Passage to the Chagos Archipelago

[Kyle]The forecast for our departure from Cocos (Keeling) was not the best. Winds were predicted to be in the high twenties, with gusts above thirty and heavy rain. Yuck! The one good thing about it was that the winds were supposed to be so far aft (from the southeast) that we wouldn’t need to even bother to get the mainsail out of its bag. Unrolling the jib halfway should be all the sail we need for the first few days.

A mixed bag weatherwise, but nothing too horrid

That’s not how it worked out. When we left the anchorage at Direction Island, the wind was out of the south, probably being deflected by the land. Once we left the island’s lee in the departure channel, the wind swung all of the way to north northwest, which meant we needed to sail close-hauled to get around Horsburgh Island before we could turn downwind. This is where not readying the mainsail hurt us. Begonia can sail about thirty-five degrees off of the wind under jib alone, but only at about a third of the speed as when it is directing the airflow over the much bigger main sail. The seas were big and with less than a mile of upwind sailing to go, it seemed imprudent to run the risk of going forward and then onto the cabin top to unzip the mainsail bag. Slow was okay, as long as our angle would allow us to clear Horsburgh. With the current flowing the way it was, it didn’t seem like tacking would do anything other than take us back to Direction Island. Every time there was a lull or the wind shifted just a bit more north, it looked like we weren’t going to make it. During gusts or with a slight wind shift more to the east, we’d pick up enough speed to where we thought we might just make it. All of this drama was playing out at an average speed over the bottom of 0.7 knots – about a boat length every sixteen seconds. That made the wait for our waypoint at the northern tip of Horsburgh, where the bottom drops to deep water, a long one indeed. Jeez, with the original forecast, we should have been twenty miles away by now.

When we did finally make it, it was with great relief that we turned to go with the wind and seas instead of fighting our way against them. We were much more comfortable, although we still weren’t moving too fast. I was at least thankful that if they were going to bust the forecast wind speed by twenty knots, this was way preferable to being in an unexpected forty-five.

The one thing the forecasts did get right was the rain. We got dumped on all day long. Since it was from behind and since it was generally too hot to think about installing our greenhouse-like cockpit enclosure, it rained directly onto the cabin door, which meant any venture outside resulted in a good soaking. We’re equipped to sit watches from inside the cabin with repeaters for our chartplotter and an autopilot remote. The only thing we’re missing in there is a view of the magnetic compass and access to some sub-menus on our instruments. We don’t generally sit whole watches inside, maybe just an hour over dinner, because it feels just a little too removed from what is going on in the outside world. The muffled wind can only be heard and not felt and it’s less convenient to make small trim changes to the sails. Today, though, it seemed thoroughly preferable to sitting in wet clothes all day and night.

After another day and a half, the wind did start climbing and it was only necessary to duck outside a couple of times per watch to avoid a brief shower. Then the wind built further until we were romping right along with only ¼ of the jib out. An uncomfortable beam sea arrived from a distant storm to the south, which rolled us around just enough to have us constantly lurching into things every time we tried to move. At one point, after a night watch in which I was particularly tired, I made Maryanne a cup of coffee. Just before I could get the lid on (it’s a travel mug, of course) it fell to the floor and the hot contents exploded all over both me and the galley. This was beginning to get a little tedious. This place had better be nice!

Mealtimes are always looked forward to when on passage

On Day Six, we actually received by email our permit to visit the Chagos Archipelago from the British government, along with a snippy note saying that they had more to do than just process BIOT (British Indian Ocean Territory) permits, so of course they have a huge backlog. How could we not know that? Well, because you never told us that until now, that’s how. Anyway, we got it. We have permit #6 for 2022, and it only took us four months to get it!

Over the next few days, the wave direction slowly fell in line with the wind. Our BIOT permit has a very strict start date, which only required us to average about five knots for the rest of the passage. Since we didn’t have to push too hard, the motion became easy and comfortable. We flew the spinnaker for a day during the deepest lull, but mostly a reefed jib was more than enough to meet our target speed.

As we neared the islands of the Chagos Archipelago, we started seeing more and more seabirds. Most numerous of these were the Red-Footed Boobies. They are graceful fliers with sweet dispositions, but they do have the annoying habit of trying to land on the boat well after sunset, just when it is almost too dark to see. Most seem to head for the lifelines around the deck, where they then spend their next hours in a futile fight to stay balanced on the gyrating wire. The more fortunate ones land on the bows, wedge themselves up against one of the pulpit rails, and promptly fall asleep.

Occasionally, one parks itself on one of our many unauthorized areas and has to be shooed off or repositioned. I had one on the Cocos (Keeling) end of the passage that landed on our davit solar panel. The goose-sized bird was completely docile as I picked it up and moved it to a spot that was better for both of us.

Their single-mindedness to find a resting spot aboard can occasionally get frustrating. When we were crossing the Pacific from Mexico to the Marquesas in 2017, we encountered a population of boobies who thought that our masthead, with all of its fragile hardware was THE place to be. Every sunset was marked with stomping and shaking the shrouds to make them leave. More than once, I have had to go up there after reaching port to bend our Windex wind indicator back into alignment after some heavy-footed oaf tried to land there.

