SetSail.com - the serious cruising sailor's website

	CRUISING ESSENTIALS:
	Web-Only Offers
	Voyager DVD Set
	Navigator's Library
	Into the Light
	Mariners Weather HB
	Offshore Cruising Encyc
	Practical Seamanship
	Sail Care & Repair
	Surviving the Storm
	Nav/Wx Software
	Plus other great videos, CDs, & books

	Order Online
	Money-Back Guarantee
	Privacy Policy

click on a book
for more info

April 11, 2005--ARRIVAL IN CHAGOS
by Al & Beth Liggett

Hello to All,

We're here - Peros Banhos atoll in Chagos. Our third visit to Chagos. Third time lucky? Or unlucky...Hard to tell really, but at this point, paradise it ain't.

We spent 2 weeks in Addu. We had all the needed projects taken care of, fuel aboard, laundry done, a few more provisions, etc, within 5 days. We stayed to celebrate our 40th wedding anniversary on the 6th of March. Five other yachts in port and a small new restaurant willing to accommodate our party frivolity (and our containers of non-halal liquids) - music, dancing, good food - at least what the yachties brought with them. A good time had by all!

The winds were still blowing from the NE - OK for sailing, but the anchorages in Peros would have been uncomfortable, so we waited. Then the winds went to nothing, and we waited. Hopeful that the winds would come back and switch NW (the usual direction) by the weekend, we went ahead and cleared out - and we waited. But by Monday (14th) we decided, what the heck, it's just 300 miles, if we have to motor all the way, so be it. We left.

Passage not great as we passed through the ITCZ. So a little motoring, winds all over the place, lots of pods of dark black trouble right on the horizon we were heading for, that kind of thing. We sailed the majority of the way, but motor sailed the last 10 hours to keep up speed to get in the pass by dark. Which of course didn't happen; we got hit with 25-30K from the SW - our exact heading! Fell off, caught a nice rainbow runner, the winds eased. But it was dark, no moon, when we got through the pass. We had good waypoints from previous trips, and starlight silhouetting the islands and highlighting surf on the reefs. Anchor down at 9pm - again with help from a previous waypoint - at Ile Diamante.

So what's the problem? Make that plural...problems.

Well, for the first 3 days we didn't even get off the boat:

Day 1 - Grey, rain, squalls. No trolling, no shore exploring, no snorkeling.

Day 2 - As above, plus uncomfortable rolling.

Moved to Ile Mapou, where for the first time in 28 years of driving and anchoring SUNFLOWER, the dinghy painter went under the boat, caught the prop, sliced the line, and there went the dinghy! Never saw Al swim so fast...

Then, discovered that the frig/freezer had STOPPED working. Dug out gas sniffer, gauges, freon tank, new dryer; Al tore apart 2 supermarket lockers to get at valves, compressor, condenser, etc. NO luck fixing the system, and couldn't find the problem. I got out my canning jars, and contemplated Paradise with warm beers...

Day 3 - Repeat of weather above and no joy with the frig again.

Moved to Ile de Coin so I can transfer some frig/freezer food to other yachts - problem being, they too have full frig/freezers! In addition, my potatoes are going bad, the onions suspect, and my Thai eggs a real disappointment.

No grace period for us this time with our check in either: the Pacific Marlin shows up today with BIOT officials: $100 for 3 months, and if you change atolls, ante up another $100. They did, however, take a parcel of my frozen food to put in their freezer; they'll be back in about 3 weeks or so.

Then some Good Fairy waved her magic wand...The sun came out, the wind slacked to comfortable, the waters glistened with amazing azure colors once more. Best of all - the frig started working again!! Why? Dunno; How? Dunno. What was wrong? Dunno. We run it with fingers crossed for a few days, then collect the disbursements of our food from others. And so far...all is OK.

An easy leap back into play mode after that: Fishing - both trolling and bottom fishing, swimming and snorkeling, beachcombing, sunset Happy Hours with friends. Birds swooping and diving on the shoals of silvery minnows, turtles sedately swimming past and giving you the eye, porpoise leaping and rolling through the fleet, manta rays flying gracefully under the dinghy - our ongoing local entertainment.

But it was only a brief respite. My daily notes for March 24th are full of pouting sad faces and a litany of new problems:

Rolled badly all night at the Souer Islands!
Got my frozen food back from TULUM's freezer - mostly thawed or just barely frosty.
Lost the Tom Mack lure! Our favorite lure...the killer lure...
Moved to Ile Mapou and still rolling!
Al sees a bolt missing on one of the engine brackets!
Caught a fish with a new lure. (Ptarmigan from you!) When the fish landed in the dinghy one of the treble hooks embedded itself into Al's toe!
Incredible scene of toe attached to lure attached to snapper! I got the fish off the hook but wasn't strong enough to clip the shank and had to ask for help. Yachtie "doctors" (TULUM and SIDEREAL TIME) arrived with appropriate tool kits and were able to cut the hook away, push the embedded part through Al's toe and get it out. Beers all around and the toe has recovered nicely.

Easter Sunday was our last great day. We joined TULUM and NEMIR at the gap between the Souer islands. Barbeque potluck on the beach to which we contributed 4 big fish steaks cut from a just-caught 22 lb wahoo! And how's this for a fish story: we had bemoaned the loss of our beloved Tom Mack lure before we left. Next day Ryan was fishing and got a large grouper; inside the grouper was a small snapper; inside the snapper was our lure - complete with wire leader! He gave it back to us!

Last Monday the weather went from not very nice, to bad, to worse, to just plain awful. Between the feeder bands of a tropical circulation south of us, and the ITCZ dropping down from the north, we got squeezed by some very ugly weather. We have not been off the boat in 6 days. The awnings have been down; the dinghy came aboard after it filled with water - and not an easy task to bail in 35K of wind. Al figures water was blowing back in about as fast as he could bucket it out! Everything smells dank and musty. At least we have a lot of fish in the freezer - and it works!

We have hung on securely in our anchorage, but others at Ile de Coin went slipping around - AD ASTRA. Nobody got much sleep for 2 nights running with frequent squalls in the 40-50K range. We had one squall with a gust of 59, another squall pushed the needle to 60! We moved from the Souer Islands to the south end of Ile Pierre when it looked like the winds were shifting more to the north, and are sitting very comfortable. The others at Ile de Coin didn't, and I can't imagine what their bouncy life aboard has been like. Or rather - I can imagine. What I can't understand is why they didn't move to much more sheltered anchorages.

Anyway, here we sit. The weather gurus in the fleet are predicting it will all slack off starting tomorrow. Are we having fun yet? Only a little. Is Paradise returning? We hope so and are MORE than ready! At least you know we are here, we are OK, we've plenty of fish and the water tanks are full!

Big Loves to you All, Al and Beth

p.s. There are 14 boats over in Salomon. There are about 6 more boats coming from the Maldives (known). There are 15 boats in Peros: 5 French, 1 Italian, 3 Yanks, 4 from assorted lands Down Under, 1 South African, and one undetermined yacht with a Hermit nobody ever sees.

highlights page