by Judy Handley | Jul 26, 2008 | Indonesia W Timor, Sailing Logs Year 3 |
Day 78, Year 3: Passage to Indonesia, Day One
Date: Saturday, July 26, 2008
Weather: Not a Cloud in the Sky; Winds SE 10 (NE in afternoon)
Location: Passage from Darwin, Australia to Kupang, W Timor, Indonesia
Latitude: 12 degrees 16.845 minutes S
Longitude: 130 degrees 21.154 minutes E
Miles to Go: 439
What a fabulous day! I must admit I have not been particularly excited about heading to Indonesia. Not that I don’t want to go, I just think we have been so busy that we haven’t had a moment to think about it. But when a hundred and seventeen sailboats from all around the world approached the starting line this morning, it did get exciting. Due to the light winds many boats had out their spinnakers. It was really a beautiful site. A local tourist boat, the Spirit of Darwin, was at the starting line loaded with people cheering us on. At exactly 1100, we all sailed (most assisted by motors) away. There were many local boaters out for the send off as well, so Fannie Bay was overflowing with boats of all sorts and sizes.
It is 467 miles from Darwin to Kupang. In the past five hours, we have traveled about thirty of those miles. We started out motor sailing wing and wing, but quickly had to put all sails out to port. The wind direction changed from southeast to northeast due to an afternoon sea breeze, so we are currently on a beam reach with only eight knots of wind. As I am writing this, Mark is on the radio waiting to check in. The net is being run by Sail Indonesia today and tomorrow, and then Dave on This Way Up, with Mark on Windbird as back-up, will run the daily check-in net. The boats report in according to alphabetical order, so Windbird is dead last.
As with any port we have visited, we did not get to do all we wanted in Darwin. It is a beautiful time of year to visit there. The weather has been incredible. We have hardly seen a cloud since our arrival there. We regret not getting to spend more time with Jane, the good friend of our daughter-in-law Jo, but we want to thank her so much for greeting us when we first arrived and giving us so much wonderful information that guided our Darwin visit. Thank you, Jane. And we are hoping to see you in Bali in September for a reunion with Jo.
We have never traveled with this many boats, so tonight will be interesting. We will have to be very alert. Depending on speed, we will be out here three or four nights, but hopefully by morning the boats will have spread out more than they are right now. We are closer to the front of the pack right now, but I am sure many boats will pass us during the night. We really needed to clean the bottom of our boat before leaving, but the fear of meeting a crocodile kept us out of the water. This morning we saw one of the lethal box jellies floating by Windbird. They are not supposed to be out and about this time of year, but it was there and I was glad we had not ventured into the water. We will move a bit slower than usual because of the fouled boat bottom, but we will take care of that once we reach Indonesia.
After three months of sailing in Australia, it is now time to switch gears. Tomorrow’s job is to start reading through the reams of information given to us by the rally coordinators. Once we start reading about all of the wonderful things we are going to experience in Indonesia, I think the excitement level will rise even more.
by Judy Handley | Jul 25, 2008 | Australia Darwin and Area, Sailing Logs Year 3 |
Day 77, Year 3: Eighteen Hours to Departure
Date: Friday, July 25, 2008, 5:00 pm Darwin Time
Weather: FINE
Location: Fannie Bay, Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia
We have spent our day plugged in here at the Sailing Club doing laundry, making phone calls back home, and uploading photos. Mark has spent the entire day uploading photos. He does have photos posted through Day 35. We posted Days 1 through 20 while in Cairns and were only able to add fifteen more days while here. But we did try. It is just so very slow. Mark is still connected and trying to upload one more photo file, Day 67 Day Trip to Kakadu. I think he might get that one uploaded as well, and that will have to be it for now. I spent part of the afternoon outlining our travels of the next five months for our kids. We are trying to find a way to get them over here for a visit. So since I have the outline, I thought I’d share it with you as well.
–July 26 to July 30-Passage to Kupang, West Timor, Indonesia
–Early Aug to Mid-Sept: Indonesian Islands from West Timor to Bali
(Alor, Lembata, Flores, Rinca, Komodo, Sumbawa, Lombok, Gili Air, Bali)
–Mid-Sept to Early Oct: Bali and Java
–Mid-Oct: Kalamantan (Island of Borneo)
–Oct 3: Singapore
–Nov 14 to Mid-Dec: Sail Malaysia Rally from Johor Baharu to Langkawi
–Mid-Dec: Langkawi, Malaysia to Phuket, Thailand
–Mid to End of Dec to End of Jan, Early Feb: Phuket and Surrounding Area
–First of Feb: Leave Phuket for Red Sea or South Africa
We plan to spend Happy Hour here to connect with folks before the exodus tomorrow morning. And then we will go back to Windbird, put the dinghy on the deck, and get ready for take-off.