The Chagos booby population first became known to me when I heard a ‘whap, whap, whap’ coming from the cockpit on a bright, moonlit night. I emerged to find our wind turbine blades spinning back up. Oh, no! I shined my headlamp into the water receding behind Begonia and was surprised not to find a carcass, but a very confused-looking, but otherwise apparently healthy bird staring back at me. Just before it went out of the range of my light, it took off and headed toward me. I lost it in the dark background until I heard another ‘whap, whap’. I poked my head out from under the bimini and found the same bird in flight shaking off the blows from its second landing attempt. It lined up for a third try and seemed genuinely surprised when I illuminated the spinning, shiny blue blades with my lamp, making it bank away sharply.

Things were quiet for a while, and then a shadow blocked out the moon overhead. I looked up and saw the same bird (there was only one around at that time) in a steep glide making a beeline for the wind turbine body again. Again, I illuminated the spinning blades and it aborted, only to start again when I looked away. That’s it! I rushed inside to flip the turbine control switch from ‘Run’ to ‘Brake’. I heard one more ‘whap’ and returned to find the bird sitting on the deck beneath the turbine having apparently decided that was close enough and giving up on that coveted, perfect perch up there for now.

On Maryanne’s last night watch, we needed to slow down even more, so she spent the last four hours going three knots under bare poles. She stopped Begonia by turning broadside to the wind and seas when we were about twelve miles out and then prepared to wake me for my watch. Just then, another booby hit the wind turbine blades and fell into the cockpit. This one seemed very hurt, but still alive. She was setting up a crate as a nest for it to convalesce when a second bird hit the blades and fell to the deck, stumbling and dazed. She could see even more heading for the same fate, so she put the turbine switch into brake mode again. That slowed the blades enough that they were easier to see and most of the birds headed elsewhere after that.

We have had the same brand of wind turbine for years and have never had a problem with birds approaching the blades. The Chagos Boobies seem to think the turbine is the best spot on the boat. It’s raised up high away from everything else and allows for an easy, upwind, diving getaway if they want to leave in a hurry. I was hoping that once we were anchored, the favored part of Begonia would be the forward beam. We were supposed to have lots of wind and cloud cover for our first few days there and we knew we would be hurting for electrical power if we had to stop the turbine, even if it was just during the night.

{Update: We’ve been anchored in the Chagos for a week now and exactly zero birds have tried to land on Begonia. That makes sense because we are a mere few seconds’ flight from eleven different tree-covered islets. The closest we came was when a lone booby hovered just above the dinghy’s masthead as we were sailing back to Begonia in it one late afternoon.}

For the moment, now that Begonia was stopped and beam to the wind, all of the boobies seemed to be happy anywhere on the windward rail. Several headed for the turbine again. Even though the blades spin slowly in ‘brake’ mode, they still spin fast enough to hurt, I bruised my hand with one while trying to stop the blades and lash them down. They were too hard to reach in those seas to tie a proper knot, so I just threw the line at them until it entangled and stopped them. I eventually ended up with Maryanne’s two victims, plus four more on the starboard bow, all squabbling over the best spot before falling asleep en masse.

A couple of hours later, I was surprised to find the most seriously injured bird looking around and trying to climb out of its crate. We were concerned it had broken its neck because the only motion we could see was its breathing while its head lay limp and upside down next to the rest of its body. I moved it to the opposite stern from the other injured bird, where it promptly fell asleep.

After a few hours, it stretched its wings for a couple of test flaps before gliding into the water a couple of meters away. We drifted together for half an hour or so, getting very slowly farther apart. The bird never attempted to swim the short distance back or to flex its wings again.

The other injured bird slept until sunrise, after all of the others had left. When it tried to take off, it also didn’t get far before landing on the water. It was holding its left wing not so much like it was broken, but at least very sore. I was hoping it just needed a little more rest before trying again.

A rainbow on our arrival at Chagos/BIOT

It was such a shame. With daylight approaching, I had unrolled some jib to get Begonia moving again. We were now within sight of the eastern islands of the Salomon Atoll, approaching the pass. I had secretly been hoping the bird would hold out until we set anchor just a short, easy swim from the beach on the calm side of the lagoon.

Arrived and safely at anchor!

Well, now here we are, anchored in the Chagos Archipelago. I know that Begonia has been pointing right at it for the last two weeks, but the part of me that hasn’t been navigating can hardly believe it.

I first became aware of the Chagos Archipelago around the time that my thinking about sailing in the world’s far-flung places started to shift from ‘wouldn’t that be nice’ to ‘maybe we could figure out how to get these places ourselves’. I particularly remember one of Cap’n Fatty’s articles in Cruising World magazine where, to paraphrase him, he said, “Of all of the places we have been,” (with Carolyn, his wife) “the Chagos is the first place we have truly found paradise”. That stuck in my mind as I was tracing potential routes from one exotic spot to another, figuring out how to use the seasons and the trade winds to push us along. In the Indian Ocean, it was the only place out of many options that we just had to find a way to see. (Many years later, as Cap’n Fatty and Carolyn were having lunch with us aboard Begonia, I finally got a chance to ask them directly about the Chagos. “It’s very nice.” they said, “Don’t miss it. You’ll love it.”)

