When Corroboree left Enggano, Indonesia, on 28 July, Eric and I weren’t looking forward to crossing the Indian Ocean. Few sailors do. It’s big and has a reputation for being rough. From Australia the fastest and most direct route is due west with stops at Christmas Island, Cocos Keeling, and, a little farther north, Chagos Atoll and the Seychelles. It can bring stiff sailing in the SE trades but will keep you mostly south of the Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ), a band of low pressure where the trade winds of the northern and southern hemispheres meet. The highly variable weather there may include monotonous calms and monsoonal rainstorms.
In our case, Christmas Island and Cocos Keeling were still Covid-closed at the time we had to leave Australia, and we sailed NW through Indonesia instead. From there we would continue NW to the Maldives, then drop SW to the Seychelles. This second route across the Indian Ocean takes a boat into the ITCZ, but since the ITCZ morphs daily in size and shape, with a bit of luck we might skim along its southern edge and tack north to the Maldives as the wind allowed. And as it turned out, all the weather models for our route promised two days of light SE winds to start, increasing to a steady 15-20 knots for a week thereafter. Perfect! The ITCZ had other plans, however. Like the monster lurking under the bed, it was just waiting to pounce.
After drifting along on Day 1 as predicted, we awoke on Day 2 to six hours of squalls with protracted hard rainfall and strong wind out of the NW, exactly the direction we needed to go. We were repeatedly soaked, and the wind and waves pushed us far south of our course. An inauspicious start, but the storm passed and we counseled ourselves to be patient. The SE trades were still predicted to fill in soon, and with the autopilot holding well in the light conditions, we relaxed in the cockpit, reading by day and enjoying an awesome display of stars by night.
On Day 4, the SE trades still AWOL, the weather update did an about-face. Instead of filling in, the maps now showed the ITCZ enlarging and the wind disappearing along our entire route. For the next 48 hours a feeble NW breeze teased and taunted, picking up just enough to nudge Corroboree along at a snailish 2 knots, then dying and leaving us lolling in a hot, flat blue sea. We were therefore elated when, on the afternoon of Day 6, a real SE wind arrived and carried us along into the night. Then in the early hours of Day 7, the monster leaped out again.
I was on the 0100-0400 watch, the sky overcast with no stars but nothing suspicious in the offing. At 0300, I felt a strange chill in the air, the temperature dropped precipitously, and the wind began clocking around the compass from SE to N to NW. I flipped off the autopilot and shouted for Eric. Until now, the wind changes had been gradual, but this was an almost immediate shift, and Corroboree was jerked around with full sails up. In the few minutes it took for Eric to come awake and scramble out with our foul weather jackets, the waves heaved up and rain began pouring down.
We took our stations, me at the helm, Eric attempting to forestall any accidents with the sails. With a 20 knot NW headwind and the boat bucking, we were needled by rain so thick we couldn’t see the top of the mast. The chaos persisted until 0730, and as soon as a gray dawn broke and we had a brief lull, Eric got the jib down in the pitching sea. An hour later, we worked fast during another lull and reefed the main. Yet according to the weather maps we should have been gliding along in an idyllic 10-15k SE breeze. What? You actually trusted a weather report? The more fool you! Yet for the last 18,000 miles our forecasts via PredictWind had been fairly accurate. This time it wasn’t just wrong, it was dead wrong. What was up?
It’s hard to convey what an episode like this does to you physically and emotionally. You’ve lost ground, you’re exhausted, sleep-deprived, and every muscle is knotted with the strain. You’re hungry but too tired even to spread peanut butter on a slice of bread. The cabin is strewn with wet clothes, and the whole boat is stuffy and damp. To top it off, the new weather downloads don’t agree on anything and you’ve lost faith in them anyway. Inevitably, you doubt and second guess yourself. Should we give up trying to reach the Maldives and head south until we found the SE trades? Should we request an emergency rest stop at Chagos or bolt 2,400 miles straight to the Seychelles? But what if the weather forecasts for further south were wrong also? What if we’d totally botched this?
