In this first episode we take a nice, gentle stroll around Fort Cochin, the area in Kochi where the European adventurers settled after opening up trade routes between Asia and Europe. It’s a typically warm day so Liz hides under the shade of the tree-lined avenues, forever surrounded by the cawing of crows.

In addition to this we managed to have a quick chat with Richard, one of the world circumnavigation Blue Water Rally organisers, and Jeremy, a skipper taking part. Currently they are having to think hard about their sailing route. The situation in Egypt may force them to spend more time in India.

All these interviews give a great insight into rallies, their organisation and, more seriously, the political and economic situations that have a direct impact on sailing through the Indian Ocean and the Red Sea.

This podcast is also special because is the last in our current series. Fear not, we will return in a couple of months with some exclusive insights into our travels around India, but we’re going to take a short break and discover a bit more about this incredible country and the Indian people.

It seems we are not the only boat to suffer damage, however, as other vessels on the rally have their own problems. At the end of this podcast you’ll hear Mary of Still Dreaming alluding to an unfortunate incident at anchor in Mumbai where considerable damage was done to a number of boats. Meanwhile it seems Easy and Free have their own problems and have to make a B-line to Goa.

Still, let’s not let this mar the celebration of a wonderful crossing of the Arabian Sea. Eight days and 960 miles later Mumbai’s hazy skyline makes herself known to a tired but elated Vasco Da Gama Rally.

What was a great sail is now turning into a bit of a nightmare with steering problems and no wind. And then there are the freaks on the VHF radio…

Don’t forget you can comment and email us via our website, www.followtheboat.com.

This two-part project started when Nancy Lake emailed us asking if we could answer some questions for her class at Wybunbury Delves Primary School. As their teacher Nancy is reading them ‘Kensuke’s Kingdom’ by Michael Morpurgo, a story of a boy who becomes ship-wrecked. To help put the story in context we have answered some of the children’s questions about what it is like to live at sea.

You can hear the sense of relief as we leave the convoy, but Dan on Still Dreaming, our ever hard-working net controller, spots something mysterious in the sky, and reports on further piracy attacks.

After weeks of waiting we had the usual captain’s meeting, and with Indian visas secured, were ready to leave. Sadly our agent Mohammed let us down at the last minute, with some unprofessional behaviour and some surprise additional costs added to our already huge mooring fees. We were glad to leave.

To make matters worse the inevitable happens: two fishing dows are spotted on the horizon, suspiciously following the rally. Could they be pirates? And if so, what chance do we have of reinforcing our safty in numbers strategy if Esper’s group is all over the place?

This collective of boats isn’t called a rally for nothing. Listen to the boats rallying together to get us through the first of many hurddles lying ahead

We were thrilled to find that they had invited a group of ten young fishermen who were dancing to a live band, performing traditional dance. They then invited the rally participants to join them and Jamie couldn’t resist busting out his moves. One of the coastguards very kindly gave us a video clip of this momentous ocassion, telling us that this was the first and only time an English man has danced in routine with Yemeni fishermen! You can see the clip on the website.

After the dance we polled some of the rally participants about their thoughts on the next leg of the trip, which takes us through Pirate Alley.

We also got to chat to a Yemeni woman, covered head to foot in black with just her eyes visible.  Her English is excellent and makes for a great little interview.

It is ‘gat’, also pronounced ‘cat’ and spelled ‘QAT’ which is a legal drug openly available and openly consumed throughout the country. It is a growing concern as more and more of the population spend their earnings on this opiate.

Our taxi driver, small-time tour operator and all-round nice bloke Selim takes Cilian of ‘Cobble’, Robbie of ‘Rhumb Do’ and Jamie on a tour of Aden.

He constantly refers to ‘Crazy Place’ which, we eventually find out, is the gat den. This covered market, with men selling the drug from wrought iron beds or from the back of their pick-up trucks, truly is a crazy place.

Meet Colonel Mohammed, the big cheese of the Yemeni Coastguard. This happy chap hosted a reception for the Vasco da Gama rally, showed us his fleet of boats and eventually invited us back to his office.

It was here that along with Fiona and Terry of Roam 2, Francesca and Marco of Easy and Free, we learned about the colonel’s sex life. His secret is the aphrodisiac-cum-opiate ‘gat’. It is chewed in the afternoon but its effect in the bedroom takes place after dark. Apparently.

We learn more about gat, and how it is destroying Yemen, in next week’s podcast.

Check out the followtheboat.com website for some of Jamie’s best pictures yet. Click the ‘Places’ tab at the top of the home page and scroll down to the list of countries. Under ‘Eritrea’ you’ll see a link to Sadla Island.

The podcast begins with us leaving Freedom Bay and looking at problems on other boats in the rally. It ends, however, in Marsa Dudo with an analysis of a problem we encounter ourselves.

This was a grueling hundred mile trip that should have been completed in 24 hours. It took much, much longer. Along the way Esper finds herself in a critical situation.

