Chart of the eastern side of the Andaman Sea

Breaking the cycle of work was my intention when I chose a Yachtmaster course in the Andaman Sea. It seemed to me that learning navigation and seamanship on the eastern edge of the Indian Ocean would force the wood of my desk out of my soul. If I was not now to learn these arcane things, when would I? Finding no answer, but already feeling the onset of age, I felt stimulated to hurry. While lying in bed with a broken leg two years before I had read Christopher Ondaatje’s Stories, and was moved by the one in which he explained that at the age of 72 he had left it too late to climb Kilimanjaro.

Many years ago I had sailed the world in passenger liners, serving in the office of the Purser. I had watched the Southern Cross appear low on the horizon as we ploughed southerly towards regions where the stars are strange. At that time my practice of seamanship was minimal. I had learned how to command a lifeboat. Unlike the other sailors I longed for emergency drills and thrilled to hear the tannoy instructions relayed from the bridge:

“When bowsing tackles are secure, release all tricing wires!” boomed the voice of the officer of the watch and I loved it, although I could not have put my hand on either a bowsing ‘takel’ or a tricing wire. All too soon I left the Merchant Navy, went to University, and settled down to working in ‘civvie street’.

After a lifetime of desk work I resolved to visit again what Churchill called the ‘trackless ocean wastes’. This time it would not be in a ‘full-powered steamship’ but a sailing vessel. I  want to learn how to make my way by wind and compass to a destination hidden from view by the curve of the earth.

And this is what led to the start of my adventures in emerald green tropical seas, thick with turtles, sharks and corals. I could have learned to be a Yachtmaster in the cold waters of the Solent, outside the major British port of Southampton. The same course, following the curriculum of the Royal Yacht Association (RYA) is available in the Andaman Sea. This sea is part of the eastern Indian Ocean, off the coasts of mainland Malaysia and Thailand, and bounded on the west by the island chain of the same name.