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January 31, 2007

A New Rudder and Voyage Underway

LOCATION: Arabian Sea
SEE WHERE WE ARE!
Longitude: N:18°53187.
Latitude: E: 072°34422.
Miles to Djibouti: 1,780

Moksha is now sporting a brand spanking new tail thanks to the immediate assistance of the Royal Bombay Yacht Club in arranging for Razzaq, the clubs carpenter, to whip one up almost overnight. Hes done a truly wonderful job, replicating almost an identical copy from Chris Tippers original. And at 8am this morning, a little over 48 hours since crunching ourselves on a hidden wreck at the entrance to Bombay harbour, we slipped our mooring for a second time and headed out on the ebb tide bound for Djibouti.

Its now 4pm the same day and after giving the southern extremity of the Prongs Reef system more conservative clearance were powering our way out to sea, carefully picking our way through the many shipping hazards marked on the admiralty charts such as dumping grounds, oil platforms and numerous wrecks. Our main concern now is to clear the oil fieldfield 35miles west of Mumbai harbour without getting blown onto it by predominantly northerly winds. At the time of writing the wind is 5-10 knots from the north and by taking 2 hours shifts were able to maintain a 2.5 knot speed and a 270 degree heading to clear the oilfields to the south of us. Tonight we will need to be extra vigilant negotiating two sets of shipping lanes that we need to cross. Then hopefully by tomorrow morning, once the oilfields and shipping lanes are behind us, we can turn Mokshas nose to 260 degrees and make a beeline for African shores.

No sickness as of yet just very, very hot!

jason

Posted on January 31, 2007 11:17 AM