Coromandel Quest

26 May-12 June Cocos Keeling to Port Louis,  Mauritius  We left Cocos Keeling in a fresh southerly wind and made good time south west towards Rodrigues – too good a time now and again as the wind continued to freshen and the weather became somewhat miserable – we hadn’t experienced drizzle for a very long time, but here it was, the skies overcast and a dull grey, the seas confused with swells from the east, south east and south west, the latter indicative of a storm tracking eastwards across the Southern Ocean.   The upside of the winds, which seldom dropped below 20 knots, was that we made very fast passage indeed, one 24-hour period seeing us log 181 nm, which we had never managed before, and runs of 150 nm became commonplace.  For 48 hours the weather was truly miserable, seas crashing against the hull and breaking into the cockpit, Coromandel heeled over to starboard, and me having to get used to cooking at an angle again.  It was difficult to decide what to wear, too.  With the seas breaking into the cockpit I needed some sort of foul weather gear because I got cold, although Andy chose to do without clothes for most of the time.  I finally pulled out the bright yellow plastic raincoat I'd bought in Belitung, which did the job reasonably well.  Most of the time, though, we hid down below, leaving Heidi to do the steering, but just looking around every 20 minutes or so to check on shipping.  We saw at least one ship nearly every day, but sadly only one of them answered when we called them on the VHF.  It made me reflect that when I first crossed the Atlantic in 1979, just about every ship one called would answer and you'd have a good natter until they were out of range.  Not now, though.

However, the nasty seas died down, the wind dropped to a pleasant 17-20 knots (“We could fly the spinnaker in this,” said Andy.  “No we couldn’t,” I replied, being a spoil sport), and things became much calmer, with the wind just aft of the beam giving us daily runs in excess of 150 nm.  We were looking forward to spending a few days in Rodrigues when the wind piped up again, and the thought of trying to negotiate the reef with 30 knots blowing into our faces was not attractive, so we eased the sheets a little and headed for Mauritius, some 300 nm to the south west.  One day Andy decided to bake a loaf – a great success, and now he speaks knowledgeably about “of course, when I bake bread . . .!”.

Inevitably we arrived off Mauritius after nightfall, and negotiating the passage between the main island and the outlier of Gunner’s Quoin was made rather difficult by the wind going into the east, leaving us with a dead run through the gap and in danger of gybing as Coromandel rolled in the swell.  After about an hour of this, and with the tide about to turn against us, we started the engine, motored through the last half mile of the gap and into the lee of the main island.  By 0400 we were about four miles north of Port Louis and called the harbour for permission to enter.  “No, Ma'am," came the reply promptly, "Yachts can come in only during daylight hours.  Come back at 0630 after the cruise liner has come in!”.  So we reefed down to a scrap of genoa, handed the main and spent an hour drifting back northwards, before tacking and drifting back south again, in the meantime watching the cruise ship Sun Princess make her way slowly into the port.

It was lovely watching the sun rise behind the pinnacled ridge which gives such a stunning backdrop to Port Louis from the west.  The pinnacles were evidently the remnants of volcanoes, and the lines of lava flows could be identified sweeping down from the ridges.

Entry to Port Louis itself was relatively easy once the correct buoys had been identified.  Instead of the usual conical or can buoys, these were rather like tanker moorings, and although the red one was undoubtedly red, the starboard one was a sort of dirty gray.  Anyway we identified them correctly and motored up the harbour to the Customs’ wharf, tying up alongside the wall with the help of a passing tourist, who I pressganged into taking our breast rope whilst I climbed up onto the wall - not an easy feat, given that it was about four feet above Coromandel's deck.  A policeman came along and told us to stay on board and he would inform Quarantine that we had arrived.  When he arrived he declined to climb down, and asked me to go up to him.  He chatted away happily whilst he filled his form in and gave me a copy, informing me that we now had free practique, and that I should go into the office adjacent to the wharf to see the Port Authority chappie and then the Immigration Officer.  About half an hour after that two members of the Coastguard visited the boat, and then we were free to motor over to the Caudan Basin, where a local chappie called us over the we tied up alongside a steel boat, Keturah, whose owners were in Italy.  (They returned a couple of days later and I can truly say that I have never been spoken to so aggressively or so rudely as I was by the female – talk about Mussolini in Knickers!  I was told in no uncertain terms to move, she didn’t want anyone alongside, she’d told the people that they didn’t want anyone alongside, and I’d got to move – NOW!  And all this in a voice loud enough to be heard in Rodrigues.  At first I demurred, using the excuse that I’d wait until Andy came back, but then Arnaud from the little yacht Paul came along and said I could lie alongside him, so with his help and that of Colin from Moonbeam, we moved Coromandel.) 