This is a very important meeting as we discuss the convoy sailing tactics.

What I love about this podcast is the relaxed attitude we take to motoring into a few headwinds and the expectation of an easy motor sail to Marsa Dudo, 100 miles away.

Also listen out for the blasse comment about the military not causing us any problems further down the coast. Needless to say we were kicked out of two anchorages by smiling Eritrean navy personnel.

And should we move at all when half the rally is going down with a mysterious illness? Still, we should be grateful we have the available medicines on board to cope with a fever, some people aren’t so lucky.

This podcast captures a few yotties discussing passage plans in between diving under the boat to scrape the prop and giving the locals some much needed medicine.

We didn’t take the podcast recorder with us as we were concentrating on photographs, but in this podcast we recount both the trip up the mountains and the city itself, and laugh at Ian of Rhumb Do, who froze in his seat when a curious primate decided to stick his head through the bus window.

We suggest checking out the followtheboat.com webite for lots of pics of Massawa and Asmara too. Just click on the ‘Places’ tab at the top of the homepage and scroll down the list of places we’ve visited to click on the ‘Massawa’and Asmara links.

Despite being the second poorest country in the world Eritrea is clean, friendly and relaxing, and Massawa a welcome return to some kind of civilisation, including bars that serve local cheap beer!

We spent some time in Massawa and managed to wrangle not just a trip to the mountainous capital, Asmara, but get invited to the Fenkle party, which was a celebration of the country’s independence twenty years ago.

The theme for this podcast is baboons and biros. Check out the followtheboat.com webite for lots of pics of Massawa and Asmara too. Just click on the ‘Places’ tab at the top of the homepage and scroll down the list of places we’ve visited to click on the ‘Massawa’ link.

We reluctantly left this spot a couple of days later and continued sotuhwards on to our next Sudanese marsa, Inkeifel.

Expect plenty of fish, the perfect barbie-on-a-beach, a mangrove swamp and a possible sighting of Ursula Andress, though I suspect that last bit is all in Jamie’s mind.

For us, however, its poor economy is made up for by the very rich beauty of nature. The anchorage of Marob is our first taste of ‘real’ Africa and within 24 hours we have run-ins with turtles, ospreys, camels and, get this, a dugong!

In this podcast we go back to its original context and pass not just another ship in the night but a strange, alien-like object too. Under the cover of darkness identifying what these things are is a great game that whiles away the night watches.

Cillian and Robbie have hit the deck running and have become part of the family. It’s nice to have some young blood amongst the group and they, like everyone else, have their own story to tell.

Robert Newton of North Yorkshire emailed us the following:

I am listening to all your podcast’s - good work! I would be interested to hear the boat types and sizes that you are cruising in the company of. I aspire to become a cruiser. At the moment we charter but I would really like to take the plunge and buy a yacht and go cruising - but what model? I have the following sort of “short list” in my mind - but its a bit divorced from reality really (floats free of the real budget):

Sunbeam, Sirius, Franchini, Regina of Vindo, Oyster, Moody, Northwind, Southerly

So, upon receipt of this email we hopped in the dinghy whilst at anchor between Egypt and Sudan, and polled the rally skippers on their thoughts on their own boats. For the record, Robert, there are two Moody’s, an Oyster and a Southerly on the rally, so you’re thinking in the right direction.

This is a recording of the Net, a kind of interactive radio show on the VHF. On it you’ll hear how we discuss and conclude our passage plan, as well as some positive words from Divanty, the boat whose rudder was repaired. For obvious reason we have delayed the publication of this podcast until now.

So, are you sitting comfortably? Then take a deep breath…

A felucca is a traditional sailing boat used on the Nile. We’re unsure exactly how old these modes of transport are but they are still used to get up and down Egypt’s great river. We get to chat to the skipper, a young Nubian, and also get Terry and Fiona’s take on life on the Nile.

Go to www.followtheboat.com where you will find over 70 photographs to accompany this fantastic podcast.

Eventually I pulled it off. I met a young Coptic woman in Luxor who was willing to chat and be recorded, a feat unto itself since most Egyptians are quite guarded when it comes to opinions. Despite taking a few minutes to open up and insisting that we change her name to Maria, the name of her daughter, this is a great insight. Furthermore we conducted our little chat aboard a horse and carriage, taking in the scenes of the backstreets of Luxor!

There’s a lot of traffic in the first part of the interview, giving you an idea of how noisy Egyptian streets can be; then we take a turning down a side street and ‘Maria’ talks more about Coptics and their special calendar. After we finish chatting Liz takes over and records some of the fascinating sounds coming from the market street.

A truly atmospheric podcast!

Enough of my ramblings, meet Andy of sailing boat ‘Jenzminc 6′. Despite claiming that he only knows about sailing, this man has a very interesting story.

This is quite a raw recording and you’ll note in the twelve minutes of footage not once do you not hear the mullah.