14 Apr - 15 Apr 2008 Chagos


Indian Ocean
British Indian Ocean Territory
Chagos Archipelago
Salomon Islands
Ile Takamaka
SY "Kamu II" at anchor, west of Ile Takamaka, at 15 m depth, on sand.


Click below for an interactive satellite view of our anchorage:
S 05° 19.94' E 072° 15.85'











Sailing the Indian Ocean from the Maldives to the Chagos Archipelago, (i) watching shoals of smiling bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) course alongside the ship and "surf" the bow wave during the day, (ii) leaving a trail of fire from the stirred up bioluminescence through the black ocean at night, as if the keel were a burning matchstick and the water flammable, and (iii) meeting many fishing boats, but no pirates.

Thinking of our beloved and respected sailing friend and role model Seth in Ashkelon, a real mentsh (who is also still capable to climb his yacht's main mast without outside help), and celebrating his 80th birthday: Mazel Tov and Le Chaim, dear Seth, you are locked in our hearts!

Mourning over our brain-dead autopilot (only later in Phuket did we discover that a dried out capacitor in the Robertson RFC 250 fluxgate compass had caused the malfunction of our autopilot) and applauding to the always extremely reliable, fully mechanical Hydrovane self-steering which rescued us from hand-steering along the whole distance.

Logging the distance of c. 320 nm during four squally days (a relaxed average daily run of only 80 nm) between the most southern of the Maldivian atolls, the Addu Atoll, and the Salomon Islands in the Chagos Archipelago.


 

Eyeballing through the shallow pass into the atoll along a straight line from S 05° 18.36' E 072° 14.42' (the outer waypoint; note that there is a 0.25 nm WSW offset on BA charts, C-Map and Google Earth) to S 05° 18.93' E 072° 14.98' (the inner waypoint) with the sinking sun behind us and still almost bumping into a submerged coral head halfway between the atoll entrance and Ile Takamaka. 

Meeting friendly anchoring yotties: Ming & Frank and their little daughters Carmen and Julie (SY “Constante Singapore”) from Singapore and Tak & Henry (SY “Papa”) from Australia; many thanks, Henry, for the nice welcome gift, a freshly caught trevally for our first breakfast on Chagos!


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Click below for a summary of this year's travels
2008 Map Konni & Matt


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Destination:

05 Apr - 10 Apr 2008 Gan


Indian Ocean
Laccadive Sea
South Asia
Republic of Maldives
Addu Atoll
Gan
Small-craft Harbour
SY "Kamu II" at anchor, at 4 m depth, on sand.

Click below for an interactive satellite view of our very protected anchorage:
S 00° 41.14' E 073° 08.64'








Konni: Meeting Neptūnus aka Poseidon himself, the god of the oceans, and receiving a hearty line-crossing ceremony thus commemorating my first crossing of the equator on a sailing ship and turning into a seasoned and honorary shellback, hooray!

Entering the Addu Atoll from the north through Kuda Kandu at entrance waypoint S 00° 36.54' E 073° 08.26', later entering uneventfully the small-craft harbour of Gan at waypoint S 00° 41.04' E 073° 08.75' and bringing SY "Kamu" eventually to anchor at S 00° 41.14' E 073° 08.64'.

Refuelling with 78 litres of diesel fuel (MVR 11.95 or US$ 0.92 per litre) and 41 litres of petrol (MVR 11.85 or US$ 0.91 per litre) from a tanker truck which conveniently came directly to the dinghy jetty from where we could easily refill our own jerry cans.

Topping up our provisions with canned Maldive Fish aka seeni sambol (deliciously smoked and cured Maldivian tuna with tropical spices) and all kind of fresh produce (mostly veggies and fruit from Mohammed “Mullah” Saeed’s reasonably priced Two-Plus-One Shop +9606892761 at Feydhoo) thus stocking up for our upcoming three-month long stay on Chagos.

 
Meeting an interesting and diverse bunch of experienced international yotties and wanna-be circumnavigators: Deena & Jacob from New Zealand (SY “Crimson Tide”), Vic & Greg from the United States (SY “Erin Brie”), Yolanda & Ralf from Switzerland (SY “Moana”), Bea & Thede from Germany (SY “Jolly Celeste”) and Ursula & Eckhardt from Austria (SY “Azimut”). 

Relaxing at this comfy and fully protected anchorage, taking our own sweet time, listening to Eileen Quinn's What Do You Do All Day?, watching both fruit bats and passenger planes from the nearby Gan Airport (the ex-Royal-Air-Force base) sharing the airspace above our two masts and preparing mentally for the upcoming three months of exile on Chagos.
 
