Altair Cruising Log

We are now well into the Indian Ocean and having a great time exploring new cultures and locations. Each stop has been so vastly different from the last, more so than in any previous two month period. We have also covered a great distance, sailing 4,300 miles in 60 days with 33 of those days at sea.

The winds were very light when we left Darwin the beginning of September necessitating more time motoring than sailing. At the 458-mile mark we decided to stop at Ashmore Reef for two days for a break and ‘passage attitude adjustment’. Ashmore Reef is in the middle of the ocean, located at approximately 12 degrees South, 123 degrees East, and is a nature reserve under Australian jurisdiction. One of those places you can only reach by boat and a unique experience to feel you are anchored right out in the middle of nowhere.

There is always an Australian Customs boat on station at Ashmore with a crew of eight plus two people doing research in the area; they rotate back to Darwin every two to three weeks. There are five mooring buoys at an anchorage just inside the reef entrance and ten more in the inner lagoon reached by traversing a well-marked maze through the coral heads. The only other boat here while we visited (besides Customs) was an Australian fishing boat on their way to Yemen; they had spun their prop off the shaft when they picked up the mooring buoy and were busy looking for it on the bottom. We wished them luck as they used their fishing floats to mark where they had already searched.

While the other two boats were anchored near the entrance, we chose to anchor all by ourselves in the inner lagoon and had several excellent snorkels right off Altair in all directions. We saw many of the 14 varieties of sea snakes here plus numerous rays and lots of turtles. At one point, we could see ten turtles right in front of us! Besides the reef there are three small, white sandy islands that all become one at very low tide. The resident customs boat took us ashore when some of the crew went to West Island, the biggest of the islands, for their afternoon run. The beaches had hundreds of wonderful shells but Customs said they would ‘check our pockets’ before returning us to Altair so it was a ‘look but don’t touch’ shell experience. There is a fresh water well on this island that has been used by Indonesian fisherman for hundreds of years and several graves of fishermen. The Indonesians still have access to the well and to visit the graves but are not allowed to fish inside the reef anymore; the fish population has already started to recover in just five years. We saw several Indonesian fishing boats sailing past the island with their colorful blue and white sails. Ashmore Reef is easy for these fishermen to ‘find’ with their basic navigation gear as the reef reflects blue-green on the under side of the clouds overhead and can be seen from 10-15 miles distant.

The second night we were at Ashmore we had the ‘off watch’ from the Customs boat, five of the eight-man crew, over for a beer, greatly enjoyed as their ships are ‘dry’ and there is no local bar here. Great group of guys and very interested in what we are doing, fun to show them Altair and her systems. It was fun to share information and have the interplay. We learned that the scope of activities of Customs in Australia is much more like the Coast Guard in the United States in addition to clearing boats and other traditional customs duties.

While here Paul decided to go ahead with a significant change of appearance he had been contemplating for years -- cutting his hair "Mohawk" style. He says it's just one of those things he always wanted to do! He got the idea one summer as a kid visiting his cousins in Eastern Washington and all of the guys had Mohawks! So when we were stopped at Ashmore Reef he took advantage of a pair of clippers given to us by friends and took the plunge. You should have seen the looks on the captain and crew from the customs boat when they came by later that afternoon! Suzette has gotten used to the new look, Paul says it's cool and comfortable, he now uses tons more sunscreen but much less shampoo! Will admit it's much easier to cut his hair with the clippers than styling it with comb and scissors so Suzette won't mind if he keeps the buzz cut look. The bare sides of his head have grown out and we evened everything up when we reached Rodrigues so the current new look is just a standard crew cut.

Our passage to Cocos Keeling had much better winds and we covered the 1,526 miles in 11 days, an average of 138 miles per day. A good day for us is 120 miles and on this passage we frequently did over 150, much improved over the 90 miles per day on the way from Darwin to Ashmore Reef. The passage was a bit more “spirited” the last couple of days, with one exciting moment when a plate flew across the cabin and shattered against the far wall. The plate and a calculator were the only casualties.

There were 14 boats anchored off Direction Island in Cocos Keeling when we arrived but six left the same day and three more over the next two days. That left us in an intimate group of five boats, the only one we knew previously being our very good friends on “Pelagic”. We anchored in 13 feet of water where we could easily see the bottom even at night with the full moon! Uninhabited tropical island, turquoise blue water, white sand beach, palm trees, what more can we say?