Day 8 delivered N/NE winds and we resumed our track. On Day 9 a squall sped us along at 7 knots for half an hour, then left Corroboree bobbing in circles for two hours, all the wind sucked out of the sky. At midnight, torrential rain was followed by another two hours of dead air, and we motored the rest of the night to keep from tearing out our hair. On Days 10-12, in between more squalls and dead calms, we experienced several intervals of favorable NE-SE wind, and our hopes rose.
On Day 13, we made 75 miles, below average yet our best run thus far. On Day 14 we made almost 100 miles. Yes! All good now. Then the wind vanished and we sweltered, becalmed, for 4 hours. On Day 15 we had zero wind all day and night, and as the autopilot had not been holding well the past few days, Eric disassembled it to have a look. Whereupon the ball bearings fell out. The unit could not be reassembled, and I was fit to be tied. My log entry read: “Lousy, lousy night. I am sick of the sailing, sick of the equipment failures, sick of it all.”
At this point, the obvious question is: Why not turn on the engine and motor the hell out of there? There’s no disgrace in using your engine, and if there’s a choice between getting into a port before sunset or sitting out all night waiting for dawn, we’ll certainly use our motor. We’d already succumbed to the temptation when becalmed on Day 9. But on a long ocean passage we are wary of expending precious diesel every time the wind drops. Better to endure some slow sailing and conserve the fuel for a real emergency. Yet after two weeks at sea we were only halfway there. Two more weeks of this??? Help!
With our sanity at stake, we turned on the engine and headed southwest in search of the trades. Maybe we should have done that a lot sooner because that afternoon the SE wind finally sashayed in. We turned off the engine and continued SW to be sure we stayed in the trade wind belt. We could tack back NW when we were closer to the Maldives and could count on sufficient fuel to motor the last 200 miles if necessary. We set the sails wing-and-wing, and on Day 18 we made 101 miles. My log entry read: “Please let this last!”
It didn’t. At 2200 that night, in a bizarre sequence we’ve never experienced before, a diabolical wind exploded on us from above and whipped Corroboree left, right, and in circles. The switches came so fast, we couldn’t reset the sails quickly enough and we got battered. It was midnight before a lull enabled us to lower the jib and reef the main. What we wouldn’t have given for push-button roller-furling! Oddly, there was almost no rain with this episode, though once again it sucked every last breath of air out of existence. It was like being trapped and suffocating in a bell jar.
On Day 19 the SE wind returned, a situation all the weather models agreed would hold the rest of our way to the Maldives. Nope. That wind swung hard to the SW that very night. No problem with the direction; we could still aim NW for the Maldives. But with the wind hitting 30 knots and Corroboree roaring along at 9 knots—7 knots is her hull speed—it strained the helm and the rigging, and I called for Eric to come help. By the time the wind eased, we were both beat, and Corroboree bumped along in the leftover, lumpy sea. On the plus side, that day’s run was 114 miles, and less strenuous SW winds on Days 20-23 brought more 100+-mile runs. The end of this miserable passage was finally drawing near.
Yet one last doozy lay in store. A few minutes after midnight on Day 24—and why does this always happen at night?—we were ambushed by a huge rain cell. Once again, the wind hit like gangbusters and spun Corroboree every which way in pelting rain. Eric tried to assess where each blast was coming from and yelled at me which direction to steer, but I couldn’t see beyond the cockpit to verify how the sails were setting. The main was already double-reefed, and when Eric went forward to lower the jib, the deck light crapped out.
Now I couldn’t see him at all, and though his safety harness was clipped on, I kept shouting, “Are you there? Answer me!” Finally, I heard an “I’m okay!” But he hadn’t had time to don his foul weather jacket, and when he made it back to the cockpit he was drenched. After drying off below, he came back up in jacket, watch cap and headlamp to adjust the boom. No sooner did he step out of the cockpit than the wind ripped off the cap and headlamp together and flung them away. Mad cursing ensued. Meanwhile, so much rain had fallen that it sloshed around the cockpit in a big puddle. It was past 0200 when the mayhem ceased and we felt back in control. Stunned and exhausted, we traded off one-hour watches the rest of the night, both of us falling asleep at the wheel.
