THE FOLLOWING ENTRY WAS WRITTEN BY Phil, Captain of Happy Ours, the boat I’m ‘crewing’ on to Thailand why Salsa waits for me in Bali for a few months.

Wednesday, September 01, 2010

It’s check out day but before we attempted that I wanted to repair a broken wire up the mast, best done in the morning when it’s cool and I have not eaten (I barely fit in my old harness these days). Checking out was the same ludicrous run around as checking in, running from offices that are here and there and collecting official stamps. One guy stamped my 5 forms 5 times each and then had to write on each side of all of them. I later had to photocopy them all. More paper to push. It was three o’clock when we had finished – though we did have a fantastic lunch for about two quid. And we picked up all the copied guides from a copy shop. We collected all the rich cruisers guides to Thailand (up to $120 each) and had them photo copied and bound – very impressive. And about $5 per book.

Kirk’s leaving party is taking place at the warung Ebu (Our local little hang out bar and that roughly translates to; mum’s little shop) at 5. All the cruisers were there and some brought dips and chips. The warung bought in extra beer and we all had a pretty good night. Kirk was presented with a bottle opener and a certificate for ‘fastest Darwin – Bali, fastest single hander’ etc.
Thursday, September 02, 2010

The wooden tub of a boat broke its mooring last night and is now on the reef. It must have drifted right by me. It looks pretty much abandoned anyway. We still haven’t done our shopping that’s today’s mission, and finding out about my engine. Finish decommissioning Salsa and put rattraps on her lines. Kirk has been stripping down Salsa ready to leave her and putting out a stern anchor, which so far has not ‘bit’. My engine – the little one is still at the mechanics shop. For three days he has not been there. Kirk might want to buy it. If the mechanic can fix it. We went to the Carrefore – a huge supermarket about 6 miles away. The whole bill was $150 and I took a cab back whilst Kirk chased down a few things we were missing. Victory Cat invited us for dinner. Pasta and steak, from Tim and Ruth. We were both pretty tired from having to actually do stuff and fell asleep in the trampolines at the front of the boat, lulled by the swell and cooled by the breeze (both of which are stronger out there nearer the entrance).

Friday, September 03, 2010

So today is our leaving day. It’s a Friday and considered bad luck to start a passage on a Friday. Many sailors believe this; almost none will set off on a Friday. I have never set off on a Friday either. But neither Kirk nor myself is superstitious so.

Whilst helping Kirk re-set his stern anchor the dinghy runs out of fuel. No problem – there’s more on the boat. I put in fuel and oil and she won’t start. Out with the plugs – all fouled up. I clean them and put them back after toasting them on the stove. Still won’t go. I do this several times with limited success. It fires then dies. Maybe water in the fuel? Maybe just bad fuel. Crap (from the bottom of the tank) in the carb? After and hour of fooloing around we row to shore. This is a bad start – and it’s Friday. Kirk goes for more fuel whilst I drink a cold one to cool down – literally and metaphorically. With the new fuel and another plug clean, she’s up and away. Good.
Kirk needs to do some running around and drop off his motorbike at the marina. I send a few emails (one from Kalo and Jackie from Whangerei, Free Spirit, they had something of a baptism of fire on their first off shore voyage from NZ – Vauatu) and get the weather gribs. I get the boat the boat ready to leave. Gps is on, sail cover off – engine checked and warm, that kind of thing. I notice that the water line is already starting to grow weed. It’s dirty in here. I cleaned the whole hull and propeller only 5 days ago when the water looked slightly less dirty. Today it’s full of plastic bags floating past – thousands and thousands of them. This place is a pit. Kirk’s running behind schedule and has forgotten the second helmet and has had to come all the way back  for it. We agree to postpone till tomorrow at dawn, that’s much luckier. Kirk spent all afternoon getting Salsa ready to leave. I cleaned my dinghy. A few beers at the Warung later. Kirk had a last massage.