Cocos (Keeling) Islands was discovered in 1609 by Captain William Keeling, explored in later decades but were not settled until 1826 when John Hare arrived. John Clunies-Ross followed him soon after and despite being business partners the two soon fell out; John Hare was restricted to Prison Island and soon left. Clunies-Ross imported labor from Malaya and built up a large copra plantation. The island was declared a British dominion in 1857, although this did not seem to phase Clunies-Ross and his family who kept on building up the plantation. The family basically operated the island as their own little fiefdom even printing their own ‘script’ for money; the coins were actually plastic in later years. In 1886 Queen Victoria virtually awarded the islands to the descendents of Clunies-Ross family. Cocos was passed between various British dependencies until it was made an Australian dependency in 1955. In 1978 the Australian government purchased the property from the Clunies-Ross descendants except for a house and property on Home Island. Although Cocos is administered by Australia, it is essentially self-governing at a local level. A cable and wireless station was built on Direction Island in the late 1800’s and finally closed in 1966; the island was also used as a refueling stop for flights from Australia to South Africa.

Cocos Keeling has three distinct ‘neighborhoods’: the visiting yachts anchor off uninhabited Direction Island near the main entrance to the reef; 450 Muslim Malays live on Home Island; and 125 Australians live on West Island. Both Home and West Islands have their own basic infrastructures. The Muslim Malays remained at Cocos after the copra plantation was closed. Home Island is a 20-minute dinghy ride from Direction Island and from there you could take a small ferry across the lagoon to West Island for US$3 round trip. West Island has a large runway built during World War II that is currently used by the Australian Air Force and two commercial flights a week from Perth, Australia bringing fresh supplies and a few tourists. It was nice to buy a few fresh vegetables but anything that came by air was VERY EXPENSIVE and without checking prices first we paid US$13 for a bag of spinach, two large zucchinis and three large apples! It was nice to have Direction Island almost exclusively to ourselves but still have the convenience of a grocery store with fresh baked bread, post office and diesel a short dinghy ride away. Both Home Island and West Island also have small but interesting museums and it was fun to learn about the local history, see old photos and the wonderful old wooden boats built here.

With a small population, some shops and services were only open for two hours a day so you had to plan your day very carefully. For example the diesel and gas station on Home Island was only open five days a week from 7:30 to 9:30. The hardware store was only open on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 9:30 to 11:30. If you were planning a trip to West Island, you had to shop at the Home Island grocery store before going across as it would be closed when you returned. Or you could shop at a similar store on West Island that closed at 3:00 so the workers could catch the last ferry home to Home island.…. It just meant you had to pay attention.

As Home Island is very small and the community compact, many people drive four wheel quad bikes or golf carts instead of cars. It always made us smile to watch the Muslim women in their traditional modest dress (long skirts, long sleeves and head coverings) hike up their skirts to climb on their quad bikes and ride off with bare lower legs showing. We were always greeted with smiles wherever we went.

Direction Island has a shelter with picnic tables on shore for use by the visiting yachts and locals who come across from West Island by ferry for day trips on Saturdays. Others West Islanders also come over in private boats to camp on the island. Off the main beach there is a float complete with diving board. On shore there are water collection tanks for doing laundry and pit toilets, but bring your own banana leaf. We had several dinners on shore cooking our dinner over the beginnings of beach fires. We would start the fire then placed an old ladder over it and put a steel plate on the ladder to use as a BBQ. Suzette is a great lover of beach fires and never one to miss an opportunity, plus a great way to spend an evening socializing and nice to be able to be off the boats.

There is a large hermit crab population here, some of the largest ones we have ever seen. Some were so large they needed to resort to using heavy, broken shells for homes leaving huge trails in the sand behind them. While Direction Island has a healthy hermit crab population, Home Island has none because the Muslim Malays use hermit crabs for fishing bait. So the West Islanders have told the Malays they feed the Direction Island hermit crabs bacon while camping there. This protects the hermit crabs, as being Muslims, the Malays will not eat pork or anything that has eaten pork. Thus they won’t eat a fish caught with a hermit crab that has eaten pork.

The morning after a dinner ashore, the sand on the ground of the shelter was wall-to-wall hermit crab tracks! They were the clean up patrol for any morsel left behind. As the evening progressed during each beach fire, you would become aware of a clicking noise that seemed to become increasingly louder. Turning to look over your shoulder you would see what looked like hundreds of hermit crabs of all sizes wandering around on the sand just out of reach. Almost like a scene out of a science fiction movie. It’s amazing how loud these small guys can be. At one point one of the adults wondered aloud what this group of hermit crabs might be up to and his son immediately answered “they were totaling up our bill for the evening.”

