Bay of Bengal and North Indian Ocean Crossing

The passage started out fine.  The seas in the North Malacca strait were glassy with less than 5 knots of wind.  We trolled a lure, did homeschool for the first two days and all was well.  It was so calm that we did not have the stabilizers on and the boat smoothly powered through the seas. 

Day 3 dawned clear and we got a daybreak hit on the fishing rod.  We slowed her down and Dad reeled in a 3 foot long Mahi Mahi.  After boating the fish and removing the hook, Dad sped back up and flipped on the stabilizers while Mom cleaned the fish.  The roll stabilizers that had worked fine in Langkowi decided to stop working.  No problem said the Captain.  Seas were still relatively calm and the forecast was for some rain but light winds.

The GRIB weather files lied.  Winds steady picked up and rather than the variable directions predicted, they were all from the SW, W, or NW direction…right on our nose!  We started pitching into the seas which began to grow day by day as the winds strengthened.  We saw steady winds for most of the next  9 days around 18 to 25 knots and saw gusts in squalls go to 35 to 40 knots.  The seas were mostly from the SW, but were variable enough to give us a bad rolling motion as well as the pitching.  On 3 days in a row, we had rain squalls every two hours.  We would race around and close hatches on our hot boat and swelter while the heavens dumped rain and lightning crashed all around.  Then the rain would stop and we would open up the boat and let the 87 degree air try to cool the boat.

We saw furniture walking across the boat until we tied it down.  A fiberglass dock box on the bow that was full of lines, broke loose from six deck bolts and wedged against some fenders and the deck.  Thankfully we did not do any fiberglass damage and no lines were lost, but we did not attempt to go forward during the heavy seas.  Cooking was near impossible, so we had peanut butter sandwiches on more than one day.  Thankfully we all had our sea legs and did not get seasick, but even reading was not easy to do for long periods.

After 12 days, we motored into the calm waters of the Gan harbor at about noon. We were the only cruising boat in the harbor and although the harbor was a little small with several local boats on moorings, we dropped the hook.  We raised the yellow quarantine flag and hailed the officials to come check us into the Maldives.

The check in went relatively easy but we found out that new $66 fees (both in and out for $132) were now imposed.  We were happy to rest and decided to wait until tomorrow to let our boat cool down before venturing ashore.

Tom