From Malaysia to the Mediterranean - 2

Part 2 Maldives – Djibouti

Maldives are a beautiful place to spend some time unfortunately the officials make it impossible for me to stay longer than a week, more than 1000,- US$ I would have had to pay for a month and this is far beyond my financial resources. So after 7 days I am leaving paradise and head to the most dangerous part in the world of sailing, the Golf of Aden and Somalia north coast.

A lot of reading and preparation was going on before leaving from Langkawi, many of these things were for me curious and not comprehend able. Secret Facebook groups, secret meetings and similar things, sailors scare each other with story's which were years ago. Anyway I am on my trip, doing my thing, my strategy and this was a little different than others. I have during the planning always to keep in mind that I am sailing single handed, a big difference if any trouble hits you. At one of these meetings a ex French special forces agent explained that the safest route is sailing between the 2 lanes of the big ship corridor. That’s right in theory and for crewed boats but when I sail alone and have the slightest problem with sails or engine or fishinglines/net, autopilot or whatsoever, than I will drift into the shipping lanes, as the space between them is only 2nm, and this is nothing when you are trying to repair something while the boat drifts. So for me is either the north side of this corridor, meaning I would be near Yemen where they have a civil war and many poor people with nothing to eat and nothing to loose, or I am sailing south of the corridor, meaning sailing near the guys with the black flags with sculls and bones on it. I decide going for the Somalia side, around 8-10 miles south of the shipping lane which is still 80 miles away from the Somalia coast. Why 8-10nm south and not closer, very simple. I have set my AIS alarm on 10 miles, and if I sail closer to the big ships than I get every few minutes an alarm signal, meaning – there is nothing with sleeping, and that’s not good.

An other big question is – leaving the AIS on or off, leaving navigation lights on or off at night? For me a clear decision, I leave everything on because I can not go on watch all the time, so if I don’t see them at least the other boaters should know there is somebody sailing around instead of crashing into me.

The first days are relaxed sailing, perfect wind, and I don’t set maximum sails robe, only so much sails to be in a speed range between 7-8 knots, which makes it very comfortable, no stress on the boat and still making around 170nm a day. The evening of the second day I get a VHF call, Donio a Sri Lanka fisherman warns me about a huge amount of fishing boats, and then he even asks if I could call him on SSB after 20.00 hour on 12312.3 MHz because then they stop working and he has some time. Never I had something like this before, we talked for a while, he was mainly interested where from and where to, and he wanted that I visit him when I come to Sri Lanka.

 

And then about 70 miles east of Socrota the autopilot stops. I set up my second unit and the sail goes on but only for a 40 minutes before also unit nr.2 stops working. This is possibly the worst place for a situation like that. Single handing, no autopilot, next to pirates land, and still 700 miles to go to Djibouti, 700 miles means 5 days when everything is all right, but it means 8-10 days without autopilot. I have to change the sails so only a fraction of the area is up otherwise I could not stabilize the boat to keep at least for a 5-10 minutes the course before I have to correct it again. This will be a few terrible days, no sleep and long hours in the cockpit.

With my InReach I am able to contact Fa. Ober in Vorarlberg, the Raymarine service center for Austria, Czech and Hungary, and he guides me the next 2 days through different possibilities where the error hides. Finally I can get it working again, hallelujah, what a relief.

From there on I sail a little more conservative, change the autopilot setting to cruising, so the autopilot works slower and has less load.

The rest of the trip is easy, I see only 2 boats, and 2 days before arrival I am contacted by a Japanese military aircraft. I see that my arrival won’t be during daylight so I want to speed up. I set my old asymmetrical spinnaker although the wind is a bit strong. Flying over the waves, sometimes digging deep with the bow, fantastic sailing, and just when I decide that it is too much sail and I am too fast, I hear this terrible ssssccrrrrr and my spi suddenly has a few extra openings.

The last day and night the weather tries to confuse me with wind coming from the southeast, but still a good direction for me.

The entrance in Djibouti is easy, the anchorage wide with good holding mud, and after the anchor is set I only want a beer and a bed.

I have to say special thanks to Mr. Hubert Ober, the best Raymarine service man on the globe, for his help during the dangerous time.

Also a special thanks to my 3 weather-frogs who inform me daily with the upcoming weather situation, thanks Alois, Alex and C.