October 2024 – Sailing with Saphir

Crossing Indian Ocean.

Tjoho we are half way after a week sailing.

The start was on the 7th October at 11.00 we left Cocos Keeling to sail 2300 NM to Mauritius. It will take us 14-16 days .

The weather prediction tells us that we will have quite rough/rolling sailing with waves up to 4m. Our scopoderm plaster is on to avoid seasickness.

The first hours we had good wind and calm sea, After passed Cocos Keeling the waves came and we started to roll. This time it was quite okay but the dipping is not fun.

Tuesday morning we hear a huge bang on the boat. What was that and where?? I saw that our stay on starboard side was leaning forward.. It was broken. This “stay” goes up to the first spreader.Out of all stays this is the less worst to break. First Edgar hoped to use our kick . That means someone “me”- has to get in to our lasarett in the cockpit. And of course it is in the box furtherest in. Sadly it was to long. Next up is dynema. Back in the lasarett in the cockpit to get the kick back in the box and also find the dynema and schakles. So with dynema, metal stick and “schackel ’ we managed to strengthen up the “stay”. And to be more safe we also put an other stick in to the loop .

Thursday was an other rainy day. With confusing wind and waves from different angel. We were not feeling comfortable to go up in deck to put out the bom out so we changed the course instead. When the sea was a bit less rolling we went up and took the bom out on starboard side and we are back on right course.

Found an other window that is leaking. Puah!!! Not as bad as the kitchen window but still making a little pool under the window….. Good that we have more of the window sealing. Hard part is to reach it since our bunk bed is filled with a sail and other things.

I am knitting and make mistakes so need to take it up a bit make it right until I see a new mistake. Hope to have the jumper done before we are in Mauritius..

Can’t get enough of sunrise and sunset

Hugs Eva

Sailing and rolling to Cocos Keeling

So finally we are of. The wind is great but the waves… they are all over and high. The sailing is good and rolling is okay and then suddenly the waves smash in to each other and we dip so we get water on the portside deck.

This time knitting is not working very well since I need to hold on with one hand. Good to have books in the ear to listen to. Our blue canopy went up to protect us from the wind and rain in our cockpit. That was a great plan since two minutes later it was raining heavily good to get some salt of the boat. Ha ha not for long since a big wave came over the boat and luckily most was stop by the canopy but some came in to the cockpit. I got a bit wet but not to bad.

I will admit that I thought after being on the sea so long I thought I had sea legs but sadly not. The first day I was fine but on the second and third I felt very tired and going in to the boat was not fun. On top of that our kitchen window started to leak a lot. After every big waves on the side we had to dry the shelf’s under the window. Something must be done to get less water in. A huge plastic bag and silver lots of silver tape helped to 80 procent but still we were getting some water on the shelf’s but not as much as before. One more thing to fix….

Almost there! After spent four nights on the sea it so nice to know that we soon will anchor. Next leg I will have my plaster on for seasickness for sure.

We are anchored at Direction island on Cocos Keeling. Here you have wave protection and bit of the wind. Home Island is where most of the inhabitants live and there is food store,hardware store, post office, pharmacy, two cafes,a museum and souvenir shop that was not open when we were there. Then there is West Island where the airport is some hotels.

First we had to check in on the island also this time easy and smooth with the police coming out to the island. Fantastic beach with lots of shelter to hangout and have BBQs

Time to look at the window. We changed the sealing and with the new sealing it was very hard to close so fingers crossed that this will be enough. The cleaning up was little more than I thought. The hole storage in the bench was also filled with water. All out and was and dry. Then the freezer got som water also so our ice cubs was very salty.

We have a few other things to fix as well. As filling hydraulic oil. Wish I had a photo of us doing this. The hydraulic tank is behind our shower. So Edgar is sitting in the shower and me on the floor in front of him holding the oil can while he is pumping in the oil with a handpump. I can tell you it was very hot. Edgar was dripping sweat on me. Ha ha ha!!

Next was taking out the madrases from the bed and fix a wire that had moved and then grease the rudder again. Doing som food preparing, baking, clothes washing, boat cleaning etc. All the things we normally do…

We went snorkelling on the rip where you jump in and just go with the current . Lots of fishes and lovely clams. Even went to a manta ray cleaning station but sadly no manta rays. The day before people had seen them there so probably only wrong timing. There was also a few reef sharks round the boat every day so have had my share of seeing fishes.

We have had great days with our fellow sailing friends. Been to home Island where we was told the history of the Island. One funny thing is that they all have different surnames. Good that it is only around five hundred people living there. We were showen how to weave baskets out of palm leaves.

We really have enjoyed the days here in Cocos Keeling at Distinction Island, with BBQ s in the evenings on the beach. The last day we had a potluck lunch where Swade and Andrew from Arc also joined. I even had a knitting lesson to learn out the basic. Let’s see how well they have done when I see them in Mauritius for the second lesson.

Me and Lorraine picking some branches to the fire.

After six days exploring Cocos Keeling it is time to leave. Won’t mind to have a day or to just relax but we have 2300 NM ahead of us to get to Mauritius. The weather conditions are so so.. wind okay but some big waves and those are the one I really don’t like. This time the scopoderm plaster is on so no seasickness I hope.

Will see if I will do any updates on the crossing otherwise I will be back in little more than 2 weeks

Hugs Eva

Christmas Island

After a hole night sleep we are ready to get checked in in Australia again. It was very quick and smooth check in. Now we have less than 48 hours to fix things before we have leave again. Next up is filling diesel and see if we can join any tours. Filling diesel can be easy and it is in generally but when you are on a buoy it is a harder. First of all you need a few jerry cans which we don’t have on our boat but luckily our friends are happy to lend us 8 jerrycans. Then you have to get to the gas station to fill them up get them back to the boat in our dinghy fill up and then one more tour and we are done…

The tour was fully booked so no tour for us but I hade some really nice snorkling in the bay. Manage to do some grocery shopping and got us Christmas Island T-shirts. In the evening we had great a bbq with the fleet that was arranged by the Arc .

Next morning it was time for us to leave. We decided to leave after lunch to reach Cocos Keeling in daylight. Great then I had time for doing one laundry.

When we are using the washing machine or the stove we turn on our generator so our batteries won’t go empty. This time the generator didn’t want to start. With help from yellow shirts we got two mechanic to have a look. The fuel pump was broken and luckily they had to spare that we bought. The new was in and the generator was on. Edgar drives the mechanic back to land and five minutes later the generator stops. Edgar tries to start it again but it dint work. Back with the mechanic and have a look. The mechanic found out that the “reducer” from 24v-12v for the fuel pump was broken. We didn’t have that part nighter did they so they decided to run the cables directly to the battery. This means we have two switches on the fuel pump and then the generator instead of just starting the generator. Since it was very late afternoon and it would take them a few hours to fix this we had stay the night.

Kaos all is out under the sofa since the batteries are there

Next morning at 7.30 the mechanics arrives and fixes the last things. I take a walk and tries to see some of thes red crabs that there is a lot of on this island. I saw one. It is not really season for them.

The generator is working , washing mashing is on and our batteries is getting charged. They were almost empty and we like to have them filled up since we are going to sail all the way. At 13.30 we leave the bouy and hoist our Genua and head out. Crossing the start line at 14.45 on the 28th September. 520 Nm to sail

Hugs Eva