Departing Cochin

Voyager arrived in Cochin on Friday the 21st, which was great because all the offices to get checked in are closed on Saturday & Sunday. I have now moved onto Voyager, home for the next 4 months. Saturday we stocked up on provisions, etc and in the evening went to see a cultural performance of the local dances of Kerala. Cochin is in the state of Kerala. Today, Sunday, we will leave Cochin. Since we are running several days behind the main rally group we will probably skip Goa and go directly to Mumbai (Bombay) which is around 600 nmi up the coast of India. 

In Cochin

After 3 days, 2 nights, 18 hours of flight time and somewhere around 6800 flight miles I am in Cochin, India. It's nice not to have to get on another airplane! Rick and Suza are still in Sri Lanka, so I get to go to the captains meetings etc. for the rally. I met the rally organizer, Lo Brust, yesterday. He is Dutch and is the founder of this rally. He has been sailing between India and Turkey for 8 years. The rally departs on the 20th. Rick & Suza are hoping to leave Sri Lanka tomorrow and arrive in Cochin on the 22nd. But with sailing you never know. As Rick says, you can pick the place or the time to meet someone who is sailing, but not both. Hopefully they will have good weather and we will be able to catch up with the rally.
I went to a local Temple festival last night. Beautiful costumes, dancing and singing. Unfortunately, my little point and shoot doesn't take good night pictures. It was nice and though people seem rather shy around westerners (I did not see another one at the festival) a few talked to me and told me about the songs. A nice way to start the trip.

Departing

Tomorrow I leave for India. After overnight stops in Manila and
Singapore, I arrive in Cochin, India on the 15th of January. Voyager has
run into some weather issues and stopped in Sri Lanka. Their arrival in
India will be delayed until at least the 22nd. It looks like I have a
week to see the sights in southern India.