The Great Indian Blanking

After 27 hours of travel, with a great 12 hour stopover in KL, Bob and Eileen arrived in Chennai.  The airport was relatively quiet and orderly and the driver from the hotel waiting for us patiently.  Where were the hoards of people and chaos that Eileen was lead to expect?  Mind you the trip in the taxi through the Chennai traffic was fairly hair-raising, but no worse than HoChiMihn City.  We have learned to not look at the driving while in the traffic, just look at the street scenes – much less chance of a heart attack.  So Eileen is thinking travel in India isn’t going to be as challenging as everyone was telling her.  

That was before The Great Indian Blanking. We arrived at hotel reception and there was only one other customer ahead of us with three staff behind the counter.  We waited there for at least 20 minutes before they would even acknowledge our presence despite repeated attempts.  There was no eye contact, they shuffled around behind the counter, straightened papers, made phone calls and looked at the computer screen.  We had to admire the artistry of this blanking, really superb. 

Hotel in Chennai

Finally they gave us a registration form in triplicate carbon paper.  Who uses carbon paper these days?  Then someone wrote some details in a hard bound registration book, another found our reservation on a loose piece of paper in another folder while another person took our passports to photocopy.  This might sound like efficiency once they started but none of these activities were done in any organised manner.  The photocopying of the passports took about 10 minutes while the person came out several times jabbering to the other staff.  Filling in the registration form was done in a minute or two by Bob but the staff didn't acknowledge the completion for about 15 minutes despite pushing the paper their way, another bout of blanking.  And so it went.  The whole process took an hour.  There were two computer screens behind the counter but everything was paper based and done in triplicate.  But even then when all the bits and pieces of the process were finally completed, we asked for our key and were told the bell hop had it as the room wasn't ready yet.  So despite having made a reservation, the hotel sending a driver to pick us up, the plane being an hour late and the registration taking an hour, they didn't have the room ready.  All we could do was laugh at the absurdity of the situation.

We probably did not give Chennai a fair chance but it is not really a great tourist destination.  We stayed near the Egmore railway station, a beautiful old building from the days of the Raj.

 

Egmore Railway Station in Chennai

 Near a railway station one would usually expect cafes and restaurants and other amenities for travellers.  These were hard to find, or at least not in the form one sees throughout South east Asia.  We went to the beach front and there were lots of Indian tourists and locals enjoying a day out.  The beach was very wide, probably 500m of sand but absolutely filthy.  

Chennai Beach

 

Still this didn’t stop the locals jumping into the water and enjoying a splash, taking a ride on a horse or enjoying some fresh fish.

Bathers at Chennai Beach

Horse riding for city slickers

 

 

Fisherman clean freshly caught fish

Last Sail (for awhile)

Ah the best laid plans of mice and men.....Back in October we had such high hopes of a great sailing season on our little Solar Mist.  Now the Canberra house is sold (under contract) and this is our last sail before we put Solar Mist into moth balls for awhile, being stored at our house in Bellingen while we do some more land travel.  We leave in a few weeks for India, one way ticket with indeterminate plans for a return date.  We will play it by ear, starting in the south, then Nepal, then northern India and maybe continue west into central Asia, Iran, Turkey and Europe.  We plan to travel anywhere from 3 months to 3 years and this blog will log our (mis)adventures.

But first a few days of sailing.  The first day looked a bit threatening but the rain held off.  We had very light winds which gave us a chance to try out the Spinnaker. 

Spinnaker up

The next day  we woke up to a beautiful morning mist with the weather clearing producing some fantastic cloud formations. 
We were sailing along all afternoon doing a good 5 knots beating into the wind going back up the lake.

morning mist on Lake Macquarie

speckie clouds

 We passed a large, beamy yawl which we watched with interest as they motored, then raised their sails to go only about 2 very slow miles before returning the way they came - not much of a day out for such a big boat.

yawl

But then it was time  to pull Solar Mist out of the water and take her to her new boat yard - the jungles of Boggy Creek.  Don't worry old girl.  We will be back.

