Stories of Wilson, Gulliver and our travels

We are currently making our way across the big blue Indian Ocean to Thailand: presently half-way between Sri Lanka and Sumatra, enjoying wonderful (read: pleasant in strength and favourable in direction) winds and a current in our favour to enable brisk headway in the right direction. This history did have a little blip in it, where the winds had the right strength but pushed us south of our intended route necessitating some time to make our way back on a different tack. Then again, ahead will undoubtedly be periods of pitiful winds and uncomfortable seas.

Perspective on this: we will be content if we end up making headway at an average speed of about 5 knots… 5 nautical miles per hour. This means that we will traverse the 1500nm (just less than 3000km) from Maldives to Thailand at about the same speed that the “runner” of the family used to jog happily, namely 9km/h. Gives a lot of time to think about this turtle impersonation (im-animalisation??) we are doing, carrying our house around.

Brian, a nephew, is on board with us. Entry into any country requires you to be signed in by the skipper as crew or passenger and we can genuinely say that as crew he is wonderful (learning the sailing ropes at speed; willing, able and showing initiative in the galley; assisting with watches) and as passenger he would have cause to complain! He sacrificed leave and some pay to come and cook, clean, work… but thankfully he seems to be happy and feels that the incidental experiences (sailing across a great stretch of ocean, observing wonderful night skies, catching food, being surrounded by dolphins and …. learning the ropes) are well worth the sacrifices!

We had another passenger recently (definitely not crew). When we found ourselves underwater sawing off our rudder tops after our grounding, we discovered a 5cm long grey-brown fish fiercely protecting the starboard sail drive, which is near to the rudder. At every one of our forays into his territory he would dash out courageously and raise his dorsal fin at us menacingly, before retreating to his space under the hull having communicated his intentions. Well, he travelled with us, hence was given the name Gulliver (inspired suggestion by Geoff). For the next week he went where we went, travelling happily to several new venues and reefs… before he left us. We have no idea when or where he hopped on for the ride (Chagos? Addu Atoll? or perhaps we collided with his home reef….?) and neither do we know when he left us. However, when we returned close to where we had first discovered him we jumped in to give him our customary greeting and… he was gone. We like to believe he found a welcoming new home, as opposed to the alternative theory that he became part of the food chain. We identified him as a Drummer (Kyphosus Bigibbus…. big name for a small fish); these are apparently known to follow ships and are therefore called “rudderfish”… particularly apt in our situation!

Other things are also known to leave us summarily. Things like pegs, buckets, back-scrubbers, soap … sometimes go AWOL (the latter two during our sea-bath series). Well, when something hops off the boat there is an instant cry of “WILSON!” (remember Tom Hanks’ friend in Castaway who/which went missing?) and great efforts must be made to rescue the item (stopping short of making a Wilson of yourself when the boat is underway…).

Other things are tossed off the boat in fits of fury. Particularly eggs bought in the Maldives… which are imported from India and frequently to be found stored in the sun on the pavement patch outside a tiny messy shop. After several offensive experiences with grey, oozing specimens, the permanent crew of Ketoro tossed a dozen into the sea at the Hulhumale anchorage. Ketoro’s skipper, ever on the look-out for goods to scavenge and returning to the boat in the dinghy, was delighted to see potential scavenger-subjects floating past the dinghy. Fortunately he did NOT return gallantly with these “Wilsons”, even though they were the ones that did not explode on hitting the water…. Or he may have had egg on his face!

Skipper Rolf has, on this current passage, been close to tossing things overboard: little items like the generator, water-maker and one of the motors (or selected non-functioning parts of those machines). Two days ago all three malfunctioned simultaneously; a miserable experience on land, even less joyous when so far away from anything and pretty much dependant on these items. The first two have been repaired by our on-board mechanic; the last has a clearly dud regulator… Thank heavens this travelling house of ours is a catamaran: 2 motors and space for a generator!

So we journey with our house on our back to Thailand; the crew asked the skipper why we chose to be a turtle in our mode, rather than a hermit crab: perhaps it would be easier to simply take/borrow different houses at different lands and not do the transport ourselves? His response had to do with the strength and resourcefulness of turtles… but he noted that endless failing machinery could change his mindset.