by Judy Handley | Sep 27, 2008 | Indonesia Bali to Kalimantan, Sailing Logs Year 3 |
Day 141, Year 3: Arrival at Bawean Island
Date: Hari Sabtu (Saturday), Bulan September 27, Pada Tahan 2008
Weather: Clear Skies; Winds SE 15
Latitude: 05 degrees 43.825 minutes S
Longitude: 112 degrees 40.112 minutes E
Location: Labuan Harbor, Bawean Island, Indonesia
We made it! We arrived here at Bawean Island after sailing/motoring the 212 miles from Bali just after 9:00 this morning. Last night was a much better night, but Justin and Jo are still struggling to get their sea legs and be able to sleep while on passage. It really is an acquired skill, so we will hope that when we leave here tomorrow for the overnight to Karimunjawa they will be more into the groove. At least tonight we can get a good night’s rest tonight at anchor and once in Karimunjawa
we will three or four days to rest and enjoy before our next overnight to Borneo. I keep saying we are going to Borneo, and in fact that is the island to which we will be sailing, but the Indonesian part of Borneo is called Kalimantan. The specific part to which we will be sailing to see the orangutans is Kumai. Probably more than you wanted to know, but there it is, just in case.
After arriving this morning, we launched the dinghy and went over to see Dave and Patti on This Way Up. There were nine boats in the anchorage when we arrived and seven of them, including This Way Up, were planning to leave around 11 am for Karimunjawa. Dave is always a wealth of information and we just wanted to touch basis with him before he took off. When we returned to Windbird we jumped in the water for a swim and then prepared for a trip to shore. We took the dinghy in following the family on the yacht “Ten” with their almost one year-old, their five year-old, and their eleven year-old. Brave souls! Once on the beach we talked with folks from the other boats left in the anchorage and then walked to the tiny little village of Labuan. As we walked back from Labuan, Justin was on his cell phone talking to a client in the US. I have a great photo of him on the beach with that cell phone. Once he completed his business, we then took the long walk over the hill to Tampak Timur. There was not a lot to see, but we did have a couple of great encounters with locals. A young Muslim woman in her birka on a motor bike stopped to say hello to us and she then proceeded to introduce us to her mother on the back of her bike, her sister on another bike, and her cousin and his wife on yet another. She wanted to know where we were from and wanted to have a picture taken of all of us with her cell phone camera. We continued on, walked through town, found the mini-mart and bought eggs and bread, and headed back. We did stop to talk to a man who spoke good English and we thought we had arranged to rent motor bikes for a trip around the island, but actually he wanted to take just one of us on his bike. He would be the guide and charge us the equivalent of $10US per hour. Since we had rented bikes in Bali for just $4US for the day, we declined and walked back to the beach.
We are going ashore for dinner tonight-we think. Mark and Justin tried to arrange this at tiny little restaurant onshore, but the language barrier might end up to be a problem. We are headed in how and are hoping we get to eat. I’ll report on this tomorrow.
by Judy Handley | Sep 26, 2008 | Indonesia Bali to Kalimantan, Sailing Logs Year 3 |
Day 140, Year 3: Rough Night, Better Day
Date: Hari Kamis (Saturday), Bulan September 26, Pada Tahan 2008
Weather: Winds SSE 25-30 Overnight, SE 10 All Day
Location: Second Day of Passage to Bawean Island, Indonesia
Justin and Jo survived the first night out, but it was a rough one for all of us. I slept from 10:00 pm to midnight and then stayed on watch until about 4:20 this morning, but unfortunately Mark got almost no sleep during that time. Once Justin and Jo came up to the cockpit, they were able to get a little sleep and Mark is sleeping today to make-up for last night and get ready for tonight. The seas and winds settled once the sun came up, but that is also the same time that we passed between some
islands about 70 miles from Bali and entered the Java Sea. So we don’t know if the change has caused the seas to settle and the winds to die down. We sailed with the spinnaker for a while this morning, but then the wind changed to be directly behind us and dropped to about 7 knots. On Windbird, that means motoring, so we have been motoring for the remainder of the day. The other issue is the heat. When we returned from Ubud, we felt a noticeable difference in temperature. It has been hot all
along, but it is now in the nineties with a rising humidity level. Down inside the boat is intolerable with a fan blowing directly on you. We stopped motoring mid-day long enough to take a quick dip in the ocean to cool off. That worked for a while, but before dinner, we will need to do that again. It is about 4:15 in the afternoon and the winds are already starting to build. In fact, since I started writing this log, the wind has gone from 10 knots to 15-20 and the seas are beginning to build.
