Malaika

26 January 2010

2010-01-26T21:22:00.000+09:30

Australia Day and we have been back in Darwin now for just over a month. Looks like we'll be here for the rest of this year, while our boat remains in Thailand for the time being. Lex has gone back to Chambers to work, and I'm back at my computer getting to grips with the next book.

We're also following young Jessica Watson on her solo circumnavigation in Ella's Pink Lady. What an amazing young woman she is! We met her in Brisbane, about April last year, when we were still in a profound state of shock and (crazily) thinking we should buy a HalbergRassy we saw there. A small pink yacht with a slip of a girl on board was tied up next to the HR. We had a chat and wished her well, and were both struck by her quiet and gracious resilience. If any 16 year old could do that sail, we felt that she could. Ali would have been so excited to have met Jessica. I can hear her now, saying: "Awesome, omigod, she's awesome..."

It's time for us to stop wandering and being a bit lost. It's almost a year now since we lost our girl, and it still seems like it happened last week. It'll be good to settle in one spot for a while, amongst family and friends, and find ourselves and our purpose again. This will be our last post on this blog.

When we decide to get back on the water, we'll start a new blog with a link back to this one and vice versa. We'll let you know!

We can be reached on Jo's email if you've lost it - jvanos55@gmail.com

Thanks for being part of our travels.

Jo and Lex

SY Malaika, now SY Tramontana

19 November 2009

2009-11-19T16:54:00.011+09:30

I finally managed to take a photo of the whole length of Tramontana - it's hard to fit her in the frame. I had to wait until the pen beside us was empty so that I could get far enough away to take this shot. She has very clean lines, and it's much easier to walk around on deck than on Malaika.

A view of Tramontana from the port side looking aft. Lex is working with a piece of teak on the back deck, making a mounting plate for an outboard motor to be carried on the aft rail.

The blue material covers the new dinghy, which is stowed upright - with a 15 hp Yamaha attached - on the back deck. We lift it out of the water with the boom, swing it around and over the deck, and then lower it into place. Almost as easy as it sounds!

Rebak Marina, Langkawi

2009-11-13T16:11:00.015+09:30

Saturday 14 November 2009

After almost 9 months of wandering around in a blur, and ditching one plan after another, we have started something. On Tuesday 10th in Langkawi ,we signed a stack of papers, shook hands with Phil and Fay Atkinson, and took possession of SY Tramontana. They in turn, and in an unusual arrangement for boat sales, took possession of Malaika (with a cash adjustment from us).

Photo: On our way to Langkawi - Nick Wyatt and Zara Tremlett, managers of Yacht Haven Marina, casting us off for the first time that Malaika has moved in 8 months. Nick and Zara have been fantastic and have really looked after us both this whole year

We then spent about 14 hours over 2 days swapping the contents of the boats. The logistics of this feat would give you an instant headache, so just imagine you are trying to move out of a tiny little terrace house with a very narrow staircase, while the incoming tenants are moving their stuff in. It's a good thing that boats have forward and aft cabins with holes in the roof to drop bags of stuff through. What came out through the companionway of one boat, was lugged across a very narrow jetty, hoisted up onto the deck of the other boat and dropped through its forward hatch, until all the contents were transferred, moving aft bit by bit.

Malaika (L) and Tramontana(R) side by side in Rebak Marina this week. You can see how narrow the jetty is - at least it meant a short trip each time!

Champagne in the cockpit sealed the exercise, and we helped the Atkinsons cast off and watched them motor out of the marina. They left immediately so that their cat Nobby wouldn't keep trying to come back to his boat. It wasn't as hard as we'd expected it to be. All day while I was cleaning out cupboards and clearing lockers, I felt sad and teary, remembering so many many times with Ali on board Malaika. But as we waved goodbye and watched the boat we'd sailed 5000 miles in with our daughter disappear from sight, we both felt we'd done the right thing. Ali's still with us, I can feel her here in this new boat. She would have loved her cabin, with so much more space, and the flat open decks to move around on. The first thing we'll be doing is putting up some photos of her so we can see her all the time as well as feel her here with us.

Tramontana is a lovely boat. She's a 53 ft, centre cockpit cutter, built - by Phil Atkinson - of strip-planked western red cedar, with glass and epoxy. Her decks are clear and flat - Ali would have seen the sun-bathing potential immediately - and the dinghy is stored upright on the back deck behind the cockpit, lifted on and off the boat by the boom. Everyone who sees her and knows anything about sailing recognises what a great sailing boat she is. Phil built three like her - we almost bought her sister ship Pampero about 4 years back - and has built about 30 other boats. The engine room is a proper room, not a crawl-space in the bilge (although Malaika's was pretty good) and Lex can move around freely inside and almost stand fully upright.

The aft cabin - the second most important part of a yacht - is HUUGE. The dominant feature is a king-size bed, which will render memories of Malaika's aft berth a distant jostle for space. The forward cabin is a double berth, with plenty of space and storage. The two bathrooms are lovely, easy to clean and very practical. The galley is great, easy to cook in and well set out, with good high benches to work on. The nav area is opposite, and again is well laid out and spacious. It has a beautiful open saloon with a large fold-down table and long couches either side. The cockpit is terrific - THIS is the most important part of the yacht, because it's where you spend the most time. Yes, all right, sails and motors and stuff are important too, but I'm looking at this from a purely liveaboard point of view here... It's very similar in design to Malaika's with a hard dodger and a bimini overall, but with a lot more room. And did I mention the washing machine?

The aft cabin on Tramontana

All in all she's a head turning boat, built by a master boat builder. She has already completed one and a half circumnavigations in the 9 years that the Atkinsons have had her, and is in great shape.

Terri and Dennis Hart and their girls, our goddaughters, are joining us in Phuket in mid December for a sail, which will end in Singapore. We'll leave the boat in a marina and fly back to Darwin on 5 January, and come back to Singapore in early April to sail Tramontana non-stop back to Darwin.

Our Plan (#792) is to stay in Darwin and work for a while, spend lots of time with our kids and grandkids, and our friends, and go sailing as often as possible. After that, the question of which direction to head in is up for grabs, with a clockwise circumnavigation of the Pacific Northwest being the hot contender for a while now.

Eventually we'll start a new blog with a new name, but will stay with this one for now. A new boat name is in order too, something we'll do when we get back to Australia.

We'll keep updating this - so check occasionally, in case there are further versions of Plan #792...

Love from Jo and Lex

Lex with Tramontana at Yacht Haven a few weeks back

Chiang Mai sojourn, 1st to 6th October 2009

2009-11-01T12:54:00.000+09:30

Monsoonal rain in Phuket meant there wasn't much work we could do on Malaika, and we were going down with cabin fever badly, so we decided to visit Chiang Mai in the north of Thailand. We'd planned to go to Angkor Wat in Cambodia, but the terrible cyclones devastating the Philippines were dumping a lot of rain to the west so we decided to leave the temples for a drier time.

Lex at Bangkok Railway Station - this looks a lot like Platform 9 and 3/4 - is this the train to Hogwarts' sir?

Train travel sounded like a romantic way to get there, so we flew to Bangkok, and boarded in the early evening. We were surprised to find we had a first class cabin and not the carriage of double decker bunks as we'd thought. We may have had a first class cabin, but it wasn't the Orient Express. Our bunks were right over the rolling stock, noisy and bumpy, but it was fun travelling by train again, something I used to do a lot as a kid with far-flung relatives.

This was the coach we'd thought we were in. You'd want to remember which blue curtain was yours if you went off to the loo in the middle of the night!

We arrived about 9am, took a taxi into town to a backpacker hostel we picked out of Lonely Planet, and then went for a walk to get oriented. The old city is interesting, packed with beautiful Buddhist temples and surrounded on four sides by a wide moat. Narrow winding lanes hide some great little restaurants, and eclectic places to stay. There are a lot of markets, in particular the Saturday and Sunday walking markets, where it seems the whole town turns out to wander the blocked off roads, buy stuff, and eat on the street - Mindil Beach markets on steroids. Hundreds and hundreds of stalls selling everything you can think of, (even some really good stuff!) as well as all kinds of food imaginable. I think my favourite sights were the wanna-be boy bands busking in the middle of the streets, and looking like they were having more fun than anyone.

The vendors don't hassle you either, if you don't want to buy anything, and the bargaining is very good natured. Lex made me haggle for something I wanted to buy, and the vendor made his wife take the other side (she looked as if she enjoyed haggling about as much as I do). The two men were laughing the whole way through. The wife and I just shrugged at each other. And I'm quite sure I still paid too much! We also stopped at an interesting looking bar, called 'The Writers Place', for a glass of wine, where we met an elderly ex-pat American woman writer, whose books were in the glass case next to the bar. We guess she must have been there a long time. We were joined at the bar by a couple of lively Scottish women then, who'd just flown in from Sydney and Lyons respectively to meet up and celebrate their 40th birthdays. They were as entertaining as Scots in a bar usually are, and we barely got away with our livers intact.

We spent the next few days sightseeing, including a day long tour - courtesy of a lady we met at a market - by tuk-tuk up the hills to the elephant 'sanctuary', and a similar tiger establishment. Lots of human interaction with animals at both, which, although I had reservations about what I was going to see, wasn't as terrible as I thought.

Elephant bath time

The elephants playing soccer looked like they were thoroughly enjoying themselves, especially when they kicked the giant - muddy - soccer balls into the audience occasionally. They also painted pictures - quite an astonishing thing to see. Even if you assume that the mahouts have a certain control or influence over what happens, it's still remarkable. Like that Gary Larsen cartoon with the piano playing elephant says: 'I'm a pachyderm for pete's sake...'

Put THAT in your pipe, Beckham!

The paint-wielding elephants have to be seen to be believed. There's obviously a great deal of training involved, but even so... Just amazing, and very thought provoking.

The tigers were better than expected too, especially seeing these fearsome beasts romping around a swimming pool chasing a tuft of grass on a string flicked about by an attendant right there in the pen with them. They're completely hand reared - no one was pretending these are wild animals - and the money that people pay to be able to spend 20 minutes sitting with a full grown Bengal tiger, patting it and tickling its belly, or cuddling a cub, pays for the care of these animals and towards conservation in other areas. Ditto with the elephants. Although I still won't ride on one. I just hate the idea of humans wobbling about on the backs of such wonderful creatures for fun. (And yes, horses are totally different!) Understanding how horses actually enjoy exercises like dressage, and learning routines, makes it easy to assume that elephants, who are probably more intelligent than horses, get the same enjoyment out of what they learn in these places. It would be better if we could just observe animals in the wild but that's getting less and less realistic every year. These ones are alive and safe, at any rate.

A visit to a 'traditional' hill tribe village is what you do in Chiang Mai. Obviously it's not a real one as it's in Chiang Mai and not the hills, but it's an effort by the government to resettle Karen refugees from the border areas and provide them with employment. The village we visited is an organic farm, and the women weave and sell handicrafts, notably beautiful scarves and wraps.

We also visited a silk factory, which was fascinating, and I'd like to be able to say we didn't succumb to the shop out front, but I'd be lying. The weaving process is mechanised now but there was a woman patiently hand harvesting and spinning the silk thread, showing exactly how it comes off the cocoons. It's amazingly strong - no wonder they used to make parachutes out of it.

Chiang Mai is lovely, a lot more attractive than Phuket in most ways, except it's not on the sea of course. It's a bit cooler here as well, and prices are a lot cheaper than in Phuket. Our hostel, Tri Gong, in the Old City, is great and only about $18 per night for a comfortable room with bathroom. You can do it a lot more cheaply still but you get what you pay for I think. We relied on Lonely Planet and it pays off, we've discovered, and it doesn't hurt that all the Thais we meet are very helpful in recommending places to stay or eat -and not just their cousin or brother's either!

It's definitely a place we would like to spend more time.

In Darwin

2009-06-17T10:33:00.013+09:30

The hardest part of being back in Darwin, apart from being here without Ali, has been the rootlessness we're feeling. We sold our house before we left last year, so we haven't had a home to return to. We've been given one unconditionally by our dear friends Terri and Dennis Hart, in their home, but we know the fish rule about visitors (they both go off after three days) and keep feeling that we should move on, but they won't let us. We also stayed at Mike and Jill Baxter's beautiful house for several weeks when we first came back, before moving on to the Hart's after our trip down south.

In March we had a wonderful few days in Kuranda with Elizabeth Desailly and Garrett Gundry, and with Julia Christensen who came over too. Even managed a balloon flight on the last day up on the ranges. A few weeks later we travelled south to spend Easter with Lex's daughter Sophie and her family in Adelaide, including four lovely days at Kangaroo Island.

Following that, we stayed at Mark and Wendy Day's 160 year old National Trust farmhouse near Yankalilla on the Fleurieu Peninsula. That was like a week in Tuscany - the classic wooden table under autumn-leaved grapevines outside the back door, white-washed walls and bright red geraniums, and more peace and quiet than we knew what to do with. We picked pears and apples off the trees behind the house and ate them with local cheeses, a glass of red and fresh bread under the grapevines.

We drove a hire car over to Victoria via the magnificent coast road to spend a week in Jo's sister Leonie's house on Phillip Island while she and Craig were away. A couple of trips to Melbourne to organise our Thai visas and see Jo's parents - we were able to get a 6 month 2-entry visa each which gives us a bit more flexibility. We had plans to see many people up the east coast but in the end just found it too hard seeing people and we went back to Darwin, stayed a week, and then returned to Phuket together.

In late May we flew to Phuket to check on Malaika, and to organise some repairs and maintenance. The boat was in good shape apart from some superficial damage sustained in a gale that tore through the marina in March. It was difficult going back to Yacht Haven where the accident happened, but it was something we had to do eventually. We've decided to sell Malaika, and have listed her with an agent. In the meantime we've arranged for some minor repairs and maintenance to be carried out by some good local operators. The marina managers are looking after things for us and they've taken good care of Malaika in our absence.

We'll start looking for another boat back here, or perhaps in the US. We don't know what we're doing in the long term, but a few months back in Darwin has made us realise we'd rather be sailing, although the price we have to pay is being away from family. We may yet decide to restrict our cruising to Australia and SE Asian waters, so that we're not too far away from family and friends. We're now back in Darwin at the moment, and will stay in Australia till at least late August, for Shaun and Jennifer's wedding.

On Monday 15 June, the day after Ali's birthday (she would have turned 17), her old school, Darwin's Essington School, planted a tree for her in the school grounds. Principal David Cannon conducted a simple ceremony attended by family, friends and staff members as Ali's brothers Shaun and Tom planted the tree beside a piece of Kimberley rock bearing a bronze plaque. It was a beautiful gesture by the school. The tree is a Syzygium armstrongii, a flowering NT native.

The framed photo of Ali you can see in the photo above was later hung in the school library where we had lunch. When the new library is opened next June, they are going to dedicate the Early Childhood section as the "Ali van Os Collection" and hang Ali's photo there. It's so lovely of them to do all this, and to have a permanent physical memorial of Ali in Darwin.

21 March 2009

2009-03-21T15:38:00.006+09:30

Most people who follow this blog will already know that we lost our beloved daughter Ali in Phuket last month. She was watching a superyacht berth at Yacht Haven marina, where we were visiting a friend on his yacht. It’s too hard to write about this so please check Neil and Ley Langford’s web site www.svcrystalblues.blogspot.com where Neil has written a very clear account of the accident. I am also going to copy in parts of letters that I’ve written in the last few weeks to let you know what has been happening if you haven’t already heard.

After a swift and expert first aid response from surrounding boats, as well as from three German doctors who arrived on the scene and worked on her all the way in the ambulance to Thalang clinic, Ali was taken to the Bangkok Hospital in Phuket, where she received the very best possible care and treatment, but there was little that could be done. We have nothing but the highest praise for the doctors and nurses who cared for her. Dr Len Notaras, CEO of Royal Darwin Hospital, was liaising with Ali’s neurosurgeon Dr Lersak Leenanithikul in case it was possible to bring Ali home, and he assured us that we were in the best hands, and that everything that could be done was being done.

Family arrived quickly – Jo’s sons Callum and Shaun, her sister Leonie, Lex’s daughter Sophie and son Tom, and Lex’s brother Ian and his son Peter were all there within a few days. We rotated in shifts during the nights so that there was always someone with Ali, talking or singing to her. During the day we were all in her room most of the time. But tests carried out over several days only confirmed the initial diagnosis of no brain activity or brain stem function. Ali received the best possible care, but she had lost too much blood, and the trauma was just too great.

Ali officially left us on the 23rd February, but I think she had gone well before that. In a way I hope so because I hated to think of her lying in that bed for 5 days the way she was. The thing we draw some comfort from is that at the moment she was knocked unconscious, she was excited and happy and planning to get an invite on board a big flash yacht, and chatting happily away to the ship’s agent, Adam Frost, standing next to her. She didn't experience fear or pain or anything like that. It just all happened too fast.

We were offered a Buddhist cremation ceremony in Phuket. It was a very soothing and calming experience, spread over three days at Wat Rattiwanaram Temple in Ao Chalong. Ian’s wife Ellen and son David, and Tom’s partner Jessica arrived a few days before the funeral. Dennis Hart flew in from Hong Kong, while Caroline Barker (Lady Guinevere) and Lisa Sampson (Claire de Lune) caught the ferry and bus from Langkawi to join us. All our family were involved in the ceremony, and on the third day we scattered most of Ali's ashes into the Andaman Sea on the outgoing tide. The rest we've brought home to Darwin, to take up her favourite barramundi creek.

We donated Ali’s organs because we knew without a doubt that she would have wanted us to do that. The Red Cross board, who also attended the funeral, told us a young girl in Bangkok about the same age as Ali received Ali's heart. She would have died without it. Five other people also got another chance at life because of Ali, so we feel as if her death wasn't a total waste.

There was a memorial gathering in the Darwin Supreme Court foyer on March 5, and over 400 people came to it. We always knew Ali was special, but we had no idea so many other people knew it too. The response here and the outpouring of grief and support have been overwhelming. She touched a lot of people and caused a lot of delight in her 16 and a half years.

Now we just have to work out how we live without her. I know that time is the biggest healer, but it seems like such a hard road to travel. Still, other people have lost their children in much worse circumstances, and we have to remember how happy she was that day. We're lucky that we have such a great family, here in Australia and in Holland, and so many good friends, who are helping us to get through this terrible time.

