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At mid day on Monday 15th March, Maverick arrived safely back in Port Rashid, to the shock routine of PCR Tests and wearing masks. The three of us had sailed for 27 days, spending just a week in the Maldives. We had covered 2900nm, that’s 5400km! It was a long, long, way but what an adventure!!
I was so very fortunate to share the journey with two amazing people, both well known at DOSC. Phil Ellerby has completed 20 Dubai to Muscat races, and was the winning skipper in 2019. He also proved to be the most amazing cook! Keith Stanley is a hugely experienced sailor, as well as being enormously competent technically. In all we spent 34 days together, sharing both exciting and frustrating times. There was never a cross word. I could not have chosen better shipmates.
In fact the adventure began well before we departed Mina Rashid Marina on 10 February.
I had bought Maverick, a beautiful Beneteau Oceanis 50 back in the summer of 2019, and had ambitions to do more than cruise local waters. My sailing career had really started after I had retired in 2013, and completed my DayÂ
Skippers Course at DOSC. This was followed in quick succession by buying the Club training boat, a Beneteau First 34.7, with a great IRC rating. It didn’t take much encouragement to invest heavily in new sails and get her racing! She was renamed Sandpiper. Supported by Andy Chapman, Ed Shiffner and many others we started to win races! This encouraged me to complete my first Cowes Week, of five, with Philippe Saad, and also to enter the infamous Fastnet Race and the Caribbean 600.
So I’m a racer at heart! Where to start with Maverick? In September last year I decided to do some upgrades to the boat, nothing too serious, or so I thought! Then I got to know Jen and Rod Magee, neighbours on B Dock, preparing for their ocean crossing in Long Reach. Before I knew it, the Maldives adventure in Maverick was born. Their enthusiasm was hugely infectious, and likely to be dangerously expensive!
Almost simultaneously, I met James Bourke an outstanding marine engineer from Auckland. His amazing technical support and enthusiasm enabled me to transform Maverick into a very special ‘Blue Water’, ocean cruiser.
In the next six months a huge transformation took place, new sails, of course, but far more than that. A new 50 litre per hour water maker was installed, all the plumbing checked and upgraded, the electrics rewired, lithium batteries installed as well as an additional alternator fitted to the engine.Â
I had always been annoyed that the generator was buried deep in a lazarette locker and totally inaccessible, even to check the oil. So we redesigned the transom, and fitted additional access. The genset is now easily reached, and an additional 100 litre fuel tank has been fitted. We now also have great space for our diving gear. Fantastic!Â
Whilst all this was taking place, I was being massively frustrated by three ‘Red Flags’! Unless these issues were sorted we weren’t going anywhere!Â
Thankfully I met up with Phil Ellerby, one of the world’s great problem solvers. I was very flattered when he asked if he could join the adventure, and hugely relieved when he said he would take on the Red Flags! In the next few weeks the problems had been sorted. We had found an Agent, Asad of Real Sea Hawks, to manage our entry into the Maldives. Mike Fetton of YLS Yachts had agreed to manage all the issues associated with our Dubai exit and re-entry. Finally, Phil’s determination had also enabled me to get insurance for the trip. The Red Flags were now all Green! We were ‘good to go’! Well done Phil.
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However, the stresses returned when the two UK based members of the original crew were locked down by Covid and had to drop out. From 4 we were down to 2 with just a few weeks to go! By a stroke of amazing good fortune, Keith then joined us and we decided to keep the crew to 3. Maverick is a big, comfortable boat, but despite the possible risks of being short handed in heavy weather, there is a lot to be said for having one cabin each on a long trip like this. As it turned out, domestically, everything was just perfect!
