By Mayabhushan Nagvenkar
Panaji, Jan 4 (IANS) Learning to make do with numb hands, a busted autopilot and a couple of rebellious bolts… that’s the sum of Commander Dilip Donde’s New Year story on board the Indian Naval Sailing Vessel Mhadei on his daunting marine expedition around the world.

Commander Donde is several thousand nautical miles to the east of New Zealand on a solo sailing expedition around the world in a 56-foot yacht, which was flagged off from Goa in August last year.

“Last night as I was checking up various things on deck I realized that one of the two bolts holding the wind vane together had gone off. This was serious specially with the autopilots already on strike!” is the 42-year-old Commander’s Jan 1, 2009, entry on his blog, www.sagarparikrama.blogspot.com, which has whipped up quite an interest amongst sailing enthusiasts globally.

“Rushed with a spanner and as I was sitting on the transom putting on a new bolt a couple of waves washed over me soaking me to the inside of my boots! Exquisite agony is probably a good way to describe it!” the entry further reads.

The Jan 1 entry alone has fetched 60 comments and the blog has received 13,000 profile views from April last year, from the online followers of the Indian sailor’s exploits.

New Year may have given Donde the blues, but according to the sailor’s blog, Christmas was something to be cherished. Donde was sailing somewhere close to the international dateline near the 180 degree longitude on Dec 26, and recalls the two things that brightened up Christmas and Boxing day… a Christmas cake, a gift from a Kiwi and Thai curry with prawns.

“… some excellent cake, so thoughtfully handed over just before departure by Mrs Fitzgerald of Lyttelton (New Zealand), was cut and devoured for breakfast. A good lunch and dinner should logically have followed but with Mhadei bouncing around in 30 kts winds the cook wasn’t really feeling up to something elaborate,” reads his entry.

“He did make up for it today though, serving some excellent Thai curry with dried prawns and hot steaming rice. No prizes for guessing the desert! Christmas cake naturally! And so shall it be so for the next couple of days!” he further says.

Donde, in his engaging and witty entries, also talks about his encounters with marine life while at sea, including being chased by a seal, which according to him is a “creature that would come closest to being described as a mermaid!”

The sailor’s blog also has references to inquisitive snorting whales cavorting near his vessel and a pigeon-like bird which flew into his cabin accidentally in the southern seas.

Donde, who is expected to complete his 22,500 nautical mile journey in May this year when the Mhadei docks in Mumbai, created quite a stir during his last port of call at Lyttelton port Christchurch (LPC), New Zealand, in November, with the local Sikh community according him a welcome and former Indian Navy chief and New Zealand high commissioner Sureesh Mehta according him a farewell.

(Mayabhushan Nagvenkar can be contacted at mayabhushan.n@ians.in)