Port Louis is a very pretty little town indeed, nestled in the valley and protected from the east winds by a pinnacled ridge which reminded me of Moorea and which gave it a pleasantly rural feeling.  Its ambience is undeniably European and the lingua franca is French, although most people are bilingual and the official language is English.  Pavement cafés line the waterfront, the harbour is clean and neat, and the mood cheerful.  The local population is a mixture of Indian and African, descendants of firstly slaves and then indentured servants brought in to work in the sugar plantations on which Mauritius’s economy was based.  And the rum is cheap, although other things are more expensive and the beer is nothing to write home about.  What I wouldn't give for a pint of Red MacGregor, or even Old Speckled Hen!

On the day after our arrival we took a walk up through the town onto Signal Mountain which overlooks Port Louis from the south.  It was a gentle stroll up a metalled road to a viewpoint from where we could see all over Port Louis, the racecourse, the harbour, the citadel, the multi-storey buildings of the city centre and the little bungalows of the suburbs.  It was good to stretch our legs, as the last really good walk we’d had was to the Big Buddha in Phuket last December!

Rainbow!

Hiding from the Weather

Port Louis Harbour

Caudan Basin

Pavement Café

Port Louis from Signal Hill

The Ridge from Signal Hill

Overlooking Port Louis

The passage to Cocos Keeling began in light airs, so that we motored for the first 24 hours, but then a South-easterly  wind sprang up, 10 knots, 15 knots, then gusting up to 25 knots.  We had planned our passage to arrive in Direction Island during the day, but two days of 160 nm per day meant that we arrived just as the Sun was setting.  We made it into Port Refuge, which isn’t a port at all, just a large anchorage, with about half an hour to spare before it got really dark, so were able to anchor, but not cross the reef into anchorage proper.  Having called up the authorities when we were about 10 miles off, they said they would visit us in the morning, so we gave them our position.  A French chap called Marc came out from one of the yachts already in the anchorage and offered to guide us in, but by then we had switched off mentally, so declined his offer, especially as by this time it was too dark to see the colour of the water and hence the reef.

We were cleared quickly the next morning, with no problems because we had no paperwork from Indonesia.  I explained that we had tried really hard to check in properly in Belitung, Cirebon and Jakarta, but had been met with shakes of the head because of all the paperwork and basically told to just go away.  One of the officers had seen this before and said, “No worries”, upon which I breathed a sigh of relief.

The passage over the reef, in crystal clear water and in good sunshine, was not a problem, and we finally anchored in 5 metres in aquamarine water over sand.  The anchor dug in quickly and we settled down to sort things out – nothing much, but best done sooner rather than later.  There were two other yachts in the anchorage, Marc on Aurore (French) and Marlene and Reinhard on Adio (German).  We found that Marc did a lot of underwater photography, and seemed to spend more time in the water than out of it.  On one occasion he stopped by Coromandel to say that he had had the magical experience of swimming with six manta rays and a couple of small sharks, when a series of clicks made him look around to find a small school of dolphins.  He was entranced.

Most of the people here are descendants of Malays who were bought here as indentured servants by the Clunies-Ross family in the 19^th century, who ran the islands like a feudal fiefdom until the 20^th century caught up with them.  In 1987 the islanders elected to become part of Western Australia, and are now rather a remote suburb of that state.  There is a flight from Perth every Friday.  Whilst most of the people live on Home Island, the airstrip, school and administrative buildings are on the lesser populated West Island, a ferry ride of about 25 minutes from Home Island.  All of the islands form a fringe to the coral-studded lagoon.

Most of the population are Muslim Malays, with the women wearing long skirts, long-sleeved tops and the hijab, although I read that it was not until the 1970s and a greater awareness of what Muslim women in other parts of the World wore that the women here adopted the headveil.  Most of the expatriates are from Australia, working on government contracts, but I haven’t yet worked out what the main source of income for the islands is, as copra production stopped in the 1990s.

Direction Island is one of several islands around the atoll.  It is uninhabited now, covered with coconut palms and with a public telephone box which gave extraordinarily good rates to the UK, although not so favourable to South Africa.  The west side has a long, sandy beach and in addition to the telephone there are shelters, toilets and a rainwater barrel from which we can replenish our supplies for washing and cooking.  Freshwater has to be fetched by dinghy from Home Island.  Between Direction Island and the next sandy cay is a stretch of water called The Rip through which the water of the lagoon is replenished from the ocean.  The current flows through quite quickly, but there is a safety net on the lagoon side in case one gets swept away.  Not being a strong swimmer, I have just paddled about in the shallows looking for shells, but Andy enjoyed snorkelling in The Rip, having another chance of swimming with the small black-tipped sharks around the lagoon.  A s usual, nearly all of the best beach specimens of shells are inhabited by bright orange hermit crabs, and I can’t bring myself to get rid of them just to keep the shells.  One or two have made it back to Coromandel, only to be taken back ashore if I find them scuttling across the cockpit table.