Maryanne and I had just arrived in Norfolk, Virginia, at the southern end of Chesapeake Bay on the eastern seaboard of the U.S. The Chagos Archipelago is at about the opposite longitude of the Rocky Mountains, where I grew up (specifically, it is directly opposite the Pacific Ocean 800NM southwest of Acapulco, Mexico). It was a very long way away. As the BIOT Administration is quick to point out, the Chagos is not a tourist destination, it is a strictly controlled Nature Reserve. There are no flights there. Apart from joining the British or American militaries and being awarded a fantastically rare posting at Diego Garcia, the only practical way to get there was to sail a long way from a different speck of land aboard your own boat. Bunching up my days off wouldn’t get me enough time to do it. Even taking a long vacation and combining it with a three-month unpaid leave of absence wouldn’t do it (like we did for Panama-Hawaii-California). The Chagos Archipelago would have to wait until we had both retired. We were broke. The Chagos seemed like an impossibly distant goal.

We made a plan, cut out any unnecessary expenses and poured most of our paychecks into paying off our debts and then into savings. It took us thirteen years after that to save enough to think we might just be able to get away with retiring now. We took the leap. From there, it took us another six years to get here. Nineteen years…

As we entered the pass into the Salomon Atoll, I was acutely aware that I have been wishing for this very moment for nineteen years. I was a much younger man back then. I was in shape and I only had three easily hidden gray hairs. It took me less time to go from never having touched the controls of an airplane to being the Captain of passenger jet, fully qualified to fly planeloads of people in everything from sunny days to ferocious winter blizzards. In fact, my whole tenure at that airline from probationary new hire First Officer to retired Captain was just under nineteen years. Nineteen years is a long time. Now we were here. We were really here!

In the intervening years, Maryanne and I have been lucky enough to go to lots of beautiful, remote places. We’ve spent enough time in turquoise tropical waters that diving in for a swim feels as familiar as being in our back yard pool. We’ve had islands to ourselves. We’ve even had whole atolls to ourselves, where we spent days lounging in the shade or going for the occasional dip to beat the heat of the midday sun. Having had the bar raised so far, I was being cautious about letting the long wait for the Chagos to cause my expectations to run too high.

This place is beautiful. It is the place that lives in each of us as the primeval dream of a tropical paradise, fueled by a glimpse of a postcard or maybe a travel poster from too long ago to remember. We crossed the deep blue lagoon to a shining turquoise patch the size of a parking lot and dropped Begonia’s anchor onto the pure white sand below. Wow! We really need to think up a better word, but all we could keep saying to each other was, “Wow!”

It was worth the wait. Begonia was the only boat in a ring of eleven palm tree-covered islets, each bordered with a beach of blinding-white sand. Because the boundaries of the Nature Reserve are so far away, the place is teeming with life. Boobies, Terns, Frigate Birds and Tropic Birds ride the thermals overhead, while schools of fish can be seen meandering over the sand, along with rays and the occasional shark. Dolphins regularly patrol the lagoon, favoring the drop-off between our patch of anchor sand and the deep water behind us. We are surrounded with beauty. We don’t know where to look for fear of missing something incredible behind us.

I was so very grateful to Maryanne especially, not just for her part in tracing the long line that led us here, but more specifically for her persistence in getting us our coveted Visitor Permit. She started early with the process, as she always does. When our lengthy application, along with all of the required supporting documentation and several of her follow-up emails disappeared into the black hole at the BIOT Administration, she would do all the work over and send it again and again. Then she sent it all to several different places until she finally got a response from one of them. This rankled the person actually charged with distributing permits, but she finally got the long-awaited message asking us to organize payment for our stay. Woe to the poor person who ignores one of Maryanne’s emails. She will find you.

We heard that several boats had to give up on the Chagos and go elsewhere because they couldn’t get a response in time and the seasonal weather window was closing. I really didn’t want to have to skip it after taking so long to get to our jumping-off point at Cocos (Keeling) and now we wouldn’t have to. As I said before, we got permit number six for the year. There’s technically no limit, but we were later told that ours was probably one of, if not the last one issued for the season. Well, this place is very special, indeed. We are lucky to be here.

[Maryanne]Thinking of visiting Chagos with your own boat? – Check out our Visiting Chagos/BIOT Tips

Cocos (Keeling) Islands

[Kyle]Firstly, if you haven’t been there, you might be wondering about the name. When first charted the islands were called the Cocos Islands, after the abundant coconut trees. The first European to sight the islands was Captain William Keeling of the East India Company. Ninety-four years later, the name was changed to Keeling Islands in his honor. There then followed a period of Cocos-Keeling, then Keeling-Cocos, before eventually settling on the current version of Cocos (Keeling) Islands, making it one of the very few official place names with parentheses {Maryanne: A bit more about the Cocos (Keeling) Islands - They are currently an Australian external territory, and the full official name is the "Territory of Cocos (Keeling) Islands". There is a history of mostly Malay population (and those still make up the larger number of residents) in the Malay language they are called "Pulu Kokos (Keeling)". Of the twenty-seven coral islands, only two are populated: Home Island (primarily Malay), and West Island (primarily westerners, West Island also has the airport). The only permitted anchorage is at the uninhabited Direction Island}.