With only a few days to go there was a huge amount still to be done. The transom locker was yet to be completed, the new bimini for the solar panels was still being tailored, whilst Keith was very busy building an emergency rudder and fitting 6 x 25 litre jerry cans for diesel on each rail. Meanwhile my wife, Judi, and Annie Ellerby, were working wonders with the catering and provisioning. We had fitted an additional fridge freezer and the girls cooked, vacuum packed and froze enough evening meals for both there and back. Amazing and totally delicious! Phil had kindly organised the alcohol, which was another hugely important feature of our logistics!
The engine and genset had been serviced, spare parts carefully thought through (or so we thought!), paperwork meticulously prepared. Predict Wind had been installed for the weather forecasting as well as the IridiumGo! Satellite Communications system. At long last, we were ready to go!Â
Everyday the weather was just beautiful… but not for sailing! We spent most of our time motoring or motor sailing. Every couple of hours we would complete the log, with particular focus on the performance of the engine, as well as levels of fuel and water!
Life on board was very relaxing and we settled in to a rhythm of 4 hour watches, by day and night. Normally only one person needed to be on watch. There was little traffic and we were well equipped with both AIS and Radar. Several nights we would have to weave our way through fishing fleets. Unlike UAE and Oman waters, each fishing boat would also have AIS on its nets. By matching the boats with their nets using their MMSI numbers, we managed to stay out of trouble!
Every evening we would eat our meal together before sunset. Phil had taken over the galley and produced some amazing lunches, starters and deserts! The main courses had been lovingly cooked by Annie and Judi, a total of 80 portions! Some of which were still frozen and ready to eat when we returned to Dubai.
The weather forecast remained much the same, so we decided we would have to stick to the rhumb line just incase we needed to motor most of the way. Our attention turned to procuring spares for the water maker. Keith had worked wonders, but it was very temporary. Hopefully we would get to the Maldives, but certainly not back again!
Regular swims off the stern, using Johnson’s Baby shampoo kept us clean, and used minimal amounts of valuable fresh water. We caught a couple of small fish, chilled out and waited for the next meal!! With a beer or two, of course. What a life!
The IridiumGo! was frustratingly slow, especially for the weather data, but we were able to send and receive short e mails, which also gave us the opportunity to order spare parts for our water maker. It’s a long story, but suffice to say, we eventually received the most expensive 5 micron filters in the whole world, on our last day in the Maldives, before returning home!!! I will never make that mistake again, that’s for sure!! But thankfully we had water. What a relief!
The days passed quickly enough, with little traffic, occasional gannets, several pods of dolphin, endless ocean and wonderful sunsets. With so little wind our attention focused on the water maker, monitoring the engine, as well as estimating our fuel consumption and distance still to be covered to Uligan. It was going to be touch and go for sure!
On Day 12, mid afternoon, we had our first sight of the northern atoll, and we dropped anchored off the reef at Uligan at 18.30hrs just as the sun was setting. High Fives all round! We had taken 13 days and covered 1500 nm (2800km) from Port Rashid! We had prepared for the worst possible weather, and faced the opposite, with extremes of fuel and water shortages, and almost no wind. Conditions we had never envisaged!
That evening we were met by our excellent Agent, Asad of Sea Hawks Maldives, in a mask! Of course, we weren’t allowed ashore, and we still had to wear masks, despite having been on the ocean for 13 days! Asad also brought with him three Sim Cards. We were back on line, at last, and in touch with the world by Whatsapp! The peace had been blissful, but it was good to send photos and chat to the families.
The Coastguard also came aboard and we signed 54 forms. Each signature had to be accompanied, amazingly, by a thumb print!!
After refuelling and a great night’s sleep we had our next adventure! We were anchored in about 11m, and facing a strong tidal stream. Whilst bringing up the anchor with the electric windlass there were some expensive sounding grinding noises, at first we thought the chain was round a coral ‘bommie’, and then the windlass just imploded!
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This was our first time anchoring in the Maldives. Concerned with the possibility of 40 knot winds, I had replaced the anchor rode, and bought a huge folding Fortress anchor as a spare, before leaving DOSC. The windlass had worked perfectly. We knew we would only have to anchor a few times in the Maldives, so the electric windlass was one of the few key items of equipment not to have been serviced before we departed. We were now paying the price!