On behalf of all our family, Lex and I want to thank some people for their tremendous support during all of this:

John Beale of Cloudy Bay, who we’d first met on the Ambon Rally and sailed with several times since then, was with us at Ali’s side from minutes after the accident, and helped carry her up to the ambulance. He then followed us to the hospital and spent the next 36 hours there, and many hours after that. John is keeping an eye on Malaika for us while he’s in Yacht Haven.

Jerry Petite, the Canadian who took Ali for her first scuba dive a few weeks earlier, met us at the hospital that night, and also spent the next 36 hours there. He and John sat with Ali the following afternoon while we tried to get some sleep, and they both continued to help us by collecting family from flights and in heaps of other ways.

Adam Frost, of SEAL Corporation, the agency looking after superyachts in Phuket, was standing beside Ali on the jetty talking with her when she was struck. Adam managed everything from that moment onwards, and made sure we had everything we needed and liaised with the owners and crew of the MV Jemasa. He looked after all of us with incredible thoughtfulness and consideration, as did his assistant Jim, a lovely Thai woman who arranged the funeral details with the Buddhist temple and so much more.

Dr Len Notaras, CEO of Royal Darwin Hospital, liaised with the surgeons in Phuket, and clarified the details of the treatment and prognosis for us where language difficulties confused us. He was available for us to speak to whenever we needed extra advice and gave us great reassurance.

Senator Trish Crossin, Member for the NT, responded to our pleas for help when three family members didn’t have current passports. Passports were issued in less than a day enabling them to reach us as quickly as they could.

Larry Cunningham, Australian Honorary Consul, visited us several times at the hospital and the hotel, and attended the funeral. He gave us invaluable advice and support. The Australian Embassy in Bangkok stayed in touch with us by phone, and both offered help and support. It’s good to know that the systems in place to help Australians overseas actually work when you do find yourself in trouble far from home.

Finally, as soon as they had word of the accident, Julia Christensen, Elizabeth Desailly and Terri Robson(Hart) swung into action and set up an email tree keeping hundreds of people informed of what was happening in Thailand. They thought of all the things that would need to be done, and started calling people and organizing things for us. We could not have coped as well as we did, without the support they gave us. Mike and Jill Baxter contacted the Embassy, putting advance preparations in place for bringing Ali home. Jane Fishlock in Katherine organized the flights to and from Thailand and brought us all home together.

Thank you all so much for the constant flow of love and support we’ve had ever since the accident. We’ve been inundated with offers of places to stay, cars to drive - both in Darwin and in Phuket – and everything else. We are so lucky to have such great friends and such a wonderful family to help us through this sad time.

For now, we are staying in Darwin, spending time with the grandbabies, our children and friends. It’s too soon to make any real plans, but we think we will probably return to Thailand towards the end of the year and continue the voyage. Ali told us many times that she really wanted to sail around the world, and we think that’s what we’ll do.

Lex will return to Malaika in a few months and start some of the maintenance and upgrades we’d been planning to do, so we’ll update this blog with the progress from time to time.

Jo and Lex

31 January 2009

2009-01-31T19:19:00.002+09:30

Now for something completely different - a film review! We watched 'Australia' about three weeks ago...

Well we finally got to see the film, "AUSTRALIA" today in Phuket. If Baz had wanted uncritical howls of support, all he had to do was conduct his pre-screenings in a country with a heap of ex-pat Aussies in the audience. It might have been cliched (David Gulpilil on one leg everywhere), full of potentially embarrassing moments, but somehow it just worked! Even with Thai sub-titles.

In the beginning I couldn't decide if it was a send-up of the epic genre, an odd kind of comedy, or too many categories in one box. After those cattle were pushed across the desert (and who cares about the geography, for pete's sake), I was right in there. The wonderful shots of a handful of stockmen holding a mob of 1500 shorthorns (and bless Baz, he got the stock right for the time - not a bloody Brahman in sight, or a Hereford) against the backdrop of that Western VRD country, all those table top hills and the dry spreading plains, had me in goosebumps of memory. And the cattle RUSHED! They didn't bloody STAMPEDE!! And the men were riding around the mob at night singing to them to keep them calm and half awake. He got so many details right, that I'll forgive him all the criticisms by the filmerati. The first third was pretty much a caricature of character and story, but it was allowed to develop into something a little less slapstick after that.

As a piece of tourism propaganda, it was so good I was thinking, What the heck am I doing in Thailand??? However the CGI in-fills were a bit amateurish for 2008, especially the Darwin port scenes that looked like Baz had just photocopied that painting about the Bombing of Darwin and cut and pasted it in the appropriate places. As for the bombing of Darwin itself, it was the part of the movie where I actually did have tears in my eyes. I suddenly thought, 'My God, this is my home being bombed! This is MY town!" I could feel Lex beside me reacting the same way.

And finally, could any discussion of "Australia" be complete without a reference to our boy Hugh. The scene where Nicole watches The Drover having a bath out of a waterbag was the Antipodean answer to a soggy Mr Darcy striding out of his weedy pond (and I LOVE Pride and Prejudice!). It was an hilarious scene, overplayed to the hilt, Jackman's very own Manpower moment. Great stuff! Nicole's Sarah seemed a bit overplayed at first as the caricature of English Duchess in the Outback, but even her role settled down into more drama than dramatics eventually.

David Wenham did such a good job as the bad guy, I almost cheered when Gulpilil skewered him with the iron bar from the top of the water tank.

All in all, it was as if Baz just had a lot of fun in the first half, and in the second said, come on guys, be serious now, we're supposed to be making a movie. It won't get an Oscar, and neither will Nic or Hugh, but that wonderful young boy who played Nulla should get a nomination for sure, and the cinematography. Yes it probably could have been tightened up in places, and perhaps it could have been a lot shorter, but it was great entertainment on a lot of levels. Can't ask for much more than that.

Finally, no one in the theatre had a clue why there was cheering and clapping coming from our row in the opening scenes of the film. The real hero of “Australia” was our very own Tom Silvester as the Qantas pilot!

28 January 2009

2009-01-28T17:46:00.005+09:30

Strong north-easterlies blew us back to Phuket in great time – we had a cracking sail. Left Koh Miang about 4 am and arrived at Patong in time to anchor in daylight and go ashore for dinner at an excellent Japanese restaurant – Fuji at Jungceylon centre. Left Patong Bay after breakfast ashore (running out of food on board!) on the 25th and sailed around to Ao Chalong. Chinese New Year tonight but no fireworks or celebrations as far as we could tell. Perhaps there are too few Chinese in Phuket?

As I mentioned at the last post, Shaun phoned us with the wonderful news of his sons's birth just as we were nudging up to the fuel and water barge to replenish the tanks. Isaac Ansell is doing well and keeping his parents awake for the requisite amount of time. His proud grandmother is looking forward to lots of photos!

We have a list of maintenance for the boat (and I thought it was all over once we put her back in the water in Rebak...) that will keep us here in Phuket for another four or five days at least, and then back to Langkawi to install a new watermaker. Our old one gave up the ghost a few weeks back and was a deciding factor in us not leaving for the Red Sea as we'd hoped. Instead we'll stay the rest of this year in SE Asia, and be back here by late October to be ready to cross to Sri Lanka, Maldives, and Oman by the first week in January 2010. Unless we change our minds and go a different direction! At least it keeps us closer to home for this year, and able to go back to Darwin in August for Shaun and Jen's wedding.

That's the itinerary for the moment. If all goes well and we can leave here in a week, we may go to Langkawi via a detour back across to the Similans. Cheers for now!

26 January 2009

2009-01-26T14:37:00.006+09:30

Happy Australia Day! We're flying all our Aussie flags in an unusually patriotic display.
At least for today, anyway.

Shaun and Jen had a baby boy yesterday, 25 January - Shaun phoned through with the news as we were tying up to the fuel and water barge here in Ao Chalong. Jen and little Isaac are doing well, and Shaun's very very happy. My second grandchild, and a cousin for Callum and Niki's Maili. Wish I was there!

We've been out of touch for nearly 3 weeks so will try and recap in small chunks where we've been... You'll need to scroll down to 3 January for it to make any chronological sense.

19 January 2009

2009-01-21T17:31:00.002+09:30

Photo at right shows Ali after her very first scuba dive... the smile says it all!

Koh Phayam was hard to leave! We spent another couple of days there before heading south to the Surin Islands, famous for their diving. A good wind had us there in under eight hours – wonderful to be sailing properly and not using the engine! Anchored at Koh Surin Nua (Lat 9 26.40N; 97 51.26E) in what looked like a protected bay. However the north-easterlies sent bullets of wind gusts across the island all night long causing us to roll and pitch, and in spite of 50 m of chain out the first night, we dragged and had to re-anchor in the morning.

The snorkelling was disappointing. There was a lot of plankton in the water, with a lot of tiny stinging creatures so we didn’t stay in for too long. The tides and seasonal conditions were against us. Even though it's the best time to go there you can still be unlucky with local conditions. Three other yachts were there as well, two Australian catamarans and one English couple in a small monohull. They were very friendly, as we've found Aussie yachties to invariably be, and we were invited for sundowners the first night and to a Scrabble tournament the next morning! Lex declined the Scrabble opportunity but Ali and I motored over in the dinghy for a pleasant couple of hours. Ali’s become a decent opponent in Scrabble these days. (Jo won her game of course)

Brad and Gwen from the Gwendolyn walked across the island to meet us for lunch on our side, and we walked back with them, through some beautiful forest, and stunning picture-postcard bays. The water is that impossible-looking blue you see in travel posters… Magnificent trees, and lots of familiar Top End species. There are gliding lemurs on the islands but they stayed out of sight.

After three days here we sailed over to the Similan Islands, and found much better snorkelling. The water was gin clear and the fish stunning – saw more new varieties, plus turtles, banded sea-snakes, moray eels (HUUUGE moray eels!!) and giant trepang of all kinds of colours and patterns. The water is so enticing you just want to jump into it every time you look at it.

Koh Similan was the first stop, and the bay we moored in had massive granite boulders the size of tall buildings lining its sides, which made for some great diving. Dive charters came and went during the day, but it wasn’t crowded, apart from a few hours in the mornings when there were lots of people on the beach from the charters. We did a good walk through dense rainforest and up some enormous rocks for a couple of hours. Really tests those sea-legs and the underused muscles!

The Surins and Similans are both national parks. It’s interesting to see the different approaches the parks have to visitors, compared to Australia. At home we’ve become so safety conscious – read law-suit conscious perhaps – that our parks are full of boardwalks, steps, fences, rails, safety everywhere. The parks we’ve been in up here are more like Australia 50 years ago. No guardrails anywhere, the odd rope to help you haul yourself up steep rock faces, and the occasional wooden path or bridge that are a public liability nightmare! You certainly felt like you were in the middle of the experience, no cotton wool anywhere.

We spent almost a week in the Similans – didn’t want to leave, but we were running out of water and supplies. Met some great Canadians the last couple of days who sailed in from the Andamans having run afoul of Indian bureaucracy there. Since the Mumbai terrorist attacks India has tightened up security and the Andaman officials seem to take their job extremely seriously. Wouldn’t have thought a yacht represented a likely terrorist vehicle, but there you go.

The Canadians, Jerry, Connie and Peter, invited us to dinner on board, and then Jerry took Ali for her first scuba dive the next day. She’s wanted to try it for ages, so she was over the moon when it finally happened. She did really well, followed all Jerry’s instructions, and went down to 9 metres. The look on her face said it all. (Lex is now looking for a larger boat so he can carry all the dive gear he can see we’re going to need…)

a few photos...

2009-01-21T15:58:00.000+09:30

Sunset at Koh Surin Nua

These stairs would be a public liability headache in Australia, but definitely added to the experience in Thailand!

The bay we anchored in at Koh Surin Nua

Ranong, Thailand-Burma border

2009-01-20T17:17:00.001+09:30

Ranong will be memorable for the ‘taxi’ rides we took. After leaving the dinghy at the top of a steep boat ramp, and walking through some kind of depot, we found the Andaman ferry terminal where we were told a taxi would come for us. We sat on the grass for half an hour watching pigs grubbing along the road, and decided to hoof it, hoping that the information we’d been given was maybe confused, and that it actually wasn’t 5 or 6 km to Ranong. As we set off, a passing ute reversed back and offered us a lift to town. (When was the last time you rode in the trayback of a ute on a main road!) Just as well, because we discovered that Ranong wasn’t a port town but was 8 km inland.

The ute dropped us in the main street where we found a fantastic restaurant, called Sophon’s Hideaway if you ever get there, and which is owned by an Australian and had the most wonderful food. (Yes, I know this journal does focus a lot on food, but we ARE in South East Asia)

After exploring the town for a few hours it was time to get back to the boat. We stopped in at Sophon’s for a drink and to call a taxi. The café owner phoned his off-duty chef, who’d cooked our lunch earlier, to take us back to the boat ramp in his ute, a twin cab but really a one and a half cab - Ali and I were folded up like deck chairs behind the front seat.

The chef drove us to the boat ramp where we found that the tides here are like Darwin’s and that there was no way we could launch our dinghy off the end of the ramp, which was now a metre out of the water. Hmmm. Walked back to the Andaman terminal, and into the café there. We asked them to call us a taxi. Lots of nodding, blank looks, giggles and more nodding, and someone went to the phone, came back and indicated the taxi was coming. When it turned up, we were a little surprised to see it was another ute, another one and a half cab like the chef’s. Oh well, who’s to say a sedan is the only style a taxi can be? Maybe utes are more useful in Ranong. ‘Ranong?’ we asked the driver. He looked a little mystified, and looked at the other people standing around. Great, a taxi driver who doesn’t know how to get to the main town. ‘Ranong?’ we repeated, nodding and looking encouraging. He kind of shrugged and nodded, and waved us into the car.

Ali and I squeezed into the half cab, and then it got even squishier when Ali tried to sit on top of me. ‘Look! Look!’ she whispered , pointing at the seat on her side and jamming me up against the opposite wall. There was a belt and a holster with an automatic pistol in it on the seat. ‘Just don’t touch it,’ I whispered back, ‘it’s ok, it’s in the back with us, not in the front with the driver.’ He must be a security guard moonlighting as a cabbie, I thought. He pulled up at an office along the way and jumped out. We told Lex about the pistol. He wasn’t worried (!!), and obviously neither was the driver, leaving total strangers in his car with his pistol on the back seat.

He came back after a minute and we headed off again. ‘Police,’ he said, pointing at himself. ‘Oh? Not taxi?’ we said. ‘Police,’ he said again. Well, that explained the pistol I suppose, and the heavy duty mobile phone and the radio we noticed under the dash. We tried to explain that we were sailing, and I drew a picture of a yacht. The driver said ‘Ah, Mayam,!’ Aha !Mayam must be Thai for yacht! ‘Yes, Mayam!’ we said happily, delighted to have found one word we could communicate with. A minute or two later he slowed down to make a turn. ‘No no,’ said Lex, pointing the other way, ‘Ranong!’ The driver looked confused. ‘Mayam,’ he said, pointing the other way. Then I noticed a road sign to Mayam. So much for our one word of Thai. ‘No, Ranong!’ Lex said emphatically. The driver shrugged again, and turned towards Ranong.

He dropped us off at Sophon’s and if he really was a policeman, he didn’t knock back the taxi fare we offered. So back into Sophon’s for another great meal, a couple more Singha beers and a few games of pool to while away the hours until the tide was high enough to launch our dinghy.
About 8pm Lex asked at the bar if they’d order us a taxi. Guess who? Yes, our chef-taxi again, with a big smile on his face. We’d obviously paid far too much the first time. He drove us back out, except this time, naturally, the depot gates were shut. Lex had gone out and bought a torch just in case this happened and he needed to climb over a wall to reach the dinghy from the other side, so at least we had a light. A little side gate was unlocked, so we squeezed through and walked down to the boat ramp, hoping that the dogs we’d heard earlier that day weren’t going to turn out to be huge slavering Rottweilers. The tide was coming in, and with a bit of tricky manoeuvring, we managed to get the dinghy back into the water without puncturing it – or ourselves - on sharp oyster shells.

Ranong is the jumping off point for Burma, and there were streams of longtail boats and little ferries passing back and forth from what we worked out to be Mayam. Its waters were too shallow for yachts so we were restricted to the awkward and rolly anchorage off the Andaman Club jetty. One night was more than enough and we returned to Koh Phayam the next day with the outgoing tide ripping us through the channels.

15 January 2009

2009-01-19T12:42:00.000+09:30

Enough of the hard sell on Koh Phayam. Eventually we decided to have a look a bit further north, and sailed up to Ranong, the last Thai town on the Thai-Burma border at the coast. We’d hoped to be able to get visas and permits to sail the Mergui Archipelago in Burma – Myanmar - but discovered that it would take weeks to organise. If you are granted a visa, and a sailing permit for the Archipelago, the Burmese then insist you take a guide on board with you the whole time you’re there, so that you don’t go to any places you’re not supposed to, and charge a lot of money. It would be worth the price, to have 10,000 sq miles of water and islands and virtually no one else around apart from the Moken, or Sea Gypsies. Our watermaker had died by this time, so we thought we’d wait till we were better prepared to go there. Sadly we also heard that in the last few months all the best dive spots have been dynamited for fishing.

Until now the Generals had banned development of that area. There was no logging, and no dynamiting of reefs for fishing. Seems that’s changed. Dive charter operations seemed to be thriving in Ranong but they must be almost out of business now because all of them offered diving in the Archipelago. The ten best dive destinations have been destroyed, which is unbelievable. The dive industry would provide a good income for both the Burmese and the Thais, and now it’s destroyed for a few weeks of fish harvests.

Fishing is so heavy in these parts. Everywhere we go we see pair trawlers, squid boats and smaller net boats, day and night. We’ve dragged our lures for over four thousand miles and have only caught five fish. Compared to our sail up the east and north coasts of Australia in 2007, where we caught fish most days, it seems like there must be few fish left in SE Asian waters.

5 January 2009

2009-01-05T12:44:00.002+09:30

Thailand – or at least Phuket – closes down for even longer than Australia does over New Year. Businesses were mostly shut from the 30th till the 5th of January, which slowed down our preparations to leave Ao Chalong. The spinnaker pole is still not ready, even though we ordered it from Singapore months ago, and we’ve ordered new cushions for the cockpit to replace the old ones which were getting very hard. They should be ready in a fortnight, so we’re heading off for a couple of weeks’ sailing through the Surin and Similan Islands, starting at the top.

We had a farewell dinner with the Griersons off Lothlorien the night before we left. We’ve sailed with Lothlorien since last August, and they’re now heading over to Telaga boat harbour at Langkawi to get some work done on the boat, and for Alison and Sam to return to Darwin for school. It’ll seem a bit strange sailing without them somewhere nearby, or hearing ‘Another One Bites the Dust’ blaring over the VHF every so often!

