Into the Indian Ocean and We Made it to Mauritius!

Thirteen days, 2300 nautical miles and another tough passage completed. The 8 boats in our fleet departed from Cocos Keeling a day earlier than planned to try to get ahead of the worst weather, but we all experienced days of high seas and winds. Good old Celtic Star sailed through it all but the constant barrage of huge waves breaking over her decks and having windows frequently dipped below the waterline meant we had drips, puddles and wet patches throughout the boat for over a week. We flew tiny storm sails and left the autohelm to drive as we hunkered down safely in the companion way or when it was worst we stayed down below in the saloon. Michael Jackson had the Moon Walk, we had the saloon skip straddle and splits, or crew crab crawl as we tried to move about inside. Lying down and sleeping were the favoured off watch activities and pretty much all that could be achieved, unless it was your galley watch, which was an ultra extreme challenge. I think ocean sailing is a bit like childbirth, you forget the bad bits, so having declared never to do it again after our “Grey, Grim, Rough, Tough and Relentless” passage, there we were starring in the sequel! Karl was disappointed that the Indian Ocean was as grey and bumpy as the Irish Sea but was still determined to practice his sun sights, when the sun eventually appeared for long enough on day nine.

After that the conditions gradually moderated but with squalls and rain and long lines of fishing nets to navigate around, there were still plenty of challenges. The last couple of days were mixed with a few hours of pleasant sailing and we even launched the spinnaker as we sailed past the tiny island of Rodriguez, 350 miles east of Mauritius. It wasn’t long before the sea and wind built up again and we were back living inside a washing machine!

Now, a reminder of why I am are doing this! The plus side is that we visit remote and interesting places, meet different people and see their history, cultures and lifestyles, and of course we do have fun. So scroll back three weeks to our arrival at Christmas Island, which is a remote Australian territory in the Indian Ocean, and our first stop after Lombok. You may have heard about it because it featured in one of David Attenborough ‘s documentaries. Every year during the rainy season millions of red crabs migrate from the inland forest plateau down to the sea to mate and spawn before they return to their burrows. They have proliferated very successfully which means that these smallish crabs block the roads for days and in some places road bridges have been erected to keep the highway clear. The red crabs get the glory but living alongside them are also large Robber Crabs and smaller Blue crabs.

Both of which also head to the shore for breeding, but due to lower numbers are not such a problem, the Robbers are big enough to drive around and the Blue crabs follow the water courses not the roads. We were actually handed a helpful advice sheet titled “Driving with Crabs”. Pause for laughter…!

The history of Christmas Island is interesting too. Originally it was uninhabited until the phosphate deposits were discovered. The island sticks up 5000 metres vertically from the sea bottom with no continental shelf, so has limestone cliffs and a basalt rock shore and is very difficult to land at, unless, of course, there is a profitable reason. There are 3 communities on the island, Australian, Chinese and Malay, the latter two were brought in as mine workers and stevedores. New mining is not allowed any more and the company are now only extracting phosphate from previous waste piles. The island itself is not very big, it takes a couple of hours to drive around and the biggest employer presently is at the Australian Border Force Detention Centre for asylum seekers. In order to implement the Australian Turn Back policy, border force has large vessels patrolling their waters between Christmas Island and Indonesia 200 miles away, they will fuel and provision boats before the turn them back, in some cases even give them a safer vessel to return home in. Since we left Cairns, we have been called up several times in several locations by patrolling Border Force ships or aircraft. They check that we are who we say we are and how many people are on board. We try not to climb in and out of the lazarette too often as they have eyes in the skies and might think we are people smuggling! Christmas Island was a really enjoyable and memorable place to visit. We moored in Flying Fish Cove early on Thursday September 22nd and went ashore to visit the tourist information centre to learn about the island. That afternoon a number of us clambered onto the mini bus for a guided tour to Anderson’s dale, gorge and waterfalls plus phenomenal blowholes on the rugged coast. These blow water to incredible heights as the swell pounds against the sea cliffs and exposed coral terrace which is gnarly and broken, but was once alive under the sea surface.

There are masses of birds on Christmas Island too; brown, red footed and the rarer Abbot Boobie which appear very similar to the Gannets we see at home. Plus Tropicbirds, Frigate birds and the unique, beautiful Golden Bosun bird, were all nesting in the cliffs at Flying Fish Cove where we moored.

