cruisingworld.com76june/july 2016
june/july 2016cruisingworld.com76INDIAN OCEAN
RISKS &
REWARDS
C
hoosing a route across an ocean can
be highly personal. Sometimes you
need to give sway to dreams and fanta-
sies, visiting far-fl ung destinations that
are lodged in your heart, perhaps inspired
by a magazine article or a story you once
heard. Sometimes the beaten path is the
way to go: following a rally, or the season,
to points known. But sometimes you sail a
route you never intended to take at all.
Years ago, when my husband, Evan,
and I originally planned to go cruising
with our daughter, Maia, our hope was to
continue on from Southeast Asia through
the Gulf of Aden and the Suez Canal and
into the Mediterranean. But heading
into what is now a known pirate region
struck us as risky, so we chose not to take
our 40-foot Wood’s Meander catamaran,
Ceilydh, (or our teenage daughter) into the
danger zone.
This left crossing the Indian Ocean to
South Africa, either on the southern route,
which most boats still take — from Cocos
Keeling to the Mascarene Islands, past
Madagascar, and arriving in South Africa
in time for the milder summer months
(November to February) — or, thanks to
the diminishment of piracy and a recently
revised “high-risk area,” on the northern
route, which we took. About 30 boats
made this passage in the 2015 season.
Our journey began in February of that
year, took almost nine months, straddled
two cyclone seasons (May to July in the
North Indian Ocean and December to
April in the south), and gave us a chance
to visit some pint-size countries and
remote atolls. From Langkawi, Malaysia,
we sailed to Trincomalee, Sri Lanka (see
“A Fresh Welcome,” Jan. 2016). After a few
weeks there, we spent time in the Mal-
dives, a chain of 1,192 islands where they
speak Dhivehi and spend rufi yaas.
Then it was Chagos, part of the British
Indian Ocean Territory, where no one but
researchers and sailors in transit across the
Indian Ocean is currently permitted to
visit. Next we sailed on to the Seychelles,
with its granite peaks and gorgeous
beaches; Comoros, the third-smallest
African nation by area; Madagascar;
Mozambique; and South Africa.
Our 13-year-old daughter, Maia, accused
us of choosing the route as a geography
lesson, especially after we admitted we’d
never heard of Comoros. In truth, we
were swayed by the fact that four otherEXHILARATING. FRUSTRATING.
WONDERFUL. CROSSING THE
INFAMOUS INDIAN OCEAN ON
THEIR CATAMARAN PROVED
TO BE ALL OF THIS AND MORE
FOR AN ADVENTUROUS FAMILY
CIRCLING THE GLOBE.BY DIANE SELKIRK