Welcome to Paradise!

Well we had a great sail here. Flat glass for the first 2 hours and then a slight sea breeze which built and we were away. Had 15-20 sometimes touching 25 knots from the NNE and after a day it went more around to the NE. Great fast sailing. The last day it lightened of a lot and ended up having to motor the last 4 hours. We  had the anchor down in Uligamu at 0930 and the trip ended up taking just 73hours.
Not a bad spot at all to land..... It's the most Nothern atol.The most southern being nearly 500nm away.
The authorities called us on channel 16 and were over within half an hour and couldn't have been more friendly. The agent  Asad who we had also been in contact with beforehand was also there to greet us. It was all over and done with in half an hour and we were free to explore the Maldives. Asad organised a BBQ for us on the beach with the other 2 yachts here and could not have made us feel more welcome. Great night with fresh fish and everyone bringing a dish from their country.

The next day we were sitting onboard having lunch looking at a heap of dolphins, then a manta ray jumps out and a minute later a freckling turtle pops his head out!!??
So here we are left pinching ourselves thinking how great the next couple of months here are going to
be.

Maldives here we come!

Well all went well yesterday clearing out. Relatively painless and only took a couple of hours with the officials all very friendly a genuinely interested how we enjoyed our stay here. I wasn't really all that excited about sailing here to Sri Lanka to begin with. Read a lot of horror stories of dodgey fisherman approaching yachts and harassing them from 200nm offshore and loads of touts trying to rip you off ect ect. But to be honest we couldn't have met nicer people. Almost everyone is super friendly and even the touts just leave as soon as you show your not interested. Thought it would be like India were they just try and wear you down, this is nothing like. A lot cleaner, didn't even see one rat! The tourist beaches are great with lots of little beach bars with cold big bottles of beer between 2-3$ And curries for about $5, fresh fish for under $8. In the mountains it seemed to be cheaper again and just beautiful. So we highly recommend this place to sail to or come for a holiday.
The harbour is ok but is quite dirty. They are building a yacht marina at the moment which will be great. Don't know what services they will have but the people here seem to be very good workers so if they do boat maintainance and spray jobs I think it would be a good place to come to for work done. The main gate is a pain in the ass. Security with guns and custom officials. They all have a little bit of power and show it. Check your bags coming in. We had a load of beer in a Tuk Tuk and turned into a big problem. Apparently you can only bring in what you can carry, so one case at a time. Can't bring diesel in either, have to buy it through an agent it was about $1.20 Aus a litre. The good thing about all the security though was we had no problem at all about leaving the boat worrying about anything getting stolen which was great. Your also only allowed to go to 5 designated ports if you are in a yacht and Galle is the main one. To check in you need an agent which cost $225 which includes 1 month stay. If we wanted to sail say to Colombo we would have to check out of here and then appoint an agent in Colombo and go through the same process there. The harbour master has given us permission though to anchor here outside the port to clean our boat which is great. The bottom is filthy and to do dive or even swim in harbour you need the navy to supervise and of course pay some $, and besides that the waters filthy. The fresh water in the harbour showers is drinkable so you can fill your jerry cans from there no problem. Supermarkets in town are great. We went crazy in
Thailand and Malaysia thinking there wouldn't be much available here but there is. Everything quite reasonably priced except cheese which for Australian cheddar was almost $40 for a kilo! We found some local cheese which is pretty good for $16 a kilo though. Hardware and paint shops everywhere for all that sort of stuff and I think you could get most things fixed. There is boat lifting and hardstand that has a couple of yachts on it also is you needed work done. The weather has been perfect with offshore light winds every morning and a very mild sea breeze in the afternoon with not one squall the month we have been here, a couple of showers but that's all. Renting a scooter is the go for getting around and costs $5-7 a day. The drivers are pretty crazy but are good and you get used to it quite quick. Very erratic driving especially the local busses that just pull out to overtake and don't care at all about oncoming traffic, they just hold their horn down and go for it and everyone just moves out of there way! Just make sure your always over as far on the left of the road as possible. The food has been good but know were near as exciting as India. The curries are very tasty but all quite similar and there aren't all that many local food restaurants. I think the locals mainly just cook for themselves. Julieta did a cooking class with my sisters and got a few good tips so we have been cooking a  lot of Sri Lankan styled curries on Sunflower in their traditional clay pots.
Anyway the bottom is all clean after 2 hours diving and scraping. I have a 12volt dive hookah that makes it very easy. The growth in the tropics is unbelievable. I painted the bottom in November 2012 with suposably very good anti foul but it still needs to be cleaned every month or 2, the prop a lot more often.
So we are all stocked up and good to go and will hopefully be in paridise in 4 days! We plan to go to the top of the Maldives to an island called Uligamu about 450nm away. We have a great forecast with 10-18kt NE winds. Will see how we go:)

