Day 89, Year 3: A LONG Trip to Alor
Date: Hari Rabu (Wednesday), Bulan Agustus 6, Pada Tahan 2008
Weather: No Wind, Then Wind, Then No Wind, But Always Sunshine
Latitude: 08 degrees 13.415 minutes S
Longitude: 124 degrees 30.885 minutes E
Location: Kalabahi, Alor Island, Nusa Tengarra Province, Indonesia
Total Miles: 134.82
We’re here, but what a looooong short trip. We can normally do 134 miles in a 24 hour period, but not this trip. Shortly after 5 pm yesterday, we started experiencing an adverse current that was unexpected. Dave and Pattie on This Way Up have done this trip before, and even they were totally surprised. And the negative current just didn’t go away. We fought it all night by motoring at high RPM’s with no wind. But pushing the engine as fast as she will go, we were only doing two to three knots until about 5 am in the morning. Then we got wind and with no current against us. We didn’t get a positive boost, but we were just happy to not be fighting the negative. We were feeling really good about this, but then we reached the selut (passage) going between Alor and Pantar Islands. We knew you can experience strong adverse currents here, but we thought we had the timing planned so that wouldn’t happen. Wrong again. We basically spent all day punching our way up the passage. And to top off the whole trip, we arrived in the anchorage area just before sundown and it took us an hour and a half to get our anchor to set. All the while we are listening to Muslim prayers being blared over the speakers while fireworks were lighting up the skies. Evidently there was some sort of welcome ashore, but we’ll just have to join the festivities tomorrow. We have heard on the radio that there will be no yachties’ gathering place here. It is evidently a dry island in more ways than one.
So we are tired and grumpy tonight, but I’m sure a good night’s sleep will solve our problems . . . as long as the anchor holds.
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| 080806 Day 89 Indonesia–Kupang to Alor |
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| 080806 Day 89 Alor, Indonesia–Opening Expo Photos from Anne on Habreasail |