The ocean side of Direction Island has stretches of coral reef upon which has been cast the detritus of the seas in the 21^st century – flip-flops, plastic bottles, fishing floats, nets, driftwood etc.  We managed to find a nice piece of pine on which we carved and painted Coromandel’s name before tying it to one of the coconut trees ashore.

We have made visits to both Home Island and West Island, the former involving a rather wet dinghy ride before getting on a ferry to the latter.  Our visit to West Island was prompted by the fact that the small supermarket on Home Island does not stock alcohol, but this can be bought in the Cocos Club on West Island.  Since we were completely out of alcohol – except for a bottle of Baileys – a visit to the bottle store was essential, and we were relieved to find that it was duty free.  Wine, however, was almost as expensive as spirits, so we bought just a few bottles of the latter to get us to South Africa.  The supermarket on Home Island has a good variety of foods, including cheese and fresh (frozen) meat, rather expensive, but we haven’t seen lamb since we left Darwin, so we had a treat of lamb steaks, cooked with broccoli and mashed potato with chives -  which may sound rather pedestrian, but we’ve been living on nasi or mee goreng or fried squid or fish for months now, so it was a real treat.

We will be here for a few more days and will then set off for Rodrigues, some 2,000 miles west of here.  We think this will take between 15 and 20 days, depending on the wind.  We have heard that the Indian Ocean can be quite rough at times, with swells from several directions to throw you about.  Ah well, it can’t all be 12-15 knots just aft of the beam in a flat sea, now can it?

Anak Krakatoa

Putting up the Boat Sign

Hermit Crabs

Home Island

The Rip

Phone Box on the Beach

Direction Island Anchorage

The Anchorage from the Beach

Our priority was to clear Customs as soon as we could by now I think that we've done everything humanly possible to clear into Indonesia, yet at the end of the day we haven't.  Having being told in Belitung, "You must go to Cirebon", and then being told in Cirebon, "You must go to Jakarta," the officials at Jakarta came on board, had a chat, asked to see the documents we'd had last year then asked, "How long are you going to be here?".  When we said about a week, they said, "There's a lot of paperwork here.  As long as you're gone by next week, forget about the paperwork."  At that point I expected a little crossing of palms with silver, but they simply shook hands cheerfully and off they went.

So, Pantai Mutiara is a small marina to the west of Jakarta, rather ramshackle, but within walking distance of a couple of shopping malls, one of which has a Carrefour.  Don't get excited, though, as it's nothing to write home about: the selection is poor and it's just as well we've got everything we need. 

The area around Pantai Mutiara is obviously the home of the super-rich: some of the houses are truly amazing, though it's evident that the people who have homes here value the neo-classic tradition: I've seldom seen so many Corinthian columns or such a display of statuary!  Most of them are simply HUGE:  they're stately homes in a tropical setting.

Gas Platforms - some were unlit

Pantai Mutiara

One day Eddy took us to see two of the keraton for which Cirebon is famous.  These are the homes (or former homes) of the sultans of the city and two are open to the public.  They are modest buildings by European standards, but their charm lay in the exhibits of weapons and chariots, plus a most intriguing picture of one of the sultans, whose left foot follows you as you move around the room: it always points towards you.  Very odd!  He also took us to a place called Goa Sinyaragi, a combination of temple and palace, where the Kings of Cirebon lived in the 18th and 19th centuries.  It was planned around water, with moats and little islands, made from brick on which irregularly-shaped pieces of coral limestone had been placed to form little catches for water.  There were numerous small passages and hidden chambers, which the guide said were used for meditation; it seemed that different chambers were used for different things.  In one pair, for instance, one prayed in one side to go to Mecca, but in the other side to go to Shanghai; I didn't quite get why Shanghai was the alternative to Mecca, but think it had something to do with the Chinese Taoist religion.

On Sunday Eddy took us to his home to meet his wife, Anna, and his daughters Hesty and Restina, and we had a wonderful Indonesian takeaway of sticky rice, fried tofu cubes, satays, kangkung and beansprouts -  a feast.  We got by in Andy's rather limited Bahasa, and Eddy's few words, but a great time was had by all.

On another day, Eddy and Hesty took us to Trusmi, the batik centre of Cirebon.  Again the traffic was rather alarming, but Trusmi itself is obviously a mecca for locals at the weekend.  There were horse-drawn carriages, rickshaws, motorcycles a-plenty, all trying to get down one road.  The batik shop itself was a kaleidoscope of colour and texture, but all we bought were a new shirt for Andy and a Cirebon T-shirt for me.  The browsing, however, took about two hours.  After this expedition I really fancied a nice cold bottle of Anker or Bintang, the local beers, but there wasn't any around.  Eddy came up with the wheeze that we would sit in one of the small eating places in the harbour and send out for some!  Here is Andy with Eddy, then the chief of the marine police and two of his cohorts.  the lady who ran the place provided us with ice and crackers and a good time was had by all.

