APPROACHED at SEA

So we blocked Thailand about seven or maybe eight days ago and now we are on the coast of Sri Lanka and heading south along the east coast of Sri Lanka to catch the good current. Hopefully then we'll head west. Beyond the Maldives, it's 11 p.m. m. on my shift and my shift lasts until 2. We started and we saw a fishing boat go by us, it was a pretty small fishing boat and we thought, oh, interesting and That's like, oh, that looks a little like a longliner, but it is strange, not like what we are used to seeing.

We are hundreds of miles from any coast. If you look around on the horizon during the day, there is no one. Look around on the horizon at night on the radar there is no one sometimes you will see another fishing boat. The other thing to consider is that we are very vulnerable in terms of who is on board. I have a wife and two very young children. Can't. taking collateral damage in terms of being shot, I can't take collateral damage in terms of taking a beating, we're definitely of the opinion that if you're sailing around the world you're in travel mode and if you're traveling well, you're probably doing it to experience the culture, so to experience the culture you have to trust that the people are good.

I'm Ben, that's Ashley. Together we did the unimaginable. We sold everything and then set off on a mission to sail around world civilization. See you. later, 20 countries later and over 25,000 nautical miles, we're only on the other side of the world, I have no idea what's going to happen, subscribe to follow the adventure as we finish this lap, holy smokes, it's like a lake plane here, it's shocking, I haven't seen it. this type these type of conditions in a long, long, long time this is incredible, we are in the middle, basically, the tip of Sumatra and the tip of Sri Lanka, north and south, and yes, we are right in the middle.

Right now I'm like in the middle of nowhere and it's a lake, surprisingly it's a lake, so what did you catch trash? More garbage. Wow, maybe this is the great Indian garbage patch. I mean, there are some small fish there, but I don't see any big ones. There is so much trash around here, I mean some of it is organic, but a lot of it is microplastics. I don't think they are very micro, it's like mega plastic. I literally thought I was going to hit the bumper of a car, so I was there all morning. dodging this line of trash and sometimes there are big things in it so we decided it would be better to go north or south because we were heading west so Ben just turned south I said let's find out if there's a silver lining to this . current line because it's obviously some kind of line that the trash is drawing, you can see it.

I'm wondering if you can see it on camera, so we're looking for favorable momentum to the west, either south of the line or north of the line. I'm not sure which one it will be, we'll figure it out. There's more down there. It's crazy the amount of trash here in Asia. They have a lot of food in little bags and then they just tie it up. the top but the elastic is really tight like there's actually soup in there or something but that's what it is I guess they just throw it in the ocean it runs into the ocean somehow I don't know maybe they just throw the garbage into the ocean like They put it in containers and threw it into the ocean.

I have no idea there are images of that from India. I don't want to blame any particular country, but it's been pretty bad since we arrived in Indonesia. Philippines was really bad. Thailand was really bad. it's pretty bad a lot of plastic I don't know three or four I think four is day four and there's no fish but today I've been catching trash and I'm trying to figure out where it's from because it says Indonesia yeah. You can find out where your trash comes from because they write down where it comes from, it's not really difficult, it's not a big mystery, so I guess a lot of the trash here is from everywhere, but I guess a lot of it is floating in from Indonesia.

Based on the way the currents pass through here Indonesian fertilizer, what do you collect Indonesian? I don't know, some kind of food bag. Yes, we actually met the people behind the clean water initiatives. It's a company that's cleaning up the ports in Hong Kong, they build these super cool boats that run on solar energy and they go around and pick up trash like they eat trash. Yes, they collect trash at the port and it makes sense because they are dealing with the problem before it reaches the ocean. because once it's here it's very difficult to manage and I think the same thing needs to happen in Indonesia and a lot of these Asian countries just clean it up in the rivers and ports in those areas before it spills so Ben is getting ready. go swimming, not because he wants to, we have been driving through garbage for days, day and night, and finally caught a plastic bag last night at dusk.

I did it, I chose not to jump because it was dark, so now. It's the next morning we're going to go for a little swim, clean the bag, fix our speedo, the little paddle wheel on the speedo, I think it's clogged too, anyway, we'll take a quick look, back to that, the bags are kind. It's strange though because they float about three feet below the surface, so two to three feet below the surface is a little strange. I've seen flip flops, so there's still a lot of current here, but we're sideways for that and um, so I stopped us before he jumped, so we should be able to, you know, not go too fast, but we'll probably tie a knot, but he has his good fins, hopefully he can keep up with a knot, okay.