Saturday, September 04, 2010

Kirk returned his borrowed dinghy and whined about mine for a while, he got ice and weather gribs and food from the cockroach infested Warung that we keep returning to. At nine we had dropped the mooring lines and were chugging out through the cut into the channel between Lombok and Bali. The wind a pleasant 12 to 15 knots and the current going our way (South). We are doing a comfortable 5 knots and have the wind vane steering a good line. There are two other boats out here heading our way, towards Java, both have overhauled us.

Monday, September 06, 2010

I have been rough these last two days. Flu like illness knocked me for six. The sailing has been good we are 50 miles south of Java, making over 5 knots.

The wind died last night leaving us drifting in the rain and a lightening storm. We rolled in the sail and slept as best we could. Still sick.

Tuesday, September 07, 2010

I awoke at 5 to find Kirk at the wind vane. I lifted it last night but apparently not in time as the wind vane has snapped in two. I have a spare somewhere but that can wait till first light. We fixed up the windvane then decided to make a bigger version from a piece of scrap I had brought along, it works really well. I’m starting to feel like I might not need a doctor though it had crossed my mind – how far to the nearest port? How long would that take?

Wednesday, September 08, 2010

Kirk stayed on watch from about 9pm to 2 am. I stayed on till dawn dodging the fishing boats, which are all well lit. It started to rain at 5 am, not surprising as there have been electrical storms along the Java coast all night. Whilst making breakfast I destroyed both burners on the stove. One by accident and the other trying to swap it around. I rebuilt one using instant metal, it stinks but it works. Kirk had great ideas for my reefing lines, which were a mess and have never been satisfactory. We played around and tested them, much much better. The wind was light and the full main up pushing us along in a light Easterly. We dropped the gib and put on two patches. As we did this the entire western horizon filled with ominous looking black clouds. We rushed to get the gib back up and furled. Soon after the wind front hit us. I pulled down the main sharpish whilst Kirk hand steered. We set a small gib and let the windvane do all the work. It blew 25 – 30 and the rain lashed us almost all day. We lay around reading. Heading North (the storm gave us on the nose wind). We had the latest weather information that mentioned none of this – light and variable 8 knots ish with SE – S winds. Yeah right. We passed through a whole herd of the local fishing boats. They were at sea anchors or motoring into the wind to keep their noses (the strong point of the boats) into the swell that had developed. They all looked very uncomfortable. More worryingly we saw a huge ship sized buoy anchored (?) out here, (we are 60 miles offshore) it was very low in the water and appeared to be unlit. This is made of steel and weighs several tons – bloody deathtrap. The wind died so we pulled down the sails and Kirk kept a every half hour watch all night. I slept.

Thursday, September 09, 2010

Just after first light there was enough wind from the SE to reach into but it was not enough to comfortably go down wind as we want to. The forecast is for light winds for 4 days. We reached north towards Java. There is a possible anchorage 50 miles away. Light and variable all day. Even ran the engine when it went dead. We could be anchored tomorrow. Kirk made a ‘dip’ out of the dodgiest looking home-preserved ‘stuff’, which he claimed was cheese and bacon, but looked like baby food. It actually tasted quite good.

Friday, September 10, 2010

The land breeze from Java backed the wind to NE and we crawled along at 2 knots all night, we could go faster but there’s no point as we need daylight to anchor here. The first light starting to show at 6am. I motored in for the last 6 or seven miles. The 10-foot ocean swell following us. I gave the peninsula a wide birth to avoid reefs as we have no accurate charts. Buildings appeared and got clearer. We were expecting a small fishing village. What we anchored off was a full on Blackpool by Java. It is also the end of Ramadan (Indonesia is the biggest Muslim nation on Earth). It seems every one was here to party. Muslim style. So that’s Not very hard. After anchoring and securing the boat, we pumped up the dinghy and started to paddle in. The swell was huge and the breakers just off the beach scary. We paddled hard and the fist wave broke over the dinghy completely filling it with water. Kirk had the presence of mind to get down and back. Then we paddled harder. The next wave broke over us and we hung on to our shoes and oars. A third and fourth before we hit the beach. That was an adrenaline filled ride. We stopped at the first food shack for an expensive beer. Covered in seawater and sand. There was a public toilet nearby where we washed ourselves and rinsed our clothes. Just around the corner there’s a tribe of monkeys doing their usual monkey tricks – namely stealing anything they can eat. I hate monkeys – vermin, the lot of them. We walked around the town. It is geared to extracting the tourist dollar to the max. Not a single useful shop. Even cold beers were hard to find. We found lots of beer but almost no one cooled them!!!!!!!!! How do they think they can sell warm beers?>???

