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January 24, 2007

New Pedaler for a New Ocean

LOCATION: Mumbai, India
SEE WHERE WE ARE!
Longitude: N:18.92874°
Latitude: E: 072.83865°
Miles to Djibouti: 1,800

Sher arrived in one piece. It's been four odd years since we last saw each other and I'm sure neither of us look any younger for it, although he seems to be aging pretty well. His hair has grown quite long with a distinctive silver streak above the right eye punctuating very classic features and a handsome hawk-like nose (could almost pass as a Bollywood actor for sure). And I'd forgotten how tall he is! We might even have to saw a hole in the roof of the boat for his head...

Today we started the tortuous rounds of consulates, customs and immigration offices to attain both Sher's visas and the port clearances for Moksha and immigration outstamps for ourselves. The day started badly with the Yemen consulate refusing outright to give him a visa. I'm starting to realize how privileged it is to hold a UK passport as an Indian one seems to be the kiss of death for gaining access to foreign territories. The next hurdle we had to contend with was the French consulate and persuading them to issue a visa overnight, something they had done for my UK passport on the spot but typically don't do for Indian passport holders, requiring a minimum of a 2-week processing time instead. But after much waving of newspaper articles from past legs of the trip through the bullet proof window and incomprehensible jabber about weather windows and contrary winds blowing us onto Somalia they relented and promised a visa tomorrow, perhaps if only just to get rid of us.

Tomorrow we do battle with the bureaucracy of Indian customs and immigration which, judging by a preliminary 3-hour session late this afternoon in the Yellowgate Police Station to procure something called an 'NOC certificate' (an elusive, perhaps even mythical document that has to be in the presenting files before any steps can be taken further towards attaining the necessary outstamps for humans and craft alike), will transport us into a totally different league of heavyweight BS than anything experienced so far.

Departure, subject to documents being in place and weather, is set for 0500 hours local Saturday morning.

jason

Posted on January 24, 2007 2:32 PM

Comments

Posted by: gl. at January 24, 2007 10:02 PM