Another stopover

Another interesting stopover comes to an end. This time it will be remembered for all the wrong reasons.

I never liked stepping ashore but this time I did and what followed should keep me away from land for a while.

We arrived on Saturday after scudding along the coast at 9 knots on an A3. On Monday the right tire of the car punctured on Kundanoor bridge. On Tuesday it was the the turn of the left tire. By Wednesday it was time to change both punctured tires and on Thursday I got a parking ticket. The only amusing part of the entire affair was that when I walked into the police station to pay the fine, I received salutes and apologies! I dont know what Friday and Saturday have in store.

One of these days I had a sailor visit me demanding that I take him out sailing and that it would make him "indebted". Coming from someone who had already logged 8000 miles on this boat, I was surprised.

The stopover was well spent. The boat has gotten a thorough lookover. Chiefly  the INMARSAT has been restored to S1A1 shape thanks to some quick help from the naval ship repair yard and the wind vane autopilot has gotten a quick calibration.

Most importantly, we have our team Tees in hand and that should make us all uniformly handsome. The logo has come out better than expected and I did not miss the loud "wows" of the crew when they wore it the first time.

As of now its two more days to pass on shore. The next voyage presents a particularly difficult sailing condition. Predicted winds are nowhere more than ten knots at best. Opposing currents make the news bleaker. It is going to be a test of my lightwind sailing skills and the very conservative 120 miles a day I had planned the voyage with will be difficult to achieve. Throw in the equatorial heat, traffic around Dondra head and a green crew, we seem to be in for another interesting voyage.