By Charles Haviland BBC News, Colombo

	Captain Ali is still waiting in the waters off southern India

The "Captain Ali" vessel is anchored off the Indian port of Chennai having been turned away by the Sri Lankan authorities.

An Icelandic crew member told the BBC that he "saluted" the people in southern India trying to let the ship into Chennai harbour, but that the decision appeared to have gone to Delhi.

He said the crew were getting irritated after 11 days there and their best hope was to be able to land the aid cargo and "do some good" with it.

Businessman arrested

When a Tamil expatriate group, Mercy Mission to Vanni, first sent the Captain Ali from Europe two months ago, they wanted it to get straight to the zone where war was still raging and deliver aid there.

The war has since stopped but the Sri Lankan government said all along that it suspected the mission was trying to help the Tamil Tiger rebels.

Mercy Mission insisted its aims were purely humanitarian, and earlier this month the Sri Lankan navy admitted they’d found only food and medicines on the boat when it anchored off Colombo.

The authorities, however, sent the ship away and arrested a businessman in the city listed as the consignee of the goods.

Tamil expatriates say the man, a diabetic, is still in detention, though the police were unable to confirm this to the BBC.

The chief minister of India’s Tamil Nadu state, where Chennai lies, says he still wants the relief cargo to land in Sri Lanka.

But Arjunan Ethirveerasingam, of Mercy Mission to Vanni, said Sri Lanka was putting pressure on India’s central government to exclude the ship.

Sri Lanka’s foreign secretary declined to comment on that allegation.