Departed Ao Chalong very early and had a good sail, with a few hours of motoring, north to the beautiful island of Koh Phayam. We anchored in the middle of a deserted bay with 2 miles of white sand beach and lush forest behind. Closer inspection through the binoculars revealed some little thatched roof bungalows hidden among the trees, and two or three people on the beach, but nothing else. After all the overdeveloped resort islands so far, this was a delight.
As we began the anchoring process, Lex realised Ali still had her troll lines out. She raced to pull them in, and it looked like one had gone under the boat and seemed to be stuck. Lex was beside himself imagining the fishing line wrapped well around the propeller, when the line suddenly swam out by itself, with a metre-long mackerel attached to the lure! Fresh mackerel for dinner that night, and a heap of nummus – basically fresh raw fish marinated in lime juice, chillies, onion and garlic – wonderful! I’ve only ever used queenfish for nummus in Darwin, but mackerel worked perfectly and was delicious. I think the secret is making it straight out of the water.

Gwendolyn turned up a day later, and we spent several days here, feeling like we were on holidays (yes, sounds silly, but we did). There was surf on the beach, enough for the better co-ordinated to actually stand up on boards for a few seconds, but mostly good for body surfing. We walked and swam, and ate great food at open-air restaurants that were little more than kitchens with tables and seating next to them. No cars on the whole island, just motor bikes. The well-known Thai destinations like Phuket and Koh Samui and so on, must have looked like this twenty or thirty years ago. Laid back, relaxed, quiet and beautiful. There wasn’t anything to buy, or anyone trying to sell you anything, apart from the odd hand-painted sign offering a Thai massage.

Right: The beach at Koh Phayam

If you want a really relaxing holiday at the kind of island the brochures show but don’t deliver, come to Koh Phayam. Plane and bus to Ranong, and then a fast ferry – longtail – over to the island, where a motor-bike taxi then takes you across the island to the Bamboo Bungalows. Accommodation is about $30 Aust per night, and meals around 80 baht, about $4. No discos, no traffic, no tourist shops. People staying here were from all over the world, mostly families or couples.

One night we were woken by bright lights shining into our cabin and voices murmuring around the boat, ‘Oh no! We’ve dragged!’ was our immediate thought, as the fishing fleet came in every day and rafted up together at one end of the bay - we must have nudged up against them. We poked our heads out of the hatch to find a longtail fishing boat hard up against us, and several worried men untangling their net from our rudder and keel. They’d set their net too close to our boat and it had been dragged by the current underneath us. Took them a few goes to get it off. Then it happened again a few nights later! They probably weren’t impressed with us anchoring in the middle of their bay I guess, but they were pleasant about it.

Lex and Ali visited the rafted-up prawn trawlers one day and came back with a huge bag of ice, squid and crabs. So with all this fresh seafood, plus good food onshore, we’ve been dining extremely well!

3 January 2009

2009-01-03T12:57:00.000+09:30

We arrived at Ao Chalong on the south of Phuket Island a few days before NYE and cleared in through Customs, Immigration and the Harbour Master. All conveniently located beside each other in the same building so it wasn’t an arduous process at all.
Ao Chalong Yacht Club was just like a smaller, daggier version of Dinah Beach Yacht Club so we all felt right at home, apart from the disgusting sewage/mud that you only ever wade through ONCE! We made sure never to do a dinghy transfer at low tide… There were dozens of yachts and way more commercial boats in the harbour, so we decided to go somewhere a bit quieter for New Years Eve.

We anchored in Patong Bay, the infamous NYE destination for rowdy backpackers, and the last place we'd ever choose to spend NYE! We stayed on board for the night, going over to the Gwendolyn with a few other people, including Lothlorien, and saw in the new year with champagne, Laphroig scotch and old flares, and watched a spectacular fireworks display on the beach. Even more dramatic were the thousands of floating lanterns sailing overhead, balloons made of rice paper, with something like a hexamine cube underneath them to lift them up. They look beautiful against a black sky, but cause no end of nerves when they look like falling on your boat! In past years some boats have caught fire and had sails burnt, one way of keeping drunken yachties off shore I guess!

Next morning we ventured ashore, and found it was a much quieter place than the previous evening. Breakfast with the crews off Gwendolyn and Lothlorien then a look around Patong Beach. It’s interesting but so far I can't see why everyone wants to come here for holidays. Then again the idea of lying on a beach all day having a massage or a pedicure on the sand doesn't turn me on much so I guess it's just not my kind of place. It probably looked amazing about 30 years ago, when there weren't wall to wall little shops selling overpriced stuff. A bit like Kuta in Bali, all 'Sir Sir, Madam Madam, for you special price, cheap!' and so on. Nowhere in Malaysia or Indonesia was it like that so we're a bit unprepared I suppose.

Sunday 28 December 2008

2008-12-29T10:48:00.001+09:30

Sunday 28 December 2008

Today we are anchored at Koh Lanta with Lothlorien, and have just sailed past more resorts – and very flash looking ones - than you could poke a pointy stick at. The number of tourist facilities here is simply amazing, and tourism is obviously a major industry for Thailand. We’ve stopped here mainly to get to a bank, as we’ve run out of the few Thai baht we had, and to get some fresh vegetables. Lex came back with Thai sim cards for our phones and a prepaid card for the Internet which we’ve realised we can access from right here on the boat.

Koh Phi Phi is our next stop, tomorrow or the next day, where we’ll catch up with the Gwendolyn again, and then on to Phuket by New Year’s Eve.

Best wishes to everyone for a wonderful New Year from Malaika!

Saturday 27 December 2008

2008-12-29T10:45:00.002+09:30

Saturday 27 December 2008

Dinner last night was a bit like that scene in Lord of the Rings, where they climb up an immense tree in Lothlorien to meet Galadriel and Celeborn. This was a long narrow ‘restaurant’ which wound upwards along the side of a cliff overhanging the beach. Viewed from the beach, the lights gave the impression you were going to be climbing up into the trees – quite beautiful. Again, a very homespun, simple affair, where no one spoke much English, and you’re never sure just what might turn up on your plate. Makes for interesting meals! The crews of the four boats had dinner together, excellent Thai food again.

Today we walked across the island to the other side, following a dirt trail that passed through several less salubrious resorts than the flash one on the beach, and several small groups of houses, similar to the Kampongs in Indonesia. Eventually it became a paved track, and took us past new kampongs being built to house people made homeless by the tsunami. One of these villages was right on the foreshore, and focused on restoring the fishing industry, using the skills of the local boat-builders to rebuild the fleet. A lot of the projects appear to be supported by European companies.

Dinner again tonight at the same restaurant, only this time we provided the fish to be cooked. Brad from Gwendolyn and Lex had bartered a mackerel off some passing fishermen on Christmas morning in case Pak had problems getting enough food, and then Brad caught a good-sized one himself the next day. So dinner was wonderful fresh mackerel, cooked two ways, and plates of stir fried vegetables and rice.

A lot of our time seems to be spent eating on this trip! Lunch today was the best Thai food I’ve had anywhere. Halfway along the track we found a little ‘café’ that proclaimed best ‘cheap cheap’ food, and cooking lessons. It had a wonderful breeze whipping through the tables and we were hot, so we sat down and ordered. It took a while to arrive because the cook was on her own and cooking every order from scratch, but was it ever worth the wait! She spoke reasonable English, and made sure she knew exactly what we wanted, and then produced excellent dishes. At the end of the meal she sat at the table with a calculator, and broke the bill down into the three families for payment, and made sure we were all happy with the amount. I hope she has lots of people come to her for cooking lessons. I’d love to go back there! Lex continues his worldwide search for the best Thai green chicken curry.

Friday 26 December 2008

2008-12-29T10:43:00.001+09:30

Friday 26 December 2008

Left Koh Kraden this morning and motored a couple of miles over to Koh Muk (pronounced Mook), where we took the dinghy to the Emerald Cave, swam through an 80 metre unlit cave tunnel (with torches), and came out into the Lost World. What an amazing place! As you approach the end of the tunnel, there is an ethereal green glow in the water and suddenly you swim out into daylight, in a lagoon about an acre in size, maybe less, with a sandy beach at one side, and vertical rainforest jungle climbing up a thousand feet. The light is muted and soft as the sun doesn’t shine directly into the lagoon except probably at midday for a while. Apparently there are large bats living in the cave but we didn’t see any.

There were only six or seven other people there, so it was quiet and lovely, but after about 30 minutes we could hear a sound like the muffled roar of a football crowd, gradually getting louder. After ten minutes of this, suddenly a human train of lifejacket-clad people emerged blinking into the light, all talking at the same time. Time to leave. By the time we’d put our swim fins and mask and snorkels back on, there were about seventy people in the lagoon, and as we left the cave entrance and swam to the dinghy, tourist boats arrived one after another, until it looked like there would’ve been 150 people squashed into that lovely lagoon. We were very lucky to have it to ourselves as long as we did.

Thursday 25 December 2008

2008-12-29T10:39:00.002+09:30

Christmas Day 2008

Ali woke up before 9 am for the first time in months, and we opened presents and had Jo’s special pancakes for breakfast. Later we dinghied over to Gwendolyn and joined everyone for drinks on board for a few hours. About three, we went ashore with a few snacks and a few more cold drinks to wait for Christmas dinner to arrive, and sat around in front of the café on the log steps while the kids played with their presents, built another bonfire, and ran up and down the beach.

About 6 pm, the long tail turned up, with a very stressed out resort owner - I’ll call him Pak, a respectful Indonesian term for an older man, as we never quite got his name – and the Danish couple on board. They’d had all kinds of trouble all day long, with boats breaking down and having to unload and reload all the supplies several times. Pak was obviously expecting to be greeted by an irate, hungry mob of yachties demanding to know where their dinner was, but none of us was bothered at all. We’d had a lovely relaxed day, watching the kids play, hanging out with good people and plenty of cold beer and snacks. What’s to complain about?

Instead we helped unload the boat and carry everything into the kitchen. Shortly after that Pak and the Danes presented us with trays of something like a Pina Colada with, I suspect, some of Pak’s Mekong rum in them. And in another hour or so, we sat down to a wonderful dinner of Thai food, with plenty of stir-fried vegetables, pork, chicken and prawns. Pak had even bought a barbeque to cook the prawns on, a kind of metal bucket which he filled with coals from the kids’ bonfire.

Gwen and Caroline had brought the Christmas lights from Gwendolyn, and Stina, the Danish girl, brought out her laptop with music. In case we were short of entertainment, Lex and Jim did several renditions of "The Wayward Wind", recruiting Brad to replace Richard and Brian. We do think it’s time they enlarged their repertoire…

Stina and her husband Christian are members of the Danish group “Pink Floyd Project”, a Pink Floyd tribute band. She’s one of the three female backing singers and (if you know your PF then you’ll know how impressive this is) does that wonderful long solo. She said the Australian tribute band was considered the best in the world, and the Danes hoped to make it to number two. I’ve heard them in Darwin (the Oz band ie) and they’re brilliant. Stina and Christian were planning to stay at Pak’s place for the rest of their holiday and were giving him some pointers on attracting more tourists, without changing the ambience of the place that made them jump ship in the first place. Nice to know there are people in the world like them!

Tuesday 23 December 2008

2008-12-29T10:33:00.002+09:30

Tuesday 23 December 2008

From Koh Bulon Le we could see enormous rocks jutting up into the sky from the sea. We motored across to the first one and had a close look at it. Koh Lama (06 53 632N; 99 34 252E), is a massive block of weathered stone 190 metres tall, with bamboo scaffolds and ropes snaking up its sheer faces. Men come here and scale the cliffs to take swallows’ nests for birds nest soup.
All around the horizon are similar stone islands. Another striking one we sailed close by was Koh Phetra, with a massive peak of 377 metres. All are home to the swallows whose nests are raided for Chinese soup. They create a surreal landscape – like some vision of an alien planet, great massive jagged lumps jutting out of the horizon.

We arrived at a little bay on the west side of Koh Kraden (Lat 7 17 984N Long 99 15 407E). There were already eight yachts there, as well as a few Thai longtails. These longtails are fascinating. They are long graceful wooden boats, usually open like a large dinghy, or with a roof or shade structure. The motor sits on deck at the back of the boat, and is tilted to raise the propeller out of the water. The prop is at the end of a very long shaft – easily 15 ft long - and when the boats go fast, they send up a plume of water like a rooster tail. Most of the drivers are young blokes, so there are lots of rooster tails.

This was the place we’d planned to have Christmas dinner with the other three boats – Gwendolyn, Blue Sky (an American boat we hadn’t yet met, friends of Gwendolyn) and Lothlorien. There is a small, backpacker style resort – Wally’s – a short walk up a path from this bay, which we’d been told put on a great Christmas dinner, complete with turkey, ham, the whole shooting match. We anchored there that night, but next morning, our friends arrived at the opposite side of the island and encouraged us to join them. We found them anchored off a sandy beach with a ramshackle looking collection of huts and a central building which housed a rough sort of kitchen and a roofed slab with a few plastic chairs and tables. We arrived in time to have a beer at this spot with the others, and to meet the old Thai man who owned it. He gave us a menu, looking hopeful, but we had our minds set on Wally’s on the other side of the hill.

We set off along a jungle path to Wally’s, about a mile’s worth of Kokoda trail style walking through thick rainforest up a steep ridge, three of four paces of flat and then down the other side again. (Note: life on board does not prepare one for mountain climbing) Wally’s looked enticing, a wide green bowl of grass ringed with tidy little huts and an eclectic thatched-roof, open-air restaurant in the middle. A posse of barking dogs welcomed us, and we joined the rest of the crews in another beer while we checked out the place.

It was like a South Pacific version of the Bark Hut. Very rough and ready but serviceable. A spartan open dormitory stood opposite, a line of bed frames and mattresses visible but no signs of mosquito netting. The little huts around looked in good shape, with several bathrooms at a central spot, no doubt to facilitate the plumbing. Lovely location, and close to the pretty beach where we’d stopped the day before. Several people lounged at tables around us while more were outside on the grass or at the huts.

Wally, the American owner of the place, sat hunched over his ledgers at the entrance to the restaurant, keeping a handwritten tally of the food and drinks. He wore a pair of board shorts but nothing to hide the huge gut that hung down between his knees at the desk. His German partner Borgen, of similar proportions, looked after the bar. Wally periodically shot sour looks at the kids careening around being kids (we had 6 between the four boats) and kept counting money. After a while and a couple more beers, we considered the walk back over the hill in the dark, with no torches, and decided to head back while there was still some light. Consensus was for a barbecue on the beach on our side the next day, and not the traditional Christmas day affair at Wally’s. His attitude put us off, not to mention the thought of staggering back to boats over the Kokoda trail in the pitch dark jungle with a few drinks under our belts.

When we reached the little Thai place, dinner there seemed like a good idea. The owner spoke almost no English, and Thai is a difficult language. Sign language however knows no boundaries, and we managed to order food, although not exactly sure what might turn up. The beer was hot, but he produced an esky and ice to cool the cans for us.

Meanwhile the kids were at the far end of the beach with Emma and Jim from Blue Sky. Emma made them all jaffles while the rest of the parents dallied back at the café. A young Danish couple were also there, the only guests of the whole place. They had been on a dive trip, and when they stopped at this spot, liked it so much they jumped off the dive tour and stayed. As a result of their familiarity with the place, arrangements were made for us to have our Christmas dinner at the little café. The owner would go over to the main island the next day and buy the food, drinks and ice, and all we had to do was turn up about 3 pm. He produced a small bottle of Mekong rum to celebrate the deal.

Monday 22 December 2008

2008-12-29T10:30:00.001+09:30

Monday 22 December 2008

By the time our extra anchor chain was delivered it was too late to leave – it’s a good idea to arrive at a new anchorage before 4 pm, so that you can see any lurking coral bommies or rocks under the water. Later than that, or too early in the morning, and it’s impossible to see into the water against the angle of the sun. We left Rebak Marina this morning at first light. The two other boats meeting us at Koh Kraden had already left – Lothlorien, with Jim Al and Sam Grierson on board, and Gwendolyn, an Australian boat from Fremantle, with Brad, Gwen, daughter Tatiana and son Dare, and their guests, Jim’s son Paul and partner Caroline.

Koh Bulon Le was Malaika’s first stop, a tiny island with several resorts. Not a great anchorage – there was quite a strong swell for the first few hours – but it was the right distance away to get us anchored in time and also en route for the Christmas Day destination. We had dinner at an open air restaurant at Pansands resort on the beach front. By resort, don’t think flash, luxury villa-style accommodation. Lots of the resorts on these little islands are very basic and home-grown, adequate and airy but with minimal comforts. The food at the restaurant was good, but we were ripped off thoroughly with the bill, as we realised later! Moral: don’t have a couple of rums before you go ashore where you have NO facility with the language and haven’t got the money worked out yet!! They also had the biggest hungriest mosquitoes we’ve seen anywhere. We’re pretty sure there’s no malaria here. (Yes we forgot the mozzie spray…)

To add insult to injury when we returned to the dinghy after dinner, someone had untied our rope from the anchor. If we’d stayed another hour we might have lost our dinghy to the rising tide. So Koh Bulon Le and the Pansands Resort hold few fond memories for us.

Saturday 20 December 2008

2008-12-21T09:20:00.002+09:30

Thursday 18 December 2008

I’m happy to report that Malaika once again has a wet bottom. Floating free of the haul-out and motoring around to our mooring yesterday was absolutely the best feeling! We celebrated with the first beer at midday in a long time, and then had showers and headed for the Hard Dock Café with the crew of Lothlorien, who also splashed that morning. We hadn’t seen the Loths since they returned to Singapore after our first attempt on the Malacca Straits, but they turned up at Langkawi a few days before Ali and Jo got back, and ended up being placed on the hardstand right beside Malaika.

Now we’re doing a few small jobs - such as packing gear away ready to sail, and a spot of painting on the decks - before we leave here on the weekend. I’m about to head into town via the free speedboat ferry, and do some re-provisioning, with Christmas in mind.

Because we were waiting on the arrival of the new propeller shaft last week, we took the super fast ferry to Penang and stayed there three nights. We’d missed going into Penang on the way up the Straits because of weather concerns, so it was a good opportunity to get away from the marina and give Lex a break.