After walking forever looking for a decent food warung – somehow between us we settled on the worst choice possible. I ordered rice and chicken. Hard to get wrong? Think again. I got yesterdays congealed piece of fried wing and yesterdays rice. I picked off the meat as I was starving but the rice was disgusting. There are millions of tourists renting bicycles, tandems and bikes for three. But then you have to compete with the traffic and the mopeds. We later ordered a ‘burger’. It was the least burger like sandwich  we have ever seen. The lady selling it made a huge effort with her English ‘Delicious?’ She asks – encouragingly. ‘Mmmm, great’ we replied just as I was whining that if McD’s sold this there’d be a riot. ‘Just like the picture’ Kirk replied, though it wasn’t. The picture looked like it would taste better. I got the weather gribs. Bad news – no wind for 7 days. I can’t stay here for 7 days (or even one more).

Kirk woke me  ‘we are moving’. why does he think that? I put on the GPS. ‘I don’t think we are’. Gave me a fright though. There’s not a lot of room to react here. Would not want to get caught in a westerly blow and end up in that nasty surf. I fell asleep to a movie. Some fireworks on the beach.

Saturday, September 11, 2010

It’s dawn and there are a million people in the water. The police came by to see us and I was worried they would give us a hard time as we are already checked out of Indonesia. But they were in lifeguard mode and were just over to say hello. We asked about accidents here as the tourist boats blow their whistles to clear all the swimmers out of their unstoppable paths. ‘No, no. Happy, happy’ he said as we shook hands and they went about their business. We took the dinghy in to a beach in the national park as the swell was much easier to handle. An enterprising local had made a flying fox wire slide between the two beaches using a natural cliff and some trees. We climbed the rickety platform and paid our $2 each. It was awesome and it got us to where we wanted to go. Kirk followed me at full speed, the brake boy dragging along in the water behind him. Kirk is at least the weight of two Indonesians. We had the two cold beers at the internet cafe, I learned that Paul will be in Thailand on the first. We better get moving. We bought groceries and headed back to the beach only one problem – we only had enough money for one park entry fee. I went first and sneaked through past all the guards. Kirk got collared and was sent back to buy a ticket. The anchor weighed at 16.00h and we are motor sailing to the point where we should be able to sail. Sailing along nicely at 3-4 knots in the nighttime breeze when the wind changed course and backed the sails. The wind became cold and started to rise. The big black threatening cloud was upon us and soon the wind was howling and the rain pounding us. With the main down and a small jib up the wind vane steered us south (away from land) whilst we sat down stairs worrying and discussing strategy. Head South. It lasted a couple of hours but is still giving a light westerly and a bit of rain. Kirk is sleeping on the floor.

Sunday, September 12, 2010

Jesus! We need a wind – break. Just a bit of a shift. The light Westerlies are prevailing. It’s almost midday and we are sailing well, but almost backwards. We are still only 25 miles from where we set off from yesterday afternoon. At this rate we will never meet Paul in Thailand.
We sailed most of the day in very light winds only a few miles from shore. The clouds build in the afternoon and threatened rain and squalls that never really arrived.

Monday, September 13, 2010

Had the motor on for several hours in the morning whilst we debated what was sailable. Light airs but sailed most of the day. Around dusk got good wind for over an hour then the thunder and lightning began. One coming very close and giving me a damn near heart attack. Lots of crap in the water, three ships, Soon after back to fluky winds, more rain.

Tuesday, September 14, 2010

The trade wind seemed to be with us most of the day, light, but there. We wing on winged making 4 ish all day. Even the usual 9pm thunderstorms didn’t show.

