cruisingworld.com79june/july 2016
june/july 2016cruisingworld.com79RISKS & REWARDSassessments showed we were steering
clear of the dangerous areas (see “What
About Pirates?” below).
During our 1,100-nautical-mile passage
from Langkawi to Trincomalee, pirates
were indeed the farthest thing from
my mind on a star-fi lled night when we
collided with something solid.
Whatever we struck stopped us with
a jarring shudder but thankfully didn’t
penetrate the hull. We later learned we’d
breached our port false bow and taken a
chunk out of our daggerboard, but that
night, reassured all was well, Evan and
Maia headed back to sleep. Charlie the cat
and I hunkered down in the moonlight
and peered into the distance, scanning the
horizon for boats.
The fi rst vessel we spotted on this
passage appeared on Evan’s watch just
as we closed with the Sri Lankan coast.
Friends on other boats had mentionedthat Sri Lankan fi shing crews love to
trade, but having a brightly painted craft
with a waving crew make a beeline toward
you is still intimidating. Happily, the trade
resulted in a large mahimahi in exchange
for a container of orange juice.
The next morning we were welcomed
into Trincomalee by offi cials who were
clearly bemused by the relatively large
number of yachts that were suddenly
making the once off -limits harbor their
Sri Lankan port of call. While the east-
coast anchorage is great, until additional
ports are opened to cruisers, the big
reason to visit Sri Lanka is the inland
travel. In a weeklong trip, we covered
tea plantations, national parks, ancientcities and more. Highlights included
cycling among the early Buddhist stupas
in Anuradhapura and seeing a leopard in
Wilpattu National Park.Reasoning with Monsoons
Lasting six days, the 720-mile passage
from Sri Lanka to Uligamu, Maldives, was
the slowest we’d ever made. It also helped
establish the pattern that endured for the
Indian Ocean, where sailing alternated
between too little or too much wind, with
too few miles gained in the sweet spot of
12 to 20 knots.
The clear water, pretty reefs and white
sand beaches of Uligamu almost made
up for the hours spent drifting there in
steamy weather. Jumping
in almost as soon as we
arrived (after checking
when the offi cials were
due), we found ourselves
eye to eye with unicorn
fi sh and surgeonfi sh.
A short time later our
agent, Assad, arrived
along with the offi cials,
a gift of ice cream, and
the kind of unfi ltered
openness we discovered
was characteristic of
Maldivians. Want to
know a Maldivian’s take
on religion, politics or
multiple wives? Just ask.
Planning our route
through the Maldives
was made more
fascinating because of
a change in the tourism
laws. Until 2010, when the new laws
went into eff ect, most villages were off -
limits. Sailors were allowed to visit only
a few select ports and, if they felt like
splurging, a couple of restaurants at
the 112 secluded private-island resorts.
But changing laws led to new cruising
itineraries. Not only could we explore
uninhabited islands and the tried-and-
true ports of Uligamu, Kulhudhuff ushi,
Hulhumale and Gan, but the whole
country was suddenly accessible.
This meant we had the run of hundreds
of islands, scattered among 26 atolls
running down the country’s 520-nautical-
mile length. Because only a few are
highlighted in any sort of cruising guideEvery morning, sailing dhows set off from Nosy Be,
Madagascar, to deliver necessities to neighboring
villages (left). Evan explores the islands in
Moramba Bay, Madagascar (above).latitude 22 degrees N; eastern limit longitude 65 degrees E; southern limit latitude 5 degrees S. During our
crossing we paid careful attention to the International Maritime Bureau’s Piracy Reporting Centre’s website
(icc-ccs.org/piracy-reporting-centre) for details about acts of piracy. If we had felt it was warranted, we would
have changed our route and headed south to the Mascarenes, or gone into “stealth mode” on the AIS so we would
stop reporting our position publicly.