Gan, Maldives to Chagos

Passages are not my favorite part of cruising. Too often it's a bad version of Snow White's dwarves: Sleepy, Grumpy, Queasy. For this trip, 2 new dwarves decided to join in: Squally and Lumpy (the seas). On the bright side, we had mostly decent winds, were visited by pods of hundreds of dolphins, and the boobies that took refuge on our boat at night generally behaved themselves (no crash landing or throwing up on our heads as has been reported by other boats).

We managed to just beat the setting sun and pull into the Salomon atoll during daylight after two and a half days of sailing with just a few hours of motor-sailing at the beginning and end. The ability to sail was a good thing because our starboard engine decided to overheat and develop a leak at the heat exchanger cap bolt, leaving it out of commission until we can figure out what's ailing it. Our last day was spent dodging squalls with the accompanying reefing and unreefing of sails (lather, rinse, repeat) but we averaged 7 to 9 knots of boat speed. At the end, we were rewarded by the welcome sight of the lush Chagos isles, tiny fish jumping like popcorn, and a much anticipated good night's rest. We happily fell asleep to the sound of rain that we didn't have to sail through.

The next day, we stopped by to say hi to Time Bandit, who had gotten there a couple weeks earlier, and then went off to try our luck at trolling a lure from the dinghy. About two minutes in, we had hooked a little tunny. The cruisers who raved about the fishing were not exaggerating. One of the resident black-tip sharks happily gobbled up the remains after we filleted our catch.