Keith, of course, was there like a shot! Pulling up a 25kg anchor, 35m of 13mm chain and an 8 strand polyester rode for a 15 tonne yacht in a fast moving current is no mean feat!! We used every trick in the book, including the spinnaker halyard, which Keith had free dived and connected to the chain 8m below the water line, and run back to the electric winch in the cockpit. Between us, with Phil on the helm and controlling both the boat and the winches, we broke huge amounts of sweat grinding by hand, and eventually we were clear! It was close, especially as we dragged our anchor, too close for comfort, past a nearby yacht. Frayed nerves and physical workout for the day completed, we headed serenely south. Was ‘Blue Water ‘ sailing meant to be this adventurous? How were we now going to anchor amongst the treacherous coral reefs? What about the ladies?
What about the ladies indeed? We had promised Judi and Annie that we would find a great Resort in the northern atoll near Uligan, and fly them out for a few days for a luxury Maldives holiday. The challenge was not finding a Resort, but finding one, within our price bracket, and where we could safely anchor the yacht!
This was a very unusual request for Katrin Hume of Travel Counsellors. She worked wonders for us before leaving Dubai and throughout, but there were almost no marinas on our chosen islands, and we were never going to be able to identify suitable anchorages from the charts, or from information provided by the Resorts. We also had very significant Covid 19 restrictions to consider! So we decided to defer the decision until we had arrived! That time had come!!
We had identified three resorts, where anchoring might be possible. We spent a couple of days checking out the Barefoot Resort on Hanimaadhoo, and getting ourselves organised with PCR Tests, which itself was an adventure! We were also trying to track down the spare parts for our Water Maker! It all sounds so simple. It wasn’t!
Finally, and with a great deal of help from Katrin back in Dubai, we formed a plan. The anchorage at Barefoot was a long way from the Resort. The JA Resort at Manufaru were very helpful, but taking a yacht from Dubai was proving an administrative nightmare. Amazingly, and to our delight, the Hideaway Resort, one of the best resorts in the Maldives, had dropped its prices hugely, and had a mooring buoy for Maverick, within easy sight of the main bar and restaurant. Perfect! The girls would be delighted, and so were we! We had struck gold!
The girls flew in, by sea plane, no less, only moments before Maverick’s arrival. What’s more they had brought loads of goodies with them, including some key spare parts for the Water Maker, which Phil had ordered, just in case ! Hugs and kisses all round. To hell with Covid!!
The next few days were bliss. We spent a couple of nights in beautiful villas on the beach, and were then moved to water homes on stilts. We relaxed, rode bikes around the island, enjoyed beautiful food, and one or two glasses of wine! We also enjoyed amazing snorkelling amongst the reef shark and rays. I did some diving with Keith, who dived every day, and took a number of totally amazing photographs. We had brought all our diving gear with us aboard Maverick, and will be back to the Maldives, for sure!
All too soon, we were bidding farewell to Judi and Annie. Somehow they had managed to get free 45 min seaplane flights each way, to Male. Covid 19 does have some advantages!
We stocked Maverick with some fresh rations, but decided we would have to survive on the beer and wine we had on board. The Hideaway prices were just too steep!
By midnight we were still picking up some wind off the port quarter and gently following the Oman coast towards Sur, but by 2am it had dropped almost completely. We were just drifting with the the tide, with only the final 25 litres in the auxiliary fuel tank. There was no promise of wind, and decisions to make!
Sur was the closest option, but we were warned by Mike Fetton at JLS that the Oman borders were completely closed and under no circumstances should we drop in there for fuel, unless we had the correct papers, which we didn’t! Somehow we had to get to Muscat, where we could fuel up. But that was going to be impossible!
