After a hectic day seeing the sights of Jaipur we ended up back at the hotel and went for walk to unwind.  We passed a tailors and we called in to see if they had any cotton trousers for Ian.  They offered to make us some and have them ready by 9pm so we chose the material and true to their word they were made in a couple of hours and fitted perfectly.  While we were waiting we wandered round and came across a small festival where they were giving out fruit, ice-cream and rotis.  We became the instant attraction as all the kids milled around us thrusting drinks and ice creams into our hands.  It was a lovely end to a lovely day. -continue reading… >

Of all the amazing sights India has to offer, seeing the Taj Mahal in all its glory has to be right at the top of the list but this was the last stop on our tour so let me rewind…

We booked a 7 day tour starting in Delhi and ending in Agra with  Indian World Wide Travel.  We asked the owner Soni for some ideas and he came up with a tour that covered everything we wanted to see.  These tours are amazing – they organised our return flights from Cochin, met us at the airport, private car/driver for the whole week, lovely hotels, Internet in the car, and personalised service the whole way. -continue reading …>

The day after we arrived at the marina we had to go back and formally check into the country.  This was a Tuk Tuk journey across town for a visit to Harbourmaster, customs and immigration.  All pretty straightforward so we thought….  but somehow India takes much longer than everywhere else, including a three hour stop at the bank to get a bank cheque for the Harbourmaster.  We had the cash but it had to be a bank cheque which involved four different desks and various stamps.  With said bank cheque we returned to the Harbourmaster, but were sent to another office and so it went on – for seven hours!   -continue reading ..>

Day 1 12PM 28/2/18

The passage to India should take about 5-6 days depending on the weather.  We had good winds when we set off, north easterlies 15-20 knots but it was raining hard which was affecting visibility.   After about 5 miles, we hove to and Ian jumped in to clean the props.  They were covered in barnacles from our month in Sri Lanka and we hadn’t been able to clean them there because of the dirty harbour water and jelly fish.   Unfortunately because of the swell he was -continue reading …>

We left early in the morning and sailed up the coast to visit Neill island.  This is one of the islands you can visit but the surf was too bad so we couldn’t land the dinghy.  We went snorkeling in crystal clear water and saw a some lovely fish life but the coral has been seriously depleted here and most of it is dead.  There are patches where there is new growth so hopefully it is recovering but it will be a very long process and many years before the reef is pristine again.  There are conflicting reasons the coral is in sure a poor state – we have been told it is global warming and also that the tsunami which hit these islands so badly caused the reef to lift bringing it closer to the surface. Either way it is very sad to see such large areas of reef dead – especially considering most of these islands are uninhabited and
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It was a four day sail via the Similan islands to the Andamans arriving with an escort of dolphins. We arrived about 4pm and spent the evening lying on the trampoline listening to Indian music coming from shore.  We were in definately in India now.  After a good nights sleep we prepared for the well reported arduous check in procedure which we had been warned could entail a  wait all day for the officials to come to your boat, so we were pleasantly surprised when they turned up at 11am! All 11 of them – we even had the coastguard contingent come over who proceeded to take -continue reading…>