We arrived on a beautifully calm day and once rested and cleared in were able to hoist a new courtesy flag (our first since Covid19 hit)
Unfortunately we never saw the lagoon that calm again

We arrived early on a Sunday, so had a day to rest/recover aboard at the quarantine anchroage. On Monday morning the Australian Federal Police arrived to clear us in as the wind and chop were returning to the Direction Island anchorage following our calm arrival. They were friendly and efficient and said that since we had come from mainland Australia, we could do the whole process by carefully handing forms back and forth between boats at each other’s transoms. No, they did not need to board, No, we did not need to do a Covid test. All of our stores onboard were fine as long as we followed one rule: No food or plants could be taken from the boat to shore. If we wanted to have a barbecue on the beach, for example, it must consist entirely of food obtained in the islands. The fines are about one yacht per infraction, so don’t even take a chance. When Maryanne asked if it was okay if we collected coconuts and brought them to our boat, the officer in charge let out a big laugh and said, “Take ALL the coconuts you want!” That was the right answer. We’ve missed snacking on foraged coconuts almost as much as we missed snorkeling from the boat. We were now cleared to lower our ‘Q’ flag, leave the quarantine mooring and go anchor next to Sal Darago and Serengeti.

We managed to make it to Sal Darago in the dinghy for a quick chat with Jeremy and Kathy before they left Cocos, then it was over to Serengeti for a quick "Hello" before finally setting foot on Direction Island.

Laundry Day! - we met the locals (the bird: Cocos buff-banded rail, and lots of hermit crabs), all in view of the beautiful Cossies Beach

Although Direction Island is uninhabited, it is a popular spot for day-tripping locals and for lunch stops for tourist boats. As such, it looks more like a public park than a desert island. It has several different covered picnic areas, toilet blocks, barbecue pits and an interpretive trail complete with information boards detailing little vignettes of the island’s history.

Before its current status as an uninhabited picnic ground, Direction Island housed a very important communications relay station in the submarine communication cable network connecting southeast Asia and Australia to Africa. Because of this, it was attacked by both Germany (by boat) and Japan (by air) in WWII. Immediately behind the ferry landing is a gazebo with a memorial detailing the whole story.

Also among the amenities of the picnic area compound on Direction Island are several large tanks of rainwater (signed as non-potable). That we can use! We brought with us everything necessary to make a hand-operated bush laundry. We were just getting the last of it onto the drying line when Mia from Serengeti showed up, looking to stretch her legs with a beach walk.

After visiting the southern tip of the island with Mia she bid us farewell (she was barefoot) and we then completed a circuit of the entire island trails, while the building trade winds shook more than evaporated the water out of our rapidly flapping laundry.

One thing that was upsetting to see was that, like seemingly every leeward shore on Earth, the volume of Direction Island’s beaches is 50% sand, 50% flip-flops, 50% plastic water bottles and 50% math. Nice job, Humans! The only windward beach on the island (Cossies Beach) is the one by all of the picnic areas. It is composed of lovely, soft sand, which is crisscrossed by very nervous-looking crabs. The local tourist office tell us it was Australia's most beautiful beach in 2017 {Maryanne: Cossies Beach is indeed beautiful, but I also suspect that all the beautiful beaches get some similar accolade eventually}.

Exploring ashore on Direction Island - we could enjoy the pretty scenery, wildlife, and information boards detailing the history of the island

The weather deteriorated over the next few days. The wind climbed into the twenties, then thirties, with gusts ten knots higher. It also swung to the south, which put us out of the protection of all but the furthest island in the atoll, five miles away. I wanted to stay aboard, or at least near Begonia, until I was sure we were in no danger of dragging into the coral between us and the beach that was now right behind us. We decided to spend the day snorkeling the among the bommies near the boat.

We spent quite a bit of time during our stay snorkelling around the anchorage area

Despite being a little churned up from the weather, it was wonderful to be floating over coral bommies in warm, tropical water. There’s lots of elkhorn-like coral here, which serves as a hiding place for the usual varieties of tropical fishes. Hi, guys! Nice to see you again! There were also a few turtles and Begonia seemed to have her own compliment of half a dozen Black-tipped Reef Sharks accompanied by occasional bigger White-tipped ones. They swam in lazy circles below. Sharks, pffft! As long as they are not crocs. Every time I swam down to try to pet the iridescent skin of one of them, they all scattered. I like them. They are like our little mascots.

Ferries from the other islands to Direction Island only run once per week from Home Island and once per week from West Island. The trips are scheduled to bring day-trippers out for a few hours and then return them back to their homes or hotels. The only same-day round-trip possible from Direction Island to anywhere is to go to Home Island on Thursday.

