There was only one ship that gave me cause for concern as I crossed in front of it. It just seemed to take for ever to see the side of the hull to know that I would not be run over. I had a chuckle at an old joke I heard many years ago; “What’s the last thing that goes through a bugs mind when it hits the windscreen” – It’s backside :o) I avoided any visions of Sadiqi pasted to the front of some ship like a bug on a windscreen. The AIS is a fantastic tool as it provides information on ships speed, course, closest point of approach (CPA) and time of closest point of approach (TCPA). An Indonesian fishing boat headed toward Sadiqi fairly early in the morning. There were about 8 people onboard trawling quite heavy lines astern. After asking for the usual beer and cigarettes they turned across Sadiqi’s bows. I had started to motor just in case. I turned in the same direction as the fishing boat, doing a large 360 turn to avoid getting tangled in their fishing lines. Fortunately they went on their way.
While crossing the Malacca Strait I noticed a strange phenomenon, which I can only describe as some sort of current convergence. The winds were light less than 10 knots, I started hearing what sounded like a water fall or wind blowing through tall trees from astern. There was a line of white caps, about 100 metres wide, stretching as far as the eye could see to the South East and North West, travelling in a North East direction. The same direction as Sadiqi was headed. There was no perceptible change in wind strength or direction. Sadiqi bounced around in the short chop as the white caps passed. This happened several times during the day and did not seem to relate tides. Sometimes there was a small change in the GPS speed of the ground (SOG). If anyone knows what this was please would you email me and let me know.
Not having topped up with diesel in Sabang I was well aware that I did not have enough fuel to motor to Phuket Thailand. I was short by about 50 miles of the 200 mile trip. With just 5 knots of wind on the port beam I raised the Asymmetrical Spinnaker aka. MPS, Kite or large coloured sail. Fortunately, the water was reasonably flat, except for when the current convergence phenomenon passed by. The wind ranged from 2 to 10 knots and Sadiqi moved through the water at between 2 to 5 knots. Ken the electric autopilot did an exemplary job in the light conditions. The gaffa tape bandaid holding Ken together seemed to do the trick. The wind was too light to use Smithy – the windvane. It was very pleasant sailing ghosting along without the motor running. We sailed like this for around 20 hours until 5.00 in the morning when a gust of wind came through at 12 knots and I dropped the kite. I had set the high wind speed alarm for 12 knots on the TackTick Wind Instruments. I slept far more easily without the engine running as I could hear and feel anything that changed on the boat. I could hear the dolphins blow when they arrived and played in the bow wave.
It was while I was sleeping on the cockpit cushions that I heard and felt a splash of what I thought was water, strange as there were no waves and not much wind. I did not think much else about it until morning, when I saw fairly large dark brown splash marks all over the deck, that looked like they had fallen from the sky. Another mystery. I can only think that Sadiqi may have bumped into a semi submerged soft container that had a liquid in it that spewed up and onto the deck. There was way to much and the wrong colour for it to be a large bird. Whale spew maybe – I have know idea.
It was a little disorienting sailing toward the southern end of Phuket island. I was used to the errors on the C-Map chart cartridges for Sumatra and was anticipating similar errors for Thailand. It was a pleasant surprise and relief to find the Thai charts were accurate. I entered Chalong Bay at low tide and dropped anchor in 3 metres of water, amongst the many other boats, at 12.30 having used the motor for 27 hours of the 52.5 hour trip. There was very little fuel in the tank, which I was pleased about as I could try and rid the fuel tank of the smelly muck the Indonesians call Solar or Diesel. I was not to unhappy about having left Indonesia - dealing with the people there was definitely very trying.
