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Sri Lanka to Djibouti, Jan 22 to Feb 6, 2007 ( via the Indian Ocean, Arabian sea and Gulf of Aden)

We left Galle,Sri lanka on Jan. 22, 2007 as the sun was just setting on the Indian ocean horizon. As we were pulling out of the harbor where we stayed for 3 nights, i can’t help but feel a tinge of sadness. I guess it’s normal to feel that way when one enjoyed oneself in a place and one starts to get accustomed to the people and getting around. Although we didnt see much of Sri Lanka ..still, i had the feel of the people and their way of life. It was a good learning experience and I’m glad it was one of our stops. It opened my mind more to another culture so different from my own.

We stayed in the cockpit area or in the bow to watch the sun set which is always beautiful wherever you are. But it is even more so when you are in the middle of the sea, because there were no buildings or trees or any obstruction to the view. It was just the horizon, the sun going gradually down and the different hues of setting sun playing against the sky. It puts one in a pondering mood and marvel at the wonder of nature. We immediately go back to our old routine of cooking on shifts or washing dishes or watching at night and man the instruments… and make sure we do not go off course.

Once we were back in the open ocean, then one needs to adjust oneself again to the waves that makes the boat roll from side to side. On this journey to reach Djibouti, we will be passing the waters across India, Pakistan, Oman and Yemen on our starboard side (right). On the port side ( left), we will be passing Maldives and Somalia. The mainland Africa was to our left also but that is soooo many hundred miles away. We do not really see the land or even the silhouette of the countries we are passing as we were always in the middle of the ocean. So for the next 15 days and 2300 nautical miles to reach the destination, we only have the sea as scenery aside from the horizon, the sky, some ships, school of dolphins , flying fishes and the 5 of us in the boat . Some days it was boring… Like i said before it was maybe like being in house arrest. You cant go anywhere. (Well, you can..if you want to drown in 4500 meters of water and not really get anywhere where there would be a change of scenery!). So days were spent reading, sleeping, playing backgammon, listening to Ipods, chitchatting, cooking, eating, washing dishes. Our excitement comes from hearing the fishing line indicating that we caught a fish. And believe me it was a biggggg event! (Free dinner is always a big event! )All of us will be running to the stern and help to pull the line and ready the bucket lest the fish jumps back to the sea from wiggling and flapping! By this time we only save the camera for a really big catch or a different type of fish which is rarely! Sunset is always the best time of the day! and it’s always a different display of colors in the sky. Some days we cant wait for the dolphins to show themselves so we will clap and call them at the time of the day when they would normally grace us with their presence….and most often than not.. they do not disappoint. They are so trusting of humans to their own demise. (I heard from another yachtie friend, accounts of how the locals of the places he has been to, will lure the dolphins to catch and kill them and sell. They would apparently bang a drum in the water, even on the shore, and the dolphins will just swarm and then the baddies will catch them with nets). True enough, once we clapped and called them, there will be more than 10 dolphins that will swim towards us to the bow and jump one after the other. Most weigh about 40 kilos and there were some that weighs most probably 70 kilos. Really big porpoises.. it’s awesome!! (it would have been more awesome if i could touch them like those trained dolphins ..but then again.. i may be pushing my luck too far wishing this, they are wild dolphins after all!)They also make those little squeaky noises and it’s really heartwarming that they seemed happy showing off to us. They so love the attention and encouragement! Some days we see whales as well but not as often as seeing the dolphins and not as close. But we look through our binoculars and they are really enormous even at a distance. Once we spotted a whale, we will switch off the engine so as not to scare it away and we can watch it till we see the big tail waves to us (or so we want to believe), before it dives back down to the deep. We do not forget that these creatures are in the wild and we felt really honored and privileged to be seeing them in their own natural habitat.

On the third day, we passed the islands of Maldives, which means the end of the Indian ocean and the start of the Arabian Sea. As you can see from the earlier pics in my gallery, the water of the Arabian sea was calm, hardly a wave… but just ripples from passing ships. It went on like that for days and we use the engine when there wasn’t enough wind to sail. It was great at night when the moon was shining and the silver long reflection lined in the water coming from the moonlight was spellbinding! Why oh why i wasn’t gifted with the ability to paint or wealthy enough to buy the most sophisticated camera, then maybe i could have captured that great spectacle.. but then again.. i doubt if one could really do justice to that moment. Thanks goodness for memories.. that’s the best one can do..and im ok with that.

