival--a rinse cycle to get the salt washed away! We are now a bit worried about the general lack of rain, as we depend on that source for our drinking water.

So there we are. Third time across and anchored at Addu. We will stay here about a week. We are hoping for a change from these NE winds to the more normal NW at this time of year. Better direction for sailing to Chagos as well as for the anchorages in Peros Banhos that we like.