Enroute to India

1/3/09 - afternoon This is our second day sailing. Covered 150 miles yesterday headed for Sombrero channel thru the Nicobar Islands. Presently at:7 deg 38 min N and 93 deg 35 min E moving along at 6 .5 knots, with genoa only in rough seas.

Hello: Today is Jan 4, 2009 and we are on our 3rd day at sea. We are presently 300 miles out from Telaga, Langkawi headed for Cochin,India -another 1000+ miles. Tonight we hope to pass thru the Sombrero Channel of the Nicobar Islands. All is well, flying the symetrical spinaker in bright sunlight today after two days of miserable squalls and rain. Did not even see the sun yesterday. Hope all is well with you, Marvin and Ruth Stark aboard S/V Toucan Tango.www.toucansail.com along with Bob and Judy MacDonell.

Hello: Just wanted to check in. We are out 700 miles with 900 miles to go to Cochin, India. All is well. We are presently sailing along at 6.7 knots with mainsail and genoa. We flew the symmetrical spinnaker all night, at times making 10 knots, but found 10 knots hard to get any sleep - everything crashing and smashing. Have 2 fishing poles out , but so far only caught a large plastic sack. Saw a large pod of dolphins yesterday evening. I believe they were spinner dolphins - one raised way out of the water spinning around 2 or 3 times. Very hot out here. We are at 6 deg 57 min N, and 88 deg 52 min E. Have only seen one other sailboat in last 4 days - a Dutch couple on a round the world rally. Spoke to them for a couple of minutes. Sorry to say they were sailing faster than us. It took them more than 24 hours to get over the horizon. I thought about putting up our really big genniker, to make it a real race, but got soon go over it. The middle of the ocean is not a good place to break things.Hope all is well with you. Marvin and Ruth

Hello: Checking in again - we are now 235 miles from Sri Lanka, moving along in very light winds with the spinnaker still flying. Quite a few squalls come thru each day with a little rain. Keeps us busy. We often get a wind shift and wind gusts along with the rain wash down. Still hot, hot. All is well. Yes, we do have someone on watch 24 hrs/day. We take turns - 3 hrs. each, around the clock.

Post script - I did not get a chance to send this yesterday - Last night and today - it is not black, but a dark shade of grey - all day, with rain pouring down. We get wind from one direction then another with more rain. My fingers are all shriveled up from water as I type this. It all started about 3AM with all except Bob sound asleep, and him hollering time to get the spinakker down. We are 100 miles from the south tip of Sri Lanka and approaching the heavy ship traffic area. Will write more another time. All well - caught two blue fin tuna, and then had two other fish trash out gear. The first one never slowed down - blew all the gears off my reel, then took all the line, second one just took the line. Some big fish out here. We only have 50 lb. test line. Later!

When you purchase a new Catana Catamaran the French builders take you out for Sea Trials to demonstrate the boat. The Catana factory is located in a very windy area where the wind flows down the south side of the Pyrenees straight to the Mediterranean. One new owner wrote that on his sea trial the wind was howling and the seas ugly. The French agent says “it is nothing” and away they go. They crashed and smashed over and thru’ the seas at top speed. The new owner was astonished and says “you are going to do some serious damage to my boat” and the Frenchman says “Non, we are just settling-in the furniture”.

Well, crossing the Bay of Manar, from Sri Lanka to India, we truly “settled-in” the furniture on Toucan Tango. 240 miles (2 nights and one day) of really ugly seas with winds of 25 to 35 knots - on the nose. We reefed once, twice, and 3 times until we only had a small mainsail and a token jib. The boat crashed, smashed, dove, leaped and twisted thru the seas. The auto pilot steered well while we huddled in the front of the cockpit, taking 3 hour turns. The waves occasionally came over the boat, or across the cockpit. It was not possible to sit at either helm station, unless you wanted to be hit with short bursts of a high pressure salt water fire hose. Waves the size of a Mack truck hit the side of the boat, or the front, or over the top. The motion and noise was astonishing. A steep wave would hit with a smack, the next one like a baseball bat hitting next to you, the next with a gurgle. All the while the autopilot just steered on. It steered for 11 days without a single complaint. This boat is very flexible and just bent, twisted, and flexed. It did toss around a few unanchored personal items, but all in all, no damage. We cranked up our fresh water deck pump and washed off the caked salt a day or two later and continued on in milder seas.

<stormy view from the Starboard hull.

Below, a different, calmer view with a dolphin!