Penang was wonderful. It’s an old town full of crumbling, and not so crumbling, British Raj style buildings, crowded little shophouses in narrow streets, magnificent Chinese, Hindu and Burmese and Thai Buddhist temples, Christian churches and Islamic mosques. Little India was probably my favourite area. It’s quite small, only four streets really, but so crammed with life and colour they seem like a whole village. The shops, hawkers and restaurants spill out into the streets with Bollywood music filling in the gaps. We had dinner at a terrific Tandoori place, where our tables were actually in the street, with cars edging past the waiters and the food cooking right beside us. Our waiter was from Nepal, missing his family and delighted to meet people (Lex and Ali) who knew Kathmandu and Pokhra. Namaste!

We visited the magnificent old Eastern and Oriental Hotel, built by the family that built Raffles in Singapore. When the pith-helmeted bellboy, resplendent in khaki shorts and long socks, showed us into the main foyer, he stamped his feet hard on the marble floor, and the sound snapped and echoed around and around the beautiful dome in the ceiling above us. We should have warned him about showing Ali that particular trick…

And of course, what Penang is most famous for: the food. There are cafes and restaurants everywhere you look, offering almost everything you can think of. The main cuisines represented are the main ethnic groups – Chinese, Indian and Malay, but not as much Malay as we’d hoped. We were looking forward to some authentic Nonya food, but the only two listings we could find were closed. Indian was our favourite – fresh cooked chicken Tandoori, hot naan bread, banana rotis, dhall, curries of every kind – heaven on a stick.

Saturday 20 December 08

Time's going fast again - we've been busy and the internet has been fretful at Rebak. So now Thailand beckons, and a little island called Kol Kradung with a few other boats and a pile of kids is looking like our destination for Christmas Day. This afternoon we’ll sail across to Telaga to refuel, then back here to Rebak to collect the anchor chain that’s been a bit slow arriving. We’ll leave here Sunday morning for a tiny island a few hours’ sail northwards, and make our way to the rendezvous spot over a few days.

Wishing you all a very happy Christmas, and a wonderful 2009!!
Jo, Lex and Ali

Tuesday 16 December 2008

2008-12-20T09:14:00.000+09:30

Tuesday 16 December 2008

We’re back. If not exactly on the high seas yet, then not far off. Ali and Jo had a good trip back to Australia visiting family and friends in Melbourne and Darwin while Lex stayed back in Langkawi and worked like a Trojan for the month we were gone. He now has so-o-o-o many brownie points I’ll never catch up. As well as being an experienced sailor, he‘s become a competent mechanic. All of the major jobs were problems he hadn’t encountered before, but he worked them all out, and solved every one of them. The rudder, propeller shaft and anchor winch are all repaired and a zillion other smaller jobs completed. Today and tomorrow we’re painting the blue anti-foul on the hull below the water-line, and the final coat at sparrow’s tomorrow morning. Then at 11 am we splash, as they say here on the hardstand.

It's an interesting microcosm on the hardstand. The sun doesn't rise till about 7 am, so not much happens before then. Work on boats generally starts about 8 or 830, and then people go hell for leather for the next 8 or 10 hours with a break for lunch at the Hard Dock Cafe, an open air cafe on the hardstand where they serve things like chicken curry, fried rice, pizzas and sandwiches, all freshly made. A decent size pizza costs 12 ringgit, or about $4.50. Sometimes the food's not that great, but it’s a training facility for the resort. We mainly eat on the boat ourselves, but occasionally come up here for a change. By about 5.30 pm, people start to down tools and head for showers or, in the case of any Australians, gather in the shade of someone's boat for a few beers. Dinner is available at the Hard Dock in the evenings as well.

Rebak is definitely a DIY marina – there’s ample workspace, power and water available, but no tradesmen, apart from painting contractors. People are very generous with tools and advice, and everyone seems happy to lend the first and dispense the second. Yachties seem to operate of the premise that if you help someone, someone will help you when you need it, so people are generous. What goes around definitely comes around. Yes, they all drink too much, but I guess they're just doing their best to selflessly boost the local economies.

There are lots of kids here, mostly aged around 7 to 14. Schoolwork takes them out of sight in the mornings as most of them are home schooled, but by lunchtime they’re out in force, small boys marching purposefully around with wooden swords and home-made bows and arrows, being ignored by their sisters who are intently ‘Facebooking’ friends all over the world, and more than likely MSM-ing the girls beside them! (Not only has the internet given us new ways of communication, it’s invented all these new verbs!)

Time for the next coat of tacky blue stuff… let’s see if I can get more of it onto the boat than onto me this time.

31 October 2008

2008-11-05T13:21:00.004+09:30

31 October 2008

Langkawi Malaysia

Arrived here after three overnight sails through a few storms and heavy rain. Lots of large traditional fishing boats and tugs hauling dumb barges kept Lex and I on alert all night, especially when the rain reduced visibility. Had a very close call with a trawler towing a net, when we couldn't work out what it was doing in the dark and the heavy rain, and what its lights actually meant! Boats seem to be moving quite slowly when they're actually coming straight at you... then it's off with the autopilot and on with the throttle when you work out what it's doing. Usually not until the last minute...

There were three thunderstorms on the radar on the last night, right across our path. (Memories of that movie "Perfect Storm" kept surfacing...) Lex managed to weave us a route between the worst of them so we didn't have too much trouble from them. The fishing boats also were thankfully left behind early in the evening, so the last night's sail was relatively pleasant. We had been planning to stop at Penang but the weather reports encouraged us to push straight through to Langkawi as it was only going to get worse if we stopped, and we'd be held up for days.

Well, Langkawi is wonderful! The marina is very sheltered, and entered via a long curving breakwater. We arrived very early in the morning, well before the dockmaster was on duty, so we just pulled into the first empty berth we saw. Lots of boats from all over the world - Dutch, German, British, American, Canadian, Irish and of course no shortage of Australians. The marina is on Rebak Island, just off the island of Langkawi itself. There's a very flash resort a few hundred metres away, where yachties are allowed to use the pool by the sea, much to Ali's delight. Not that pool rules have stopped her anywhere else I should add. The marina facilities are good, and there's a real community feel amongst the boats, something I haven't encountered elsewhere. We were invited to a birthday celebration the following night, along with about 60 others, at the yacht bar/cafe, where for less than $20 Aus we had wonderful food, and then entertainment provided by several of the yachties who'd brought along their guitars and mandolins. And of course being seafarers they all drink like fish, but in Langkawi they can afford to, because the whole island is duty free, and a good quality beer costs about 30c a can from the wholesaler.

Ali and I are flying to Melbourne on the 3rd November, and then up to Darwin the following week. Lex is hauling Malaika out of the water on the 6th, where it will stay for a couple of weeks while he puts new anti-foul below the water line, and repaints the topsides above. Our general plan is to leave for Thailand about the 16th December, and probably head west across the Indian Ocean in early January.

I'll be contactable on Lex's old mobile number 0412 302 127, while we're in Australia.

2008-11-05T13:20:00.000+09:30

27 October 2008

2008-11-05T07:49:00.005+09:30

27 October 2008

Port Dickson Malaysia

Lat 02 28.75N; Long 101 50.40E

We thought it would only take us a week to get to Langkawi, but here we are at Port Dickson, less than halfway! Unfortunately it's not because we've been lounging around on beautiful tropical isles, but because the wind and weather have been a bit contrary. The winds are supposed to be from the south-west at this time of year, pushing us along from behind, but instead they've been hard on the nose, forcing us to tack back and forth, and to use the engine most of the time to get anywhere. As well we've had a few thunderstorms to contend with but nothing too scary.

Pisang Island, a tiny lump of rock and trees with a lighthouse on top, was our first stop, and the rolliest anchorage we've experienced. After a very uncomfortable night, we set out early next morning into stronger head winds and rougher seas, and after 9 hours of motoring, and not getting very far, we gave up and followed Lothlorien back to Pisang, this time sailing at a smart 7 knots with the wind now behind us. We reached the island about 10 pm and dropped the sails to motor in, and after half an hour the overheating alarm went off. I always wondered what it might be like to anchor without the engine to manouevre the boat around... but I didn't expect to have to try it in the dark, with a strong wind behind us!

It took us about 6 hours the next morning to fix the problem - a broken belt which required Lex to take off all the other belts and remove the alternator, and then replace it four or five times before it was all sorted. The sea was no calmer and the boat was lurching around the whole time. While I was holding torches and passing spanners, I was reflecting on how I used to think working on engines in the bush was hard, all that kneeling and lying on burning sand under trucks and bullcatchers, getting hot and dirty. You might have been sweating and covered in grease and grit lying under a truck, but you didn't get sea-sick. And there was more room to work in. Marine engine rooms were obviously designed in the days of child labour, given the amount of space there is for large hands to move. And ours is a good one!

Lothlorien has been having problems with their anchor winch so decided to turn back for Singapore, while we headed north again. This time we had a great run up the coast, overnighting to Port Dickson, and sailing the entire way although with the engine on as well.

Port Dickson has a lovely sheltered marina, with an old, once grand clubhouse/resort. The town is a few miles from the marina, spread out with no obvious centre, and a mix of the shabby and run-down alongside some new developments. We were able to clear in through Immigration when we arrived on Saturday, (albeit going around the back of the office!) but Customs was closed until Tuesday. We had intended only staying a night to see how the weather was shaping up, but now have to wait till Tuesday to complete the paperwork.

20 October 2008

2008-10-21T03:13:00.003+09:30

Monday 20 October 2008

Sorry about the long lag between posts - we were out of internet range ever since Makassar, apart from the Borneo post which Cheryl in Darwin put up for me via sailmail. Some places in the world really ARE out of the reach of the internet. And that's a comforting thought!

Our last evening here. Yesterday we managed to get out to the famous Singapore Zoo which surpassed its reputation and then some. What a wonderful place! Even if you don’t particularly like zoos it would be hard not to be impressed by this one. The gardens alone are magnificent, and the inmates are mostly housed in large open enclosures that seem to replicate natural environments pretty well. And they weren’t all locked up. We were amazed to see little monkeys scampering up trees right beside us along the paths, obviously free-ranging locals. I guess it’s a bit like seeing native birds flying around the zoos at home. But monkeys are so much more exotic! I was really pulled up short by the sight of several orangutans hanging out of trees over our heads though, right above a main walking path. Then I saw the defensive wires around the trees that kept them above our heads and not down on the ground beside us. Cute little monkeys chattering at you from a few feet away is one thing. A 200 kg orangutan dropping on your head to say g’day would be quite another… Come to think of it, orangutan droppings on your head wouldn’t be so cool either.

Collected the visas for Thailand from the Embassy today, did a lightening raid on the shops for groceries at Vivo City, and then Lex and I met our lovely friend Julia Christensen at a great little jazz club in Bali Lane, near Bugis Street in the Arab Quarter. Julia was returning to Darwin after visiting her family in the UK, and we arranged to meet when she passed through Singapore. Great to see someone from home, and to have someone to tell all our stories to!

We leave tomorrow morning, 21 October, for Langkawi, which should take about 5 days, stopping each night at islands along the way. Once there, the boat gets hauled out for some long planned work, especially examination of the rudder to make sure it really is okay after its rocky encounter in Ambon harbour. Malaika also needs anti-fouling and the hull repainting, so she'll be out of the water for at least a fortnight and probably longer. Good time for Ali and Jo to go home for a visit so we will head off to Melbourne about the 4th of November, and then up to Darwin for a few weeks.

17 October 2008

2008-10-21T01:40:00.001+09:30

17 October 2008

The trouble with sailing, is that when you finally arrive somewhere, you have to spend much of your precious shore time fixing the boat. There are many things you can’t do properly at sea, especially when you need parts or expertise. Have now got our electric problems sorted, and our refrigeration issues fixed, but it’s meant we haven’t spent as much time sight-seeing as we’d have liked. This morning, just when we were admiring the minus double digits on the freezer thermometer, the compressor blew up and all the gas escaped. New compressor next morning, and another 24 hours of vacuum-extracting the residual gas, drying it all out and then several hours pumping the new stuff in again. (That saying about sailing equating to standing under a cold shower in a raincoat and tearing up 100 dollar bills keeps coming to mind…)

It’s a bit scary coming into a strange port and needing to find a good tradesman. However Richard Howe, the insurance company’s yacht surveyor, (a former ship’s captain and a solo circumnavigator himself) put us onto a terrific bloke called Alan, an ex-pat Geordie with a mesmerising northern accent. He worked like a Trojan and sorted out all our electrical and refrigeration problems over a few days, in between hopping around a few of the other boats.

The one thing people really rave about in Singapore is the food. You can eat out anywhere from $3 for a meal to an astronomical figure, and be just as satisfied I think! Its position at the crossroads of many cultures has given it a rich mine of inspiration when it comes to food. The variety and specialisation seems endless – Singaporean, Malaysian, Nonya, Thai, Hakka, Cantonese, Hainan, Korean, Indonesian, Sarawak, Indian (pick your area), Arab, just to name a few - or you can settle for ‘chicken chop, fries, fried egg and baked beans’ if you’re really homesick. Homesick for exactly where, I’m not sure… Of course there’s Maccas and KFC and the usual suspects for junk food, and the recently environmentally-outed Starbucks but who wants to eat like a pauper when it’s cheaper and better to dine like a sultan.

The architecture is stunning. Modern high rises, fanciful wedding cakes and austere towers, side by side with old buildings that must have escaped the ravages of WW2. One dark brooding, decorated building really caught our fancy. It looked straight out of 1920s New York,even though it was obviously new. Our taxi driver told us that it was locally known as the ‘Batman building’ because it reminded everyone of Gotham City:

‘See those four statues at the top of the building, each holding a crystal ball? Yes? Now look across the street over there. See the two very tall, sharp buildings?’

We could indeed see two very modern towers with acute corners, like knife edges, facing the Gotham City edifice.

‘It is very bad feng shui to have sharp objects pointing at you, so they had to deflect the bad energy,’ said the driver. ‘So they put up the statues holding the round balls.’

Simple.

We visited Orchard Road a few times, once for shopping and the rest for business. A trip to Little India for dinner one evening was a pleasant step back. As we negotiated our way along narrow uneven footpaths dodging henna sellers and stalls and shop owners trying to drag you in off the streets, I realised I felt very comfortable and in familiar surroundings. It was just like Indonesia, only without the rubbish and the smells!

9 October 2008, Thursday

2008-10-21T01:30:00.002+09:30

Thursday 9^th October 2008

Latitude 01 15 N, Longitude 103 50E

Well it’s really something to be taken to a foreign country for your birthday! We left Nongsa Point marina and headed out into the strait between Batam and Singapore in very light winds and straight into a massive rainstorm which reduced visibility to half a mile. Lex had worked out a route that took us down the side of the shipping lanes to the narrowest part, where it was only a kilometre dash across them to Sentosa Island. We didn’t have any close shaves, but it’s quite daunting to see a supertanker the size of a small country heading at speed towards you. We were peering through the clears trying to see what was coming at us and every so often we were startled by one of those small countries looming out of the mist like the end of the world.

Eventually the rain passed and we found our way safely to the Customs Point in front of Sentosa Island. Instead of anchoring, you just sort of hang around in the general vicinity with a yellow quarantine flag hoisted and the Customs boat comes alongside. They displayed some remarkable boat handling skills as documents were passed between the two boats by hand for signatures.

One 15 Marina is a very up market mooring! Mooring fees are S$25 per day, which includes use of the pool and the gym. Fuel is clean and available, as is potable water, neither easily obtained in Indonesia.Again, another long walk to the loo, but that’s the price you pay I guess. And it does have a laundromat, although in high demand.

Repairs to the boat have kept us busy – Lex in particular, although Ali and I have managed a couple of trips up into the city. The first thing you notice about Singapore is how clean and shiny it is! It’s very modern, albeit with occasional glimpses of older more elegant buildings from earlier days. Traffic flows, quietly – no horn abuse like other Asian countries – and there is no rubbish anywhere. There doesn’t seem to be much that you can’t buy here.

Medical help is fast, efficient and inexpensive. Lex had been suffering from sore, light sensitive eyes for a few weeks before we arrived, so we found our way to the seventh floor of a tall building where we were told we’d find some GPs. Within 20 minutes Lex was seen by a doctor who examined him, announced it was beyond his capabilities and referred him to a specialist, meanwhile ordering some tests that were carried out on the spot by a paramedic. Half an hour later Lex was on another floor seeing the specialist, who had already received the results of Lex’s tests and could tell him what was wrong with his eyes, ordered a few more tests, prescribed some ointment and drops and made an appointment for him to return three days later. The GP cost $18, the medication $20 and the specialist $250. All in a couple of hours.

6 October 2008

2008-10-21T01:20:00.001+09:30

6 October

We left Mesenak at midnight this morning, and motored the entire way to Nongsa Point Marina by 11 am. First stop was a long hot shower. On yachts, even yachts with watermakers like ours you conserve water, so the opportunity to have a long shower with no one yelling “TURN OFF THE TAP!!!” at you was irresistible. And laundry. In a washing machine. Not a bucket. Luxury. That’s the good thing about sailing, it gets your priorities right.

Having said that, it’s nice not to be listening for anchor noises, or dealing with rocking boats all the time. The downside is the long walk to the loo whenever you need to go - usually at the most incovenient time, such as when it's raining, or in the middle of the night. It's like being back at Tipperary!

Nongsa Point Marina is on Batam Island, the last Indonesian stop before Singapore. We have just loved Indonesia. Wherever we went, we’ve been made welcome, and well treated, and had the best times. Indonesia has a certain kind of controlled chaos that suits yachting life well. Enough trouble getting parts and expertise to keep you grounded, and all the friendliness and kindness of strangers you could ever hope to find. Not once were we ripped off or cheated, or ever felt unsafe. Walking back from a restaurant late at night along the waterfront at Makassar, we were smiled at and ‘helloed’ and acknowledged as visitors the whole way. Wouldn’t want to do that in Darwin! Indonesia could promote itself as the land of the big white smile. I wish we were staying longer. But it’s close to Darwin, and we plan to spend a lot more time here when we finally get home again.

We’ve been meeting some interesting people on this trip. As yachties go there are a few whingers out there, but you also meet terrific people who are just happy to be out in the world, and who want to find the differences and enjoy them. So many people seem to expect things to be the way they are at home, and complain because inevitably they're not. Makes you wonder why they went to all the trouble of leaving home in the first place. Met a great Spanish couple a few days ago at an idyllic anchorage at Mesenak, Lingga Island. They are now in this marina too, so we are having a few meals together and enjoying their conversation. People like that remind you how we really are all connected at a deeper level, deeper than nationality and creed and politics.