On the afternoon of the fifth day to the journey, we were still opposite India but maybe 200 miles from their coast, We saw a wooden fishing boat coming towards us on the starboard side when it was only like a 100 meters from us. Admittedly we were all pre- occupied although all of us where up in the cockpit area! We saw men in Sri Lankan garb and the captain said ,Sri Lankan flag on their fishing boat. They were beckoning to us and want us to stop for them. We didn’t know what they want and for sure won’t stop to find out! We were in the middle of the Arabian Sea and they have a boat that doesn’t seem to have a problem with the engine as it was trying to catch us, so whatever it was, we cant risk to let them get to us and find out what it was they wanted or needed. Sure we wanted to be good Samaritans but probably not the best idea to do that when u are in the middle of the sea. What with the dangers of pirates! They continued to chase us for 10 minutes and we were all getting nervous, so the captain told us to ready the guns.. but not to show that we have it as it might only provoke them. Luckily the wind was going on the right direction favourable to us and we gunned down the 2 engines to put a big distance between us. the captain also throw 2 long lines to drag behind both side so that if they wont stop chasing us, we were hoping that the rope will snag their propeller and make their boat stop! That tactic worked coz they change the direction of the boat obviously trying to avoid our rope! It was a real wake up call! We became more alert and observant, bordering on paranoia, after that incident!!

The following days passed without incident, thanks goodness, and we were once again entertained by the dolphins. However, when we were between Somalia and Yemen (Sucotra Island) which is the start of the Gulf of Aden, we have to be on guard , i mean really on guard, and change the system to be 2 people per shifts. We were on the Piracy-prone area! We have the reports to make us really anxious! It lasted 2 nights and we breathed a sigh of relief when we past it, although we changed our course to avoid the GPS coordinates of where the incidents normally took place as per the report. Whew! Thanks goodness the guns didn’t get to be used!

On the thirteenth day of the voyage.. we ran out of utility water!!!!!!!!!!! all 6thousand liters! We were about more than 300nautical miles to Djibouti then (2 sailing days) and it was hilarious that the ladies (2 of us) cant shower but the males ( 3 of them) were bathing on the deck with sea water. Yuck! i know it has healthy benefits for the skin.. ! but geeezzzzz, it would be so sticky!! to your body and imagine what would it feels like to your hair! i bet i would be itching when the salt crystals begins to dry on my skin. They have the solution though. They rinse themselves with one (limited to one only) bottled drinking water! Luckily we still have hundreds of them kept in the hull. And we ladies only used the bottled water to…i wont go into details! This meant also that we were washing the dishes with salt water. For cooking, we have always used the drinking water anyways.

About 50 miles to Djibouti at 4am on the fifteenth day, we spotted 2 very big ships with lots of light and we were hearing choppers flying around them and in the nearby areas. It turned out to be the french naval ships and those choppers were part of the security. We were the only other boat in the vicinity and they kept on flying near us, checking us out and it was scary for me. I always worry that they would pepper us with machine guns. I was manning the boat that time and was alone in the cockpit area. So i woke the captain up and he pointed a spotlight to our sails to let them know that we are a (private) sailing yacht… and i guess it satisfied them and left us alone. Before daybreak, we reached the entrance to the harbor of Djibouti. As usual we waited till light to enter the harbor and because it was also where the French navy is located, there were speed boats with french navy men checking us out. The boat captain went ashore to go to the immigration office, harbor master office and customs to sort out the paper works and visa. We were all given 10-day transit visa which is more than enough as we will only need provisioning and wont stay that long. We still have a long way to go before reaching the final destination for the yacht. The most important thing to do that day was to sort out the water. We were directed to go to the other end of the harbor to fill the water. It costs 50US$ and we know we were being ripped off. Then we asked them where we can throw all the garbage we have on board accumulated from 15 days of sailing (7 bags total, all recyclable) , they said to just hand it over to them. We all thought that it was good of them to help us even with that little problem. Oh Boy, were we wrong big time!! They were trying to charge us 15US$ for that! ( the exchange rate was DJF 170 = 1 US$, a taxi from town is only DJF 500 or under 3US$) and when we refused to pay that amount as they didn’t say they would charge us for that service but instead we want to give something for their effort plus a couple of dollars, they became aggressive and rude! Arguments ensued and all this time, i wasn’t minding all the commotion. They also refused to undo the line that tied us to the harbor when we were filling the water. So i went to try to reason to them to no avail. So in the end we cut the rope and got away from them as we don’t know what they will do. They seemed to be very aggressive people. The captain wanted to pay just to calm things down but i had to intervene and refused to give in. We don’t want to be bullied and its not the question of money but principle in my opinion. They didn’t say at the outset that it would cost us if we give them the garbage. We don’t want to be duped into paying. So off we went and they just stood there the whole time.. looking at us and the boat… and it was baffling that we were already far and they were still standing there looking at us. I wasn’t so scared.. we have guns on board and i will use it if i have to …hahhahahahaha!

