Cocos Keeling

Hi Everyone, We have some Internet access but unfortunately everyone is offline on Skype today! We are all well here and have just watched the Sydney Swans win the grand final so we are happy about that. The news here is that one of the ARC yachts was lost on the way from Bali to Cocos Keeling. Apparently they hit something in the night which took their rudder off. They spent 7 hours trying to stop the water but eventually they sank. By then there were two other yachts alongside and they took them off. There is also another refugee boat here. They other yachts were supposed to take their laundry in to the laundromat today but were told theat they are too busy doing the washing for the refugees from the new boat! Arti & Dimitri

Cocos Keeling

Hi all, 

Well we made it safely to Cocos. An amazing place, an unexpected paradise in the middle of the Indian. Home island has an Australian Malay population, in the past working at copra production, but now fully supported by the CES, and all living well on the dole! Satellite TV, Ipods, Mopeds & electric buggies ( although you can walk the length of the island in 30 min!) They all seem happy, all have power boats, but don’t grow anything so fresh salad, fruit & vegies are not available. West Island has incredible infrastructure—Fuel depot, water pumped from ground, Many large satellite dishes, a large airstrip, & very relaxed approach to life eg opening hours of the dive shop are 9am to 10.30am only! Fuel only can be bought 8am to 9.30am, mon to fri. Sri Lankan asylum seeker boat(very pretty, but not seaworthy at all, now destroyed by quarantine), & the passengers are in a large compound & were playing cricket. There are two cafe type restaurants, internet, some bungalows to rent, but not much.

The ARC round the world is here. They lost a boat coming from Bali—it hit something at night, lost it rudder and took water, sinking, but all aboard were rescued by 2 other nearby yachts.

We had an incredible snorkele, Arti SWAM WITH A LOT OF REEF SHARKS and wasn't scared at all! (no one has ever been  taken here). The fish are very large, and so many types! Amazing We saw lots of giant clams too.

We have now refuelled and nearly replenished water, so may leave on Sunday afternoon. Tomorrow we go to West island to watch the AFL final- I am pleased the Sydney Swans are in it- should be fun.

 

Love  Dimitri & Arti

Clearing Australian Customs in Cocos!

At Sea - On route to Cocos Keeling

Hi All,

 

It is 2.45am (Cocos time) and I am on watch, but it is so beautiful out here that I thought I would write and try to explain it. 

 

It is warm, with a light breeze and small swell.  There is a beautiful canopy of stars.  We are sailing directly towards the full moon, so we have a silver highway that we are riding along.  As the moon is full, there is a soft glow and you can see all the way to the horizon all around.  There is also luminescence in the water so as we stir it up as we go along, there are these brief sparks of light in the water around us.

 

We are now 20nm from Cocos Keeling Islands so we should be there at first light.  I will write from there and tell you about it.

 

Lots of love

 Arti

At Sea - On route to Cocos Keeling

We are now getting pretty excited, with our arrival at Cocos Keeling getting so close.  Today we will do a passage plan as we have no electronic charts for Cocos.  We will have to use old fashioned paper charts for a change.  We have slowed the boat so that we arrive in the light, just after dawn as there is a lot of coral around.  It will be interesting to see the place – Joshua Slocum stopped there and thought it the most beautiful paradise on earth.  It is humbling, following in his footsteps. Two of the islands are inhabited, Home Island has a population of 500 Malays, whose ancestors were taken there to work palm and copra plantations. West Island is where the expats.

We will be able to get fuel and water but we will have to transport it all by dinghy.  Dimitri and John have been allocated this task while I will do the supervising!  We are hoping there will be a boat chandler so that we can replace our red/green light fitting that is now on the bottom of the Indian Ocean.  There is a ferry once a day between Home and West Islands.  We have to anchor off Discovery Island and putt-putt our dinghy to Home Island.  The snorkelling off Discovery Island is supposed to be superb so I may venture into the water.  I will wait to see if anyone else gets eaten first – and I will wear our electric shark repellent!

I will write again and tell you  more about the place when we have checked it out.

 

Love to all

 

Arti and Dimitri

At Sea - On route to Cocos Keeling

Hello Guys,

 I hope you are all well.  So far, we are having a great trip.  No mishaps and we are slowly instituting a lot of procedures to protect our equipment, so that we do not have any damage occurring – there are no yacht chandlers and shipwrights in the middle of the Indian Ocean!