Wednesday, September 15, 2010

A little rain and the wind died on my early morning shift. We motored around a ship and bore off to look a huge floating piece of Styrofoam – the largest tampon we’ve ever seen as Kirk described it. We are sailing again – all be it in the wrong direction but we are convinced the wind will come around. There is so much floating plastic crap in the water around Indonesia, we only have to put out the fishing lines for an hour and it’s a near certainty we’ll have a bag. The wind picked up for a while but it rained like hell. Then light winds from all directions and we constantly played the windvane and sail plan before giving up and hoving to. We drifted backwards at 1.5 knots all night. Kirk has described this week as the worst sailing he’s ever had – I concur, this is awful. I did come across 8 beers, we thought we had none so it was a nice little celebration. We are pretty much at the SW of Java.

Thursday, September 16, 2010

There was wind enough to sail with at dawn and we soon got us sailing. A slight pick up in  the wind had us overpowered. Kirk played with the vane with infinite patience. Eventually I pulled down the main and things were much easier to control. We are even sailing fast enough to fish and we hooked a little one but it wriggled off the hook as we tried to land it. Bugger! It took most of the morning to claw back the ground we lost overnight but we are finally clear of Java and the next land we sight will be Sumatra. Sumatra is a thousand miles long. We travel its full length then turn NE to Thailand.

The afternoon squall blew up at four. A huge squall line filled the northern horizon. We hoped to skirt it but in a sailboat if it’s going to get ya – it’s going to get ya. We just can’t move fast enough. Two steps forward – one step back. This is the stupidest way to travel.

Friday, September 17, 2010

We watched a movie but decided to get underway again at 11 pm. There was a little light rain. We double reefed the main and were soon sailing. Kirk slept , I took first shift. We have gotten into the routine of staying on watch as long as you can stand it – about half a night. Several ships passed close by. We are crossing the channel between Java and Sumatra and it’s a shipping route. The fishing boats are less of a problem as they don’t move and are lit so we see them well over the horizon. The wind is very light but because we are sailing into it our apparent wind is much better. We are making 5 knots in 5 knots of wind. We are going to far North and at this rate we will hit land in 4 hours. Hoping for a wind shift. And a fish. We continued on sailing well at 6 knots due north until land stopped us and we tacked around. We were making exactly opposite – due south. Pointless. I motored 8 miles directly into the wind (west) to give us an angle to work with. But 8 miles out there was virtually no wind. Aghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!
We made a garbage raft from coke bottles wired to an egg carton and all our stuff tied on top, covered it in petrol and almost set our hands on fire as it flared up. Kirk leaning over the side to light it and me hanging on the transom. These things amuse us greatly. A light wind during movie hour punted us along at 2-3 knots.

Saturday, September 18, 2010

We drifted all night the good news is the current is now in our favor at around 1- 1.5 knots. That’s 19 free miles overnight. Almost a record for this trip. I put on the motor at low revs, At least we are making progress. We had a forecast last night from Heartsong. On the whole it was fiction. We are coming to realize – you get what you get. The sea breeze sprung up in the afternoon and has lasted till dusk. Movie/drift time.

Sunday, September 19, 2010

Our snails pace continues and we are both getting a bit upset with it. We are out of beer, fresh food bar onions and a few potatoes. We can’t catch fish as we are going too slow. This is horrible. Last night the wind died again leaving us scraping around chasing every breath of wind to make 7 miles all night. The autopilot won’t steer and the wind vane is erratic in light airs.
There is an ‘anchorage’ due north. We spent all day sailing and motor sailing to it. Five pm and we are there. The swells are large and it is open to the west (where the wind  often hails from). We anchored in 12 meters and surveyed the beach. The breakers look fearsome. At least as bad as Pandangeran. We set the anchor and put on the alarm then finished the last of the rum. We will stay here for the night and hopefully check out the ‘town’ tomorrow.