For the last 24 hours we poked along in light wind and rain. That night, the looming lights of Addu Atoll, our destination, emerged and grew in the dark. We entered the channel on the morning of 21 August, anchored off the town, and were cleared in by the officials. Later than day, re-anchored in the yacht basin, we finally dared to believe we had made it. Depressing calms, contrary winds, fearsome squalls. I don’t know if our passage was typical or extreme, but we have concluded that no one can predict the Indian Ocean weather, period. It changes too rapidly and violently. And let me say it again: No one twisted my arm and made me get on this boat. But for now the monster was back under the bed, and thank you, Maldives, for this haven. After three and a half weeks of turbulent seas and emotions, we finally hit the sack for a full night’s sleep.
Morning, 21 August, approaching Addu Atoll. This downpour was small and we dodged it.
As usual when entering a new country, our first order of business was to attend to the basics: food, diesel, propane, water, phone/Internet service, laundry and repairs. We were aided by three wonderful gentlemen. Before leaving Australia, we had filed our Maldives paperwork through agent Ahmed Rasheed of Good Times Maldives on Addu Atoll, and over the next 10 days he went above and beyond the call of duty to help us access all of the above. Customs Officer Saeed donated a morning of his time to drive us to the phone service center to obtain a SIM card and router and to a grocery store for provisions, after which he treated us to lunch. Taxi driver Haneef helped us locate stores and services, lug heavy fuel and water jugs, and gifted us with two stalks of bananas and a boxful of coconuts on our departure. Thank you all, kind sirs!
Here’s a little background on this intriguing country:
The Maldives is an archipelago comprised of 26 coral atolls and numerous uninhabited small islands. It has a total land area of 116 square miles spread over 35,000 square miles of ocean. Addu is the southernmost atoll; Malé, near the center of the archipelago, is the capital. Tourism is the major economic driver, and with Covid receding, international tourists are returning to the beautiful beaches and clear blue waters to swim, snorkel, dive and fish. The archipelago is one of the lowest-lying countries in the world, its highest point a mere 2.4 meters above sea level. No surprise, then, that the 550,000 (est.) inhabitants are concerned about global warming.
Maldives history stretches back more than 2,500 years when it was settled by people from India and Sri Lanka and became a Buddhist kingdom. Arab traders brought Islam in the 12th century. In the colonial era, the Portuguese, Dutch and British each took a turn until the Maldives became independent from Britain in 1965. Today, the country is Muslim and the official language is Dhivehi, an Indo-Aryan language related to the Sinhalese spoken on Sri Lanka. Most Maldivians also speak English, which we certainly appreciated, and we soon learned that the correct pronunciation of the country’s name is MOL-deevs.
We found Addu to be a laid-back place with well-kept neighborhoods and clusters of stores, schools, mosques, and government offices strung along its 9-mile length. The atoll has an international airport, a hospital and a huge police training center. Most consumer goods arrive by ship, and we popped into the grocery stores frequently to acquire fresh produce. As in other Muslim countries, one thing you can’t buy anywhere in the Maldives, except at the resorts, is alcohol. Luckily for us, there was a resort within walking distance where we purchased a day pass to lounge by the pool and sip cold white wine. We returned for a buffet dinner and a bottle of delicious South African cabernet merlot on our 51st wedding anniversary. Cheers!
On the repairs front, Eric fixed the deck light, replaced the worn flag halyards, and realigned the blades of the wind generator to eliminate a vibration. A machine shop created a new adaptor for our propane bottle to make it easier to refill. The attempt to reassemble the autopilot failed, however. Eric ordered a new one online—$$$!—along with other spare parts to be shipped from the USA when we reached the Seychelles. Best of all, we availed ourselves of Zoom, FaceTime, and other technology to get in touch with family and friends. As a result, we learned that grandchild #2 is on the way. Our spirits soared!
When we left the Maldives on 2 September, we were naturally wary of what this next leg across the Indian Ocean held in store. But there was also reason to think positive. The distance this time—1,100 miles to the Seychelles—was 750 miles less than the leg just completed. If we were in for another hell, at least it would be a shorter hell than before.