Unfortunately, our first Thursday in Cocos (Keeling) was during the very worst weather in the whole week. Our anchoring fees needed to be paid at the Home Island Shire office, and (according to our paperwork) within twenty-four hours of arriving, and Maryanne was also keen to get a few fresh provisions from the store there. I argued that maybe we should give it a pass today and try again next week, but she really wanted to try, so we decided she would go while I stayed behind looking after Begonia.

The wind was now consistently in the thirties. There was no way Maryanne would be able to row to shore in that, so I dug out the outboard and mounted it. Lowering the dinghy into the water was a bit of an ordeal. Getting aboard it was like climbing onto a mechanical bull. While the dinghy was still sideways, clipped into the davit falls, it was swamped several times by waves tunneling under Begonia’s bridgedeck and breaking over the gunwales. When I was finished and flopped back unto the relative calm of Begonia’s deck, I was drenched and muttering to myself that next time I wouldn’t bother with putting on dry clothes first.

Then it was Maryanne’s turn. As she started the motor and headed into the chop, she was constantly drenched by waves coming over her bow. That was less of a big deal than it would normally have been, since it had just started raining anyway. At the ferry stop, she met Ted and Mia. They had ditched the dinghy idea entirely gone ashore on their paddle board, knowing they would get wet. I think Ted even swam in.

Ted and Mia from the boat Serengeti

At the appointed time, the ferry was nowhere in sight. After half an hour, Ted called the police on his handheld VHF and asked if they knew anything about the ferry. They said they would make a few calls. They finally got back to him an hour later and told him the ferry wasn’t coming because there had been no one on Home Island that wanted to go to Direction Island today. What? Nobody wants to play frisbee in a gale? This was especially frustrating because, Maryanne being who she is, she had called the police before we even lowered the dinghy and they told us the ferry was still running today. Ted and Mia were leaving the next day and would now not have the opportunity to pay their anchoring fee, which meant they wouldn’t be given their outbound clearance. That could cause them a problem when they got to Rodrigues.

The picnic shelters on the island are mere sun covers and offer no protection from sideways rain. Maryanne was soaked through when she got home. As she dried off, I went through the reverse process of getting the dinghy out of the churning water and tucked safely back under our davits.

Ugh! The fight I had to go through was even worse than before. The dinghy was being thrown around so violently that I was worried the lifting points would get pulled out of it before I could get it clear of the waves. I rushed back aboard Begonia and started hoisting. On about my third pull, my feet slipped off of the deck. In my haste to lift the dinghy to safety, I had skipped my usual wet-deck step of putting on a pair of grippy shoes first.

I came down and landed with all of my weight on my tailbone, which I instantly knew could not be good for someone with my back. On the way, my left thigh raked across one of the bolt heads on the support for our wind turbine and it dug a big, long gash. I was now doubled over on the deck, bruised and bleeding. The half-hoisted dinghy was swinging wildly and the motor was being repeatedly bashed into Begonia. I managed to kick out my leg to stop it swinging as I finished the hoist from the more difficult seated position. Ooh, I was not happy! I shouted the entire first chapter of The Big Book of Dirty Words, omitting all of the spaces between each.

During a brief pause when I was drawing my second breath to resume Chapter Two, Maryanne popped out and asked if I needed any help. Inertia being what it is, I had already started again when I turned to see what she had said. I wasn’t mad at her. None of this was her fault, but I was now facing her and letting out a torrent of obscenities. Her eyelids were flapping and her hair was blown straight back. She silently sat back down in front of her laptop, eyebrows arched, while I limped down below to patch myself up.

The next morning, feeling much calmer and surprisingly less sore than expected, we went ashore for another circuit of Direction Island. As we were finishing up, we saw Serengeti weigh anchor and head to sea. (The police had agreed to take the anchoring fees to the office on Home Island for them) The whole place was ours now.

On calmer days, we would go to the far, southern end of the island to a pass known as ‘The Rip’. It is the location of the best thing to do on the island. Here, you can do a high-speed drift snorkel past a colorful variety of coral that is populated by lots and lots different fishes from tiny, pinky-nail sized wrasse to big White-tipped Reef sharks. We quickly got into the habit of swimming it every day or two, often in the company of others. Almost every time we would leave the current and swim back to the beach, we would end up walking the path back and go in for a second or third ride through before calling it a day. Each drift past was different and since we were zooming by, the only way to see everything was to do it over and over.

We snorkelled 'The Rip' on the south tip of Direction Island many times during our stay. It seems to always have a good current (thankfully always spitting us out into the atoll). Afterwards we'd swim back to the beach and often find a group of humphead parrotfish on the way.

Maryanne had figured out a plan to get to Home Island before next Thursday. The ferry schedule we had been given seemed to indicate that the Saturday ferry from West Island stayed at Direction Island all day with the day-trippers before taking them back. This didn’t seem to make sense, so we decided to meet it when it arrived and see where it was going for the break.

The Ferry made it easy to visit Home Island - and every time the crew were all amazingly friendly and helpful

It turns out they were going to Home Island. We asked if we could come along and they cheerfully agreed. Maryanne and I were the only passengers. When we got to Home Island, the guy told us to be back at 3:00 for the return. Maryanne said, “Don’t leave without us!” to which he responded, “We won’t if you’re here by 3:00!” Alrighty then.