 For the first week, we had little wind.  We did a lot of motoring, motor sailing and flying our beautiful big red gennaker.  This week the wind has come up.  We are very happy about this and are sailing along at around 8kn,  However, as always, together with the wind we have a fairly large swell (approx 4m), so life has become a little more difficult, doing everything at a   40 deg. angle – one has to time the opening of a cupboard so that everything doesn’t spill onto the floor as the boat leans.

During our first week, we caught quite a few fish – one Bonito, 3 Tuna and a Mahi Mahi (Dorado, Dolphin fish).  Eating fresh fish, directly out of the sea is a great experience, unlike any fish we get in the shops.  Fortunately we have John to do the preparation as neither Dimitri nor I would be game to. Today we caught a very large Mahi Mahi and it has made two very large fillets, so again, we will eat fish tonight. Tell the boys that we have taken photos of all the fish and will send them some from Mauritius if we have internet there.  We have also seen quite a few flying fish, more and more the further we go into the Indian Ocean.  Suddenly there will be a burst of spray nearby and a school of them will burst from the sea and fly away from the boat. Most mornings we find a few on our deck that have landed there in the night, I guess because they cannot see us at night.

 We are seeing very few ships, although yesterday we saw an Indonesian fishing boat in the distance. With the binoculars it seemed as if there were a lot of people on board, so maybe another refugee boat…...

 Each day, in the Timor Sea, we were overflown by the Australian Coastal Patrol plane.  The first day they wanted to know details of who we were, where we were headed etc.  Thereafter they were very friendly, telling us that they could see no areas of wind from up there etc.  It is kind of sad that they are now out of range, as it was good to know that we were being monitored by them.

 Life has taken on a routine – breakfast, a bit of reading and learning French (John is learning Spanish), lunch, an afternoon nap so that we are OK for our night watches, a bit of maintenance, the odd movie and cooking and eating.  It is amazing how the day goes!  We should get to Cocos Keeling Is. On 27^th or 28^th, at which stage we will be 1/3 of the way across the Indian Ocean.   Cocos Keeling Is consists of a series of small islands, Home Island being where the Malay population live and West Is. where the airport and the shops are. There is no Marina there so we will be at anchor. We will probably stay there for two days and will probably have to take on our diesel and water by jerrycan, so Dimitri and John will have their work cut out  (I will do the supervising)!  The trip from Cocos Keeling Island to Mauritius is 2,300nm. and should take us around 3 weeks.  Hopefully I will be able to get some internet connection there so that I can write more often.  The leg of the journey between Cocos and Mauritius will be the longest leg until we reach Europe although it will not be the hardest.  I anticipate, with trepidation,  the leg between Mauritius and Cape Town as it will be a fast current against the strong South Easter wind. We are planning to stop in Durban and maybe rent a car and go to the Northern Natal game parks so if anyone wants to join us, we would love to travel with you. 

 John, understandably wants to see South Africa and will do some travelling while we fly back to Sydney for Christmas. It is really good having him on board as he is strong and is happy to do the heavy winching.  He is also happy to help with everything else and has a very easy-going personality.

 So…. Things are good for us just now.  I hope things are going well with all of you. It will be good to see everyone again when we get back to Sydney.

 Regards, love, kisses, hugs.

 Arti and Dimitri.

At Sea - On route to Cocos Keeling

Hello Guys,

I hope you are all well.  So far, we are having a great trip.  No mishaps and we are slowly instituting a lot of procedures to protect our equipment, so that we do not have any damage occurring – there are no yacht chandlers and shipwrights in the middle of the Indian Ocean!

For the first week, we had little wind.  We did a lot of motoring, motor sailing and flying our beautiful big red gennaker.  This week the wind has come up.  We are very happy about this and are sailing along at around 8kn,  However, as always, together with the wind we have a fairly large swell (approx 4m), so life has become a little more difficult, doing everything at a   40 deg. angle – one has to time the opening of a cupboard so that everything doesn’t spill onto the floor as the boat leans.