4 October 2008

2008-10-21T01:10:00.000+09:30

4 October: (Happy Birthday Callum!!) Running ahead of another storm yesterday, we sought refuge late that night off Lingga island, but it was so rolly and uncomfortable that we left it at daybreak and moved around the point to a much calmer spot. Today was declared a total rest day – just caught up on sleep and then had dinner over on Lothlorien.

Ali has been begging to have a daysail on Lothlorien – anything to get away from her horrible mean parents – so Lex delivered her over there just before we left early this morning. We stopped on the Equator at 10am, and jumped in the calm waters for a little while before moving on. We’re old hands now, so crossing the Equator’s not the excuse for a major celebration anymore! (Not to mention that we are out of alcohol and have nothing to celebrate with...) Being alone on the boat was celebration enough anyway (sorry Ali).

We anchored at Mesenak Island, a beautiful anchorage, and an absolutely picture postcard beach, a long sweep of white sand embracing azure water overhung by tall bendy palms. All that was missing was the waiter carrying the coconut drinks with those tiny umbrellas… It was really lovely and best of all almost deserted. Fishermen worked around it and the bay had several wooden, space craft-looking fish traps in it, but otherwise no one was there. We snorkelled and walked on the beach, fished unsuccessfully (were a bit shocked to see that the fish the local guys caught were a third of the size of the one Ali caught and released as too small) and caught up on sleep.

I finally made some bread in our oven! Seeing I have a history of cooking a Bedourie oven full of terrific (ifIsaysomyself) bread every day, it’s been a pending challenge to bake bread in our oven. The stove top is fine, but the oven… After the oven took two hours to cook some chicken wings, and THREE to bake a cheesecake recently, I had given up hope and informed Lex that yes, we would indeed have to spend a couple of thousand cowrie shells on a new oven. This one is about 25 years old, after all. Then I sat down and read the one page ‘manual’ on it, had a search for a part it mentioned that I couldn’t find, found it, and lo and behold, it works! Well, kind of. Anyway, the bread was fine. Which for someone with a gluten intolerance, was not truly good news but at least it will broaden the scope of on board dining!

5 October 2008, Sunday

2008-10-21T01:05:00.000+09:30

Sunday 5 October 2008

Mesenak, Lingga Island Lat 00 35.49N, Long 104 39.69E

What a beautiful bay we woke to this morning. We arrived here just on sunset last night, after dodging a storm for a few hours to get here. Storms have begun to feature lately – experienced our first one a few days ago, when we tried to sail to Bangka Island, and were chased out and forced north instead. It wasn’t severe by any means, but we had three hours of winds up to 35 knots, rough seas and rain. Malaika handles it well, and we felt perfectly safe.

We left Kumai River, Borneo, on Tuesday 23^rd September and travelled just a couple of hours to the river mouth where we anchored off the beach - a long narrow spit of white sand with strange little decaying buildings along the foreshore. It looked like an abandoned tourist resort, or perhaps an attempt to establish a national park and these were a kind of picnic shelter. We followed earlier visitors and built a fire on the concrete floor of one, had lunch and lazed around for a few hours. (what is it about Australians and this compulsion to light fires?) Left early Wednesday morning and sailed until we reached Pulau Nangka on Friday morning. The last few hours were a bit hairy, threading our way through countless squid fishing boats and reefs in the dark – a good test of our chart plotter – and then, as we stood out from Nangka till morning, not wanting to chance an unknown anchorage without daylight, one of our alternators stopped working, and the rudder seemed to be playing up as well. Great – it looked like we’d be floating amongst all these reefs with no engine and no rudder.... Lothlorien stayed close in case we ran into any trouble, and we anchored inside the bay around 6.30am.

Nangka is an uninhabited island – we didn’t think there were any in Indonesia! The anchorage was much easier to get into than the reefs we’d already negotiated in the dark, and we could have come in easily, but it’s always better to motor in slowly in sunlight when you can see the reef through the water, and avoid those big bommies. The snorkelling here was good, but there was a lot of coral damage. Lots of clown anemone fish (Nemos) and a black and white banded sea snake, as well as clouds of other colourful fish.

Lex pulled the alternator off the engine but it needs an electrician to solve the problems. We’ll continue on with just one alternator now, and juggle battery charging instead. The rudder problem seemed to disappear, but we’ll haul out and get it sorted in Langkawi. Lothlorien brought a roast beef (!) over for dinner, and we produced a bottle of red wine we had forgotten hidden in a cupboard, just when we all thought it was cold turkey till Singapore! One problem about Kumai River was that it had declared itself a dry town after a spate of alcohol related troubles, and there was no alcohol to be got for love nor money anywhere. This was about the time we appreciated how low our supplies were…

We left Nangka Tuesday 30^th, and did two overnight sails. We’d intended to stop the first night at an island but storms chased us northwards instead of southwest, and we had to keep sailing. However, the Spanish mackerel that took the lure off the back of the boat next day was some compensation. We came alongside Lothlorien and passed half of it over to them. The following day we hooked a humungous queenfish, but had to release because it was too rough to handle it safely. We’ve been amazed by how few fish there seem to be in these waters. Sailing up the east and north coasts of Australia last year, we caught fish every second day at least, and released what we didn’t need, but here in Indonesia we’ve only caught three fish altogether. The fishing pressure must be enormous – fishing boats, fixed nets and drift nets have been obvious everywhere. We’ve seen plenty of fish in the markets, but not many really big fish.

Borneo. Sept 21

2008-09-25T11:16:00.003+09:30

21 September 2008 Sunday
02 44.45S, 111 43.98E

If you tried to read this before and gave up,, my apologies. The paragraph spaces got lost in the formatting process via sailmail, but I've fixed it now, so have another go!

JO: I can't believe I'm in BORNEO! Ever since I was a little kid, the word "Borneo" conjured up more imaginings than any other name. Deepest, darkest, wild-man-from-Borneo, Joseph Conrad and Rudyard Kipling all rolled into one. We arrived here on the afternoon of the 18th after a 5 day sail from Makassar, with just one overnight stop, at a little island called Matasiri in the Java Sea, where the chart plotter showed us to be anchored on top of a hilltop.

A local fisherman cruised by early next morning and came aboard for a bit of a chat. He ended up helping Lex change some belts on the engine, which took several hours and in the meantime another few fishermen joined them, and we had a string of long colourful wooden skiffs hanging in a line off our stern. When the job was completed Samsuddin invited us to come ashore and visit his home. I had gone to bed with flu symptoms so I stayed there while Lex and Ali climbed into Samsuddin's boat and motored away in a loud clatter. NONE of the boats in Indonesia bother with mufflers. Or old-age hearing, one assumes. They were made very welcome on shore, and taken to Samsuddin's house and introduced to his wife and children, and his father. It's Ramadhan, so they can't eat or drink till 6pm, but Samsuddin's wife made cocoa and cakes for Lex and Ali. Lothlorien had a similar experience, but were taken on a walk up the steep hill (the one we were supposedly moored on) behind the village. They discovered how unfit you get living on a boat... Your arms are strong from winding winches and hauling ropes, but your legs just go to jelly.

Lex and Ali arrived back a couple of hours later, with a boatload of young Lotharios and kids. The young blokes spent most of their time ogling Ali while the kids inspected the topsides of the boat, and after an hour or so we said we had to get ready to leave, so they returned to their village. It's hard making conversation when you don't share much language. You run out of simple questions pretty quickly, and are left with long periods of smiling and looking around, but it's friendly, and I guess both sides of the conversation are in the same boat, so to speak...

It took all of the next three days to get to Kumai River. Getting used to short-handed overnight watches is hard. Lex and I share them, doing about three hours on and off, but Lex gets less sleep as he stays in the cockpit to be on hand if anything happens. I think it takes more than three nights for your body clock to reset itself so that you can sleep as soon as you fall into bed at the end of your watch, and then be alert three hours later. Right now the prospect of a three week passage across the Atlantic or the Pacific voyage from Panama to the Marquesas leaves me feeling a bit sick, but I guess after the first week you're okay.

BORNEO.... We had barely dropped anchor when a speedboat came alongside with Herry, of Herry's Yacht Services on board. Within a short time we'd arranged for some laundry, rubbish removal and solar (diesel), and booked a tour to Tanjung Puting National Park to see the orangutans the next morning. Right on 8 am we were collected from our boat by some cheerful blokes on a klotok, a wonderful looking craft about 12 metres by 2, with a covered top deck for the guests, and a waterline deck for the crew and the cook. Shades of African Queen. You half expect Humphrey Bogart to appear through the hatch from the engine room... There were two chairs with pillows, and mattresses on the floor for reclining on to watch the world slide by, which is just what we did for the next two days, in between watching orangutans. Our guide, Herman, was a serious looking young bloke, with reasonable English and the ability to anticipate your every whim. He is also a former park ranger and orangutan carer so we had a highly qualified advisor with us.

The route leaves Kumai River harbour, and heads up the Sukonyer River for a couple of hours, a narrow, winding, very deepest-darkest-Borneo experience! The saltwater extent is defined by the edging of Nipa palms, which changes to pandanus, smaller and less spiky than the type at home, when the river turns fresh. The park notes we were given described the rivers here as being blackwater rivers. A bit of poetic license, I thought, staring at the milky chocolate water sliding past. Then we turned into another river, and the colour change was staggering. There was a clearly defined line where the chocolate became black, swirling at the edges as the tide run played with it. It was like sump oil. This is a blackwater river, draining out of the peat swamps, very acidic and full of tannin. Tanjung Puting NP is some 3000 sq km of swampy terrain, tall dry tropical rainforest (again very similar to the NT) with a canopy about 40 to 50 metres tall, and seasonally inundated peat swampforest. The peat is 2 metres deep, so that explained the depth of colour in the water. It also has tropical heath forest on poor sandy soils, with medium sized trees. Again, not unlike the Top End. The blackwater river isn't as black as it appears - when we had a shower on the back of the boat the water was amazingly clear, and surprisingly frigid. Herman wanted us to shower in this river, because the chocolate river was contaminated with mercury from upriver gold mining. The attractive pictures of women and kids fishing from tiny skiffs all along it took on another hue altogether.

Crocodiles are here as well - Crocodylus porosus, in fact. Herman told us how a few years ago he had an English tourist on board who insisted on swimming. Against Herman's warnings he jumped into the river, saying even crocodiles were his friends. He lasted three minutes before one killed him. A ranger was taken by one a couple of years ago as well.

Orang utan - person of the forest. They are magnificent creatures. Not as tall as I'd thought (granted, I was a lot smaller when I saw my first one at the zoo...) but powerfully built, with long arms, big hands, and long red hair. The very first one we saw was dong her best to sneak quietly on board the klotoks tied up at the wharf we stopped at, and being rebuffed with gentle good humour by the guides, most of whom used to be rangers in the Park. We set out along the longest wooden boardwalk I've ever seen, through peat swamp forest. A mother and baby swung in trees next to us, and a little further on, thankfully at the opposite side of a t-section, was Tom, the king of the local orangutans. He looked pretty sleepy, sitting in the sun on one side of the wooden path, but we gave him plenty of room and went on to the visitor centre/staff quarters which was also a feeding station on the surrounding lawns. Here several mothers and babies were waiting for the rangers to unlock the banana supplies. These orangutans are all rescued from threatening situations, either from being cast out of homes where, while small and cuddly, they lived as pets until they turned into grumpy hairy adolescents (there's a thought), land clearing, fires, illegal animal trade or just orphans found by rangers. They are rehabilitated in this area, and several others in Borneo, and are given supplements of fruit and milk to help them get through the dry season. Eventually they all become self sufficient. Some do however enjoy the proximity to humans and their endless supplies of bananas.

Ali conned some bananas out of the rangers and was feeding a mother and baby, when the mother decided she wanted to adopt Ali. She put out a long arm and grabbed Ali's leg, and Ali, to her credit, just stood still, and smiled uncertainly at her. They were immediately surrounded by rangers and guides, all coaxing and cajoling her to let go, which took a bit of doing. Ali stayed perfectly calm, and just said afterwards, 'it didn't hurt, she was just holding onto me'. Our guide Herman later told us that he spent a month in hospital after having his wrist crushed by a male orangutan, who just wanted another banana.

As well as orangutans, gibbons are a feature here, and the forests are full of macaques and proboscis monkeys. Sleeping on the boat at night was like being on a Hollywood set, with all the theatrical screeching and growling from the monkey bands in the trees overhead. It was depressing to learn in the Visitor centre that about 20,000 orangutans were killed in the wildfires that raged through Borneo and Sumatra in 97/98. One third of the population. They're critically endangered now. A study has been conducted at Camp Leakey here since it was set up in 1971 by Prof Birute Mary Galdkass. You might remember the National Geographic features on her work and her family living in this jungle. She is still associated with Camp Leakey.

LEX: We did walk some distances getting to feeding platforms deep in the jungle where the orangutans came to and left via the treetops and down vines and tree trunks in spectacular displays of arboreal agility and grace. Timber benches about 30 feet from the platforms give the visitors great viewing and close-up photo-taking opportunities. There we could see more of orangutan behaviour within their own social groups - as they only occasionally look in we orangs' direction, usually with what can only be described as studied indifference. Some of them had the quaint habit of stuffing as many as 20 bananas in their huge mouths, and climbing back into the canopy to eat them, the looks on their faces like those of a shoplifter caught in a supermarket. One large dominant male hogged the feeding platform for an hour and all approaches by others somehow stopped at the platform edge. Eventually one of his wives came on to the platform, put her arms around him, blew in his ear, causing him to relent, thus were others allowed onto the platform. (Sound familiar?) One of our friends, a photographer, had a santa suit and so attired, managed after first frightening all the females and babies to run into the jungle shrieking, to sit next to a huge old male and exchange and eat bananas. Apparently it was quite companionable.

At night, we slept under nets on the upper deck of the klotok - the best sleep Jo and I had had for years.Two wonderful days for about US$85 each, fully found. We would thoroughly recommend this experience to every one we know and Herry as tour organiser. Many tourists we met did this as a side trip while on holiday in Bali. See http://www.kumaiyacht@planetsave.com/ or ring Herry on 628125086105 (08125086105 if in Indonesia).

We leave on Tuesday's (23 September 2008) tide to work our way slowly to Batam Island to clear out of Indonesia and then to Singapore and Malaysia.

8 September 2008, Monday

2008-09-08T14:09:00.007+09:30

8 September 2008
Monday. Makassar, Southern Sulawesi.

Sorry if I’m putting too much detail into this but there is so much to see and take in. You can skim the long bits! Tana Toraja was wonderful. It’s central southern Sulawesi, in the mountains. Very lush and tropical, and rainy – the wet season starts up there in September, so we woke to rain the morning after we arrived. Nice little hotel, but only nine guests including us.

The Torajan ancestors migrated here from Indo China, probably Cambodia, hundreds of years ago. Modern Torajans are mostly Christian these days but the animist/ancestor worship practices of their forebears are still very evident in the frequent funeral ceremonies. We visited two funeral sites. The first had graves chiseled into a high cliff face and bodies placed inside them behind wooden doors. Adjacent to the graves on the cliff face were galleries of effigies called Tau-tau, life size figures of the dead people within. The second site was a limestone cave, with a skull on a rock outside warning of what was inside. The caves were stunning limestone galleries with worn stalagmites and stalactites and smooth white walls and floor. The cool ambience of the cave was somewhat disturbed by the wooden coffins in various states of decay, and skulls and bones stashed in every crevice. A little confronting! Outside this cave were the Tau-tau galleries, amazingly detailed effigies of the people inside, right down to glasses on noses, and – one assumes – familiar expressions on faces! They were colourfully dressed, some seated, some standing, mostly quite elderly. One of them was the spitting image of Bob Hawke!

Buffalo – it felt like seeing old friends from home to see all the buffalo in Tana Toraja. They are a serious part of the funeral ceremonies, and are highly valued. They don’t work in the fields they graze, just laze around getting fat, fighting the odd bull fight (the males), and ending up as the main event at the funerals. They’re almost invariably huge and fat. Where were these guys when I was buffalo catching?

Funerals take up an inordinate (to me) part of Torajan life. According to our guide Rusli, when someone in the family dies, the body is injected with Formalin and wrapped in bandages, and placed in the south room of the house. Torajan houses conveniently align north-south, so it’s not hard to work out where south is. When all the family can get together, and they have gathered enough buffaloes as their status demands, the funeral is held. This can take more than 10 years, so Granny is hanging around in the back room for an awfully long time.

Buffaloes cost a lot of money here, and the black and white spotted ones are the highest priced. The ideal buff is black and white, with a tail that touches the ground. I’ve never seen a buffalo with such a long tail in the NT, so they must have selectively bred for long tails up here. The buffaloes are ritually slaughtered at the funeral with a panga, and the meat shared out amongst the family and the neighbours. It’s the only time buffalo are killed for meat. They figure heavily in the beautiful Torajan carvings, and a carved head with real horns hangs above the front door of every traditional Torajan house. In case you’re interested, the Indonesian word for buffalo is kerbau, and in Torajan, Makassan and Buginese it is Tedong, or Tedonga bonga in the case of the expensive spotted ones.( I warned you there was a lot of detail…)

Vanilla beans! They cost about $7 for one or two in Darwin, and I bought three bags of them for 60,000 rupiah, about $7. A lifetime supply! Also fresh nutmegs, mace, cloves, coriander seed and cinnamon bark. Vanilla was being harvested and dried up in the mountains, and every so often the aroma would fill the car as we passed by a tarpaulin on the side of the road, covered in black drying pods. Cocoa trees were everywhere too, with big fat red pods of beans ready for harvest. Watermelon stalls lined the road in one area, with large striped melons for sale. We stopped the car and bought some, eating one of them on the spot. And feeling very guilty about our driver and guide who were fasting for Ramadhan and not allowed to eat or drink between 6am and 6 pm. Every piece of land seems to be used most of the time. Corn was planted on the sides of hills so steep we wondered how on earth they could be harvested, even by hand. Rice paddies have carp ponds in the centre of them, ensuring that fish and rice will never be off the menu. It’s also rice harvest time here and there were blue plastic tarps on the sides of the road with rice spread out to dry.

It’s now Monday, and Patsy and Richard flew out to Denpasar this morning. We’ll miss them on board – it’s been so good having their company and their help sailing Malaika all this time. The boat already feels very empty without them. But Ali at least will vacate the saloon, and hopefully her mess will be confined to the forward cabin once more!