The White Terns and Tropic Birds were a pleasure to watch (and the terns seemed espeically comfortable flying close to us)

Home Island was mostly shut for the weekend, with the exception of the post office, the grocery store and, of course, the ferry. We were hoping one of the island’s two restaurants would be open, but no luck. Our only lunch option would be to grab something at the grocery store and take it for a picnic. The selection there was pretty thin. They don’t have a deli counter. We ended up with two very sad apples, a box of cookies and some soda. Our bodies are our temples.

So, with several hours to go before the return ferry, we took the opportunity to do a full lap of the island on foot. Most of Home Island is functional. There are no hotels or resorts, so most of the buildings are squat concrete houses, some on stilts, that are built to be able to withstand the full force of tropical cyclones. With the museum being closed, the only diversions available were a walk through the graveyard at the northern end, and stopping at the many picnic areas along the shore for a view of the turquoise water. There is one particular spot in the southwest where White Terns had a habit of hovering just out of reach in slow circles as if they were just a little too shy to land on our shoulders and start telling us about the adventures of their day.

If the small Museum on Home Island wasn't open we could pick up the key from the Shire office and browse at our leisure

We knew that as non-Malay, obvious westerners, we must be standing out as we walked the streets. Our novelty didn’t turn out to be much of an ice breaker and mostly we were politely left to our own business. Every time we would wave and say hello to someone going by, though, big smiles and friendly waves were always returned. One lady clearly thinking we were lost was really helpful and went to great efforts to get us permission to visit the Mosque.

Stepping inside a Mosque and (elsewhere on the island) the Muslim cemetary were a first for us, we were very curious

We finally wore through their shyness when we saw one of the local sailing teams de-rigging one of their traditional jukong racing boats. They seemed like they were prepared to let us have our look and move on, working around us, then we started asking them direct questions about the rig and the construction of the boat. Once they realized we had a genuine interest, they were happy to answer questions and give us the tour. The island has several teams, some of which have been together for years, and they race at least once a week. Our guys had finished third today. From that point on, when we saw a different boat and told them we had already met the third-place team, they instantly knew who we were talking about, which always jumped the conversation three or four steps in from if we had been complete strangers.

Traditional Jukong boat racing (with modern sail materials nowadays) is very competitive on Home Island

As our time ran out, we positioned ourselves at the park by the ferry terminal at a spot where we wouldn’t be able to miss the crew heading back to the ferry, and vice versa. In short order, three of them came up the road on three motor scooters. We were waved aboard. Before we had even selected seats, the last dock lines were thrown off. It was 2:59:53.

Even though the air conditioning inside felt sooo good, I wanted to go outside on the top deck for the return, since this would be one of my few chances to enjoy the view. Maryanne stayed behind to cool off. From my seat at the rail, I could just see one of the crew-members sitting by the window on the bridge half a level below me. A few minutes later, I noticed he had put on a hat. That made sense. We were on the sunny side and he was probably getting cooked behind the glass. Then I noticed that he had the same kind of straw hat that Maryanne did. Ha! He might have even bought it from the same store. Also, his black and blue crew shirt was now just blue. Wait a minute, that’s Maryanne! She had talked her way onto the bridge.

I went down below and found her happily chatting away to the Captain, Afendi (? not sure about the spelling), about boats and the islands and crossing the Indian Ocean. He welcomed me and we started talking about manly things like boats and the islands and crossing the Indian Ocean. From his instruments, I could see why we were restricted to Direction Island. The ferry draws 0.4m less than Begonia and there were several spots where even it barely had space between bommies. We went for miles with the depth sounder reading just above two meters, and it wasn’t even low tide. We saw the supply ship arrive later in the week. It also anchored near Direction Island and then everything was transferred onto wide, flat, shallow-draught barges for the rest of the trip to either West or Home Islands.

Exploring Home Island (Pulu Selma)

When we got back to Direction Island, Afendi smiled when he saw that Begonia was flying the Cocos Islands courtesy flag instead of the more generic (and common) Australian one. He can thank Maryanne’s excellent pre-planning for that as well as the guy in the flag shop in Darwin for getting it for us on relatively short notice. {Maryanne: for anyone following us, courtesy flags are avaiable for purchase at the museum on Home Island}

The next day, another boat arrived. It was Lucipara2, from the Netherlands. We called them on the radio to welcome them. Ivar answered and we had a nice, but brief, chat as they were busy heading to the quarantine area. Once they had cleared in, they anchored in Serengeti’s old spot and then paddled their kayak over to Begonia to say hello properly. We invited them aboard for tea.

Wow! It is generally easy to make friends while cruising. Many of us were drawn to the lifestyle for similar reasons, so there is a higher proportion of kindred spirits out there in the anchorages than we would just meet randomly while walking through town. Maybe once or twice a year, though, we run across someone who we get along so well with that it feels like we’ve already been close friends for a long time.

Ivar and his partner Floris are both just wonderful. Ivar is an industrial engineer; Floris is a human rights lawyer. They both got fed up with being in the rat race and decided to “walk the talk”, as Ivar puts it, and live a low-impact, low-consumption lifestyle that focuses less on out-of-control consumerism and more on human relationships and environmental stability. We finally met someone else who thinks of motoring as something you do only when you’ve exhausted all other options.

