Our stay in Singapore
was short – only two days – but was sufficient to make
a huge impression on crewman Leo. It was the largest city he
has ever seen, and far and away the most sophisticated. We still
talk about the billiard table smooth roads, the disciplined traffic,
the ultra modern shopping malls with open eating areas on every
floor, offering every type of cusine – yet without allowing
cooking smells to intrude into the mall itself.
Above all, the absolute
cleanliness everywhere. Chewing gum banned by law. Not a scrap
of litter anywhere (we thought we had caught them out once.
There were black plastic sacks along the side of one road. Wrong!
They were ‘grow bags’ with fresh plants to conceal new
concrete works).
If the electronic signs
‘traffic now taking 8 mins to Jurong’ or ‘Little
Crime is not No Crime’ sometimes give a sense of ‘Big
Brother’ (George Orwell not the TV Programme) then so be
it. Singapore just shows the effect of social engineering on
a proud and industrious multi racial population.
Why this talk of Singapore
when we have now arrived in the port of Galle, Sri Lanka? Only
that the contrast could not be more extreme. Although the British
were the ruling colonial power in both countries and independence
was gained at about the same time, little has changed here.
Any ex serviceman who was stationed in South East Asia back in
the Fifties or Sixties would feel immediately at home, so little
has changed.
Granted, Sri Lanka
has an ongoing security problem with the Tamil Tigers terrorist
movement fighting for an autonomous homeland in the north of the
country for the largely immigrant Tamil speaking population.
The Tamils came from Southern India and one feels that India –
if it chose to – could do much to ease the problems here.
But there is something much deeper which is holding this beautiful
country back. It is almost as though it wants to live in the
past, as evidenced by the paperwork and documentation, which I
swear was first formulated by the British and is still in use
today, but now triplicated. As the yacht’s Master I am
required to employ the services of a shipping agent here. He
fills in most of the forms, I sign them and he then takes me from
office to office to present them to the appropriate officials.
In one case I actually signed eight copies of the same form!
Enough said, let’s get on with Sri Lanka itself.
The country is beautiful
and the people are lovely. Desperately poor by western standards,
but friendly to a fault. This truly is the exotic East. To
see a huge elephant lumbering down the main road surrounded by
trucks, busses, ‘Tuk Tuks’ and bicycles, carrying it’s
own working chain and a bundle of food to keep it going through
the day, is to know that this is a magical place. Actually,
the elephant holds an important place in Sri Lanka culture.
There is even an elephant orphanage here!
Those ‘Tuk Tuks’.
For the uninitiated, these are a sort of three wheeled scooter
with a roof, which has become the taxi of the third world. The
driver sits in the front – of course – and the passengers,
of whom there may be one, two, three, or indeed, a complete family
including chickens for the market, all sit behind. The wheels
are scooter size and send shock waves through the whole structure
at every bump, so the driver weaves from one side of the road
to the other, doing all he can to avoid the pot holes, of which
there are many. Since every other Tuk Tuk driver is doing the
same (and so are many of the busses, trucks and bicycles) and
since the cow has a sacred right to wander wherever it likes,
every ride is an adventure! To add to the apparent chaos –
it has to be said that only the visitors seem to find it frightening
– everyone drives with one hand on the horn, and with a big,
daft smile on their face. The open ocean will seem a much safer
place after this……..
Actually, the trip
here was much easier than I had feared. After leaving Singapore
we quietly motored (yes, we were carrying even more diesel fuel
this time) up the Straights of Malacca and across the bottom of
the Andaman Sea. There was lots of commercial traffic, ships
of every size and type including car transporters looking like
blocks of flats and monster LNG ships carrying natural gas in
triple pressure retorts, almost like some mad scientist’s
laboratory experiment.
There was also a vast
amount of floating debris. The usual plastic which you always
expect to find near heavily populated areas, but also mangrove
and bamboo and even on occasion, whole trees. Even in daylight
it is not always possible to see floating objects in the water,
in time to avoid them. At night it is impossible. On a couple
of occasions there was a horrible ‘grouching’ sound
as the yacht tried to climb over, or push aside something, but
our good luck held and there was no damage done.
We did see one remarkable
phenomena as a little black tail hung beneath one dark cloud and
seemed almost snake-like as it tried to reach down to the sea.
Suddenly, it connected and straightened, and there was the vertical
column of a water spout from cloud to sea, a rotating mass of
energy like a miniature cyclone. We passed just close enough
to see the wind on board rise from eight or ten knots to forty
plus, and then we were away from the danger zone and the spout
went off on it’s merry way, and so did we.
After the first four
days of motoring in very light conditions, a hesitant wind offered
an occasional puff, steadily building in strength until it settled
at twelve to fifteen knots and we were able to get all our sails
up and enjoy the first of the North East Monsoon. Oh, the peace
on board as the engine is switched off and the boat settles into
her natural movement! From then on, we carried the wind all
the way across the Bay of Bengal, making 145 to 150 miles each
day.
There was a massive
and favorable current as we closed the southern coast of Sri Lanka.
The pilot chart indicated a likely, one and a half knots, we actually
experienced five to six, which gave us a speed over the ground,
in excess of twelve knots! This would normally have been very
welcome, but because of security problems, entry into Galle Harbour
is only permitted during daylight hours, and then only after an
inspection by a naval party. We therefore had to furl most of
our sails and stand off the coast for much of the night, before
getting our naval clearance, mid morning.
Local knowledge is
a wonderful thing. I have been to Galle on a number of occasions
so knew exactly what to do. Of course, this time everything
has been changed, yachts are no longer allowed in the harbour
and have to secure to mooring buoys about half a mile off!
I shall gloss over
the formalities. The naval parties (yes, they came twice) are
after a free drink and anything else that might be going. The
Government officials are like government officials everywhere
else in the world. Call them ‘Sir’, keep smiling and
eventually you get what they were going to give you anyway!
We still have a gearbox
problem, with no astern (reverse) facility. I know we will not
be allowed to transit the Suez Canal like this so am determined
that it is repaired before we leave here. I felt it too dangerous
to remain in the open bay, without any engine facility, so have
prevailed upon the naval authorities and the Harbor Master and
have now been allowed to move into the inner harbor so that the
gearbox can be removed. We are alongside an old working boat
with it’s dirty black tire fenders leaving marks all over
our beautiful white topsides. A major cleaning-up operation
is going to be needed when we eventually leave here!
There is one other
small irritation which you don’t expect when cruising on
a yacht. Through the nights, a naval patrol boat steams around
the harbour and small depth charges are thrown into the water
to ‘discourage’ any terrorist scuba divers. Although
they are only small depth charges, the shockwave which hits the
yacht, makes sure that a full night’s sleep is unlikely.
An engineer came on
board, looked at the gearbox and said “No Problem”.
This it seems was not exactly what he meant! It now appears
that it isn’t a problem to work on the gearbox once it is
off the yacht, but it is a major problem to get it off the yacht,
plus it may be an even bigger problem to get spare parts. After
the weekend, we have a carpenter coming to decide how to remove
the structure around the gearbox. Since this will also mean
removing the ship’s batteries, battery box and much else,
things are looking uncomfortable for us next week, without electricity
or water pumps etc.
Once the engineer has
access, and can physically remove the gearbox, we will then have
to arrange with Customs to import it into Sri Lanka for repair,
and then, hopefully, to export it again to the yacht! Yachting
is not all about gin and tonics and tropical sunsets!
So, that is our situation
at the moment. I will let you know how we get on. 
All
at Sea