This morning Lex was picked up by Lothlorien and went with them to the careening poles about 8 km away. Lothlorien has a leaking stern gland which needs replacing, so they’re now tied up to the poles and waiting for the tide to go out properly before they can start work. Once the problem’s sorted we’ll all head for the Kumai River in Kalimantan to see orangutans.

Sulawesi is a fantastic place! I don’t understand why so few Australians come here. The only tourists we’ve come across, and there haven’t been many, are from France, Spain, Holland and Germany. Rusli told us that very few Australians or Americans come to Sulawesi, just European visitors. It’s beautiful, cheap, and has very friendly people, and language is not a barrier. There’s always someone who can speak a little English, and an Indonesian phrase book is useful if there’s not. We’ve learnt enough words to get by in a lot of situations by now. I would definitely come here for a holiday from Darwin, and the same goes for Ternate in north Maluku. Rubbish is a downer of course, but away from the bigger towns it’s not such a problem. In Ternate there was hardly any rubbish at all, apart from the ubiquitous plastic bags in the harbour, and we noticed there were rubbish bins and collection trucks working in the streets, and a recycling facility behind the town. Indonesia will eventually come to terms with rubbish and pollution, but I suspect it has few more pressing developmental problems to deal with first, like education and wages.

That's it for now.

In a sad parallel, while we were investigating funeral practices in Tana Toraja, a very dear friend of mine was being farewelled the same day back in the NT. Duane Fishlock was killed in a helicopter crash the previous week, at Mataranka. Some of the people reading this blog will know Duane, and that he has been a close friend of my family for about 26 years. He worked with us bullcatching in the early days at Bulman, and also up at Melaleuca later on. He and Jane started Sturt Creek Downs, a thousand square mile cattle station between Mataranka and Katherine, several years ago and built it up into a successful business and a great home for themselves and their children, Taylor, Ben and Troy. I feel very sad that I couldn't be at Sturt Creek last week, but Callum and Shaun went down for the memorial gathering so I felt that at least a part of me was there. Lex is also grieving for a good mate - he and Duane got along well and had become good friends. Seeing all those buffalo was quite poignant, and I know Duane would have enjoyed the place. I'll miss him a lot, and I'll miss seeing that huge truck pull up in front of our place and the black hat coming through the door.

3 September 2008

2008-09-08T14:02:00.000+09:30

3 September 2008

It took 8 hours to drive up to Tana Toraja, and several years off our lives. Driving in Sulawesi is something to be experienced. Or not, if your nerves are fragile. There seem to be no road rules in Indonesia, apart from ‘give way to anyone in front of you when a head on collision is all but inevitable’, and ‘anyone behind you looks out for themselves.’ It was an education! Our driver Herman, was terrific, and once we got used to the driving conditions, relaxed and had complete faith in his abilities. However it took a while before I relaxed completely about overtaking on blind corners and up the crests of hills. Or overtaking a truck, and having someone else overtake us at the same time, 3 abreast, while a poor motorbike rider managed to scrape by in the opposite direction on the remaining 3 inches of road. What was more amazing was the total lack of anger or road rage – under conditions that would have had the most laidback of Australian motorists out dueling with the tyre levers.

Our guide, Rusli Amin, was a goldmine of information. His English was excellent and he talked to us almost the entire way about what we were seeing and about Sulawesi ethnicities, politics, culture and religions. He took us inside a typical Buginese house, where a 25 yr old single woman lived. It felt a bit odd to be invading her house like that but she received some payment so I guess she didn’t mind too much. She went on folding clothes while Rusli explained the layout of the house, the rice storage, the kitchen (the cooking facilities were wonderful – an ancient clay stove for heating pots, and an old kerosene stove side by side) and the chickens below. It was basically a large single room, with areas partitioned off for bedroom, kitchen and sitting room. Very little furniture, but a large bed where her aunt and niece would sleep with her at night so she wasn’t alone. Her parents were both dead and she had no siblings, and at 25 was almost considered a spinster, although Rusli did say that a lot of Buginese were marrying later these days.

A little further on we stopped by a house to look at dried fish production, and ended up being invited inside to look at wedding photos. The daughter of the house, a vivacious young woman named Hasriah, stepped out of the front room while were being shown the bagged rice harvest on the verandah, saw Ali and said ‘Beautiful!’ One thing led to another as they do, and we were taken inside and the album brought out so we could see what a traditional Buginese wedding looked like. The bride dresses in several different traditional outfits for the photos, and has her face whitened with a kind of clay. It was all very colourful and elaborate, with a Chinese influence. We met her mother, and younger brother and sister, but her new husband, a primary school teacher, was at work.

It was interesting to see that Buginese Muslim women rarely wear the veil, except at mosque. They still tend to cover shoulders (with short sleeves) but otherwise are ‘not very fundamentalist’ as our guide put it. We haven’t seen much evidence of fundamentalism, if it’s judged by women wearing chador or burkhas, anywhere we’ve been so far. Plenty of veils and fashionable Muslim dress, but tight jeans and a head-and-shoulders veil seems the norm for young women. Ali and I are careful about our dress, in that we don’t wear tops that bare shoulders and chest area, or shorts above the knee, (and we try to remember not to eat with our left hand when we’re in a Halal restaurant!) but everyone seems pretty relaxed about rules generally. It’s also Ramadhan, so people are more observant of Islamic laws than usual and attend mosque and pray more regularly, our guide told us, but after that they’ll slip back into more casual observance. A lot like Christians at home I guess. Turn out for Christmas and Easter but tune out after that.

2 September 2008

2008-09-07T14:58:00.002+09:30

2 September 2008

What an interesting place this is! No trouble with Customs or Harbour Masters – first thing the morning of our arrival Lothlorien received a visit from an Australian friend, Graeme, off catamaran Lipa Lipa, who introduced Arif, who’s been looking after Australian boats coming to Makassar for 20 years. Arif has taken care of everyone’s Customs obligations, organized fuel, water and gas resupplies, and laundry services. He also introduced the water-taxi driver, Sempoh, who charges a flat 5000Rp per person for ferrying us ashore whenever we need it. That’s about 75 cents. We feel very well-looked after!

There was an official function to attend tonight on shore. We were ferried over to a large public plaza where hundreds of people had gathered to watch our official welcome to Makassar by the deputy Mayor and the minister for Tourism. TV cameras, newspaper reporters and photographers crowded in (Richard made the front page of the newspaper next morning) and we were led up a path by a troupe of Sepaktakraw players demonstrating some amazing skills. Once we reached the plaza, they put on a brilliant display and then were photographed with us. Everyone took photos - we are on about a million phones by now I think – and had their photos taken with us. Ali is always flavour of the month because of her youth, height and blonde hair! She’s had about 15 marriage proposals since we arrived in Indonesia. I have to keep telling Lex he can’t accept them.

After the Sepaktakraw we waited with everyone for the sun to set. At 5 past 6 the plaza virtually emptied as people rushed off to break the fast – it’s Ramadan at the moment – and to pray. An hour later we were collected by the officials in very nice cars and taken to an excellent seafood restaurant. An exception was made on our behalf and Bintangs were brought in specially for us. Sometimes it’s helpful having this Australian reputation for beer drinking! There were 15 of us from the four boats and we filled a private dining room to capacity along with the Deputy Mayor Mr Eddy and the Tourism Minister. No karaoke this time, thankfully. However we had already had a final, private Rally dinner the night before, and Lex, Richard, Jim and Brian stepped up to the plate once more with a final performance of The Wayward Wind for the restaurant.

The following day Cruise Missile and Serenity 2 both left port bound for Darwin, and the rest of us made plans to do some sightseeing in Sulawesi. For Malaika this meant we hired a car, guide and driver and headed into central Southern Sulawesi to Tana Toraja.

29 August 2008

2008-09-07T14:53:00.002+09:30

29 August 2008

The second crossing of the Equator! We sailed into a quiet little bay on the Sulawesi mainland early this morning, cooked breakfast, caught up on a little sleep and then girded our loins and went ashore to do the honours for the newly arrived wetbacks. Alison and Sam Grierson, and Elaine Huxley hadn’t crossed the Equator by sea before, so they were to be duly inducted as Shellbacks by both Richard, and Wayne Huxley. Wayne had a red cape and a plastic CROWN, outshining Richard who had to make do with a new trident and his budgie smugglers. A fire was lit, a barbecue cooked, and lethal amounts of Bintang and red wine consumed. An unsuspecting group of men from the nearby village wandered past and sat down by their outrigger canoe. After a lot of hand signals and poor attempts at Indonesian on our part, a tug of war was in progress between the two groups. (Check out the photos!) It took a few minutes and a lot of effort but the Rally gang managed to drag the Sulawesians across the line to much laughter and cheering. Handshakes and big grins all round, and then the next challenge was issued – the classic Australian contest at which we have never been beaten, that Olympic event of the future, the Thong Throw. This required even more elaborate hand signals and poor Indonesian, and I don’t think the Sulawesians understood what we were getting at, but they were pretty good thong tossers just the same. A draw was declared, and the Sulawesians grinned hugely, shook hands again and decamped before any more strange activities were introduced. Actually, it was after they watched a coconut carrying contest between two sides of contestants, men and women, using knees, that they hastily stood up and remembered they had a prior engagement.
Cultural embarrassments aside, they’ll have something to shake their heads over for a few weeks.

After a few pots of strong coffee and some headache tablets next morning, we set off for an overnight sail which turned into three nights. We’d hoped to be able to stop the second morning just before a cape at the top of a big gulf, and were entranced by crowds of lipa-lipas flitting about the waters ahead of us as we drew in near the coast. They’re an impossibly light-looking sailing boat with a white triangular sail and light outriggers. They skim over the waves more like a windsurfer than a boat. There must have been a hundred and fifty of these elegant craft out on the water. Then we noticed several long, low, fast boats spearing out towards us, with the crew standing up and waving their arms at us and pointing out to sea. They hunted us out of the way in no uncertain terms and didn’t veer off until we were well clear of what turned out to be nets everywhere. We would have been clear of them if we’d been allowed in to shore, but I guess the fishermen didn’t want to take any chances of having their nets damaged. With so many nets and so many boats out, it must have been a seasonal fish run or something, and this was their big opportunity to pull in some serious fish.

We headed out across the gulf and into some heavy seas, with winds coming at us from the south east and throwing up big waves. Malaika handles heavy seas beautifully. She just rides the waves comfortably, and you feel quite safe, even if you can’t do much downstairs. These were 3 to 4 metre waves, but wide apart so there was plenty of time for the boat to get across them. Winds up to almost 30 knots at times meant we did some fast and furious sailing. Made a welcome change from motoring all the time.

That night we investigated a possible anchorage at a pair of islands at the start of the shipping channel into Makassar, but the coral reef surrounding them was impossible to manage. We gave a collective groan and headed out for our third night’s sail, reaching Makassar at about 1am, after more than 60 hours straight. (Six days non-stop sailing from Darwin to Ambon was fine because we were expecting it, but we’d planned to overnight at least once at anchor on this voyage and we just weren’t prepared mentally I think, so we were all pretty tired.)

‘A glass of red would be nice...’ sighed Richard and Lex. They’d finished the last of the wine a few days before, but unbeknownst to them I’d hidden one bottle. It was opened with much satisfaction and drunk by the four of us in the middle of the night, anchored in the middle of Makassar Harbour. A good way to finish a long sail.

27 August 2008

2008-09-01T16:05:00.002+09:30

27 August 2008

Leaving Toli Toli

We chugged across the harbour to a jetty and found the pasar yesterday, where we bought a pile of vegetables, some familiar, others totally foreign and unknown which we’ll try soon. It began to rain, and we were on a schedule so didn’t find the internet café after all. Left Toli Toli in the early afternoon in rain, and headed out to sea looking for a spot for the night. Cruise Missile had gone on ahead, and found a perfect spot, a sheltered bay on Palau Karetan. Another idyllic, picture-postcard kind of beach, no village on this bay, but a couple of outriggers tied up at one end of the beach. Ali caught the first fish of the entire trip just before we arrived there, a 5 or 6 kilo Spanish mackerel. Huge excitement – she has been very disgusted at the lack of interest shown in her two trolling lures by Indonesian fish so far. A big Spaniard went a long way towards soothing her feelings. Cruise Missile had already started cooking their dinner, but Lothlorien was able to be talked into coming across to Malaika for a huge mackerel curry, one of Lex’s specialties. This in spite of the fact that her skipper is ‘totally sick of fish and rice’ and is hanging out for a meat pie!

Up early this morning for a walk on the beach, which proved to be even more beautiful than it had looked the night before. Several men were readying their boats for a day’s fishing, while some others were harvesting coconuts from the line of palms leaning out over the beach. We watched, entranced, while a very cheerful young bloke shimmied at least 60 or 70 feet up the trunks with only bare feet, and a rubber thong strapped to his chest, presumably to protect his chest from the trunk, and to provide some traction. He also had string tied around the ankles of his trousers to keep them from sliding up I guess. Bowyangs! He swung a machete to drop some of the coconuts, but in other trees he only chopped a few dead fronds away and came back down. A bit of pruning. The coconuts look like they’re wild, but are obviously tended and cared for – we could see new plantings in behind the beachfront trees as well. The men were happy to see us and talk to us – they’d come from a village around the other side of the island. The older man, who had a white beard and a great grin, asked if we were from Russia!

Now heading out for an overnight run which will put all of us in place for an Equator crossing tomorrow. Serenity 2 left earlier that the rest of us from Toli Toli yesterday and we hope to catch them up so that the four yachts can do the crossing together, this time going south.

19 August 2008 Tuesday

2008-09-01T15:27:00.003+09:30

19 August 2008 Tuesday

We had the opportunity to get some washing done, so we loaded up three large bags with most of our mouldy clothes, towels and sheets and headed inshore to meet our 9am pickup. The bus stopped off at a laundry and the minders took our bags in leaving us on the bus, and then took us off on another tour – leaving Lex, Jim on Lothlorien, Steve on Serenity 2 and the two Waynes on Cruise Missile to carry out maintenance. Lex has been sick for two days now with high temperatures, racking cough, and heavy sweating. He’s picked up some kind of cold or flu I think, as he has a bad cough as well. Administering paracetamol and fluids, and trying to get him to take it easy. [Yeah right, but the last of the major maintenance issues are now sorted, antibiotics are underway and he may be able to resume a more normal state of being.- Lex].

We were given a fantastic tour of the outer parts of Manado – Minihasa area, Gunung Lokon, an active volcano (which last erupted ONLY two years ago…), a huge freshwater lake, and some wonderful villages full of typical Minihasa design houses. Lunch was excellent (fish again, but in a few different ways) at a private art gallery set in amongst rice paddies and market gardens. I was really quite relieved to see fish on the table, as the guide sitting near me had been explaining the finer points of Minihasan traditional food, and seemed to take exceptional delight in assuring me that the cooking and eating of dog and rat were an essential part of any Minihasan celebration. I’m sure he said that the restaurant we were headed for specialized in these meats, so I was a bit distracted for the rest of the trip before lunch, trying to choose between offending our hosts by refusing the specials, or offending my stomach by complying. Thankfully the lunch was all very kosher for an Aussie. The guide said that the rats are about 18 inches to 2 foot long, with white tails, and live underground in the forest. (rabbits, I told myself, maybe they’re just large underground rabbits) They use dogs to dig them out of their burrows. Hah – main course digs up the entrée.

In Ternate, our guide Kris told us with a shrug that there was a mosque every 25 metres. In Manado, it’s a church. Seriously, sometimes they were only 50 metres apart, and certainly at least every 200 metres in some places. Catholic and various Protestant churches make up over 80 percent of the religious beliefs, with the remaining 20 percent Muslim, Buddhist and Hindu, according to our guide. Statues feature strongly, on rooftops, in streets, and alarmingly a giant Jesus flying out from the crest of a high hill overlooking Manado. It must have been 60 feet high, painted white. We passed through lots of fascinating villages but sadly didn’t get a chance to walk through any of these, instead stopping at a couple of tourist spots to sight-see. Once we left the outskirts of Manado city, the road climbed up through lush forests to 800 metres where we stopped at the gallery for lunch. Lush is the only word that adequately describes the growth here. The soil looks incredibly rich – and deep, judging by excavations we passed. The trees keep it on the hillsides. In Tomohon village a flower festival was underway. Every house had a maze of pot plants and nurseries were cheek by jowl down the main street. Every second vehicle sported a floral wreath on its grille.

It might have been better to stop in the villages and get out for a closer look, but one of the advantages of bus touring, I discovered, was the glimpses into local life that it offered. Tantalising vignettes that flash past but leave a lasting impression: a shabby little house with a garden of huge rampant orchids; a woman peering into a hand mirror in a window of a tiny roadside shop, touching her hair; a toddler throwing a tantrum on the footpath, its grim-faced grandfather looking the other way; a well-dressed young woman perched on a stone wall beside the road, waiting for a bus, and being passed by a man driving a pair of yoked oxen pulling a cart with wooden wheels; an open window at which a child peered out and a woman vigorously brushed her teeth, a man cross-legged on a stone wall right on the road verge, pulling a tiny fish out of the water with a bamboo pole and line and a satisfied smile on his face; women inside the kitchen of a tiny house on a corner where the bus was negotiating a three point turn, who stared for a moment, then burst into delighted laughter and waved madly. Every time we made eye contact with anyone outside the bus, which was often, they smiled and waved. One memorable occasion in Ternate, we were coming back from dinner and the bus was doing its breathtaking Harry Potteresque squeeze through the narrow streets. The houses open straight onto the streets – no front garden to separate the two. We pulled up for a few moments outside a house, and could see straight into the front room where a man and woman were sitting. They could see us inside the bus, and instead of hurrying to close the curtains, waved cheerfully and laughed, as we all waved and laughed back.

18 August 2008 Wednesday

2008-08-22T15:22:00.001+09:30

18 August 2008 Monday

Latitude 01 37.600 N; Longitude 124 48 .329E

Siladen Island in North Sulawesi is a tiny jewel in the Marine National Park of Bunaken. Clearest water I’ve seen anywhere, with wonderful coral and fish. The reef suddenly drops off into infinity about 30 to 50 metres off the beach but allows more than enough room for wonderful snorkeling. Where we anchored was away from the coral beds, in sand with patches of dead coral. Not a fantastic bottom, and we dragged once, but otherwise were fine. We were underwater within a short time of anchoring - thankfully I wore a T-shirt in the water, as I ended up with sunburnt legs after being so mesmerized by the underwater scenery … Masses of electric purple fish and shimmers of every other colour imaginable. And of course Nemo was there too, hiding in the anemones. Vivid blue starfish, bright yellow Painted Flutemouths, spectacular Moorish idols, parrotfish, all kinds of Wrasses… and that just about uses up all the fish I can identify. I see them and think, I’ll look that one up in the book, but when I get to it, there are pages of possible contenders. Fish are too hard. I’ll just enjoy the spectacle instead.