They are both obviously intelligent, and well-educated in a whole range of topics far beyond their professions. They are thoughtful and intelligent speakers and also careful listeners. Their optimism is infectious and every meandering conversation we had with them felt like auditing a master’s class called “Everything Interesting”. Time flew every time we visited one another and I soon started to feel like any time spent apart from them was being foolishly wasted. Ivar came over to discuss the weather for their passage to Mauritius with me one morning. When he later told me they had decided to leave the day after tomorrow, I felt a little pang of disappointment even though I had played a part in parsing the information that led up to the decision. Our plans have some overlap, so we may see them again, but we sure will miss them until we do.

Ivar and Floris from the Dutch ketch: Lucipara2

As we were all having dinner aboard Begonia, a South African catamaran named Moondust arrived and tied to the quarantine buoy. The next afternoon, as Maryanne and I were coming back from a day in the kayak, we swung by to say hello. Peter and Carin immediately invited us aboard the next night for sundowners with them and Lucipara2. It’s getting busy around here.

Peter and Karin from the South African catamaran: Moondust

The next morning, as Maryanne and I were waiting for the ferry to have another go at Home Island on a day when stuff was actually open, Maia arrived. Dick and Laura are Americans who we first met in Suwarrow in 2018. We have each been to a lot of different places, but we have managed to meet up from time to time since then. The last time was our last haulout at The Boat Works in March. Laura was in the U.S., Dick was busy getting ready to put Maia back in the water. This time, they had a friend, Hannah, along as crew. Of all of the cruisers we have met, Dick and Laura seem to have the closest sailing origin story to ours. We were excited to catch up with them, but for now had to content ourselves with waving at them from the top deck of the ferry as we departed Direction Island.

Once at Home Island, we paid our anchoring fees, visited the museum, made a lap through every store on the island and then had a disappointing restaurant meal where the food was so salty that it was almost inedible. Now we had literally done everything there is to do on Home Island and we still had two hours to kill before the return ferry to Direction Island. {Maryanne: To clarify, there is certainly more available at Home Island, but not around the ferry times available to us}.

We arrived back at Direction Island just as the police were finishing clearing Maia in, and Lucipara2 out. Maia said they needed a rest after the rough passage from Christmas Island, so the rest of us headed over to Moondust for what was supposed to be snacks and sundowners. Ivar is an amazing cook and he had brought such a generous helping of snacks to effectively make a dinner for everyone. Then Pete, who had been in Indonesia last season, asked us all if we were interested in trying some arrack, the common spirit there. He told us the story of when he first had it.

After a taste, he asked the waiter if he could buy any and if so, how is it sold. “You can buy it in one liter, two liters or five liters” was the answer.

”Great!” he said, “I’ll take five of the five liters”

The stuff tastes a little like Grappa and there was a lot of it. It ended up being a good thing we all had bellies full of Ivar’s food.

Being South Africans, Pete and Carin had a wealth of information about cruising in SA. We were all particularly interested in details about the last leg approaching the African continent, past Madagascar and, of course, the potentially treacherous rounding of the southern tip into the South Atlantic after that.

The very next evening, the socializing continued with another feast of snacks aboard Lucipara2 as a Bon Voyage party for Floris and Ivar. Moondust had had a long day dealing with a cantankerous outboard, so this time it was the four of us plus the three from Maia chatting away and laughing into the moonless night. It was a great time. We miss them already.

Kite surfers were regular visitors to Home Island (making their own way across the lagoon from West Island) - they were great fun to watch

In the morning, Maia kindly took Maryanne with them on their dinghy to Home Island for fresh provisions. The grocery store is restocked by supply plane every other Friday (then by boat from the airport on West Island). Several locals told us to be at the store first thing on Saturday or there wouldn’t be anything left.

They weren’t kidding. By the time they got there, it was barely an hour after they had opened and the aisles were already lined with boxes full of the most sought-after items that islanders had set aside. It looks like we will be eating okra and cans of pickled herring for a while. Okay, it wasn’t that bad, but Maryanne was pretty sure that by the end of the day, the selection would pretty much be what it was the day before the supply plane.

Luckily for us, Ivar had given some money to Laura to pick up a few things for them as well. That meant Lucipara2 would need to stay until the store party had returned from Home Island. There would be no sneaking out first thing in the morning, like we tend to do. Instead, they weighed anchor in the early afternoon, which allowed us all to go on deck and wave as they sailed out of the anchorage. Moondust even blew a horn for them.

The next day was blustery enough that we all hunkered down in our own boats. That made the place feel suddenly more remote and empty than it really was. It did give us a chance to tidy up a bit and get caught up on a few jobs before we all finally decided we were going to brave the conditions to visit each other again.

Just before we all went over to Maia for a game night, Guy Chester arrived on his trimaran, Oceans Tribute, so he was invited as well.

