Indian Ocean
Arabian Sea
Republic of
Mumbai aka Bombay
Apollo Bunder
Royal Bombay Yacht Club +912222021880 rbycmail@vsnl.net
SY "Kamu II" at anchor, off the Gateway of India, three cables SW of the aircraft carrier “Viraat” (ex-HMS “Hermes”, the Royal Navy Task Force flagship during the Falklands crisis), at 5 m depth on mud.
Click below for an interactive satellite view of our dirty but very protected anchorage:
Click below for today’s special deals:
Being becalmed many times and patiently slacking it out with plenty of rolling, sail flapping and boom banging in the long swell between the Iranian Makran coast and the Omani Batinah coast.
Crawling over the infamous Murray Ridge, an ocean mountain range rising up to 300 m below sea level from the 3000 m deep floor of the Arabian Sea , where the sea gets heaped up with an impressive swell.
Observing a series of extra-tropical depressions passing us without giving sufficient wind to fill our slack sails - despite all our whistling and swearing.
Crossing the Tropic of Cancer from N to S at the meridian of E 060° 11.34’.
Hooking our biggest ever, 1.20 m long and 30 kg heavy yellow-fin tuna, with a tip-to-tip “wing span” of 26 cm at the caudal fin, and turning it into (i) far too many fried tuna steaks, (ii) a whole set of Tupperware containers filled up with all kinds of pickled tuna bites (a la Ouma, a la Henry, a la Petra) and (iii) several meters of threaded tuna slices tied to the shrouds becoming delectable fishtong.
Slipping through the armadas of Bombay fishing boats which were attacking the sea life off Bombay
Making good the uneventful total of 1,015 nm between Fujairah/UAE and Bombay/India in 14 days (an average daily run of only 73 nm).
Anchoring in the muddy waters of Bombay Harbour right opposite the famous Gateway to India which was built to commemorate the visit of King George V in 1911 CE and which looks like a cross between the Parisian Arc de Triomphe, a Moorish mansion and a piece of 16th-century CE Gujarati architecture and watching V.S. Naipaul’s “… white-clad crowd around the Gateway of India, the air moist, the polluted Arabian Sea slapping against the stone steps, the rats below the Gateway not furtive, mingling easily with the crowd, and at nightfall as playful as baby rabbits.”
Ignoring the eager West Coast Marine super-yacht agent’s special offer of a fee of “only” INR 19,400.- (US$ 510.-) plus his expenses (!) for clearing Bombay’s customs and immigration and doing it instead by ourselves - with a little help of the Royal Bombay Yacht Club (many thanks, Rajan, for your letter of introduction to the most helpful and relaxed officers of the authorities who gave us clearance in an instant; thank you, Venkat from customs and Cyrus from immigration) - all free of charge, except the INR 20.- or US$ 0.50 taxi ride with a “bumblebee” (one of these ubiquitous, battered black-and-yellow 1960 CE Fiat cars where one has to twirl the unique meter to the “on” position through the passenger window at the start of each trip) to the Old Customs House (the earliest headquarters of the East India Company) and to the dilapidated Yellow Gate Police Station Building behind the Ballard Estate (named after General J.H.Ballard, who was the first chairman of the Bombay Port Trust).
Time-travelling back into the good old times of the 19th century CE every time we entered the Royal Bombay Yacht Club (est. in 1846 CE when the clock seems to have stopped), where we became Honorary Members (membership card No. 11) and enjoyed tremendously the clubs generous hospitality and its well-kept facilities: shop, subsidized food (only payable with “coupons”, the club’s own currency which comes in denominations from INR 1.- to INR 25.- in a special booklet with the warning: “Coupons from this book are to be detached by Member only. In no case may the staff be asked to do this.”), unsubsidised drinks in the bar (cash only, no chits), clean hot/cold shower, gymnasium, internet access and library with reading room; most splendid indeed.
Meeting “distressingly normal” (according to a shrink who compared his state of mind before and after his win of the Sunday Times Golden Globe race around the world in 1968 CE) Sir Robin Knox-Johnston in the Royal Bombay Yacht Club, living sailing legend and the first who has sailed around the world non-stop and single-handedly with his Bombay-built wooden ketch SY “Suhaili”, and holding our breath whilst listening to his retirement dreams of cruising the Indian Ocean in a crewed 60 ft fibreglass sloop with heating and air-conditioning.