 
Clearing Gan's invisible immigration and customs (for a total of MVR 50.- or US$ 4.- for so-called “entry charges” including an official port-clearance certificate for Chagos) with the help of our friend and loyal yacht agent Masood +9606893433 (US$ 25.- for his expenses) and realising that the people from the southern Maldivian atolls (especially from the Addo Atoll) do have quite an independent streak (they even speak differently from the people of Male and in the 1960s they declared the - short-lived - independence from the Maldives as the “United Suvadiva Islands” under the presidency of Abdulla Afif Didi).
 

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Destination:

03 Apr - 04 Apr 2008 South Huvadhoo

Indian Ocean
Laccadive Sea 
South Asia 
Republic of Maldives 
South Huvadhoo Atoll 
Vaireydhuva Island 
SY "Kamu II" at anchor, off Vaireydhuva Island, outside the fringing reef, at 18 m of depth, on sand and coral.

Click below for an interactive satellite view of our anchorage:
N 00° 17.24' E 073° 20.32'




 



Relaxing, snorkelling and sunbathing on this small and uninhabited, almost paradise-like coconut island, directing American/British yotties Patricia & Roger from SY “Iolea” into our safe reef anchorage (after we overheard the intensive VHF radio traffic from a small flotilla of cruising yachts who had sailed loosely together from Southeast Asia to the British Indian Ocean Territory aka Chagos) and joining up with them on "our" island's fantastic sandy beach.


  
 2008 Map Konni & Matt 

Visit the Konni & Matt online albums and order high res travel photos
Konni & Matt Travel Photos


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Destination:

02 Apr - 03 Apr 2008 Gaidhoo

Indian Ocean
Laccadive Sea
South Asia
Republic of Maldives
South Huvadhoo Atoll
Gaidhoo
Fishing Harbour
SY "Kamu II" with her stern to the stone jetty, one bow anchor plus a very long landline from the ship’s bow all the way through the harbour (about 60 m) to the outer breakwater (modified "Roman Catholic" anchoring); at 4 m of depth, on sand.

Click below for an interactive satellite view of our harbour berth:
N 00° 17.38' E 073° 27.26'

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Refuelling with 100 litres of clean diesel fuel for MVR 14.00 or US$ 1.10 per litre from Hassan, the helpful skipper of a dhoni in the fishing harbour of Gaidhoo, syphoning the precious stuff out of his ship's main tank and jerry-jugging it over some breakneck planks to our SY “Kamu II”.

Strolling through the main village, meeting friendly local people, provisioning from one of the local green grocers and dining on great Maldivian ray curry, at the restaurant Geeth in “down town” Gaidhoo, together with our reliable friend, plain-clothes village cop and self-appointed tour guide Shifau.


  
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Destination:

31 Mar - 02 Apr 2008 South Huvadhoo

Indian Ocean
Laccadive Sea
South Asia
Republic of Maldives
South Huvadhoo Atoll
Kashidoo Island
SY "Kamu II"at anchor, east off Kashidoo Island, outside the fringing reef, at 28 m of depth, on sand.

Click below for an interactive satellite view of our open anchorage:
N 00° 20.02' E 073° 26.34'




 



Entering South Huvadhoo Atoll through the Vaarulu Kandu lagoon entrance, with a least charted depth of 11 m, between Maavaarulaa and Kaduhulhudhoo, at waypoint N 00° 20.41' E 073° 32.12'.

Exploring the pristine beaches and coconut plantations of Kashidoo Island, meeting a bunch of friendly islanders, partying with coconut water from young green coconuts, which were skilfully opened with a machete by one of the perfectly pentadactyl natives, and learning that in WWII British patients were given coconut water intravenously because saline solution was in short supply.



DM Konni: Donning my scuba gear, doing several leisure dives, visiting a diversity of colourful reef fish which lives in the dead parts of the corals, spotting huge table corals, the only surviving species after a recent dramatic spike of the water temperature during El Ninho, and cleaning SY "Kamu's" steel hull below the water line from layers of obstinate barnacles; once a diver, always a diver.
"...ten percent of the big fish still remain. There are still some blue whales. There are still some krill in Antarctica. There are a few oysters in Chesapeake Bay. Half the coral reefs are still in pretty good shape, a jeweled belt around the middle of the planet. There's still time, but not a lot, to turn things around." 


Click below for more blog posts with Konni's u/w photos
11 Feb - 20 Feb 2014 Moalboal (Philippines)
29 Jan - 03 Feb 2014 Koh Lipe (Thailand)
22 Feb - 10 Mar 2013 Pulau Tioman (Malaysia)
26 Sep - 24 Oct 2012 Tanjung Karang (Sulawesi)
20 Mar - 07 Apr 2012 Iboih Beach (Sumatra)

Click below for a summary of this year's travels
2008 Map Konni & Matt

Visit the Konni & Matt Online Albums and order high-res travel photos


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