Day 128, Year 3: Happy Birthday, Justin!
Date: Hari Minguu (Sunday), Bulan S�pt�mber 14 Pada Tahan 2008
Weather: Another Sunny, Perfect Day
Location: Lovina Beach, BALI, Indonesia
Today we arrived in Bali and in only three days Justin and Jo will arrive. Today is Justin’s birthday, but we will certainly have to have a celebration once he arrives here. So Justin, Happy Birthday today, with promises of a “Bali Birthday” when you arrive. Actually Sail Indonesia changed the Bali Opening Ceremonies to September 18 from September 15, so now Justin and Jo will be able to attend. Justin’s 29th birthday was celebrated at Aggie Grey’s in Samoa, and I’m hoping his 31st here will be a gala event. Gala or not, it will be so great to have Justin and Jo here with us.
We left Lombok at 2:30 am this morning. That was a bit earlier than planned, but we were awake so we just went for it. For the first few hours we had fantastic winds of 25 knots and current with us. The moon is almost full and it lit the way, but as we were looking at the moon we noticed the strangest constellation just to its right. The stars were red and looked like the tail of a dragon. We thought it might be a comet. But just before dawn, Mark pegged it. It was either a lava flow or fires
burning on the side of Gunung Agung, Bali’s “highest and most revered mountain” as written in my bible, the Lonely Planet. This perfectly volcanic cone is almost 10,000 feet high and quite imposing. We could not see it in the dark, but we could see those “red stars” becoming fiery. Then the almost full moon started to disappear behind what I thought was a cloud. But as soon as it was no longer visible, it provided backlighting for this magnificent mountain. As the sun rose in the east I could see Lombok’s mountains lighted in red and Bali’s Gunung Agung backlighted by the moon. What a special moment. And then we had another surprise. Just after dawn, literally hundreds of local outriggers came racing home from sea after a night of fishing. What a colorful sight. The lanteen sails on these little guys look like brightly colored spinnakers. It was another very special moment. So we were off and running, but then as we sailed past Gunung Agung, the winds started to die down. Unfortunately,
we spent the rest of the day with very little wind and a counter current, but we had a great beginning and made it here to Lovina Beach by 4 pm. It was a great day and a great feeling to finally reach Bali.
Now here’s the bad news. Our batteries are really ‘dead.’ No matter how long we run the motor, the charge lasts only a short time. We can’t buy new batteries until we reach Langkawi, Malaysia, so we are just going to have to run the engine more often. And more bad news. Mark has the dreaded Indonesian cold. Many cruisers have had this and it evidently lasts longer than it should, but hopefully he will be on the mend before Justin and Jo arrive. And the last piece of bad news is that tonight
this anchorage at Lovina Beach is rocky and rolly. We are hoping that is because we had northwest winds today and we are on the north side of Bali. It is not untenable, just irritating. But then there is a little good news. There appears to be wireless internet with a good signal here in the anchorage. We will go into town tomorrow morning and pay for a user name and password, and then we will see just how good this advertised “broadband wireless internet” might be.
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| 080914 Day 128 Bali, Indonesia–Arrival in Lovina Beach |
