Day 120, Year 3: Anchored in the Middle of Selat Sungian, W Coast of Lombok
Date: Hari Sabtu (Saturday), Bulan Sèptèmber 6, Pada Tahan 2008
Weather: Another Beautiful Day; Wind and Current Not Going Our Way
Latitude: 08 degrees 18.151 minutes S
Longitude: 116 degrees 41.168 minutes E
Location: Gili Lawang, Lombok, West Nusa Tengarra Province, Indonesia
I never thought I would ever be in Lombok. In fact, I had never heard of Lombok until last winter when we were home staying with our daughter. Her good friend, Pax, traveled extensively in Southeast Asia and she shared with us her travels in Lombok. Well, now we are here, although it was a bit of struggle today sailing against wind and current. No one has figured out how to predict currents here. We have a whole book explaining this and a whole fleet of experienced sailors who have the same
book, but none of us ever seems to get it right. Jean-Pierre on Safina did figure out the currents in the Komodos, and for that we were so grateful. But in all other instances, we know of no one who has timed things just right. We are anchored in the middle of the pass tonight instead of tucked in behind a reef with Scot Free and Shirena because we think we need to leave here very early in the morning to beat the strong negative current. And we just don’t leave tight anchorages where you have
to pick your way through the reef unless there is daylight. We’ve come too far to take chances now. We also wanted to stay out here so we could watch the current. If it is raging at 5 am, then we’ll stay put. But if not, we’ll take off. We’ll let you know tomorrow night whether or not we were right about this one. We have this ‘scientifically’ figured out. I have a floating key ring hanging off the side of the boat and we are watching it to assess the strength of the current. Our kids used
to do this for us when we sailed in the Chesapeake Bay on our first sailboat. One would throw a wooden matchstick off the front of the boat and yell, “Mark.” The other had a stopwatch and would time the flow of the matchstick to the stern of the boat to determine our speed or the speed of the current.. It worked. So where are your kids when you need them?!!
So the next stop is Gili Air. I first heard of Gili Air when I read “Eat, Pray, Love” and the island sounded wonderful. Hopefully we can let you know about that tomorrow.
 |
| 080906 Day 120 Lombok, Indonesia–Gili Lawang |