by Judy Handley | Jul 24, 2008 | Australia Darwin and Area, Sailing Logs Year 3 |
Day 76, Year 3: Exhausted in Darwin
Date: Thursday, July 24, 2008
Weather: FINE
Location: Fannie Bay, Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia
We always laugh when they give the weather reports on the VHF radio in Australia. It seems all they ever say is, “Weather – fine.” And it is, with the exception of the high winds this week. Getting to and from the boat to land has been a real chore. We are about a mile out. Even in calm weather it is quite a hike, but with the choppy seas, we get soaked while feeling like we are riding a bucking bronco. This morning when we went to shore, a catamaran was dragging anchor and caught the anchor
off the bow of a monohull, so then the two boats were dragging together. I could hardly see what was happening because we were getting blasted with waves of water coming over the bow of our dinghy. This made me think of our friends Tim and Teresa Speigel back in Concord, New Hampshire. Once when we took them sailing in very windy, rough conditions, Jim turned to me and said, “And this is what you do for fun?!” Well, it is what we do for fun, but I must admit that this week has been challenging.
Trying to carry heavy provisions out to Windbird in these conditions is really not fun. We are exhausted, but we are done. And now that we are done, the winds are predicted to drop to almost nothing over the weekend which means we will be motoring to Kupang. Too much wind when we don’t need it and not enough when we do. That is the plight of a sailor. At least fuel is cheaper in Indonesia, so it won’t be quite so hard on the budget as it has been in Australia.
Today I took the bus out to a the huge Casuarina Mall to do the last grocery shopping while Mark stayed at the Sailing Club uploading photos to the website. With the very, very slow connection, we have had to reduce our expectations. If we are very lucky, we will get photos uploaded through Lizard Island. And from Lizard Island onward, we are going to have to upload way fewer photos than we have been. Indonesia, like northern Australia, certainly doesn’t have the internet capability for photo
uploading. We’ll have to hope things are better in Malaysia and Thailand, but that is three months away. Skype calls are also going to be limited in the meantime. I guess the best we can hope for is that our Ham radio Winlink email can keep us connected. Even that is challenging in this part of the world. We heard a cruiser from England saying today that there is only one Ham station between here and England. We have been using Fairbanks, Alaska to get our email out of here, but that’s probably
not going to continue once we head west. In addition to the free, ham operated Winlink, there is a subscriber network called Sailmail. We haven’t used that since the Caribbean, but we might have to re-subscribe to Sailmail in order to keep connected. Tomorrow morning Customs will be here at the Sailing Club to check out the 120 Rally boats. We assume we will be sitting here most of the day waiting our turn, but that will give us a chance to talk to other cruisers about communication so we can
make a decision on what we need to do.
Last night we talked to Heather, Jed, and Sam on Skype and we got to see Sam on the video cam and he could see us as well. He would point to the computer and “talk” to us in Sam language. It is probably our hopeful imagination, but he really seems to recognize us. We surely enjoy watching him. When we call at night here, it is his early morning, so we got to watch him eating breakfast and starting his day. We are going to try another call tonight, and that will be the last until Kupang. After
that there will be only one other stop where we will have internet access until we reach Bali in late September. So I am definitely going to have grandmother withdrawal.
We truly haven’t had any time to think about our trip through Indonesia since arriving here. We have a basic outline of a sailing plan, but we need to read and check out many sources before making a final sail plan. There are so many islands in Indonesia, and we have limited time. Our current visa gives us 55 days after arrival in Kupang to reach Bali. We then have to apply for a 30-day extension that will get us to Singapore. We have about a four day sail from here to Kupang, East Timor and
we will be there for about a week before heading west across the Indonesian islands. During that time, we will come up with an ‘official’ sail plan for Windbird’s voyage through Indonesia.
by Judy Handley | Jul 23, 2008 | Australia Darwin and Area, Sailing Logs Year 3 |
Day 75, Year 3: It’s a Drag
Date: Wednesday, July 23, 2008
Weather: Sunny and Windy
Location: Fannie Bay, Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia
The name for today’s log is a bad play on words. We started our day with boats around us dragging anchor in the strong winds. That is always a scary thing, especially when there is no one on the boat that is dragging. The boat that has been right beside us since we anchored in Darwin is named Larissa. We haven’t met the people onboard, but this morning early they were no longer beside us. They were dragging back through the anchorage. But at least they were able to get their boat under control
and reanchored. And no sooner than they did that another sailboat came floating between us and Larissa and headed out to sea. Mark got on the radio and asked Larrisa if they could help him recover the boat, but by the time Mark got in the dinghy and reached the boat, Bill and Jean of Pelican Express and Nancy and Steve of Toboggan were there to help. It took quite a bit of effort but finally they were able to get the boat reanchored. So the morning was not a relaxing one. Added to this is the
fact that the anchorage is as rough as an anchorage can be. Fannie Bay is shallow and with the strong winds it is very choppy. But choppy or not, we needed to go to shore to pick up our frozen meat order, so Mark went in and got that while I stayed on Windbird and defrosted the freezer and cleaned the refrigerator. Once we got that job done, we both headed into shore. It was a wet ride, but after all, this is a water sport. We took the bus into town and I shopped while Mark tried to upload photos
at the internet café. Unfortunately it was no faster there than back at the Darwin Sailing Club. So right now we are back here in Fannie Bay at the club with all of the groceries that I bought in town. We are sitting here watching the sun go down while we upload pictures and I write this log.