Djibouti is part of Africa and the people were tall and skinny and unfortunately, even though i haven’t set foot in their country yet, i already have a bad impression about the people. It would get worse … .( Actually, on the same day that we arrived, there was this old French guy who was also moored near us in the same harbor and he owns a catamaran and was on the way to Maldives. He approached us and warned us about the locals and that we should lock up before we go to sleep (we didn’t have to do this in Sri lanka and even in Thailand) and make sure that the dinghy is up at night). Apparently, the locals swim in the middle of the night and steal what they can, including dinghies! We took his advice to heart and made sure that the door going to the lower deck was locked as well as all the hatches or windows) . The language they use is french and all the business establishments were in french as well, as they have been colonized by France. Don’t really know much about this country to be honest and my rusty french didn’t go very far except to greet and ask if they speak English and explained that i don’t understand as i don’t speak french. But I have used what i know in the market hehehehe. In the eyes of an amateur like me… Its a poor country, dirty and lots of flies in the market. The structures in town were low and old and most are abandoned and dilapidated. One thing that stuck to mind was that, all the establishments or buildings being used were all secured with iron grills from the door and also all the windows, and lots of pad locks in a single door. It only meant one thing to me.. . They have a big problem with thieves and robbers! It turned out, they werent the only one who will fall victim to that. On our third day, the original plan was to to get our provisions from the local market and spend the night and leave in the morning of the fourth day. So we all got ready to go to the market and at the same time, give opportunity to the captain and his Gf to see a little bit of Djibouti town we were in ( the 2 German and I go to town everyday just looking around and see what it’s like including the people and what we can gather about their culture. As we were leaving and the captain was getting the money allotted for the provisions..it was gone! We have been robbed!! We investigated how it might have happened and saw a possible entry complete with water marks! It was via the unlocked hatch along the corridor of the guest cabins where my cabin and the captain’s cabin and his gf were sleeping. I always lock my door and the hatch above my bed was only ajar and the bigger dinghy that we do not use was just above it, making it difficult or nearly impossible to move it with few people. A boom is always being used to lift it to bring it in and out of the water. So i was quite safe! I have another window on the side but it’s small for a person, even a child, to get through it. Because of that incident, we decided to just buy the provisions and leave immediately.

The food was very expensive In Djibouti and the few supermarkets or grocery shops that they have only caters to the foreigners or westerners who are mostly French navy servicemen and their families. We only saw perhaps 1 or 2 white people in the local market. We went there thinking it would be cheaper and yes they were, but the quality was very poor and unsanitary. There were flies everywhere. Even The weighing scales in the market were old fashioned (the type where you put a lead weight on the other side of the scale to determine the weight of what you are buying.. I dunno what it’s called.. for me its an old fashioned scale)and although i was fascinated by it… it shows me how behind they are from the modern world. There were lots of beggars as well, kids and adults alike. However, I find the colourful clothes of the women selling goats or sheep in the market quite refreshing! It was just very different from what im used to. I had to close my eyes when we passed the slaughter house and I walked as fast as i can. I know i would cry and will be haunted if i heard an animal’s cry. I already felt sorry for the goats and sheep being touted in that market and i had to harden my heart and tried not to focus and be affected on the sorry state of the animals and those kids. . (We were advised by the harbor master not to give to one as it would invite others and we will be swarmed with beggars if the word gets around). But i gave in to one and got a gentle reprimand from one of the German boys. We were bugged by other kids the whole time we were at the market. My heart was bleeding the whole time feeling powerless to help and i wanted to get away as soon as i can. There was just absolutely nothing i can do but give them a kind smile and accept that for some, it was their way of life. I felt guilty for having a good life and i know i shouldn’t.

We bought fruits and veggies and some canned foods. The favourite was the french bread and surprisingly, even i ate it and loved it! I love bread, dont get me wrong, but those particular french breads were being sold in an open wooden push-cart!. When i saw the captain buying them, i swore i wouldn’t eat it! It was just unsanitary being sold in the open cart using only their bare hands to put it in the SACK!!!! I couldn’t believe my eyes when i saw the breads being packed in the sack and we had no choice as there was no other packaging available. The boys were like santa claus when they hoisted the sacks at the back of their shoulders. And we had 2 sacks.. not one! Unbelievable! … well suffice it to say.. when it was being heated in the bread toaster back on the boat.. it smelt delicious!! and I ate my words.. and yes the bread as well!

We left Djibouti on the 8th of Feb. with not a nice feeling and was actually glad to be leaving…I’m still thankful we stopped there though and experienced and learned something, although not much about that country. I was more glad that I got the experience.. for Free! Imagine if I have to pay to go there and have that kind of experience. I don’t think “charge to experience” mantra would quite cut it. By the following day.. we were cruising the RED SEA! But that would be for another post…. Thanks for reading…