14/07/2018
The not so epic crossing.
After been left stranded in the most remote part of the Maldives, 3 nights of consecutive, fairly fierce storms, had me entangled on 3 different reefs resulting in conciderable damage to the mini keels and rudders.
Together with the fact that I only had one prop, one fell off somehow, I felt my journey had come to an end.
With a couple of days without storms I was able to re access and establish that the Vamonos was still sea worthy but a little bruised.
My sprits rose a little more when Tom came to the rescue and bought a new prop from Aus, but we still had to install it.
Initially a tune boat slip yard agreed to haul us out so we could do the repairs but them reneged on the offer without an explanation. Tom had to return home and I was left to find crew for my next leg which at the time I thought might be home or back to Male.
2 weeks passed and I could not secure any crew, although 2 had said they were coming only to go silent on me.
I had got to a stage where I just wanted out of the place, no crew, no dinghy and no bloody BEER.
So after studying the weather I felt the journey to the Seychelles was the safest and most reasonable option, all 1100 nm of it. Gulp!
There was a good yard to haul out, pleasant surroundings and surely single handed sailing can’t be that hard?
So decision was made and the 19th was departure day.
Things didn’t start well, I was anchored in 40mtrs of water and the winch was playing up, it took one hour much and effort to raise the buggar off the bottom. I headed for the bottom opening of the Gan atoll and I was greeted with 3 mtr seas and 25 knot winds straight on the nose, the opening was only 7 mts deep so made for an interesting start.
I took a couple of waves over the front and side before I could head west, on course for the Seychelles, and put the waves and wind on my beam.
Things settled by mid afternoon so much so that I was motor sailing into the first night.
I set up a comfortable bed in the cockpit so I could keep an eye on the instruments and the sea during the night and also get some much needed sleep. I encounter only one vessel during that first night with it passing about 1 mile to my port, pretty close given I was in the middle of nowhere.
2 more nights and 2 more boats not so close though, after that not a soul for 7 days and nights.
The wind and waves where steady and predictable making for quite pleasant sailing, the moon was waxing so the nights were very bright.
Unfortunately not a fairytale ending, as I approached the Seychelles the underwater plateau the the Islands rise from made the conditions very lumpy and unpleasant. I got very little sleep on the last night as I approached the main Island and arrived at about 11.00 am very pleased to drop the anchor and wait for the formalities of clearance.
No sooner was that complete when I got a call over the radio from long term fellow sailor, Al on Kiwi Dream.
He had 4 cases of Bintang waiting in his dinghy for immediate delivery. I had pre ordered them for my stop in Chagos, which unfortunately I had to skip.
Within no time he had pulled up in his dinghy with COLD BEER and also a hand to find a mooring in Victory harbour.
WOW I made it. It was 10 days since I dragged that bloody anchor off the bottom of the Maldives and experienced for the first time what it is like to singlehand a sailing boat across the vastness of the Indian Ocean, certainly one for the book.