Monday, September 20, 2010

We both got a good nights sleep and the night was un-eventful. The swell looks horrible as it crashes onto the beach. There is little sign of a town. We are disappointed but  there are other options a day or two away. We decided to keep sailing. At eight we hauled anchor and sailed off up the coast. We have had good sailing all day. The best for ages. Averaging about 4 knots in the off shore breeze. We sailed only a few miles off the coast, and we had stuff to look at. At 4 ish the wind backed and backed taking us off  shore. Then it died and then it rained. Kirk is taking a shower in it..

Tuesday, September 21, 2010

Long night of calms and wind from every direction. Lightening all around, sometimes close. 19 miles overnight. Better than a poke in the eye. The rain clouds cleared up just after dawn but we have had no decent wind all morning – motoring. The sea breeze piped up and we were flying along when we saw a jukong (local fishing boat with two out-riggers) waving at us. At first we thought we were going to foul their nets. But we realized they were in distress. They had no power and had a jury-rigged sail. We passed by and caught their line – extended it with one of ours and pulled them all the way to the anchorage about 15 miles away. We arrived before dark at the entrance, another fishing boat hitched a ride for the last 8 miles or so – bit of a liberty we thought. The entrance had a crashing reef to go around – not shown on our charts but there were lots of boat traffic to follow. The second jukong led us through the lagoon to where we could anchor and they said their thanks and towed the stricken jukong about two hundred meters to shore. It has been raining for the last hour. The usual evening thunder and electrical storms. We are too tired to go to shore. There’s one other sailboat in here – a big posh thing, they didn’t wave as we passed them.

Wed

I went over to the other boat to find out the lay of the land. There is a Thai lady (Noi), a Indo guy named Nubis and the Italian captain (Damiano). It is a Swiss owned charter (75 feet long). He gave me lots of good info – police come but don’t bother you much – port captain not there and no one speaks English. Navy – no worries.  He is getting fuel in his jugs and will get an extra 100 liters for us. He will make water for us and we can jug it back home. I even used his internet to send a brief message to Paul to say we would be late. We took a bus 10 miles to the nearest big town to do a grocery shop. All confusing when you barely know a word of Indonesian. But we fancied our way through. We asked for the Hyper mart and were twice taken to the happy mart. Eventually we staggered back full of fruit and veg and coke and 7-up. At the warung a guy spoke some English and we got beer with ice – almost no one here sells beer and if they have it it is invariably warm. Very strange. We did try toac. A local palm wine brew, which was bloody, fkin awful. A guy tried to pick my pocket on the bus, I caught on and he pretended that he hadn’t been spotted. We left the dinghy tied to a fishing boat – they were all smiles and very helpful – until we returned and they were very aggressively demanding $100. We gave them $2 and offered them ciggs, which they turned down. As we pulled off one of them made a grab for our backpack and just missed. Wankers. Later we picked up the fuel and water and as we’d hoped got invited over for beers. We got pretty wasted.

Thursday, September 23, 2010

Kirk was really hung over and I didn’t feel too clever. I dipped the oil – it has seawater in it. My salt-water pump must have leaked whilst pulling that  fishing boat in. All morning spent changing the pump, pumping out the oil and flushing the engine with a mix of diesel and oil (twice), then the battery would not start the motor. I took it out and connected it directly to the solar panels. Kirk has gone to town to find a few odds and ends and get a new oil filter and more oil. The dinghy is still running like terrible – dirty carburetor. Every thing is going wrong. The gribs show no wind and current against us. 980 miles to Phuket. I met Kirk at the warung he had a huge bag of stuff. We drank a beer to cool off. Beer with ice! What’s wrong with these people? PUT IT IN THE FRIDGE. I had landed the dink on the beach and talked to the fishing boat guys – the one we pulled in was not around – ungrateful asses. New oil and filter and water pump, it still would not start with the charged battery, I have a spare starter motor so I swapped it. And that’s much easier to say than to do. Kirk changed over the fridge gas bottle and cleaned out the carb of the outboard which is running terrible. The motor started no problems and seems good. The outboard works better, the fridge – supplemented by ice is good. – Maybe we can leave here tomorrow?

THATS THE END OF PHIL’S ENTRY FOR NOW!!   HOPE YOU DONT LIKE IT TOO MUCH BETTER THEN MY BLOGS!!

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