The shelter and surrounding coconut trees have been decorated by visiting yachts with creative signs listing names of boats, crews and dates of their stays. Some were carved in wood, others painted on driftwood, old fishing floats or tattered country or yacht club flags. Different yachts used various things picked up off the beach in their designs including shells, rubber thongs, and bits of beach glass. Each sign was unique and it was fun to read the names of the various boats and look for those we know.

We enjoyed swimming off the beach and snorkeled the famous “Rip” where a very fast current propels you over the colorful reef and into the lagoon. Riding in on The Rip is like an E ticket ride at Disneyland, once you reach the end, you climb back in the dinghy, motor back out and start again. We must have done it five times. There is a canyon, lots of tropical fish and a few resident reef sharks that seemed to be sleeping with their heads in the coral caves and tails sticking out. They were napping peacefully until Paul went down and pulled on one their tails! Luckily they are only four feet long and don’t hold a grudge.

Cocos was a very relaxing tropical paradise, we could have stayed for weeks but needed to move on to have time to visit the next islands and get to South Africa before cyclone season. We bid a sad farewell the beginning of October and started off on our passage to Rodrigues. The passage took 14 days to sail the 1,986 miles, an average of 142 miles per day. The wind was abeam or behind us all the way which made for a very comfortable, quick trip. We were in shipping lanes for most of the passage and saw five ships that we generally called on the radio for a short chat.

Although we trailed the fishing line for most of the trip, again we were not able to convince any fish to accept our dinner invitation. We did get flying fish aboard every night, some small sardine size and others quite large about ten inches long. Each morning we would toss the previous ‘night’s catch’ overboard, sometimes as many as 50 fish. A couple of days out, we noticed a ‘dead animal’ smell down below and wondered what it could be. When we began to search around we found a dead flying fish in the main cabin. He somehow entered through the 2 by 2 foot companion way opening and flew ten feet inside the boat, bounced off the bulkhead and nestled in amongst some spare clothing. This of course of was a large flying fish, not one of the small ones and by this time he was pretty ripe.

The morning of October 17, we spotted Rodrigues emerging on the horizon at dawn. It’s still a thrill to spot land even with modern navigation aids like GPS, to know you are where you think your are in a big ocean with no visible landmarks to steer by. We came through the outer reef then through the tight channel that had been blasted through the coral to make a protected inner harbor. The anchorage was compact with the sailboats anchored on the far side leaving enough room for the local passenger freighter to maneuver on it’s way out a couple of hours later. An hour after anchoring we had been visited and cleared in by the doctor, coast guard, police and customs and we were free to explore the island.

Rodrigues is officially part of the independent country of Mauritius and the two along with Reunion (a French overseas territory) form the Mascarenes Islands located 500 miles off the east coast of Madagascar. Life in Mauritius and Rodrigues is a blend of the many cultures represented here. English has been the official language for almost two centuries, but everyone prefers to speak French or Creole. Money is counted in rupees, and land is measured in arpents, French units that have not been used in France since the days of Napoleon. All Mauritians are descendants of immigrants, former slaves or former indentured Indian workers. Since there is no native population everyone seems to get along very harmoniously with none of the angst found in other countries between the local and immigrant populations.

These uninhabited islands were discovered by the Portuguese in 1511, first settled by the Dutch from 1598 to 1710 then colonized by the French starting in 1715. England captured the islands in 1810 to provide safe passage for ships of the British East Indian Company. The islands were the lair of pirates and they together with the French had harassed and captured numerous British East India Company ships sailing by the islands laden with cargos from the Far East. Reunion was given back to the French but the British kept Mauritius and Rodrigues. The French colonists on Mauritius were allowed to preserve their mother tongue, their religion, their laws (Code Napoleon) and their customs and traditions.

We are now half way through our circumnavigation; officially half way around the world from Seattle and exactly 12 hours different in time. It is an exciting moment and we are looking forward to drinking the bottle of champagne we purchased to celebrate the occasion.

We had a great time on Rodrigues and will write about that experience and our time on Mauritius in a week or so. Or at least that is the plan. Hope you are all doing well.

Cheers – Suzette and Paul
Yacht Altair
Port Louis, Mauritius, Indian Ocean