In the last blog, I had given an overview of our passage to Sri Lanka. Here is the day by day description for those who want the detail!

Day 1, 20^th February 2018

We left Nai Han on the south west corner of Phuket just after 6am. The day was pleasant. Seas were flat and the breeze was gentle on the aft quarter. We averaged about 6 knots/hr for most of the day, but the wind started dying towards the end of the day and by 8.30pm I was desperate to turn on the motor as our boat speed had dropped right off and the sails were flapping. After about three hours the wind had returned in a different direction, and so we were sailing again. It was a pleasant starry night, with a waxing moon to light the way. We had quite a few fishing boats and ships, during the day but the further away from Thailand we got, the less traffic we saw.  During the night, we could see a fair amount of lightening in the southern sky, and by dawn this cell had moved around to the east behind us and was somewhat closer. It made for a very interesting sunrise, before seemingly disappearing. 135 nm down (with 3.4 hrs motoring), 918 to go!

Day 2, 21^st February 2018

Frustrating is the best way to describe the second day. The wind was light and from variable directions so it was difficult to set the sails. First one way, then the other, then back to the first. Part of the problem was that the wind (what there was of it) was directly behind us, but varying from the port to starboard aft quarters. Ideally we would have the headsail poled out (ie., held out to one side by attaching it to a pole at 90 degrees to the mast), but moving the pole from one side to the other is a bit of work, and means going forward which we try to minimise.  The other issue is that while there were no waves to speak of, there seemed to be a bit of swell, so we were going slowly and rocking and rolling – not very pleasant conditions. We gave up late in the afternoon and turned on the motor. This in turn gave us a fairly quiet and easy night. By 0630 on the morning of day 3, we had done 127 nm in the previous 24 hours (with 7.6 hrs motoring).

Day 3, 22^nd February 2018

We ended up motoring for a large proportion of day three. Although the winds were light again, the swell seemed to have settled and so the boat was more stable. Our morning was taken up with the catching, cleaning and filleting of a medium sized yellow fin tuna, so now we will have no shortage of fresh protein for the rest of the trip. Late afternoon found us up on the foredeck enjoying the shade and a little breeze. We had a squall which lasted about two hours and dumped quite heavy rain on us, so at least Paseafique has had a good fresh water wash. Unfortunately, the squall also brought swell and we were back to rocking and rolling again, so we both had a disturbed night’s sleep. We had received an e-mail from one of the boats already in Sri Lanka with a report on the weather, indicating, as our information did too, that there was more wind further north. So we headed north while motoring after the squall passed, hoping that we would find wind in the next few days. By 0600 on the morning of day 4, we had done 130 nm in the previous 24 hours (with 18 hours of motoring!).

Day 4, 23^rd February 2018

Early morning of day 4, we decided that we simply could not keep motoring so we put the sails up, and despite low wind strength, we were managing 2 knots while being knocked around a bit by the swell, making the sails flap. We decided that as there was no hurry to get to Sri Lanka, and we wanted to conserve fuel, we would persist. By late morning, this strategy was paying off with our boat speed having steadily increased to a respectable 5.8 knots. Conditions remained stable and we had a very comfortable day. We did 143 nm in the 24 hours to 0600 on Day 5, and without any motoring!

Day 5, 24^th February 2018

Day 5 was a day of classic down wind sailing. We had wind that was consistent in strength and direction all day, and barely had to touch the sails. There was a bit more swell so a bit more boat action but nothing uncomfortable. Like the previous day, there was very little traffic. We saw a couple of vessels on the AIS but they were a long way off.  During my watch of 7pm-12 midnight, there were a few surprises. At one stage, I was lying down in the cockpit (on the new comfy cushions) and suddenly noticed a bright light shining right into her face. As we had realised earlier in the day that we had become a bit complacent about checking for traffic as there had been so little, she jumped up in a bit of a panic thinking that it was a boat right next to us. Much to my relief it was only her old friend the moon which had popped out from behind a cloud. Shortly afterwards she heard a new noise (the boat is quite noisy when under way- creaking and groaning) – a flapping sound somewhere on the deck.  After a few minutes checking the sails and rigging with the torch, she located the source of this mystery noise- a small fish that had landed on the deck and was flapping away. Sometime later, there was a banging noise underneath the boat which we figured was a log in the water that we had run over- no damage to the boat though. So an eventful watch even though the sailing required very little attention. We did 172 nm in the 24 hours to 0600 on Day 6, and again no motoring.

