Thus Spake Obi-Wan-K’noathi

Back in Northwest Oz overything settled back into its usual WA rhythm. We are drinking like troopers and Louie conjures up huge cooked breakfasts before we even think of hoisting sails. We are getting bloody good at this! With Lisa aboard via Warroora to Cape Farquar, which is a bit of an iffy entrance and mooring. And no shootable fish inside the reef, the abundant large Grey Nurse sharks must have eaten the lot. Outside the reef we dangled on a long rope behind Tribute in amazingly clear but cold water and Mix was the lucky (and fearless) one to dance with a humpback whale which came to sniff us out. Crew additions at Gnaraloo- Nats, Megsie and Sandra joined and miraculously we were treated with another beautiful mellow downwind sailing day, with whales, wine and a big mackie. Once at Red Bluff, the girls had to swim in through the shorebreak. And the mackie was trussed to a surfboard to float in with them.
Anyway. The home stretch tomorrow.

Obi-Wan-K’noathi is a redneck philosopher/fisherman who lives- or ought to live- in a shack somewhere round Cape Farquar. He is old as the weathered red rocks and his language is colourful as the reefs. The fresh Southwester blows through his mind and I spend the days thinking up aphorisms to attribute to him. So far, they’re too rude to entrust to these pages so I must leave you, and this blog, and this trip and this ship with the observation that all this rah rah about the merits of travelling and arriving has really got to stop.

Come forward, you can see the end from here!

Almost home. .we sailed -upwind of course- via the Montebello's to Coral Bay. The Australian skies are clear and the air is crisp and chilly in a hard Southeasterly, blowing from the Great Sandy Desert over the Indian Ocean. And after pondering the meaning of life for three months, drenched by the ocean and scorched by the sun this realisation dawned on me: I am but a small cogwheel in life's vast machine and my purpose during this reincarnation is to host hen's nights.

Prenatal poultry calculations

To say that we have arrived would be premature. But were anything to go wrong now, we could swim to the mainland. It is just past midnight and we are approaching Dampier. The whole area is lit like a christmas tree with wellheads and drilling platforms, it is tricky seeing if any of them move or have navlights.

But be that as it may, we are expecting to make landfall just short of five days after hoisting anchor in Lembar. Five days of wet and bouncy upwind sailing, we had to park the boat for a while just off Lombok before we even dared to enter the cocktail shaker where currents, wind and swell collide. After that- shipboard routine of reading, dozing, cooking and being on watch. Every day at 1700 heaving-to for regimented callenistics and a saltwater shower. We made a 183 nM day, not bad if you consider that the current downwind record for Tribute is just over 200 nM. Highlight was a marlin, hooked, landed and released by Marlin today.

The wellheads turn out to be a traffic jam of huge ships. Cheers!

PS- Made it! Moored at 0500, customs phoned at 0615, by 0700 we had the officials aboard. Remember the race between Oz & Indo bureacracy? Everyone was friendly and efficient. And dare I say it, two of the customs officers were actually rather dishy. But the quairantine officer removed a bag of garbage plus an apple that we had overlooked and then charged $680 for the honour while apologising for these government regulations... It is a draw, I think.

Meanwhile back in Oz for three hours, and we already have four thwarts under our belt:
- The $680. Ouch.
- Our first encounter with an Australian native, a burly bloke in a fishing stinky did not acknowledge my friendly 'g'day mate'. But he could be deaf or distracted of course, so I repeated the greeting with the same result.
- A bit later a very pumped up grumpy bloke told us that we were not allowed, 'under no circumstances!' to tie up to the jetty. He was about to untie us, but we managed to delay him by a minute so the officials could get off.
- If we want to see the Monties at all (with Nathalie's enticing offer of using Tribute as her hen's night venue with 'fourteen bikini babes supplied to the boat' in mind), we have to make a move again tonight and into a headwind as well .But the shops are closed, and a taxi vv to Karratha is $100. Which means that 1/2 a day in Oz costs more than a month in Indo. Kenoath!

Anyway. A luta continua.