The following day Richard and I went diving on beautiful reefs in crystal clear water and also experienced our first cave dives. We were also very lucky to snorkel with a pod of Spinner dolphins who just happened to be swimming past the dive boat between dives, which was absolutely awesome. One afternoon I trekked up the steep rise from the old “Administrators House” to Territory Day Park, while Richard watched rugby in the tavern, one of only two on the Island.

When the fortnightly plane arrived with fresh supplies we were able to re provision for our Indian Ocean passage and we heard from locals what it is like to live in such a remote spot and small community with limited resources. We also enjoyed a great social scene with our sailing buddies plus a shoreside BBQ at Flying Fish Cove.

The next place we visited was the even more remote atoll of Cocos Keeling, the Keeling tag was added so it wasn’t confused with the Cocos Islands in the Bay of Bengal! This was another place with a fascinating history. The tyrannical Clunes-Ross family established a coconut plantation and copra processing business here in the 1800s until they went bankrupt. Due to the atoll’s strategic geographical situation an early cable station was built here to connect Australia with the rest of the world and this was attacked during the First World War. A famous sea battle ensued between HMS Sydney and the German ship Emden.

We anchored in the north east of the lagoon at Direction Island and visited Home Island a mile and a half away in our dinghy. This proved to be a wild and wet journey due to the strong winds we experienced during our stay. Home island was where the Clune-Ross family lived in the big house they built and where the Copra drying sheds and workshops were sited.

There now remains a population of about 400 Australian Malay Muslims on Home Island and we visited the museum, the cemetery and a cafe, where we chatted with the locals.

Their small supermarket had many empty shelves awaiting the supply plane to arrive at West Island, 5 miles away across the lagoon, where there is an airport and an even smaller population of Australians. There is a regular ferry to West Island but we didn’t manage to get our timing right and were happy just exploring Direction and Home Islands.

The anchorage at the uninhabited Direction Island served as a rest stop before we continued our long passage across the Indian Ocean. We enjoyed sundowners with the fleet onshore where there were a few BBQ and camping areas as well as a Wi-Fi hot spot and a lot of mosquitos. We also snorkelled the Rip current in the passe between Direction and Home Islands. This was a wild experience as big spring tides and breaking seas outside the lagoon meant it was ripping very fast, but the colourful reef and fish were lovely to see.

One night the fleet were invited onto the only catamaran in our fleet called Nakula, where we were entertained in style by the wonderfully welcoming Japanese crew. On our last night after all preparations for our Indian Ocean passage were complete, we eventually found a few moments to play bridge with our friends Anne and Dave from Amazing Grace. They won, but the four of us enjoyed a couple of hours together chatting and chilling in real time while our crews went ashore. We have managed to play bridge monthly with them via an app, while they were in Florida and us in Wales! Naturally, we had all been watching the weather forecast for days and it wasn’t looking good. A deep low to the north and ridging to the south were going to kick up strong winds and big seas, so the fleet agreed to leave Cocos early to try to get ahead of the worst. We weighed anchor at 0600 on Sunday 2nd October and it was a fine sight to see the boats set off sailing together. During the passage our twice daily radio net proved invaluable as plenty of advice and support was shared between the boats. All of the boats experienced problems of differing degrees due to the extreme conditions on the passage, from ripped sails, wet electrics, autohelm failure, burnt out propane solenoid, cracked arch, bent spray hood and worst of all one boat had a hole in the hull causing water ingress. After a fortnight at sea the entire fleet made it safely into Port Louis over the weekend, Celtic Star was the fourth boat to arrive at 0230 on Saturday 15th October, we went to anchor before clearing customs and immigration in the morning.

Exhausted and exhilarated we celebrated our survival and arrival with well deserved fizzy wine on board Celtic Star, we also sampled the delicious Green Bay rum! This could explain why the serious squalls, rough, tough bad weather, interminable wet beds, books and clothing are consigned rapidly to a distant memory! The boat yards, chandlery and suppliers on Mauritius are going to be busy as we all try to fix our lists of breakages before we depart for Ile de la Reunion on 25th October. For now, we are looking forward to welcoming Scott onboard and to exploring Mauritius, the home of the Dodo and the famous Pamplemousse Botanical gardens.