So I guess we have our answer for tonight. It will probably be another rough one. Justin has sailed with us but never in rough weather, and Jo’s only sailboat experience was in the Caribbean on a catamaran. They are being real troupers, however, and trying to mellow into this unpredictable passage. Tomorrow we will arrive at Bawean Island and take a rest there before doing the overnight from there to Kurimanjawa. Mark had thought we might skip it but it looks like a nice stop. Little by little
we will get to Borneo, but we will enjoy our time along the way.
Well, I am resuming writing after an hour-long sail change exercise. Just as I wrote above that the winds were starting to build, they indeed did that and the increased winds are right behind us. So we are now sailing wing and wing with a reefed main sail and a half knot of current against us. We are averaging about five and half knots and if we can keep that up overnight, we will arrive at Bawean before noon tomorrow. It is unfortunate that we will arrive over a weekend as we have read that
the teacher there loves to have visiting yachties come to the school and interact with the students who are practicing their English. The villages on Bawean are Muslim fishing villages and other cruisers have reported that they are very friendly and have colorful fleets of fishing boats.
As we roll along into another sunset, Bali is becoming a memory, but a very special memory indeed. I will always carry with me the memory of shop keepers who so carefully place their offerings of flowers and fruits in front of their shops every morning. They do this with such love and devotion that it is hard not to be affected by their faith. The Hindu temples of Bali are just beautiful. They are everywhere and their beauty is hard to describe. The graceful hand movements of beautiful Balinese
dancers with long black hair and costumes of woven gold silk mixed with other vibrant colors is another vision that we carry with us, as are the intricate masks and costumes of other dancers. Bali is certainly a place like no other that we have visited and as we sail further and further away I wonder if I will ever visit another place so surreal and beautiful. It was so special to share our visit to Bali with Justin and Jo. They were also so taken with its beauty that they have dreams of moving
there. It is as different as night is from day from their desert home in New Mexico. What a wonderful world we live in with such diversity and beauty.
by Judy Handley | Sep 25, 2008 | Indonesia Bali to Kalimantan, Sailing Logs Year 3 |
Day 139, Year 3: Ubud to Lovina and Out to Sea
Date: Hari Kamis (Thursday), Bulan September 25, Pada Tahan 2008
Weather: Cloudy in South Bali; Sunny in the North; Winds SSE 25-30
Location: First Day of Passage to Bawean Island, Indonesia
It is 3:30 am here and I am on watch, so this will have to be short with promises of the full story tomorrow. Basically, we left Ubud before noon after doing just a little more shopping. When Komang came to get us, we left Justin and Jo to do the fun shopping and we went to the supermarket to get the things we need for our sail to Borneo. We then headed back to Lovina, where we did more grocery shopping and headed out to Windbird. We normally do our shopping for a long passage over a couple of days and it usually takes me a few hours to get fruits and veggies washed and put away. But we were all feeling like we might never be able to pull ourselves away from Bali, so we just pulled up anchor and left. Before sunset, we were headed northwest with no wind. I worked furiously trying to get things put away as well as cooking dinner, and as I did so, the boat motion changed from just a little bumpy to very rolly. As the evening progressed, the winds picked up to 25-30 knots and the seas are sloppy. We are having a not so pleasant trip at this point. It’s not terrible, but it is a harsh introduction for Justin for Jo. Neither of them could sleep in the v-berth as it is terribly hot and rolly. The front of the boat is the most uncomfortable, so they are now both trying to sleep in the cockpit. Mark is sleeping in the main salon in our sea berth and when he gets up, we will have Jo try that. In the meantime we are making great time and will be through a pass between two islands and into the Java Sea in early morning. If the kids think they can hang in there, we will continue to sail all day tomorrow and overnight tomorrow night to reach Bawean Island. If they feel they need a break, we can stop at one of the islands in the pass and rest before continuing. In any case, after staying a day in Bawean, we will head on to the Karimunjawa Islands north of Java. We are hoping to spend about four days there before traveling on to Borneo. But for now the goal is to just survive the night! I will write a more detailed log later today. Hopefully things will be calmer by that time. When the sun comes up the wind will probably go down to nothing, but I’m not sure what will happen with these sloppy seas. Sure hope that lay down as well and we have smooth sailing the rest of the way to Bawean.