Huu

For reasons not quite clear to me we are travelling under assumed names. ‘Yella ‘ after Louie’s yellow Corona-filled Esky that he’s effectively twinned with. ‘Marlin’, presumably because Mix would like to catch one. And Seuss, as in Doctor. But not much else has changed in Tribute’s travelling routine. From LBJ to Kanawa, then to Komodo where we trundled for hours through the shrub and bush without seeing a single dragon. The guide was apologetic but laughed away our suggestions of a refund.
Anchorages on Sumbawa’s South coast are rare, but I spied some promising features on the chart so we checked it out and found a village hidden deep in a narrow bay. Fishermen pointed us to an anchor spot and we took the duck ashore where M&L were a bit overwhelmed by their sudden popularity- all 150 kids in the village swarmed around them, pointed, chattered and laughed while I took pictures. We were lucky to watch the weekly soccer match with 12 very fast players on bare feet seemingly unconcerned about the rocks on the dirt field.
From there we followed the rugged coastline with a pit stop at Huu, where the presumably famous ‘Lakey’s Pipe’ is with its attendant tourist infrastructure. Mix & I got a very pleasant surf in the next morning with three Americans on ‘Nanga’. We even tried to kitesurf for a brief while until the wind died, much to delight of the villagers.
Supplies are low. In most villages there is a small toko where eggs, rice, coconuts and sometimes cabbages are available. We’ve been trying to make our own roti’s out of flour and essentially live on this with pot noodles for lunch. But for even simple things like canned tuna we have to wait till Lembar, with luck. And I have run out of books.
This morning- with trepidation- we shot through the Lombok Strait once more and made arrangements to clear out of Indonesia. But the forecast looked a bit iffy (not that I’ve ever seen it favourable for getting back to Oz), we cancelled Abou- our Agent -and are now storming North at 12 knots to await better weather on Gili Air. Again.

PS-Actually set sail on the 14th, early am. Hoping for a five day crossing, six more likely.

All the way to LBJ

It is a truth universally acknowledged that the captain should go down with his ship. To Davy Jones' locker, or to Labuanbajo for the fourth or fifth time. In hindsight Tribute could have travelled further through Nusa Tengara if there weren't three separate crew movements through LBJ.

Ever since the owner of a mooring demanded money, Tribute's been strung between its anchor and a stern line which is tied to a lamppost in the police station's garden. When leaving for the morning's nasi, the gentlemen in uniform and I exchange selamat pagi's. And likewise malams at night. They made a handy profit out of our last fuel transaction and now often ask if my jerrycans need refilling. There is a mosque just up the road and both Peter and I are impressed with its imam. He has a good strong voice with range and passion and there is variety in what we presume are prayers. In the distance we can hear his colleagues but they don’t have a patch on ‘our’ guy. Little things like this matter, especially at five a.m. And just behind the cops is the harbourmaster's office whose inhabitants have yet to bother us.

Back in Oz, many commented on my Indo plans by saying 'piracy'! Some skipped that word and simply asked what guns I'd be taking. The sailing press was reassuring on the piracy front but pessimistic about another scourge, the bureaucrats. As I understood it an official of some flavour would row, swim or motor out of every hamlet and village to demand copies in triplicate of all possible paperwork as well as arbitrary fees for this honour. Now, it is unwise to sell the skin of the bear before one's shot it but so far this has happened only once. And there’s the possibility that on our return the Australian Customs and DPI will outhassle Indonesian Officialdom. Any takers for a bet?

But I digress- the friendly humans in uniform are as the rest of LBJ's citizens. Not a grumpy Indonesian have I met, and the ones who speak English cross the (currently broken up) street to get some practice in. LBJ is a bit of a transit port for dive charters and visits to Rinca or Komodo and it has some low-key tourist infrastructure. A couple of simple restaurants, a few dive shops and a souvenir store where wood carved dragons are displayed. And secluded in the forest up the hill is the Paradise Bar.

