Leaving Mumbai to Find Mumbai

This note was written by Cdr Abhilash Tomy on 1 April 2026, marking thirteen years since the voyage it recounts. Cdr Tomy is a member of the Advisory Board of Meluha Maritime. We are privileged to carry his reflections as part of our ongoing effort to bring lived maritime experience and personal narratives to a wider audience. Incidentally, today is the National Maritime Day as well as Easter Sunday!

Naval HQ asked for my ETA at Mumbai when I was at Cape Horn. I wanted to tell them sailboats have destinations, not ETAs. I gave them a holiday instead.

On 26 January, I was rounding the Horn, hoisting the tricolor just a mile south of that storied rock. Amidst the gale of congratulatory signals, Navy HQ sent a query only a bureaucrat could: What is your ETA?

With half the globe still beneath my keel and the winds unpredictable, the salt in me wanted to write back, that sailboats had destinations, not ETAs. But my previous mails had already tested the headquarters' patience for humor and sarcasm. I decided a bold calculation was safer than a cheeky proverb.

If the past was an indicator, my voyage was being steered by a celestial ledger. We had slipped moorings on Kerala Foundation Day, rounded Leeuwin on 12-12-12 (the Mayan apocalypse), passed New Zealand on Christmas, crossed the International Date Line on New Years and hit the Horn on Republic Day. By that logic, landfall had to be a holiday.

I checked the charts and staked my reputation on Easter Sunday, with All Fools’ Day as the backup.

The boat did not disappoint. I turned 34 years old at 34°W. The hull turned four years at 4°W. We crossed the Prime Meridian on Valentine’s Day, where a heavy swell put me in a poetic mood; remembering Pablo Neruda whose home I had once visited, I felt the ocean wanting to do to me what spring does to cherry trees. We rounded the Cape of Good Hope on Copernicus’ birthday, passed Mauritius on its National Day and crossed the Equator on the Equinox. Out of pure respect for the sun, I permitted it to cross the line ahead of me.

Finally, as predicted, we made landfall on Easter Sunday. I was received by friends and naval brass in an intimate reception hosted onboard INS Delhi by the C-in-C Admiral Shekhar Sinha, who shook hands in congratulations and uttered the words: You have created history out of geography.

151 days at sea had an emaciating effect on my sea-legs, so much so that two Admirals had to hoist me up the ladder of INS Delhi. By the time I stepped onto firm land, it was past midnight, All Fools’ Day.

The irony was perfect. Before casting off, immigration officials at Yellow Gate had refused to stamp my passport because my destination was Mumbai. They claimed it made no sense to leave for where I already was.

Yet I returned five months later, 20kg lighter, skin and hair bronzed by salt and sun. When I went to be stamped back into existence on the 1st of April, the official’s hands trembled as if seeing a resurrection. In his shock, he stamped my passport upside down.

I had left Mumbai to find Mumbai, but found myself instead.

I found that Melville was prescient, having foretold with the utmost clarity of a clairvoyant exactly what I would feel over a century and a half later:

Here was a man some twenty thousand miles from home, by the way of Cape Horn that is... and yet he seemed entirely at his ease; preserving the utmost serenity; content with his own companionship; always equal to himself.

Today, that story is exactly 13 years old.

Commander Abhilash Tomy, KC, NM (Retd.)

Commander Abhilash Tomy is one of India’s most accomplished naval officers and an icon of ocean sailing — the first Indian and the second Asian ever to complete a solo, non-stop circumnavigation of the globe under sail. His name has become synonymous with courage, endurance, and India’s maritime spirit. His pioneering voyage, Sagar Parikrama I (2012–13), saw him sail the Indian-built INSV Mhadei around the world — alone, non-stop, and unassisted — covering over 23,000 nautical miles and rounding the three great capes. The expedition placed India on the global map of solo ocean voyaging and inspired a new generation of sailors.