I know when you're ready, oh just let me know when we're at zero. It is clear that there are no more sweet bags. I have to work on the speedometer and check the other crop. I said, how's the water? Oh, it's lovely. Would you like to come inside? I'm not sure it's nice to get off the boat but a bit of bee ebg like this kind of deep water has big fish big fish not like we can fish though ah I'm thinking sharks yeah bully sharks it's Well, I have to do it. go see willa, okay, dad is down here, can you see him down here? put your face down, look through the net, it's been one of the quietest passages ever, we're just driving.

A fishing boat just passed by and checked this out, it's pretty. small, thinking it's probably from India, it looks like a long boat because it has huge poles on the front to mark the ends of long lines. I always hate it when they come and check us at dusk. I get ebg bees that don't I don't know why I have trust issues. I guess I feel very vulnerable here with my family in the middle of nowhere. Without a gun on board we would never have a gun on board, by the way it is so illegal in some countries. like getting the death penalty, oh, last night we got squid tattoos absolutely everywhere, we're working on the drums, we've put three 340 liters on this side and 130 on the other side, Ashley has been doing our fuel calculations and I.

I think we're good for another seven days, so that shouldn't get us there without a problem and there's absolutely no wind. I mean, this is what we're seeing. We have wind from our boat advancing during the day. It's just too hot. we try to survive it has been extremely hot during the day it has been epic we have had incredible sunsets here comes another one um but the days wow are hot wowzers it's like the days fly by and not much happens this is the first time I see one of these things since we were in Pulau and the Sri Lankan fish and valences are really good they have a lot of them I think they have ais on board they don't transmit very far but They usually transmit at some point but there's a marked kid here and I don't know, sometimes they put the kids on long lines or whatever has to do with fishing, but other times it might be a big boat of some kind.

I think this is drifting, I'm not sure it was like that, I don't know, it's like one of those nights where you're just like there's no light, you have no idea what it is and you can usually see. a light until all the information comes out that he's just a kid, you're like, what the hell is he? My ais is totally off so it's totally stressful selling nights like this goes pretty fast because of the currents um there's the floor. are coming up so they can anchor the fads again now I just don't know, we just don't really know what it is because we came here in the dark and now it's still dark of course but it's crazy.

There is two knots of current at the moment, so we have about five knots of boat speed. In fact, I could probably turn off the engines again because we're gone again. We sail very close to the wind. Basically, close casts. as close as we can get and both sails are up anyway, it's still very early in my night shift and I'm already having to dodge it, it's one of those nights but I feel good tonight, not like the other one night, when I was tired, it makes a big difference anyway, I better go check this, this thing that keeps God knows where it is, what it is and where it's going right, so it's crazy.

I just came in to write in the log. book i passed by all these damn fishing boats and i look on ais and one comes up and says we're 1.6 miles from a fishing boat uh yeah a sri lankan fishing boat so it's amazing they're actually on ais and they're tying just one knot, so I guess they're drifting with the current, which is what I suspected, so I was circling them now God knows, God really knows what they're doing with all their fishing nets, so I am happy to have done it. I'm over a mile away, actually one points 1.6 miles away, nautical miles away, so that's good, I didn't run into them, who knows what kind of equipment is in the water at your side around, you don't know, you weren't scared, but you know, carefully, which one it is.

Hell, a ghost ship could have been, you know, I'm a ghost, yeah, it feels great to be sailing on a sailboat again, naha, woo, we'll be back on the motorboat shortly, don't worry, I wouldn't want to walk away from that, this one trip is 2 a.m. m. I just saw my night shift. Right now, I actually just finished yours, I just want to give a little context to our situation here, we are hundreds of miles from any coast, so at our speed, our average cruising speed is five knots, that's several days for us, that's several days for most boats here because To get that far, you normally have a slow cruising speed.

Fast ships have a shorter range. Usually if the situation escalated with another ship here it would be very bad because we can't call for help if you look around on the horizon during the day there is no one if you look around on the horizon at night on the radar there is no one around times you'll see another fishing boat they have vhf i have no idea in terms of vhf vhf is the radio The signal we use here VHF goes as far as line of sight basically um so if you can't see them on radar at night , you can't see it during the day, you can't normally communicate, you could possibly communicate via satellite. could activate an e-offender which is like a broken beacon, if they are both sinking maybe search and rescue services would go out and find them.