The crews of Malaika, Lothlorien and Serenity 2 had dinner at a little café right on the beach. It is so ‘on the beach’ that high tide lapped at its walls. We booked early so they would know how many to cook for, and then waited expectantly for the food. At least the Bintangs were cold. The fish, when it arrived, was excellent. Slimy mackerel smoked over a barbecue, (sounds terrible but it’s terrific eating), plenty of rice, and then a ‘chicken’ dish. I think the unlucky chook was the one we’d heard crowing an hour before dinner, and that was probably because it was hungry. Not sure if anyone managed to find any meat on the bones at all. But, it was still a great night. Patsy and Richard’s mate Bob Hobman met us there, having taken the weekend off from his boat building job over at nearby Waru Bay, about a half hour speedboat ride away.

We arrived in Manado today after a pleasant sail in the early afternoon, and anchored off a stone wall in the industrial part of town. The site chosen by the welcome committee was simply too deep at 60 metres. After setting our anchors we headed into the little stone harbour for a bus ride and a late lunch, which meant a tour of the town and a very long drive out to a restaurant where we were served fish and rice and not much else! Although they did have cold Bintangs which mollified most of the crews. Arrived back at the harbour to find only three yachts at their moorings, and not four: Cruise Missile had dragged her anchors and was nowhere in sight, so a fast boat was commandeered to go in search of her. They found her floating off an island nearly 5 miles out of the harbour, and brought her back in, quite safe, no damage.

21 August 2008

2008-08-21T11:23:00.002+09:30

18 August 2008

Sorry about the long silence from the Blogger! We’ve had numerous difficulties with connecting to the internet, and the blog got put at the bottom of the queue. But here in the most unexpected place, on a tiny tiny atoll in northern Sulawesi, we have found Nirvana. Golden beaches, waving palm trees, little thatched roof cottages, gin-clear azure waters – all the clichés imaginable. All this, and internet connection too, thanks to Patsy and Richard’s mate Bob Hobman. This is Siladen, which means a good place to rest. Ali was in the water with a mask and snorkel on within two and a half minutes of anchoring. We’re about to follow her. Enjoy the blog!
Jo x

20 August : Well that was a little hasty, because we didn't manage to get on line at Siladen. We're now a little further away at Manado and this morning found an Internet cafe right beside the boat ramp!!! So, here goes, hope it all works...

You will have to scroll down to the beginning, earliest date, to follow the posts chronologically. PS The diving at Siladen was out of this world - clear water, wonderful coral and incredible fish. More later...

17 August 2008 Sunday

2008-08-20T12:16:00.002+09:30

17 August 2008 Sunday

Today is Indonesian Independence Day. We saw great preparations for it the whole time we were in Ternate. Every street and every little village had masses of bunting and flags raised, and lots of people out painting their fences or the street kerbs. Slightly more patriotic than the thong throwing competition and barbecues we rise to!

Spent last night in a bay off Likupang village, on Sulawesi, arriving here at 2pm after an overnight sail. The coastguard came out in a little wooden double outrigger to inspect our papers, and caused us much confusion by referring repeatedly to Kupang. We have to send paperwork to Kupang? That’s ridiculous! Then we realised the little village we could see across the water was Likupang, so we explained our confusion to them, and they laughed their heads off. Having a little Indonesian is certainly worthwhile. And it’s improving all the time.

Now we’re heading for the tiny island of Siladen, where Patsy and Richard’s mate Bob Hobman is staying. Lothlorien and Serenity 2 have come with us, looking forward to a day of snorkeling and sightseeing.
[but it wasn’t all good – Lothlorien had 2 jerrycans of fuel stolen, and Malaika our big fender while we slept… even though we were anchored a long way offshore! Oh well, swings and roundabouts]

14 August 2008 Thursday

2008-08-20T12:13:00.001+09:30

14 August 2008 Thursday

First thing this morning the bus took us to the Pasar (Market) at Ternate, where we bought heaps of fresh vegetables and eggs. What a fantastic market! It is huge, with stalls and little shops lining several blocks. We had no trouble finding plenty of good fresh produce, buying small potatoes, tiny onions, garlic, egg plant, cucumber, small tomatoes, green beans, a cabbage, kaffir lime leaf, lemon grass, and two dozen eggs, which were examined against a light before being accepted for purchase. So good to have fresh veg again – we were down to the last garlic clove…

With the veggies deposited back at the boat, those of us not staying behind to do boat maintenance headed off in the bus again, just six of us, from Malaika and Serenity 2. We were taken on a tour of the whole island, 52 miles in circumference, and visited the crater lake high up on the mountain, a lava spot which was also a Japanese war memorial, nutmeg trees, and several beaches. At one of them, our guide Kris explained that on the Sunday before we arrived in Ternate, thousands of people had gathered at this beach to welcome the Rally boats. They had erected a stage, had traditional dancers organized, all in all a major welcoming ceremony. We felt very embarrassed, because we didn’t know anything about it – boats are not vehicles of exact timing, but we didn’t even know this was on so that we might have made an effort to get there in time. Such a pity.

No rain today – every day since we arrived in Ambon it has poured, and in between been cool and muggy, so we’re all slowly going mouldy, to say nothing of our clothes.

Tonight we attended a farewell dinner in our honour, as guests of the Governor of Ternate. The Governor himself was away, so his representative hosted. The Gehoda restaurant was very interesting, with our tables on floors built over the water and linked to each other by little walkways. The food just kept coming, but this time everyone waited until the speeches were over before eating. The main attraction for the night was the Karaoke. Karaoke is a strange phenomenon. It had a brief flaring of popularity in Australia, but it never really took off. Indonesia is quite another story. In Ambon we were assailed by karaoke for hours every night from a little place on shore. In Ternate it seemed that any restaurant of any size boasted karaoke. It is also the custom for someone from each group at a dinner to get up and perform. The local people must practice from birth, because they are mostly very good at it. The MC (our guide Kris) was calling on various departmental Ministers to get up and sing, and generally they did. Hard to imagine the same thing happening in Darwin! Naturally the same request was made of the Rally members. We realised that it would be a bit insulting if we all abstained, so the men of Malaika and Lothlorien - Lex, Richard, Jim and Brian - stood up, manfully, and did what they do best - a rendition of the “Wayward Wind”, minus the dinghy. Minus any alcohol too, I should add - they were better the night they wobbled away from Malaika!! But it was very warmly appreciated, and they were excellent ambassadors for the NT. And Australia for that matter. Once again we were given gifts. A presentation was made to Dinah Beach CYC, and then a plaque to each skipper, and finally a bag to each of us containing a book about Ternate, and some local artifacts. We have been quite overwhelmed by the friendliness of the people here. There were signs all over Ambon welcoming participants in the Darwin to Ambon Rally, but we didn’t expect to see the same here, nor be welcomed so thoroughly. We’ve been treated like visiting royalty wherever we’ve gone, shaking hands and waving out of the bus windows. People seem so delighted to see us! I don’t think many tourists come here so we’re a bit of a novelty. Kris told us that we had been in the media every day since we arrived, both print and tv. We were in the papers in Ambon too, and the owner of one restaurant we frequented there gave us a clipping with a photo of us signing autographs for kids outside the rally office.

Jo was interviewed at the gehoda for Jakarta TV. Of course she was profuse and diplomatic.
Thank you Lex. It was all true!

But truly, everyone we’ve met has been so welcoming, warm and friendly. They seem to be so pleased that we have come to their country, to their city, and are keen to show us everything. People on the streets, in shops, at restaurants or at the markets, all want to talk to us, and are delighted when we try to speak Indonesian too. It was the same in the little villages we visited as well.

Next morning (Friday 15th) we up anchored by 730 am and at 8 am, did a formal sail past with our mainsail and genoas up. The Sultan’s jetty was crowded with people, and we felt like we were leaving some good friends behind. In particular Kris, Nurmina, Nofi (Miss Ternate 2008), and Aseez. My spelling is probably miles out. Nurmina was a lovely young Muslim woman who accompanied us for several days. Nofi was a gorgeous 16 year old we met at the Palace, who was indeed Miss Ternate 2008 and wore the sash to prove it. She took Ali on as her special charge, it seemed, and stuck with her the whole time. Wonderful for us!! Aseez was a police officer assigned to us, in plain clothes, as security. He spoke good English as well, and was extremely helpful. He organised security for our boats at night and while we were away from them during the day. There were others as well who turned up at various spots and accompanied us for a while, mainly from various govt departments.
We’d really like to come back to Ternate and spend a few weeks, just as tourists, not part of a rally, and just enjoy the island at our own pace. Maybe next April, with Princess Ali.

13 August 2008 Wednesday

2008-08-20T12:12:00.002+09:30

13 August 17, 2008 Wednesday

Second day in Ternate. This morning we were taken to the Town Hall to meet the Mayor of Ternate at a special reception. Speeches, hot sweet tea and plates of cakes. An interesting cultural difference we first noticed in Ambon, is how Indonesians serve and eat cakes during a speech, while we wouldn’t eat in the same situation, except at a dinner, and then most people stop eating anyway. The Australians all looked at the cakes, wondering when they could get at them, until they realised the Indonesians were all happily tucking in, and followed suit. A plaque and a book were presented to Dinah Beach CYC, and then we were taken to the Sultan’s Palace.

This was the very large house we had seen on our way in yesterday. It’s an older style building, not out of place anywhere in Australia, with gabled roofs and a large verandah at the front, built in the 1800s and lived in by the Sultan when he is in Ternate. He is a serving member of Parliament so spends a lot of time in Jakarta as well. He came out to meet us, and sat and spoke with us about our travels, and about Ternate. He is the 48th Sultan, and his family line extends back to the 13th century. At age 11 he spent 18 months in Australia when the royal family was evacuated to Brisbane during the war, so his English was very good. His sense of humour was also very good, which was just as well, as Ali’s ears pricked up when he said something about having 13 sons, and the Queen being his fifth wife. I was too far away from Ali to intervene, so had to sit helplessly while she had an animated discussion with him about being married to multiple wives. Choosing a queen from all of them must be difficult, she said, and he laughed and said he just chose the most beautiful one. I was waiting for her to create an international diplomatic incident, but it was fine… So much so that when we were leaving, and Ali was hugging the Sultan and the Queen goodbye, as only Ali could do, he announced that we must return next April, for his birthday, and he would have a special ceremony to inaugurate Ali as a princess, and have a dress made for her. “Make sure you are here two days before,’ he told us.
‘Are you serious?’ said Ali in disbelief.
‘A Sultan is never not serious,’ replied the Sultan. ‘His word is law.’

So there we are. Guess we’ll be back in Ternate next April! Our Indonesian rally organiser, Hellen Delima, said to me it was a very great honour, and that it was a serious offer. Hopefully it means she’ll be an honorary daughter and not a potential wife! Then again…….. The palace also houses a museum about the royal family which the Sultan and the Queen showed us around. Most of us wanted to take a photo of the royal couple but weren’t sure about the protocol, but Ali just rushed in and organized them into it, so we all ended up with great photos of them, and with all of us as well.

After that we were taken to lunch at a lovely restaurant, Balicepo, on the water, as guests of the Mayor this time, and treated to some really wonderful food, all local dishes. We were then presented with T-shirts by the Mayor’s representative, each with a photo of a different yacht on the front, and the words “Darwin Ternate International Yacht Rally 2008”. A tour of several old Portuguese and Dutch forts followed, and we arrived back at our boats late in the afternoon.
Jim and Brian from Lothlorien came for dinner on our boat, bringing the steaks with them as our supplies were getting a bit low, so we had another good night, with lots of singing. Who said anything about drinking? Lex and Richard took the Sloths from the Loth back to their boat at the end of the night, and Patsy and I watched, laughing, as they weaved their way across the water, four blokes in the dinghy singing “The Wayward Wind” in perfect unison. It’s become a signature song.

12 August 2008 Tuesday

2008-08-20T12:05:00.002+09:30

12 August 2008, Tuesday

Latitude 00 45 628S Longtitude 127 22 106E

Ternate, North Maluku, or North Molluccas. As close to the Philippines as we get on this voyage. We arrived at 2.30pm, after an overnight anchorage on the way from our Equator party. The first thing we noticed were the number of mosques. From the boat on the way in we counted almost ten, including a massive one under construction, close to the water’s edge, with four small onion tops surrounding the main central dome, all tiled in gold and green. But the first sounds we heard were not wailing muezzins calling the faithful to prayer, but loud raucous western music blasting out of the construction site.

Police boats escorted us into our anchorage, sirens wailing, and we could see a large crowd gathered on the jetty where Cruise Missile was already tied up. Lothlorien and Malaika had waited for Serenity 2 to catch up as she had lost all her navigation instruments, and were guiding her in, so the three of us sailed serenely into port and all turned in to the wind and dropped our sails at the same time. We went ashore a little while later to be welcomed by a crowd of people all shaking hands and smiling. Lex went off do the paperwork on board Cruise, while we chatted with the locals in broken Indonesian. It was then announced that we were to be taken to lunch, so we hopped on board a bus, just the 12 of us with a retinue of Ternatans, and drove through very narrow streets to the restaurant. Bus drivers in Ternate must take special lessons. They can fit large buses into incredibly small awkward spaces. Doing three or more point turns in the middle of a divided road is no trouble either. The traffic just flows around like water past a rock, wherever there is sufficient room. We pulled up in front of a restaurant, and all looked at each other. None of us had brought any money with us, assuming we were just going ashore to report to Customs. After several phone calls and discussion amongst the retinue, we were happily informed that the Governor of Ternate was footing the bill, and we could order whatever we liked.

I asked our guide, who spoke good English, what he would recommend as a local Ternate dish, and his face lit up. The coconut crab, with vegetables and a special padang sauce. It was the best crab I’ve ever eaten, outside of fresh muddies on the coals in the NT. The padang sauce was a mystery, but absolutely delicious.

11 August 2008 Monday

2008-08-20T12:01:00.002+09:30

11 August 2008

Happy birthday Dad! Unfortunately we’re out of mobile range so I can’t make any phone calls. A sailmail later when we don’t need the navigation tools might be my only option. Whenever we transmit on HF, we lose all steering and the boat does a sudden 360 to the left. It was very unsettling the first few times it happened! If we have to use the HF radio we turn off nav instruments and hand steer. So we try to send sail mails, which are transmitted through HF radio, when we’re at anchor.

Last night we rafted up with Lothlorien at the village of Sengga, and were immediately swarmed by dugout canoes full of little boys. The youngest must have been about four years old, but he handled his canoe like he’d been born with a paddle in his hand. They sat on Lothlorien for ages, as clearly the presence of Patsy and I in Malaika’s cockpit meant ours was the women’s boat. The girls of the village stood in a little group on the shore watching their brothers having all the fun, until Ali rowed over in the dinghy and brought some of them back. They were very tentative at first, slipping quietly into the cockpit and accepting a biscuit, and answering our halting questions with giggles and hands over their mouths. Meanwhile Ali was still in the dinghy, rowing the boys around and having a great time. The girls decided this was too much fun, and joined in. There were laughing screaming kids falling and pushing each other in and out of the dinghy – at one point Lex counted 18 in the dinghy at one time. Lucky they float well! It was a wonderful picture - the dinghy full of a swarming pile of kids, and surrounded by more little boys (and some girls) in dugout canoes, also jumping in and out of the water. At one point one boat capsized and looked like it was sinking but it just floated half underwater, with its unconcerned crew floating with it. Because this is a Muslim village, we’d assumed that the girls wouldn’t join in the fun, especially when they were all left ashore at first. But it was clear that they could use the canoes – and handle them well – and were allowed to play amongst the boys in the water.

Richard caused great excitement when he asked to have a ride in one of the canoes, and then enormous hilarity when in the process of stepping aboard, overbalanced and tipped into the water. A larger dugout was brought round to the back of the boat and he climbed into that, dignity intact but soggy, and was taken ashore, where he disappeared out of sight for the next hour or so. He was shown all around, and had coffee with some senior men of the village before bringing them back to the yachts for a visit. We were told there were 60 people in the village, 40 of them children. There is a mosque right on the waterfront, and a large school at the back of the village. We could hear the calls to prayer played over a loudspeaker, probably a recording, as it’s such a small village and probably wouldn’t have its own muezzin.

Rafting up of course meant an opportunity to get together. Jim cooked dinner on Lothlorien and brought it over to our cockpit, as we have a larger and more protected sitting space. Some serious damage was done to a couple of bottles of scotch, not to mention the red wine with dinner.

So this morning we are underway again. A local ferry playing loud strange music – sounds like a combination of Chinese and Greek! - steamed in around the corner just as we pulled out of our anchorage, and did a bit of a loop of the harbour and followed us back out. It’s overtaken us, waving and smiling, and headed for another, larger village on the opposite side of the inlet. Not sure what to call this body of water between all these islands. The water is flat calm, (which is how I’m able to sit with the laptop on my knee in the cockpit and write this) and we’re surrounded by lots of small islands, many with a little village visible on the waterfront. It’s so intensely green, and the hills are thickly forested, with an occasional red scar of landslip. There must be a forestry industry here because many of the hills have been planted in rows with large trees, and across the water we can make out piles of logs beside one village, and the first road and trucks we’ve seen since we left Ambon.

Latitude is 0 degrees, 14 minutes, so not far to the Equator now! We’ve got a ceremony planned, which Richard is organizing in secret. There’s even a cold bottle of champagne in the fridge to mark the occasion. None of us have ever sailed over the Equator before, apart from Brian who recently delivered a yacht to Darwin from the UK.

What’s the collective noun for hermits? Jim just described the huts we can see in the hills as probably belonging to a mob of hermits. Two hermits would make a mob, I reckon. We’re in constant radio contact with Lothlorien, who are coming along just astern of us, and there’s a relaxed friendly chatter about what we’re seeing. It’s very pleasant! This is more like what I expected sailing to be like, rather than the more tense and fraught stuff we’ve experienced so far! But you have to take the calm with the crazy I guess. The plan now is to continue to Ternate, which means an overnight sail and no more stops along the way. Cruise Missile just informed us that there is a dinner planned for us tomorrow night in Ternate, to do with the Ambon rally, so we’d better get along to it. From Ternate we head for Manado, where Richard and Patsy’s mate Bob Hobman is staying, and also where Jim’s wife and son are meeting him.