Day 6, 25^th February 2018

Day 6 was a bit of a grey day – cloudy and rainy. The wind was still consistent so we sailed all day, but had to reduce sail to slow the boat down (goes so against the grain!) to time our arrival at Trincomalee for daylight hours. Larger swell again today. We saw our first Sri Lankan fishing boat today and it behaved very much like other cruisers had told us – it turned and headed our way with the crew on deck one of whom was madly waving to us with what appeared to be a T shirt. Phil was on deck and let out some sail to increase our boat speed away from them. They got the message that we were not interested in having them come closer. Apparently they tend to rush up to the side asking for cigarettes, drinks, etc. I haven’t been able to get a sailmail connection for about three days now. We hope that everyone has remembered that no news is good news. As we have heard that sailmail is fickle further south in the Indian Ocean, we plan to get the sat phone hooked up while we are in Sri Lanka, but if we had known that sailmail would be so hopeless for this part of our crossing, we would have been better off not renewing the subscription this year (UD$250) and spending that on sat phone data. There have been a lot of squalls around and lightening for the last few days, so it could be something about the atmospheric conditions that prevented us from getting a HF connection. There was a lot of lightening around us overnight with squalls all around, but none of these actually hit us. We did 165 nm in the 24 hours to 0600 on the morning of Day 7, with no motoring (except to charge the battery as it has been very cloudy).

Day 7, 26^th February 2018

We were very pleased to see this day dawn, even though it was very overcast. Given the expected wind conditions, and remaining distance, our instruments were telling us that we should arrive in Trincomalee sometime during the night or the early the next morning. We were very much looking forward to the passage being over and to being in Sri Lanka. The grind of short sleeps, feeling like we were continually either going to sleep or waking up, was starting to get to us. There was the same uncomfortable swell as yesterday, and we had some rain. We started seeing shipping and more fishing boats. By 8pm in the evening, we only had about 40 nm to go. The weather gods were not going to give us an easy run for the last part of our journey. One of those squalls finally caught up with us, and Paseafique (and us!) got another fresh water wash, and it was quite windy for a period. The remainder of the night was miserable. Our sleeping patterns got messed up and so both of us had less than our normal quota of sleep. The rain continued and following the squall, there were quite a number of wind shifts. Then in the early hours of the morning, we ran over what appeared to be some sort of cable with a white buoy attached. There were two of these objects about 3 minutes apart. Phil saw them come out the back of the boat, and so we hoped that none of it had got caught up in our new prop.  I was very glad that Phil was up to deal with it all. (Phil dived on the boat when we got to Trincomalee and found no damage other than some scraped anti-foul). (Finally, the wind settled back down and became consistent again, so Phil was able to get a couple of hours sleep. We did 166nm in the 24 hours to 0600 on the morning of Day 8.

Day 8, 27^th February 2018

By 8.30am (7 days, 1.75 hours after we left Phuket) we were at the Trincomalee Harbour entrance and so contacted harbour control – actually I think they contacted us first. Harbour control told us that the agent we had organised was not in Trincomalee and so there was some confusion for a while until it became clear we needed to appoint another agent. We found out later that our agent had not notified harbour control of our impending arrival as they were waiting for us to confirm our arrival date. Since I had been having difficulty with sailmail I couldn’t contact him. In any case, GAC Shipping came to the rescue agreeing to act for us, and soon we were on our way into the harbour and dropping anchor. We were here in Sri Lanka!

Soon after we dropped anchor, we were asked to move the boat over to the pier for the clearing in process. Sandeep from GAC Shipping was fantastic and very helpful. The harbour medical officer visited us and gave us the health clearance, Sandeep completed the customs and immigration forms and took Philip into immigration to get our passports stamped. All of these authorities are located right at the pier so it was all quite efficient. Once cleared in, it was back out into the bay to drop anchor again, and have a much needed afternoon siesta on a very quiet and still boat.