Paradise has a colonial atmosphere. The entire clientele is Caucasian except for a gaggle of local boys who all have Rasta hair and who seem focused on meeting girls. For the others there's food, Bintang and live music. On guitars which are out of tune in themselves and between each other a selection of world music is performed. The artists swap instruments, the waiter joins when he's free, the audience is invited and overall (like I noticed in the Philippines) there seems to be a refreshing lack of ‘look mama I can play' attitude.

I rented a small motorcycle to explore the hinterland of LBJ. Without a map I followed my nose until the road or track petered out, and then returned to repeat the same in another direction. Eventually I found the main road to Ruteng which was so rutted and gutted that I took it for a dead end. You'd think that off-road bikes would be very popular here, but strangely the roads are swarming with the standard issue Asian motorcycle. The type that can carry an entire family. I am unsure what they are-there's no markings apart from the brand. How can anyone own a motorcycle that is simply 'Yamaha'? Where do they get their bragging rights from-the colour? Is there no need in Asian society to be able casually mention that your Howazuki GXR-Z 1100 Mk II has not only got ABS but also RSVP? It is all very odd and I cautiously made my way up a distant pass where the air was cool and bamboo grew four stories high.

Meanwhile I'm on my own and moored in a pretty bay on the Northern tip of Komodo. I set a new Zen record by taking 8 hours to cover 17 miles- and that is as the fish swims. Until half an hour ago it was idyllic, half a moon and a glassy sea and silence except sounds of splashing fish and indeterminate animal noises from the land. Pure tranquillity. Then a small motorboat came into the bay- I suddenly thought of pirates and guns again- but they scouted a mooring for a large and brightly lit tourist barge which motored around the headland later. The sanctity of nature was shattered, the music and laughter carried miles across the water and I thought fuck you too & started the generator after all.

So, back to LBJ to pick up Mix and Lou. I hope Bali doesn’t damage them too badly. The clock has started ticking again. There’s a mission and a schedule and there’s the wild South coast of Sumbawa and Lombok, and after that the Indian Ocean.

...I once travelled with a Swede who took his time to deliberate the postcards he wrote. But he always settled on the same phrase, which he explained was the nicest thing you could wish someone and that he couldn’t think of anything better to write:

‘May all your dreams come true’.

Do the Sumba and the Tonga

Tribute's crew is down to two and the boat has grown, partly because Peter and I travelled together for 25 years and have reached that matrimonious nonverbal state. With no-one to please but ourselves and 10 days to do that we tacked and gybed and plotted our way through the Komodo archipelago, doing a bit of reading, photography and snorkelling on the way. To translate Nescio: 'I am nothing and I do nothing. And even that is doing too much. I don't think either, thinking is for dumb people. It is best to gently fade out'.

Excitement there is little, although I came close to suffocating in an attempt to have some scuba-divers discover me sitting on the seabed at 14 m in lotus position, hidden just around the corner of a bommie they dived on. And at an anchorage on Rinca there were SIX dragons on the beach. A plague of them!
With so few goals in life we created some. And curiously, after not meeting a boat for over a month we immediately ran into the Dutch crew of 'Kolibrie' at Komodo and quickly broke our vows of not smoking or drinking. And the next day the Oz crew of 'Bonnie' left a pack of cigarettes behind for Peter which was the end of his asceticism. It obviously was not meant to be and he has accepted his karma.

Karma,dharma and general laid-backness have a numerical value on Tribute, it displayed on the speedometer. I have not been able to help BUH understand that if you're going nowhere in particular, then there is no need to rush the departure or to laboriously squeeze every fraction of a knot out of the boat. Just accept the number on the screen, om mane padme hum. The quickest way to get to a destination anyway is to decide that it is here. Consequently, the boat has two speeds under motor: 6.5 knots is cruise, 4.5 knots is a psychological band-aid. The latter has been used a lot because it is so hard to lie still or go slow. Peter and I have now managed to endure hours of sailing at four knots which is a new Zen record.