Latitude 00 degrees, 00 minutes

This is the Equator! We crossed it at exactly 2.30 pm, Monday 11 August. About a mile before the line we rafted up with Lothlorien, and prepared for the crossing, which was duly celebrated with champagne and silliness. Jim dressed up in a crown made from a Chux, a Bintang can and a dust mask, shaving foam beard and a trident made from a fish net, while Richard played King Neptune, with a wig made from teased out old rope, and a trident created from a Bintang can and the paddle he bought at Manatahan. He read out his Neptune speech, and handed us all certificates proclaiming us to have graduated from wetbacks to Shellbacks. Then we drank the rest of the champagne, and jumped off the boat to float around and swim around it for the next couple of hours. (I think I’m sunburnt for the first time in years…) The water was completely flat and calm, with the barest of current running. (and YES someone did stay on board while the rest were in the water…)

I don’t think I’ve felt so relaxed and untied in years. We just floated around in 440 metres of the clearest water, perfect temperature, totally calm water, totally calm people. THIS must be why people go sailing! We wrote a song about Lothlorien and her crew and sang it to them over the radio before we rafted up. This is FUN!

Incredibly there was reception from a mobile phone tower on a nearby island, and I was able to phone Dad from right on the Equator for his birthday. Also managed to reach Shaun, but not Callum. It’s quite incredible to think that you can be on the Equator, on a yacht miles from anywhere, and be able to tell someone in Melbourne about it on a mobile phone!

We’re now sailing very slowly, no wind, towards the spot where we’ll anchor tonight, anticipating a very early start tomorrow and a run to Ternate. Half our crew has jumped ship and gone across to Lothlorien, while her first mate has come over to us for a change. Good news for us, because as soon as we started our engine to get the mainsail up, smoke billowed up the companionway and the alternator light came on. More of the same problems – another shredded alternator belt. BUT the first mate off Lothlorien is an engineer, so he’s helping Lex repair it, as we move forward at about half a knot under all our sails. Inspite of these problems I’m feeling pleased because the watermaker has finally filled our tanks, right at the Equator (we have Equator water in our tanks now) which means I did get the de-pickling and everything else right after all. The watermaker is my particular job on board, but I had doubts about my prowess in that department. Thank you Callum for your tuition. I must have paid more attention than I thought.

10 August 2008 Sunday

2008-08-20T12:00:00.001+09:30

10 August 2008 Sunday

We left Obilatu late yesterday morning after the village visit, and headed for the next anchorage, which we reached after a very pleasant – calm – sail late in the evening. So calm that Lothlorien sailed very close in the calm waters and tossed us a bag of dim sims to cook for dinner. Another good anchorage, good holding mud bottom, and a quiet night’s sleep. We left straight after breakfast, and have had to motor all day, with the main and genoa up, but very little wind. A rain storm allowed us to gather some rain water, and also to have a shower on deck. We’ve been very cautious with water usage on board as we’re not sure how well the watermaker is working. If none of you washes, you can’t smell each other… Luxury is clean hair!

Right now we are passing through a fascinating group of islands. Ali keeps rushing downstairs to tell me to come up on deck and look but I’ve been determined to make good use of the engine charging the computer battery and get this blog up to date. WHEN it actually goes on line is another matter - still having internet conenction problems, even though we can get mobile coverage in some areas.

9 August 2008 Saturday

2008-08-20T11:58:00.001+09:30

9 August 2008 Saturday

This morning we up-anchored and motored closer to the village. Lex and Jim stayed on board the two yachts while the rest of us ventured ashore in the dinghy. We found a great little village with very friendly, bemused villagers happy to show us around and help us buy some provisions. It was worlds away from Ambon. Quiet, no cars, no roads, and best of all no rubbish to be seen anywhere. The tiny little ‘shop’ sold plenty of plastic wrapped goods, but none of these were to be seen on the ground or in the water. Okay, there was a little bit in the water but not very much at all. The streets were lined with crushed coral, and wherever water drained across, channels were dug and planks laid across. Houses were various traditional design, gables and peaks but fairly small, built of either concrete, or solid planking, many with thatched roofs. We guessed there was only abour 150-200 people here.

No one spoke English except for one bright young man who had a smattering of words, about as much as my Indonesian, but he worked out what we were trying to say very quickly. As soon as we arrived we were taken under the wing of a lovely old lady who walked beside Patsy and chatted away to her completely dismissive of any language barriers. Smiles do wonders! We were shown around the village by a large group of people, mostly children and young men, with a handful of older people. The women mostly stayed indoors and waved from the doorways, or over their garden fences.

Managed to buy eggs, which was what we wanted most, but no fresh vegetables available. Brian was looking for Marlborough cigarettes, which we were certain he’d never find here, but he came out with three cartons and a happy smile on his face.

We were keen to inspect a 60 foot prahu under construction on the beach, which we’d seen from the boat through the binoculars. It was a pretty amazing piece of work – the bottom of the hull is constructed from one single trunk, and the rest of the planking hand sawn and mortised. Richard took a zillion photos, some of which we’ll get up on the blog first opportunity, and was a big hit with the kids, especially when he sat down and showed them all the photos he’d taken with his digital camera.

8 August 2008 Friday

2008-08-20T11:56:00.000+09:30

8 August 2008 Friday

We arrived after a long overnight sail – especially long for Jim and Brian on Lothlorien who had lost their autopilot and had to hand steer the whole way through heavy seas – at a lovely little bay on Obilatu Island. It took a few hours of attempting to get into another anchorage before we gave up and turned back around the island and found the bay on its more protected shore. Woke to placid calm waters and sunshine! First good sunshine in over a week.

Early on we were passed by long narrow wooden boats, some with only one or two fishermen in them, and one full of kids in single file, piloted by an adult, probably on their way to school? There was a little village on the shore, with lots of houses, and a mosque. After breakfast, Patsy and I stayed on board while the others went snorkeling. We were visited by a longboat bearing coconuts, tapioca and bananas to sell, and bought a stem of truly delicious bananas to hang off the fish table, and 5 green coconuts. Didn’t fancy my tapioca cooking skills…We managed to find out the name of the village too – Manatahan. Jim and Brian came across for dinner, therefore rum and coconut juice was called for.

6 August 2008 Wednesday

2008-08-20T11:55:00.000+09:30

6 August 2008 Wednesday

A raft of engine and general boat problems has kept us busy on the boat, with no time to go exploring or sight-seeing unfortunately. The rain has also made everything soggy and unattractive – especially us! Patsy and I took 2 large bags of washing ashore to have it washed and dried, and were dismayed to be presented with two very heavy bags of WET washing the next day. Happily the hotel next door was able to wash and dry it for us, so at least we won’t smell mouldy all the time. There is a heavy swell in this harbour almost constantly, which has made a few people sea-sick on their boats, but I’m happy to report, not me.

A local electrician repaired our battery charging problems, and we headed out of the harbour at 4pm, leaving Lothlorien who had disentangled herself from the bommie, and was intending to follow us out the next morning. The plan was that we’d all meet with Cruise Missile and Serenity 2 at a rendezvous a few hours away. However after just an hour or two of pretty heavy going we realised we had very low battery power, almost not enough to start the engine. So, back into Amahusu again, and a phone call to the electrician. He turned up early next morning, did ‘something’, and it all seemed to be working okay. By the time Lothlorien was ready to go, so were we, so we sailed in company, stiff trade winds behind us which made for big seas but good speeds. At the next opportunity, with high drainage still occurring, Lex investigated further, and discovered the cause of the power drain to be a loose wire on a bilge pump in the main bilge. He soldered it back together and the problem is sorted. Not sure what the electrician did!

3 August 2008 Sunday

2008-08-20T11:54:00.000+09:30

3 August 2008 Sunday

Towing a boat is quite different from towing a car….
John Beale on Cloudy Bay offered to tow us back to our former position so we could tend to our damaged rudder. That was an experience – obviously something he’s done before because it went off without a hitch, just a lot of breath holding on our part to get attached. Dinghies came out from lots of other boats to guide us in and help us re-anchor. Lex had snorkelled on the rudder at first light and could see that the rudder was jammed into the hull fitting above – the constant bouncing on rocks had done the job. Wayne Huxley off Cruise Missile brought his scuba gear over and dived on it, and assisted by Craig, a marine engineer, managed to free it enough so that we could keep going. Looks like we need to pull Malaika out of the water first chance we get and do a more permanent repair job though.

Patsy, Ali and I went into town for provisions while the repairs happened, and found ourselves at the Matahari shopping centre. I don’t think I’ve ever been in a noisier, more confusing place. It’s not so much the crush of people as the loud disco music that seems to be the Indonesian equivalent of elevator music. It was pretty horrendous. We managed to buy some fruit and vegetables, and had lunch at a tiny 3 table café run by a delightful young Muslim woman, who giggled her way through our language difficulties and brought us tea, buns and omelettes. Actually Patsy is very good – she has enough Bahasa Indonesia to get by in most situations which has been terrific – Richard too.

Sunday evening was the race farewell, but we didn’t feel like leaving our boat unattended so we had some rice at the local stall and remained on board.

2 August 2008 Saturday

2008-08-20T11:49:00.001+09:30

2 August 2008 Saturday
Tonight was the presentation of race prizes. Malaika was 6th across the line, and placed 10th on handicap. Didn’t know we were such a contender! Especially as we weren’t actually racing, but seemed to get included anyway. The booby prize was reserved for us – we got back to Malaika about 10pm to find she had dragged inshore and was sitting on the rocks, quite upright but just touching at the stern end of her keel. A short swell had us thumping on the rocks below however. The boat beside us was worse, about 3 feet out of the water and leaning over to one side. Nothing to do but wait for the tide to lift her off. As soon as we could we moved her forward and re-anchored, and then found we had no steering – the rudder was jammed. Decided to wait till daylight to deal with it, but we sat watches through the night to make sure we didn’t drag again. I came on watch at 3am, and Lex had only just gone to bed when I realised we had let go and were heading straight at Lothlorien. We woke Richard who leapt into the dinghy and acted as a tug, but the current and wind made things very difficult. We cleared Lothlorien and then were headed straight for the most expensive boat in the fleet, Helsal 2. A freak gust of wind at the last moment pushed us clear of her at the last moment, and then we headed down the harbour as far away from other yachts as we could go, only able to steer straight ahead, all the while trying to raise another boat to help us. Finally we were heard by Jan off Necessity, a Halberg Rassy which had been in Tipperary marina a few weeks before we left Darwin. Jan and Richard were able to push us into a better anchorage, well clear of everyone else. Just as things settled down, and Jan had left and Richard went to bed, there was another call for help. Serenity 2 was dragging, with her prop tangled in another boat’s stern line. Jan and Lex both went out in their dinghies, Lex waking up Cruise Missile on the way past. He came home a couple of hours later looking dead tired.

We weren’t the only boat by a long shot to have trouble at Amahusu anchorage. Most boats dragged, or fouled their anchors on old ropes, netting, coral and anchors on the sea bed. Lothlorien’s anchor chain wrapped itself around a huge bommie, and took a lot of work to get free. The stern line system didn’t seem to suit most boats, and the anchorage was very poor. Worst of all was the plastic floating in the water. They say if you’re not an environmental fanatic before you come to Ambon, you are when you leave. It’s a beautiful island (or so I believe – we were so busy with boat dramas we didn’t get to see much of it!), and has friendly inhabitants, all keen to help and talk to you, and put up with your feeble attempts at Indonesian with great humour, but the rubbish is so depressing. It washes out into the harbour every time it rains (BY THE WAY – NO ONE TOLD US IT WAS THE WET SEASON HERE!!!) and then gets sucked up into any available water intake, or wraps around propellers, let alone what it does to the sea inhabitants, and the general aesthetics. There’s no system for rubbish collection as far as we could tell, apart from an attempt at burning it in between rainstorms. Everything you buy is wrapped in several layers of very strong plastic, and the shopping bags last forever.

1 August 2008 Friday

2008-08-20T11:36:00.001+09:30

1 August 08
We had a fine send-off in Darwin on July 26. Callum took out his work boat, and brought Niki and Maili, Shaun and Jen, Tom and Jess, and Ian and Ellen with him to wave us off. Terri and Tayla Hart were with Elvio Travan on his boat, Peter and Pam Garton with Ben Creswick on board, and Phil and Toots Doyle, our former neighbours at Tipperary, all came out on the harbour to wave us goodbye. Ben was shangaied aboard for some last minute computer tuning! He was a godsend. We were last across the start line, due to a mix up about which was the starting point, and no one could hear the starting gun, but that was okay. We were on the way, and we caught up and overtook a lot of boats in the nexrt couple of days. NOT that we’re racing of course.

We sailed into Ambon at 8am, 1st August, after hanging off the finish line until someone was around to mark us in. The voyage here was not without its challenges. After we left Darwin, we had good winds for the first day, but then came two days of Sargasso Sea type conditions. Dead Calm. ‘Painted boats on painted oceans’ sprang to mind. It was so calm and windless that we swam off the boat for a little while. An hour later we saw a huge shark cruising past about 100 metres away… Decided to stay inside the boat after that. The next few days sorted the doldrums out. The winds picked up and we had good sailing in fresh winds for the next few days, but then the challenges really began. Started with a blocked aft toilet and then careered downhill after that. As sorting out the loo required several journeys carrying buckets of nasty stuff from the aft cabin, along the passage, up the companionway, across the cockpit and seats and over the side, naturally this was when the wind was strong and the boat was rolling and rocking along. Lex performed heroically, didn’t yell, and more importantly didn’t spill a drop. He did look a little green around the gills by the time he finished though. After that it got more serious. Alternator problems meant the batteries weren’t charging properly, so use of computers was cancelled. The new generator dropped a pulley, and seems it was sold to us with no grub screws in place to hold it on the shaft. Then the engine had a water cooling problem, which required Lex and Jo to be head down in the engine for an hour or so. The Stugeron works perfectly for normal sailing but that was asking a bit much of it, so over the side I hung. However Lex found the problem, fixed it and we were fine again.

The night sailing was great. I love the fact that there are no hard bits in the way when you’re flying along at 7 knots in pitch dark. We passed over spots of 5000 metres of depth in the Banda Sea – the home of the earth tremors we occasionally feel in Darwin. We reached the mouth of Ambon Harbour a couple of hours before dawn, and played cat and mouse with Cloudy Bay, who beat us in by half an hour in the end.

Customs clearing happened about half an hour after we were anchored and stern roped. It took almost 2 hours and about 14 officials on board, and the filling in and signing of innumerable forms. Customs, Harbour Master, Immigration, Quarantine, Coast Guard and a Language Facilitator, and a search of the boat. However they were all unfailingly polite and friendly. Lea and Keith on Tientos had advised us to have a boat stamp made before we left Darwin, and it was applied with great enthusiasm and vigour to all the forms. Made clearing in a lot simpler I’m sure.

We went ashore after and took Colin Blair up on his offer of showers at his hotel, and then found our way to the Maples restaurant for some good Indonesian food and the first Bintangs of the voyage. Lex and Richard missed out on the Cultural display that evening, as Lex had a phone call that Malaika was dragging her anchor, so they jumped in a bemo and headed back. False alarm. They met us later at Halim’s restaurant, for the fabled chilli mud crab. I think the chef must have changed since the 80s, sadly! The rest of the menu seemed pretty good though. The dancing was great – representatives from several widely differing parts of the Maluku province, from demure handkerchief dancing to wild grass-skirted warriors waving spears. Wonderful stuff, against a small country town-hall kind of backdrop.

The transition period

2008-06-30T12:03:00.001+09:30

There are always reasons for not doing something. Probably more than there are for doing the same thing. When I spoke to my father about our plans to go sailing, and to leave Australia for an extended length of time, I told him I was worried about leaving Mum, who is not a well person, and about leaving my first grandchild, who had not yet been born.

"You'll always be able to find a reason not to go," he said. "If it's not Mum or the baby, it would be something else. There's always a reason not to do something. There'll never be 'The Right Time". You just have to go!"

So here we are, 26 days out from cast off. The pressure is mounting: from all the jobs still to be done, the decisions still to be made, the paperwork yet to be rationalised and sorted, and the excess STUFF to be added to the storage warehouse when all the former are completed.

Shoe-horning a house into a boat is no mean feat. It's not dissimilar from rushing out of a burning house with only moments to grab something. What do I really need? What do I really want? At least with this process there is a little more time, but in some ways it might be better if there weren't. Too much time to consider what I want to take with me means I end up with a much bigger stack! Reality sets in when I carry it on board and find there REALLY is nowhere for it to be stowed. So life gets pared down and minimalised. One of the advantages of life on board a boat is the realisation of little you actually do need.

We've been living on board Malaika now since April 18. The remarkable thing is that none of us has expressed any regrets whatsoever for the move. Given that our former house is a scant 50 metres away and still in sight, there's been ample scope for second thoughts, sighs of longing over large kitchens, wide benches, toilets mere steps away instead of a 200 metre trot, and sheer space. In fact, we haven't even mentioned our old place. Perhaps this means we've made the right decision. It could just mean that we're a bit weird, or totally numbed by the shift in circumstance!

I'm amazed to find that I don't resent climbing up from cabin to cockpit umpteen times a day, or having to move five things to get to one in a cupboard. I'd be pleased if the fridge was a little easier to get into, but it's not a big deal. We don't miss TV. We thought this would be the sticking point for Ali, but she hasn't mentioned it once. Well, she was a little wistful when someone left a small tv and remote in the ladies bathroom for anyone to take, and we said no, we didn't want it. We listen to the radio when we remember to turn it on in time for the news, and we read the papers, but otherwise we are slowly slipping out of constant mainstream media saturation. Good preparation for the travels to come.

27 June 2008

2008-06-27T10:08:00.002+09:30

Count down has started. There are now only 30 days till we leave... And the office is still full of stuff!!!
How does anyone ever get away?
This where we are starting from - Tipperary Marina, where we've been living for the last 5 years, and on our boat since April.
Looks like a pond in the middle of a mud flat, which is pretty much how it was the day of an extremely low tide last year.

Tuesday 17 June 2008

2008-06-17T14:03:00.001+09:30

The mysteries of blogging are still hidden beneath the veil. I must be even more of a Luddite than I previously thought.

It can't be that difficult, can it? Postcards were a heck of a lot simpler.

Learning How To Blog

2008-06-02T13:36:00.000+09:30

To blog or be blogged. Why is this stuff so complicated. This is really just a lot of words to fill up the space so I can see what it looks like.
blogblogblogblogblog

Lorem ipsum indeedsum.