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Showing posts with the label sail the west coast

Tomorrow, Land

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A drenched morning at Dona Paula After 10 days of stressing over the next thunderstorm, rushing to Antara and spending nights onboard chewing our nails about if the mooring will hold; we decided to speed up our plans for Bombay. On October 17 th  we set off on our first long sail on Antara. Casting off at 1030 that morning, we cruised our way to Ratnagiri, reaching there the next morning. We came alongside one of the tugs used by Finolex, in their beautiful anchorage at Pawas Bay.  The Patankars ensured a warm welcome  and Finolex followed suit. Casting off the next morning, Devdutt Patankar filmed our first video of Antara sailing with both sails up. We sailed right into a squall and the wet weather saw us all the way through to Bombay. Good morning Mumbai! The winds gave us speed though and we moved at a regular clip of 6kts. After spotting the skyline at 1530 the next day, we had Murphy ensure that the winds came at us from our destination. Sail boats can only

Get, Set, Launch

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Lubricating the propeller The drive from the Ribander ferry drop off is along wide open fields and water bodies. Birds that have wandered away from the neighbouring Chorao Bird Sanctuary yodel away on the power lines, while sundry bird watchers armed with their telephoto lens hide in the long grass. A few fishermen hang around knee deep in the random patches of water, shouldering rustic fishing rods. Even as you soak in these sights, you suddenly come up to a clump of trees and the raw sunshine is replaced by cool, sweet smelling shade and I feel like Alice crossing over into Wonderland. How to float a boat Keel Laying We had hoped to float Antara for Christmas as the feathering propeller and echo sounder had arrived in mid December and quickly put in place by Sachin and Siddhesh. The keel had been biding its time in the yard's locker area and all that remained was to place her on an even keel.  Meanwhile, the clouds cleared, the rainbow shone through and halleluj