The general feeling was that we made it to the Maldives from Oman, so we should have enough fuel to make it back, shouldn’t we? At 1600rpm and our estimated 2.5 litres of diesel per hour we should be fine. The fuel gauges on boats are notoriously inaccurate, but as the days went by, mostly still under engine, it became pretty clear that we were using very much more than we had estimated! By day 6 we calculated that we were using more like 3 to 3.5 litres per hour, so at least 30% more. There was limited traffic, but occasionally we would take action to avoid some massive tanker or container vessel. Still very little wind, and sometimes on the nose, which wasn’t too helpful. To save fuel we dropped the engine revs further to 1450 rpm.
On the morning of Day 8 we were thankfully under sail, but with an estimated 7 litres of fuel, only, in the tank!! We were not too far from Sur, on the Oman coast. Despite the shortage of fuel in the tank, spirts were high. We enjoyed sausages with caramelised onions for lunch, and there was the promise of lamb tangine and mashed potato for dinner! Amazingly, we were confident we were going to make it!
Keith again came up trumps and a great friend of his in Oman suggested we drop into Al Quryat, a small fishing village about 20nm south of Muscat. It wasn’t even on our Navionics charts but that’s what we would do! The final 25 litres were loaded into the fuel tank and we crept up the coast. About 15.15hrs we were outside the sizeable harbour walls of the village, in serious need of diesel! The harbour was quite shallow, we didn’t want to draw attention to ourselves, and were even flying and Oman flag off the stern! So Phil and Keith stayed on Maverick, circling outside the harbour walls, whilst I took our small dinghy with 3 x 25 litre jerry cans to find fuel.
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It was exciting, real Swallows and Amazons, and thankfully a quiet Friday afternoon! To my surprise, in the little dinghy, I passed very close to two sizeable Coastguard Patrol vessels, complete with heavy machine guns on the foredeck. Scary!
I managed to fuel up offering UAE Dirhams and a sizeable tip. Gaining confidence I even dropped into a small supermarket, but they didn’t have custard powder and other exotic ingredients Phil was looking for. On the return to Maverick, I was initially startled by a man waving from the Coastguard compound. As it turned out he was just telling me to slow down. Amazing when our outboard is only 2.5hp! Clearly I was in a hurry to get back to Maverick!
More fist pumps on my return! Very soon we were of to the safety of Muscat where we were brilliantly looked after, and spent the night. Ironically, the wind filled in the next day, and we had a great sail, with full fuel tanks all the way to the Gap, and the Straits of Hormuz. Suddenly the Muscat to Dubai leg seemed so short!
At mid day on  Monday 15 March we arrived safely back in Port Rashid Marina, where Mike Fetton and his team from JLS magically smoothed us through the PCR tests and other entry procedures. We had made it!! More fist pumps, and celebrations.
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Looking back I had been lucky enough to share this adventure with my great friends, Phil and Keith. Both were truly amazing throughout.
I had also shared the adventure with so many other wonderful people, many mentioned here. Each played their own amazing part.
We have achieved so much, not only with major upgrading of the boat, but also persevering in the face of Covid and severe bureaucracy, even before we left DOSC. Then there was the lack of wind, as well as fuel and water anxieties throughout our month at sea.
Quite a challenge! What an adventure!Â
Without your support and encouragement, all of you, this would never have been possible!
Thank you all so much.
Just after our return, Judi and I sailed Maverick to Moon Island with the DOSC Cruising group.
On the return leg, with just the two of us on board, I noticed the bilge pump running full blast, and found there was water coming into the boat very fast!!!
I quickly tracked it down to the Carbon Ceramic Seal on the propshaft, where sea water had been pouring in! I managed to temporarily stop the leak. Together, Judi and I then pumped out the bilges and we got her safely back to DOSC, under sail.
These things can happen, especially after more than 500 engine hours! Thankfully it didn’t happen in the middle of the Indian Ocean!