However, this is the part of the world where there is probably not as much coordination for search and rescue as there. it's in the western world so who knows either way you have to trust that humanity is good and deep down we trust that humanity is good uh we trust but we verify so let me explain to you when it comes close a ship, we do not invite them to enter immediately. wait a few minutes, we see what their actions are, we all ask them questions, we listen to their answers, we will ask them some more probing questions, we will see what their answers are, etc., that's how we work.

Many people often say online that they need. To have weapons you need an Ak-47, you need an M6, whatever. I'm not a gun enthusiast. When you navigate the world, you have to check in and out of many countries and many countries. We've been where guns are very illegal to the point of getting the death penalty if you own a gun, so that's not very helpful in terms of traveling the world. Gun laws in the US are very different from most of the world. Another thing to consider is that we are very vulnerable in terms of who is on board.

I have a wife and two very young children. I can't take collateral damage in terms of gunfire. I can't take collateral damage in terms of getting beat up. The only. What I can do is, first of all, don't let the bad guys on board run away if you can, if you can't escape, oh, maneuver, so the lines in the back try to follow their props, there are all kinds of things that you can do, so yeah, that's basically where we are in terms of defending ourselves here. I'm interested to know what you think. We are definitely of the opinion that if you are sailing around the world, you are in a travel mode and if you are traveling.

Well, you're probably doing it to experience the culture, so to experience the culture you have to trust that thePeople are good and you want to experience people well, so we'll see what happens tomorrow, I'm sure we'll meet eventually. these people um, but I would be curious to see what you guys think, what you would do, what you would have on board, what your state of mind would be, where you would tend, trust, distrust, trust, then verify that no. If I don't know, let me know in the comments below until tomorrow on the high seas well not very high right now it's very quiet out here it's very dark ashley just came down for a nap I have bodhi and there's a uh I think it's an approaching Indian or Sri Lankan fishing boat they're just waving, I don't know We know what they want, we're in the middle of nowhere, so earlier I talked about how there are different signs, international signs because we don't speak their language, they They don't speak ours well, so I think they go like this, which obviously means smoke or this or something we'll see, we'll see what I should give them uh canned fish I don't know what they give them it's totally quiet here there's no one around absolutely no one except a boat Indian fisherman maybe get decent there's a lot of tears I didn't expect you uh mahi-mahi yeah, what do you want to trade for it? oh, what do they want?

I don't know, should I grab? Do you want to grab some apples? fish they want cigarettes we don't really have smoke we don't have cigarettes I never thought about doing that cookies I have cookies yes, that's right I don't even have a good cook normally I don't like it they don't even have junk food really cookies cookies how many how many people one two three four six okay six beer we don't need your fruit those four guys have good fruit man should we give them too cold coke? Yes, they have that big stick attached too. from the side the ram rod hello say hello willa say hello willa okay okay be careful with the shrouds do you think you won't lose them?

There is no fish there it is pineapple and papaya there is no fish yes fish yes ok say hello to these good guys they say hello whoa perfect hmm much more difficult with the babies wow cute it is very ready yes thank you okay the captain receives three two bye thank you beer beer from Thailand Thailand bye bye is what we have man, we have two mahi mahi's uh one right here another right here we're having fish for dinner uh a couple I don't know what these are I think they're like nuts they're not skip jack but they're something like that uh papaya and uh pineapple I think we got a pretty good score, well I just fell in the pool, boats crying, Willa woke up too, I don't know, dude, go away, we're just trying to change a seat, Willa, is it that hard? , bad timing, man, bad diamond, those will be steaks. um and then these, I think I'll gut them and um, we'll just cook them straight and then eat them boneless Asian style delicious style delicious style I think they got a good deal too, they got eight beers and six Cokes, there's six men on board , we try to offer them similar apples and cookies, and they're like no cigarettes, no junk food, yeah, beer, yeah, I said it so many times.

I see that people are always happy, smiling and friendly, and everything you get when we post. Some of the things are like pirates, you have to carry a gun and be careful and all of these things are absolutely true, but we've had them 100 of the times so far, they've been amazing, yeah, yeah, it'll be a memory you won't forget for a long time. time. long time, yes yes, two screaming kids and a fantastic exchange, let's hope things go better next time, kitchen staff, no seriously, we're halfway between Thailand and Sri Lanka at the moment, we're heading to the Maldives, I think there.

There will be many more adventures like this in the future, especially as we get closer to Africa, you guys should subscribe, don't miss any videos, I'll be able to handle that, it's heavy, this will fuel us for the rest of the trip your