Guy Chester (with Kyle) and his Australian triamaran: Oceans Tribute

Guy is active (among many other things) on the international racing circuit. He is on his way to the Caribbean for the season there. That seemed a bit optimistic to the rest of us until Guy explained that cruising around at 15-20 knots was not uncommon for his boat if he “doesn’t push it too hard”. Oceans Tribute holds the singlehanded world record between Australia and New Zealand. She beat the previous record held by her sister ship by forty-five minutes.

Since he’s constantly shuttling between racing seasons, he has circumnavigated some indeterminate number of times. As such, he’s done the Indian Ocean crossing several times, making landfall in just about all of the various options for the rest of us. We were all eager to gain the benefit of his experience. He nearly convinced me and Maryanne to change our plans after Chagos again, until we realized we had different needs for velocity and would be in the same area in different seasons. None of the options still sound like any fun. Hopefully, it will work out for us.

Despite his racing pedigree, Guy was most famous to the rest of us for his advocacy. When the Covid pandemic started, he was in Panamá, trying to get through the canal with a bunch of other boats. He took charge and started lobbying the government there for permission for yachts to transit during the lockdowns, at which he eventually succeeded.

Guy explained that there were just forty-eight foreign boats that got ‘stuck’ in Australia during the pandemic. Of these, Maia and Begonia were in a smaller subset that had entered before the pandemic on "normal" visas that then had to be converted sometime before our departure. Since the authorities were dealing with hundreds of thousands of people who were trying to get in or out of Australia by air, their constantly evolving procedures were geared toward processing at airports. The cases of the crews of the forty-eight boats were being handled directly and very diligently at a rate of three at a time by high-level ministers. They knew who we all were, where we were and what we were doing. For those of us who had not exceeded our normal three-year limit or deliberately flaunted the rules, the decision was to let us carry on by slowing down the processing. This way, we would be allowed to stay on what’s called a Bridging Visa while our status was pending. Maryanne and I suspected this when the processing times suddenly got really long. Our only worry, which was minor, was that our visas were in limbo, with no finish date. That meant that we could conceivably receive an email any day telling us our visa application was rejected and we have forty-eight hours to leave the country.

None of us fully knew how much John Hembrow (of Australia's Down Under Rally) and Guy (of the Ocean Cruising Club were working with the ministers in the background to make our visitor status clear and allow us to stay within Australia with valid visas (and without the great expense for such long stays in normal times). One American boat, who we know only by reputation, was especially frustrated during the period of uncertainty and were publicly vociferous about spouting the incompetence of the Australian Government, making sure to insult most of the relevant ministers by name; I'm sure this only complicated things.

We literally owe being anchored in our last Australian outpost at the end of our three-year stay to John's and Guy’s tireless efforts at working their connections. Now Guy was anchored right next to us.

I was really interested in Guy's fancy racing boat (a trimaran), so guy invited me and Maryanne over to Oceans Tribute to have a go at winching him up his mast so he could check his rigging. Guy is a lot of things, good Guy (great Guy!), friendly Guy, funny Guy, helpful Guy. He’s also a big Guy. As I was standing in his cockpit, looking up at his mast, I was starting to wonder what Maryanne had volunteered me for. Luckily, Oceans Tribute has big, top-of-the-line racing winches that are placed where you can easily exert maximum leverage on them. Getting him up there was tiring, but not nearly as much as I thought it would be. I’ve winched riggers half his size up Begonia’s mast and felt like my arms were going to fall off afterwards. Hoisting Guy up to the top of Oceans Tribute was only about as tiring as lifting Begonia’s full mainsail from stowed two times in a row. Despite having done so much for us already, Guy insisted on paying us for our efforts, which he did in rum. Apparently, he thought the work was harder than it was. That meant we only needed to bring water to the beach get-together with Maia at sunset if we were going to have any chance of finding Begonia again afterwards.

The reward for winching Guy up the mast was a great picture of Begonia (and 'some' Rum)

Cocos Keeling has been our most sociable anchorage in a LONG time - we had a lot of fun

In the middle of our third week at Direction Island, Maryanne and I finally got authorization to go to the Chagos archipelago from the British government (we applied in April). We worked backwards from the start date of our permit, checked the weather forecasts and narrowed down our departure to the next weekend. Maia will be leaving around then as well for Mayotte and Guy will also be off for Mauritius as soon as he installs some parts he is getting shipped in. Hannah needs to return to university studies, so Maryanne went with her and Linda on the ferry to Home Island, where she will get the West Island ferry to the airport. Then they will both buy some last-minute food, plus enough extra for one last beach barbecue. Dick and I stayed home topping up our water tanks, then pickling the watermakers for our respective voyages and securing everything against the pounding of the waves to come. We’ll have a few more days together and then have surreal conversations where we all hug each other goodbye and say things you don’t hear every day, like, “Bon Voyage! Hope to see you in Africa!”.

Critters ashore on Home Island (where the crabs will give you a pedicure if you sit still long enough)

{Maryanne: WOW - we kept ourselves busy in Cocos with snorkelling, playing with the kayak (practicing climbing back in after deliberately tipping ourselves out), socializing, and a few visits to Home Island. The big thing we missed was a trip to West Island. I really wanted to go, but the weather, ferry times, and general 'stuff' conspired against us... sigh...}