3-1-01 More boats have arrived and now there are 5 of us yachties anchored in Addu. Life as usual on Addu atoll: swimming, fishing, walking and working on the engine. Our poor engine is still experiencing problems, but luckily it's nothing too serious and we've been able to fix everything so far, but running out of a couple spare parts. Our water pump is still acting up and we are down to our last spare impeller. The water pump is critical because it pulls in sea water to cool the engine and keep it from over heating. No such luck finding impellers here on the atoll. So we emailed a note to Pat's Dad and he contacted the engine dealer for us. They already shipped some spare parts to us via DHL (Boston to Maldives). Should be here within a week or so, it's amazing that we can get parts so quickly in a such a remote place. We will track their progress through the DHL website at the internet cafe. We can see exactly where they are and when they'll arrive, thanks to technology and sound logistics. Once we get our spares, we'll be off to Chagos and really out of touch. Addu atoll is our last "out post" where we can get anything. Glad the engine decided to act up now. The engine isn't crucial for moving the boat as long as we have wind, we are a SAIL boat. But it is very important for other reasons: maneuvering around reefs, charging our batteries so we have power for water-maker, lights, computer, GPS, HF radio, radar, etc and also we have an engine-driven refrigerator. And cool drinks rank right up there with safety and survival equipment! We'll let you know how we make out with getting our parts. Colleen's birthday is only a couple days away. Pat is planning to make a banana cake with passion fruit icing. What a guy!
3-3-01 Happy Birthday to Colleen! What a beautiful place to spend a birthday. We had quite a nice day today, just relaxing - no work, except for Pat baking the cake. We ate a late afternoon meal in the nearby cafe with some locals. We had grilled tuna, curry pockets, and sweet coconut bread. Some young local men (20ish) had coffee with us, wishing Colleen "congratulations" and "happy birthday". They shared their betel nuts and leaves with us, something new for us to try. You take a small piece of the leaf, put some sliced nuts in it, then powdered lime, roll it up and pop it in your mouth. Chew on it for awhile. The Maldivians eat it as a snack. We've learned that chewing betel nut is a statement of adulthood, and the three parts that make up the mix have a symbolic meaning. The green leaf represents the male, the nut the female and the lime is symbolic of sperm. Betel nut is not that pleasing, guess you have to acquire a taste for it. It also numbs your mouth and throat a bit, while turning your tongue and teeth all red! We much prefer popcorn for snacking. But it was nice of them to share it with us and fun to try something new, even though they laughed at our reaction. We then had the other yachties over for cake and coffee after dinner. Twelve of us squeezed into SIMMER's cockpit - a fun time, and Pat's cake was a yummy success. The other yachties here are Kiwi, Dutch and American. They brought gifts of dried mango and papaya, an aloe vera plant, and a local sweet called bandi. It is boiled sweet coconut sugar rolled up in banana leaves. Haven't tried it yet, another new local dish. We're sure it'll be better than betel nut. Well, it's late and time for sleep, Colleen is a year older and requires a bit more sleep now! (P.S. Our spare parts are halfway here - they're in Singapore .... yippee.)
3-6-01 Our spare parts are in Male, Maldives and were supposed to arrive in Addu yesterday, just 6 days from ordering them from the States. Unfortunately a week long Muslim holiday has interfered and the government offices (post office) are closed down for an entire week. So the parts will not be posted from Male to Addu until the 11th. We are ready to go, after our two week stay, so we will clear out and ask our friends on WINGS of TIME to pick up our parts and bring them to Chagos. (They are about a week from arriving in Addu.) We've enjoyed our stay in Addu, the locals have been very gracious - giving us water from their wells, bananas from their gardens, etc. One day we even had a cement truck pull over and give us a lift when we were carrying our diesel jugs from the filling station. The children have also been entertaining - they love to practice English with us. They learn English in school but don't have much opportunity to use it, except with us tourists. So they are often running down the street calling out "Hello", "How are you?" when we walk around the villages. A couple of small boys we met on the beach collected shells for Colleen when they realized she was picking them up off the beach. Of course, they wanted their picture taken. Don't think we've met one camera-shy child in all our travels and they are fun to photograph. The lifestyle here is very relaxed and stress free. Not much to do for the locals though, no movie theatres, bowling alleys or clubs - so they meet in the local cafes and drink tea, coffee and chew betel nut. As Sunni Muslims, they are forbidden alcohol. But they seem to be content with the lifestyle of raising a family, fishing and tourism. The northern Maldives (around the capital of Male) have numerous resorts on tiny islands, away from the local population. That's where most of the Maldivian men are employed. Our 2 weeks are up soon, so we'll shove off to Chagos. It's a 285 mile sail to the first atoll of Peros Banhos in Chagos. Three of the boats left today and we'll be right behind them. Bye for now. Next update will be from the other side of the Indian Ocean - in July/August timeframe. Until then, we'll just update our position report via the HF radio.