Mountains and Tea

We organised a driver to take us up to a town called Ella up in the mountains. Was a 6 hour drive to cover the 200km stretch. Not to quick as the roads aren't to straight but absolutely beautiful. Once you arrive in Ella it literally only takes minutes to relax, it's very chilled. We had booked a cheap guest house and the boy offered a beer straight away and then proceeded to make us an amazing feast of about 5 different vegetable curries and that was us sorted for the afternoon! An amazing view from there amongst the little town and then we went for a stroll and had a couple more beers in a funky new bar that seemed to be the most popular hangout.
We hired a motorbike the next day and went for a cruise out into the tea plantations and checked out a tea factory which was very interesting how they go about it. They produce between 30 and 60 tonne a day and the smell is just amazing, we had a tour and he explained the process and the different grades. They sell wholesale a 50kg bag of the premo for about 500$ so we are trying to work out how we could start smuggling tea and make a profit?! Must be a way, surely...
We carried on the day just cruising through the mountains and the people were super friendly. Everyone just waving and genuinely happy yelling out saying hello and going about there business. Everywhere you look there is food growing. Bananas, papaya, corn, cabbage you name it there growing it and there were even patches of bush with eucalyptus treas.
The next day we headed of early on the train to Kandy. The trip took 6 hours winding through the mountains and was pretty spectacular. We should have stayed on the train as when we arrived in Kandy it was a bit of a dump. Really hectic and crazy amongst the mountains seemed fairly weird. We only had the night there so just had a couple of beers and some food and woke the next morning for the trip back to Galle. The first train to Columbo wasn't too bad but the one from there to galle was.... Well Julie reckoned a zoo! It was full when it got to the station and then it was just one for all. Full on is the only way to explain. Just barge in and push like crazy until you can't fit another person on and then the train leaves. We stood for a couple of hours and then decided to bail and have a beer and swim in Hikaduwa and get a Tuk-Tuk from there back to Sunflower, was deffently a great idea. Would be great to spend more time in the quieter areas in the mountains and have a good look around some time, but the few days was still a great experience.

2014!!

Well, the 3rd came and everyone had left to go back to their jobs and we were left alone. Happy to be going back to Sj Sunflower and have some chill out time after a hectic couple of weeks. We were both exhausted and happy just to chuck on a movie and relax. The 2nd night the breeze was up a little and at 4am we were rudely awakened. Sunflower shook like hell with a crash and the roar of engines, a workboat had hit us. I ran out starkers yelling profanities at the fellas would have been a pretty funny sight but I didn't have much of a sense of humour at the time! Turned out they were backing out of their berth and the wind got them and they caught us on their starboard aft quarter hitting our bow. They chopped of our 2nd anchor rope  and were lucky enough not to suck up our main anchor chain and all. We came out with just some tire marks so were very lucky. We also got a neighbour, a Scottish fella from Fremantle on Scarlet sailing single handed. 

This is the workboat that backed into us

Xmas in Sri lanka

After checking into Galle and securing ourselves with 2 anchors stern to to a floating pontoon it was time to go and meet the tribe. My sisters, their partners, my gran, uncle and aunt, 3 cousins as well as another uncle were all here for a Xmas reunion. Was a great craic with lots of catching up as I hadn't seen the English croud for over 2 years. My sisters had booked us a couple of bungalows on the coast only 3km from Galle harbour in a place called Unawatuna and my uncle/aunt, their kids and our Gran had a house about 10km inland. Anyway it was a boozy affair with lots of laughs. We could still check on Sunflower each day and all was well, felt safe leaving her in the harbour.
Sri Lanka was a great surprise with everyone super friendly. The harbour is a proper working place with lots of workboats. The big business is armed security for the ships that are transiting from Asia up to the Red Sea. This is the last point of call for them so they load up a bunch of heavily armed dudes to attack any pirates they come accross as they get closer to Somalia.
New Years was spent with my sisters in a town called Hikaduwa about 20km up the coast in a very touristy party sort of place. There is a bit of surf there with lots of beach bars and trendy characters to match, good fun for a few days for sure. Was a great New Year's Eve with a big feast of seafood and a beach party after. Then after New Year's Day my sisters left, one going to Jakarta to study for her university and the other back to Australia. It was a great time and it all came to an end until we meet up next time.

Leaving Thailand

We left  Thailand from the Similans islands on the 12th of  December. We had a very light forecast but left anyway as we wanted to be in Sri Lanka before Xmas as I had a lot of family arriving. We motor sailed for 5 days out of the ten it took and had a very easy sail appart from 12 hours in a bit of a storm with lots of lightning that wasn't to pleasant but in all it was fine and the boat went great. We had no problems with fisherman either, that was a worry after reading many blogs from people that did have problems. All of them we saw just smiled and waved and carried on about there business.
We arrived in galle harbour on the 22nd at sunrise and waited for the navy to greet us and the formalities began. It took till just after lunch and after paying $225  and 2 bottles of rum we were done!