Solar Mist in her new boat yard

Kayaking on Batemans Bay

Not all our water adventures are on sail boats.  For a Christmas present Pam gave us a kayaking adventure on Batemans Bay.  We had a lovely day out with Region X tours.

Starting out in calm waters

A bit of excitement

Exploring the wildlife

Rusty Sailors

With travel and house renovations Bob and Eileen have not had much time for sailing.  Since the end of last season (March 2013) we have only taken the boat out for about 3 Twilight races in Canberra and the October trip to Pittwater.  So we were really looking forward to escaping the Canberra heat (several days of 40 C) to spend a weekend at St Georges Basin / Sussex Inlet.  Well it looks like sailing isn't quite like riding a bike where one never looses the  knack.  The weekend was a comedy of errors with us just making silly mistakes and not getting our act together.  Although we had checked the GRIP files and WindFinder which both predicted light winds, it was blowing like the clappers when we got to the wharf at Sussex Inlet late Friday afternoon.  We struggled to put the boat in with wind and current both against us in different directions.  Eileen fumbling with the lines like an amateur and the skipper doing the usual frustrated shouting. (What happens on the boat stays on the boat)  As we approached the bar to go out into the Basin, the rudder hit bottom in the choppy conditions and a fastening broke.  Limping back to the wharf we inspected the damage and realised it was a fairly easy fix requiring longer screws and a drill which we could sort in the morning as the shops were closed by then.  We decided to anchor for the night across the channel where we managed to tangle ourselves up with another boat as the current was stronger than anticipated and the little 9 hp motor just didn't give us the steerage needed.  This resulted in in broken stanchion base (already cracked and should have been replaced).  We conceded defeat and took the boat out of the water and spent the night in the car park on the trailer. 

Cool Change  looking good under spinnaker

The next morning all seemed brighter, we fixed the rudder with the loan of a drill from Cool Change and entered the channel once again with a bit more finesse than the previous evening.  Once again the winds were stronger than predicted and we were a bit overpowered with the larger jib but had a lovely sail to Swan Bay where we met up with Cool Change to return the drill and have lunch. The SIBYC invited us to join their around the Basin race but we had spent too long at Swan Bay and missed the start.  Still we joined in after the second buoy to watch the fleet pass us by. The 10 boats racing looked fantastic, especially on the spinnaker run. Our modified sail configuration was not giving us very good speed.  Solar Mist loves a good wind (but a dog in light winds) and usually can reach a steady 5-6 knots in such conditions but we were pottering along at 4.5 knots and heeling over and rounding up too much - all lessons learned.

Reviewing the Fleet

After several hours of sailing we anchored again in Swan Bay for an evening swim and to watch the wild life.  A magnificent sea eagle perched near us then went off to catch a fish, flying away with it in its talons.  The black swans spend the day going from one sand bank to another like a flotilla of boats reviewing the fleet.  A lone pelican seemed to be the Admiral  monitoring the proceedings. The fish were jumping and cicadas buzzing and we had the whole place to ourselves.

Admiral Pelican

But the comedy of errors for the weekend was not

over. The next day after a very leisurely morning at anchor we headed back to in Inlet to take the boat  out of the water.  The approach to the wharf was a bit fast and a bit too far away but Eileen jumped onto the wharf looping the line around the bollard only to stumble back on a step and promptly fall into the water butt first between the wharf and the boat.  Fortunately the only harm done was to Eileen's dignity and we learned that the inflatable life jackets inflate very nicely when needed (not that I needed it as I was only 5 meters from shore).  So after my very refreshing dip we got the boat out, derigged and headed for home feeling a bit more humble about our sailing skills and learning a few valuable lessons.

Back on the Water

Nice to be back on the water in our little Solar Mist.  Spent 5 days cruising around the Hawksbury, passing tan jelly fish the size of soccer balls, anchoring in coves with the magnificent sandstone cliffs all around, being serenaded by a father of three young children on an old ketch playing sea shanties on his squeeze box. Perfect.  Looking forward to more as the weather warms up.