3-13-01 We left Addu (without our spare parts) on March 9th and arrived here in Peros Banhos, Chagos four days later on March 13th, position Lat 05°14.5'S/Lon 71°50'E . It was slow trip with very little wind and we experienced yet more engine hiccups. Luckily it was a smooth sea with a big full moon at night, so we didn't mind the slow speed. Out of the 96 hours it took us to get here: 58 hrs motoring with no wind, 15 hrs drifting with current, and only 23 hrs of actual sailing with a little breeze. We motored at a very low rpm, trying to conserve diesel. We arrived at Peros Banhos at night, too late to enter through the pass of the reef-rimmed atoll, so we stayed 10 miles off and shut down the engine, dropped the sails, and just sat for about 8 hrs til daylight. It was a tranquil night with a huge moon and flat calm seas so we got comfy in the cockpit and watched a movie (VCD) on our laptop - "Pay it Forward". It was a good movie and helped pass the time a bit. Then we both slept for a few hours til daybreak, nothing to worry about out here - no shipping lanes and we hadn't seen a single vessel in 4 days. Peros Banhos is a magical place. The bird and sea life is nothing like we've ever seen before. The vivid blues and greens of the scenery is intoxicating. There are nesting gannets, boobies and terns on the little islands and the green palms and vegetation are filled with with birds. The islands are picture postcards with beautiful sandy beaches and swaying palms. We'll let you know how the underwater scenery is, we're getting ready to jump in for a snorkel.
3-17-01 Happy St. Paddy's Day, hope all your Irish eyes are smiling today. Colleen baked some soda bread for the occasion. We've been really lazy since we arrived - no engine work yet. We've been watching the surf break across the reef, snorkeling, beach combing, watching sea turtles, fish, dolphin and soaring birds above the wafting palms. Jealous, hey? You should be. What a life, and we'll be doing it for the next 2 months or so. The shallow water corals aren't as pretty as we expected, but lots of it. We found out that most of the coral in Chagos, Maldives and Seychelles died off as a result of El Niņo, back in 1998, when the sea temperature rose a few degrees and the surface (shallow water) coral couldn't survive. But it is a beautiful place. Can't wait to upload some pictures onto the website so you can see what we're seeing. First we want to fill you in with the unique and sad history of the Chagos Archipelago. Chagos is a group of 4 major atolls in the middle of the Indian Ocean and until 1776, it was truly uninhabited. Then two Frenchmen brought lepers from Mauritius Island and it became a leper colony until 1839. The French started a copra business, exporting coconut oil which steadily grew. Then England took Chagos from France after Napoleon's defeat and at the beginning of the 20th century, the Chagosian population of 1,000 had formed a distinct culture. The locals are called Ilois and their language a type of French Creole. Not much changed in Chagos until 1965 when Mauritius gained independence from the British, but Chagos remained part of the British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT). Then, the United States proposed a 50-year lease for Diego Garcia (the southern most atoll in the group) so that they could build a strategic naval base there. As part of the lease, the US demanded that all inhabitants be removed from the entire archipelago. So in 1966, the deal was signed and over the next five years the Brits started relocating the Ilois through a series of dirty tricks. They offered the Ilois paid trips to Mauritius and then did not allow them to return. They bought the island's only employer and closed down the business. In 1971, the first US troops arrived in Diego Garcia. Diego Gracia was the staging area during the 1991 Gulf War and more recently other hotspots within the Middle East. In 1975 the British government did pay the Chagos islanders a cash settlement of $4 million English pounds. We understand that recently the Ilois have won a world court case, against the British government, and the outcome is that the Brits must allow the Chagos islanders to return to their homeland with an additional cash settlement to start up their own country. The Brits are currently performing a feasibility study. Not sure if the court decision will be appealed or what additional legal actions might take place, especially since the US has the lease until the year 2016. But it is certainly a sad story for the Ilois who had lived on the atolls for 5 generations. We haven't seen any British patrol vessels yet, but they do come up from Diego Garcia to Peros Banhos and Saloman atolls (100 miles north of DG) to collect the $80 US fee for yachts to stay here. We actually feel guilty that we are allowed to come here, but the Ilois are not. What a sad result of world politics.
P.S. We received our spare parts from our friends on Yacht INVICTUS. The parts came into Addu 2 days after we left, (we knew the parts wouldn't come until we left) so INVICTUS picked them up and sailed to Peros Banhos with them. Now we've rebuilt our spare water pump with the parts. Thanks Mom and Dad - our logistical lifeline! One less thing to worry about on the engine.