Getting lost amongst the incense wavers, mattress fluffers, dope dealers, ear cleaners, scalp massagers, rat catchers, balloon sellers, chai carriers, dabba wallahs (their core mantras: the customer is God which means work is worship, time is money and unity is power), laundry-men, water suppliers, gas-bottle fillers, sugar-cane juice pressers, fortune-tellers, temple acolytes, fire eaters, snake charmers, bear handlers, crippled beggars, self-flagellators and international travellers at Colaba Causeway (Shahid Bhagat Singh Marg) and searching amongst Leopold’s clamorous patrons for Karla, Lin, Didier, Vikram and Linda before we went provisioning at the Colaba Market.
Exploring Bombay by chauffeur-driven car and stopping at places as diverse as (i) the Dhobi Ghat (a mega laundry site where scores of laundry-men use rows of open-air troughs to beat the dirt out of the soiled clothes brought from all over the city each day), (ii) the Mani Bhavan Gandhi Sangragalaya (one of the most important Gandhi Memorial Museums in India, containing his charkha [spinning wheel] which became in its symbolized form the central part of the Indian flag), (iii) a gaudy Jain temple on Malabar Hill (built in 1904 CE and dedicated to the first Jain tirthankar [teacher], Adinath, with a sign at the entrance saying that “ladies in monthly period are not allowed.”), (iv) the Parsi Towers of Silence (where the Parsi laid out their corpses to be picked clean by vultures, since the Parsi hold fire, earth and water sacred and did not cremate or bury their dead nor threw them over the side of their ships) and (v) the Victoria Terminus which looks more like a lavishly decorated cathedral than anything as mundane as a railway station (carvings of peacocks, gargoyles, monkeys and British lions are mixed up among the buttresses, domes, turrets, spires and stained-glass windows).
Learning a valuable lesson about the ongoing paradigm shift in the global economy from the foraging gangs of dirty Bombay street urchins when they quite disappointingly for us, not wasting their valuable time, did not deign to look at us Westerners but made a beeline for their much more lucrative begging targets of dishdasha/keffiyeh-clad travellers from the Arabian Peninsula, and reading in V.S. Naipaul’s Wounded Civilization about begging: “The very idea of beggary, precious to Hindus as religious theatre, a demonstration of the workings of karma, a reminder of one’s duty to oneself and one’s future lives, has been devalued. And the Bombay
Taking the economy-class, one-hour ferry ride (INR 100.- or US$ 2.60 per person for a return ticket) across Bombay Harbour to Elephanta Island and spending a great day at this UNESCO World Heritage Site of rock-cut temples and caves containing large sculptured panels, all relating to triple-headed Shiva, the agent of death and destruction but without him growth and rebirth could not take place.
Taking the economy-class, one-hour ferry ride (INR 100.- or US$ 2.60 per person for a return ticket) across Bombay Harbour to Elephanta Island and spending a great day at this UNESCO World Heritage Site of rock-cut temples and caves containing large sculptured panels, all relating to triple-headed Shiva, the agent of death and destruction but without him growth and rebirth could not take place.
Indulging in bhelpuri (a tasty snack of crisp vermicelli, puffed rice, spiced vegetables, chutney and chillies) at Chowpatty Beach, according to Salman Rushdie "...a dirty strip of sand aswarm with pickpockets, and strollers, and vendors of hot-channa-channa-hot, of kulfi and bhelpuri and chuttermutter...", and afterwards popping packages of paan where areca nut is carefully sliced and wrapped in the large, green betel leaf together with a clove (to aid digestion and to act as a mild narcotic) into our mouths and chewing them intently.
Servicing the four injectors of our Perkins 4.236M power plant in the clean and well-equipped BOSCH authorised workshop of the Suchde Brothers for the incredible price of only INR 40.- or US$ 1.- per piece.
Refuelling with 250 litres of diesel fuel for INR 34.94 or US$ 0.90 per litre from the Gateway Auto Services petrol station next to the Royal Bombay Yacht Club with the help of five borrowed 50 litre plastic drums, a taxi, a hired inflatable and the selfless and friendly assistance of five young local sailors.
Laundering: INR 230.- or US$ 5.80 for a 6-kg load (washed, dried, pressed and folded over sheets of old newspaper, still readable, but mostly in Hindi).
Leaving Bombay Harbour
Click below for a summary of this year's travels
Click below and see more Konni & Matt Pictures