The biggest disappointment, as far as I was concerned, was the lack of variety in the large Carrefour supermarket to which Eddy took us - the small supermarkets in Tanjung Pandan (Belitung) had a much wider variety of goods.

Portrait of the King of Cirebon

Keraton Kesepuhan

Restina, Eddy, Andy and Anna

Anyone for Bintang?

On another occasion they took us to visit East Belitung, through areas laid waste by tin-mining, and through palm plantations.  A lot of the original forest has been removed, so what one sees now is secondary growth and sadly many of the larger trees have vanished.  Although Belitung has some small hills, it is not mountainous like Flores or Bali, and much of the interior is flat.  It is trying, however, to build up its tourist infrastructure, having some lovely sheltered beaches as well as tourist spots like the Chinese Temple and the Lighthouse.  In October 2011 it will host the Wakatobi-Belitung Sailing Rally, and much work is being undertaken to improve road communications to Tanjung Kelayang, the principal anchorage.  I understand that the President of Indonesia will grace the event with his presence.

On most nights we ate at Rusty's, Andy having taken a great liking to Mona's Cumi - battered calamari.  On a couple of days we dinghied over to the little islands to the west of the anchorage, dominated by a selection of granite boulders called "The Bird".  Andy went snorkelling over the Coral Reef and, I went looking for shells, as usual, and found a beautiful live cowrie which I watched grazing for some time.  Lovely as it was, though, I left it to its own devices - I can't see the point of killing something just for its shell, unless I can eat it as well!  However there were numerous other shells on the beach to collect, as well as rock pools to paddle in - one of which was decidedly hot - and things to look at, as well as just sitting reading a book.  At the moment it's Stephen Clarke's "1000 Years of Annoying the French" which is an hilarious history of the goings on between France and England over the past millenium.

Sandfly Bites

Tanjung Tinggi

In the meantime we've been making the best of things.  Andy has done some more remedial work to Coromandel's deck, I've been sewing cushions for the cockpit and doing some much-needed mending and cleaning, and we've been exploring our environment, notably the Kota Iskandar - Seat of Government - of the State of Johor Bahru.  These are magnificent buildings, just a short walk from the marina, with lush gardens, cool fountains and ponds, shaded gazebos and seemingly acres of marble flooring.  In addition to the buildings there is a huge arena with a central fountain.  We also visited the barquentine Royal Albatross, which is undergoing a major refit to enable her to ply the charter route.  We have also seen the plans for the area around the marina, which cover vast acreages with housing, shopping malls, apartment buildings and multi-storey office blocks - amazing.  I'll be amazed, too, if it all comes to fruition.

Wev'e been meeting up with some old acquaintances and making new ones: Jenny and Brian on Police Car have arrived and are on their way to Borneo, Peter and Connie, fellow OCC members on Cookie Cutter, have just left for Borneo, Steve and Suzy on Tara II were also on the 2010 Sail Indonesia Rally, whilst Patrick and Janice on Obsession are from South Africa, but have just left for the Phillipines, whilst Nigel and Alison on Strummer and just packing here away prior to returning to England for a bit.  Andy managed to fix their autopilot, just a few dry joints on a circuit board.  Needless to say there has been a little merry-making.

Naturally the weather features in our lives as much as before, characterised at the moment by thunderstorms and torrential downpours, accompanied by rather unnerving flashes of lightning.  This presents some problems in that we have to close all the hatches and put in the washboards, which tends to increase both the temperature and humidity in the saloon.

It will be my birthday on 12th April, and provided our CAIT arrives, we will spend it traversing the Singapore Straits to find a nice, quiet anchorage on our way south.  One of my presents from Andy was a brace of maintenance-free marine batteries - how romantic!

One point of note is that we are in the process of officially changing the name of our boat to Coromandel.  This was her name as she appears in Lloyd's Register in 1973, the Quest being added at a later date.  We decided to change the name because we've now reached Coromandel - and trying to spell Coromandel Quest to someone whose first language is not English is getting just too difficult and wearisome.  However as with so many things it takes time: signed documents have to be sent back and forth between here and the Registry of Ships in Cardiff, and in the meantime our CAIT is in the name of Coromandel Quest so I think we'll leave Indonesia as Coromandel Quest and arrive in South Africa as Coromandel.

Kota Iskandar

The Marble Interior of Kota Iskandar

The Gardens at Kota Iskandar