During our first week, we caught quite a few fish – one Bonito, 3 Tuna and a Mahi Mahi (Dorado, Dolphin fish).  Eating fresh fish, directly out of the sea is a great experience, unlike any fish we get in the shops.  Fortunately we have John to do the preparation as neither Dimitri nor I would be game to. Today we caught a very large Mahi Mahi and it has made two very large fillets, so again, we will eat fish tonight. Tell the boys that we have taken photos of all the fish and will send them some from Mauritius if we have internet there.  We have also seen quite a few flying fish, more and more the further we go into the Indian Ocean.  Suddenly there will be a burst of spray nearby and a school of them will burst from the sea and fly away from the boat. Most mornings we find a few on our deck that have landed there in the night, I guess because they cannot see us at night.

We are seeing very few ships, although yesterday we saw an Indonesian fishing boat in the distance. With the binoculars it seemed as if there were a lot of people on board, so maybe another refugee boat…...

Each day, in the Timor Sea, we were overflown by the Australian Coastal Patrol plane.  The first day they wanted to know details of who we were, where we were headed etc.  Thereafter they were very friendly, telling us that they could see no areas of wind from up there etc.  It is kind of sad that they are now out of range, as it was good to know that we were being monitored by them.

Life has taken on a routine – breakfast, a bit of reading and learning French (John is learning Spanish), lunch, an afternoon nap so that we are OK for our night watches, a bit of maintenance, the odd movie and cooking and eating.  It is amazing how the day goes!  We should get to Cocos Keeling Is. On 27^th or 28^th, at which stage we will be 1/3 of the way across the Indian Ocean.   Cocos Keeling Is consists of a series of small islands, Home Island being where the Malay population live and West Is. where the airport and the shops are. There is no Marina there so we will be at anchor. We will probably stay there for two days and will probably have to take on our diesel and water by jerrycan, so Dimitri and John will have their work cut out  (I will do the supervising)!  The trip from Cocos Keeling Island to Mauritius is 2,300nm. and should take us around 3 weeks.  Hopefully I will be able to get some internet connection there so that I can write more often.  The leg of the journey between Cocos and Mauritius will be the longest leg until we reach Europe although it will not be the hardest.  I anticipate, with trepidation,  the leg between Mauritius and Cape Town as it will be a fast current against the strong South Easter wind. We are planning to stop in Durban and maybe rent a car and go to the Northern Natal game parks so if anyone wants to join us, we would love to travel with you. 

John, understandably wants to see South Africa and will do some travelling while we fly back to Sydney for Christmas. It is really good having him on board as he is strong and is happy to do the heavy winching.  He is also happy to help with everything else and has a very easy-going personality.

So…. Things are good for us just now.  I hope things are going well with all of you. It will be good to see everyone again when we get back to Sydney.

Regards, love, kisses, hugs.

Arti and Dimitri.

Darwin

Hi Everyone,  Well the big day has finally arrived!!  At 8am this morning we collect some fuel and then we will take off for Cocos Keeling Island, 2,000nm away, a third of the way across the Indian Ocean, but half way between Darwin and Mauritius.  From Cocos, it is  another 2,300nm to Mauritius so we should arrive in Mauritius  in about six weeks. We are pretty excited.  We have worked very hard over the last few days, getting everything ready, even though the heat and humidity did everything to get the better of us!   John, our new crew member, is a delightful, very easy-going young man and is very easy to get along with.  He is happy to eat anything, works very hard and is quite happy to fit in with whatever is going.  I think we have been very lucky to find such a pleasant person to crew for us.  He is also pretty brave undertaking such a big trip considering he has never been to sea and knows nothing about sailing.  He is bright and is learning fast so I am sure that by the time he leaves us, he will be a pretty competent sailor.  Last night we went to the markets at Mindal Beach, a Darwin feature in winter time.  We saw aboriginal didgeridoos being played and a whole lot of aboriginal teenagers dancing to them. The guy on the didgeridoos had four electronic didgeridoos was pretty good.  The wind out of Darwin is going to be light for the next day or two.  We will be able to get fuel at Cocos Keeling so we may motor for some of the time.  We cannot motor all the way however, as we only have 1,000nm range.  We will spend two days on Cocos (we hear that there are two restaurants there) and plan to go south of Ashmore Reef on our way there, but may change our mind and stop there overnight if we are tired.  We will not be giving you updates on www.skipr.com as we get closer to Mauritius as we do not want to alert pirates to our position.  Once we arrive there and are out of their usual range, we will feed in all our positions.  Keep well and lots of kisses and hugs to all of you.  Dimitri and Arti.