As we sit here, we are watching two-year old Pierre Louis play pool. Pierre Louis is the child of a French scientist and his French wife from Madagascar. We met them in Bundaberg at the end of the Port to Port Rally and it is so much fun to see how Pierre Louis has grown. He actually walked over to the pool table, found a pool cue, and then proceeded to try and hit the only ball on the table. He then got on his little scooter and rolled over to talk with us. He speaks only French and we speak
only English, but we had a nice conversation nevertheless. When I watch him I think of Sam. It won’t be long before he will be doing the same things as Pierre Louis.
Speaking of Sam, we are going to stay here at the Club until 9 pm tonight and try and call Heather, Jed, and Sam in their early Wednesday morning. One of my real disappointments in this part of the world is the fact that internet connections are just not good enough to handle video Skype calls. We will try tonight, and if that doesn’t work, I’m going to send Heather a bunch of photos of Gramma and Granddad and ask her to show these over and over to Sam so he doesn’t forget us.
Tomorrow is more of the same. More shopping and a little more work on the boat. We have really enjoyed Darwin, but it is once again time to move on. But before I end this log, I must mention one of the most exciting things that we have seen here. Yesterday when we were fighting the choppy seas on our way in to shore from Windbird, a dugong surfaced right in front of us. We have searched and searched to see these creatures, but until yesterday morning they had evaded us. The one that surfaced
in front of us was huge. His head was at least a foot and a half to two feet across. And then he drove and we got to see his back and then his tail. It was quite an exciting early morning show. We have sworn that dugongs don’t exist because we have never seen them when others have, but yesterday morning there was no denial.
by Judy Handley | Jul 22, 2008 | Australia Darwin and Area, Sailing Logs Year 3 |
Day 74, Year 3:Â Frustrations
Date:Â Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Weather:Â Sunny and Windy
Location:Â Fannie Bay, Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia
It’s not all paradise out here. I am writing tonight’s log, but yesterday’s log is still not posted on our website. Since yesterday’s log was special, in honor of Sam’s ‘half-birthday’, we sent it from the Sailing Club using an internet connection instead of sending it over our Ham radio on the boat. We thought it would post quickly and we could then put the pictures of Sam on the website with the log. BUT after two hours of waiting, the log was not posted. So we came back to Windbird and then went into town this morning to go to the internet café to check again. Still no log posted. So we thought we would call Justin and see if he could check on this for us, but we didn’t have his phone number readily available. I won’t even go into the details of the frustrations, but one frustration led to another, and then it was time to be at the Convention Center for our Rally Info meeting. We hurriedly walked across town and down to the waterfront. We arrived on time and actually Mark had time to find a phone in the Center that would take our phone card (the ones in town would not), so he called Justin and he is checking on the website problem. But after the four hour meeting, we went back to the internet café and found that our log from yesterday is still not posted. Hopefully we will get this problem ironed out in the next day or so. Our time in Darwin has been wonderful but the one thing it lacks is easy and reliable internet for transients. And this is only going to get worse over the next couple of months, so I guess we had better get used to it.
The Rally Info meeting was also a bit of a frustration. It was an hour shorter than advertised, but we came away with more questions than answers. Basically we were told that we are going into a part of the world where everybody wears a watch but no one pays attention to time. The watches are just for decoration. We were told that there are no clear lines of engagement. We just have to play it by ear. We are leaving on Saturday, but the details of the program of events are still being planned.
We just have to trust that by the time we reach Kupang, they will have the dates of the other events throughout Indonesia. Facilitation payments to officials are sometimes going to be necessary and we just have to use our best judgment in deciding when and how much to pay. If you are caught with guns or drugs that are not declared you can be arrested and given the death penalty-good deterrent. And here’s the best one. When a boat comes up to us with sub-machine guns we are supposed to understand that these are just people patrolling the pearl farms, not people gunning for us. I’m sure I’ll be completely relaxed.
So this is going to be an interesting adventure through Indonesia. We were told that the answer to most questions we might have is, “It is impossible BUT it can be ‘arranged.'” This is going to be very different from cruising in the South Pacific. We have read the logs of other cruisers who have done this Rally in the past couple of years and they have nothing but praise for it, so we’re hoping it is uphill from today.
