Sri Lanka

Hopefully, this will be my last piece from Sri Lanka. After a fairly stressful time when nothing seemed to be going right, and nobody apparently cared, we have made a huge step forward. We now have the gearbox back in the yacht and working in both forward and astern gears!

Previously, the engineer had insisted that the services of a carpenter were needed before he could gain access to the gearbox itself. Fair enough, he is the expert. I arranged with the ship’s agent to have a carpenter available the following day. Nobody turned up. Nobody answered the VHF radio calls. Went ashore to be told no carpenter ‘because it is raining’   I pointed out that it does rain in Sri Lanka during the monsoon season and so what?    “Oh, Captain, the people don’t like it.   Perhaps tomorrow”!

I went back to the yacht and between us – but mostly Leo – we found a carpenter unnecessary, and we managed to lift the whole gearbox out without help.   Went back to the agent and told him we had removed the gearbox ourselves and would he arrange transport and customs documentation for the following morning.   Eight Thirty was agreed (“You are sure, eight thirty”?  “Yes.  Eight Thirty”).

At eight thirty the following morning, I am on the quayside with the gearbox.   It’s a dry day, the sun has been up for a couple of hours and it’s hot.   No agent!   I wait until Nine, before leaving the box and walking to the agent’s office.   He is sitting there playing ‘Space Invaders’ on the office computer.   I express my disapproval and far from apologizing, he tells me if I can get someone else to do the repair then go ahead and do it!  

This really was the wrong thing for him to say.   I leave his office, find someone who will take me on a ‘Tuk Tuk’ tour of motor agents, go back to the yacht, write letters to The Chief Customs Officer to request clearance for the gearbox and then present myself before the Customs Officer in person.

“Where is your Agent”?

“He told me to do it myself”!

“But he can’t.   He is your Government Agent and he has to do the paperwork”!

“I am sorry Sir.  He refuses to do it”!

Acrimonious telephone call from Customs to Agent.   Agent sends his clerk, my paperwork is stamped and the gearbox is allowed to leave the dockyard!   Clerk tells me I must have him with me when I bring it back in because the agent has a bond on the yacht and stands to lose it.

That was the difficult bit.   After that, things have gone much better than I could have hoped.   Engineer stripped the box and decided our problem was a broken selector fork which he could either cannibalize from another old gearbox, or he could have a new one machined (I am not sure which because there was quite a language problem at times), but  not something we would need to have flown out from the German agents, which is what I had feared.

Bear in mind that every time something is needed it is necessary to bail the dinghy out, drive ashore, walk through the dockyard, clear out through the customs gate (where they all recognize me, address me as ‘Captain’ but may still decide that they want to inspect my pass) ask me where I am going.  ‘Out’ seems to the acceptable answer!   Then walk through the Army security chicane and barrier, get a ‘Tuk Tuk’ and go looking for whatever.    In a recent e-mail, your editor, Jane Manning asked what I find to do in Sri Lanka.    ‘Work’ is probably the short answer to that one!

When the end of the day comes – the sun goes down at about six – a ‘Tuk Tuk’ ride for a couple of miles to a nearby beach complex of guest houses and tiny restaurants does show another side of Sri Lanka, probably the one most tourists would recognize.   Sitting just feet from the surf, with a cold beer and a cheap and very well prepared meal under your belt does tend to take a little of the day’s pain away!   Even then, despite using smoking mosquito coils, the flies, mosquitoes and sand fleas usually manage to drive us ‘home’ before nine pm.  To lay and listen to the depth charges going off! 

Anyway, a day later and the box is repaired.    Leo and the engineer install it and it works!   There is just one area of doubt when I ask what type of oil has it been filled with.   “Oh, good oil, new oil” is the reply.   “But shouldn’t it be ATF oil”?   I ask.   “Any oil good.” Is the answer to that one, which was probably a neat way of saying he had never heard of ATF (Automatic Transmission Fluid).    I am a little concerned about this so I ‘phone the UK engine supplier. 

“Obviously, you use ATF in those boxes”, he tells me.   No Brownie points for me there I can tell!   Still best to get it right before we leave, so all the ‘good, new oil’ drained out and the box filled with lovely new ATF oil which I had previously purchased in Singapore.

While all this has been going on, I pick up a dose of Asian Flu (well, what else would you expect?).    Seems there is some minor epidemic going around because I went into a local pharmacy, the chemist just took one look at me and produced a five day course of anti-biotics, a vitamin C/B complex, cough syrup and something else which I guess is to relieve the fever.   Total bill about £3-50 and a promise that I will start feeling better in about thirty six hours time.   I have, so money well spent and thank you very much!

At this time of year there would normally be a dozen or twenty yachts waiting here to make the passage to Europe.   There was just one when we arrived, an Australian ‘Fletch’ who sailed here single-handed but is being joined by his wife for the next leg.   Another yacht is expected in later today, but numbers are well down, due to uncertainties about the Middle East situation and about piracy in the Red Sea.   We can’t do anything about the first and will try to stay on the main commercial shipping route to minimize the risk of the second.

Now we are all provisioned up and hope to take on diesel fuel (from barrels on the back of a pick-up truck, using a length of garden hose) in the morning, before doing the tour of Customs, Emigration, Navy inspections etc., and getting back to sea again.  If possible, we hope to go directly from here to Suez, about 3,500 miles, but that is completely dependent on getting fair winds.   If we don’t, we will have to stop in Djibouti for fuel because we have a complete insurance ban on anything other than ‘Emergency Stops’ while in the Red Sea.   Die hard sailors may be surprised at my pre-occupation with fuel, but the wind always blows from the North in the upper 500 miles or so of the Red Sea, and this boat and crew really want to be through the Suez Canal and into the Med before the end of the year!

If we don’t make Suez for Christmas, from both Leo and myself, have yourselves a good   

Holiday and we will look forward to letting you know how we got on.

Every best regard.

Bob Salmon (now on the high seas again)

Part 5 SriLanka - Suez