These biodegradable non-directive wanderings have landed us on Sumba, an island where headhunting was practiced in living memory. The Lonely Planet is lyrical about it but there is not much I can say yet except that the coastline looks a bit like the landscape North of Geraldton. We spent the night anchored near a ferry terminal and were not keen to go ashore. There are no published anchorages so we are feeling our way along the coast, making sure to inspect possible spots that we could get back to later. With the promise of a fuller report later I wish everyone fair winds, I trust that 14 knots just aft of the beam would suit all?

PS: That was it for Sumba. No anchorages in the past 30 miles, three hours of light left, nothing conceivably anchorable within range. C-map useless, the pilot written two centuries ago 'Anchorage achievable with local knowledge... line up a conspicuous tree and a rock and anchor in 60 metres of water' and even the paper charts were published in 1904 by the Nederlandsche Hydrografische Dienst. We have tacked, turned North and are preparing for a night-sail across the Sumba Sea!

And pix can fly

Hi all, nothing's happened really. Moored in Labuanbajo in sight of the local police station. At night we chain the dinghy to the station's fence before pottering off to the Paradise Bar. It is stinking hot, we still have to organise fuel then we're off direction Sumba . By the sounds of it that will be very remote! Tribute's resident artist has made a collage of some pix so I thought I'd post them here, for your enjoyment and comfort.

The day of the dragon

Well hello, all!

It has taken us over a week to get to the Komodo archipelago, home to 'some of the most tempestuous waters in Indonesia' according to the Lonely Planet. It has been pleasant all along. Most days tacking along the Northern Sumbawa coast in a F5 headwind, sometimes motoring through the lenghthy calms. We stopped for a restocking session in Bima, the capital of Sumbawa. Hustlers on motorcycles greeted us at the dock jostling for our business. Peter and Kate went off in a 'Ben Hur'- a horse chariot- to get food, and after some negotiations in which I only got badly ripped off I left with a little fleet of motorcycles each with an empty jerrycan on the pillion seat. Loaded with money I rode through the seedy parts of town with a motorcycle gang. After the fuel & food was sorted both Peter and I made another raid into town for a box of beer, the purchase of which is probably similar to scoring drugs in the Western world. My 'fixer' spoke to some people, who directed us into the slums, where other people were questioned until we got to a small shop where a tray of Bintang was dug out from the stores.

Which brings me to the subject of alcohol- Tribute is a sort of Big Brother setup, with three people marooned on a small boat in a foreign country. On our involuntary teetotal days we play chess. When there's beer aboard, everyone becomes more amicable and we even had a Latin Party in the cockpit, illuminated with headtorches. I have long thought that it is an evolutionary oversight that we all aren't permanently at the one or 2 glass level socially speaking, but there you are. Quite another thing is that the hassles in the Middle East may just be better approached through the opening of bars rather than starting another war.

Be that as it may, we've pottered gently (headwind & adverse current wherever we go) through the archipelago of hundreds of rocks and islands which rightly is a World Heritage area. Shallow reefs and raging currents in the sea and the sawtoothed spines of mountain ranges on the islands mark the horizon. Very varied- yesterday, in the area between Komodo and Rinca the landscape was more like I'd expect of Cape Horn, with towering black granite cliffs and jagged spikes of rock poking through the surface of the clear blue water. It is only fitting that Komodo dragons live in a prehistoric area like this.

This morning we are moored in Teluk Ginggo on Rinca which 'ranks up there with the best anchorages worldwide', according to our cruising guide. Just after sunrise a 2m dragon sauntered onto the nearby beach so Peter and I launched the dinghy and armed ourselves with two big sticks hoping to get a better picture of it. Yesterday, in Komodo, we saw about 6 dragons on a guided tour and they seemed pretty docile. But this one was alone on a deserted beach in a rugged, uninhabited area. We approached with caution, the dragon licked the air with his forked tongue and slowly disappeared into the bush again.

It is a magical area and it is surprising that we have seen only two other cruisers since we left Bali, and very few tourists at all. The guide said there were only 10 people on the island most days and I remember knowing about Komodo since Primary School, it is that famous. Meanwhile the wind's picked up and it is time to move. We are dropping Kate off in Labuanbajo on Flores in a few days time, Peter and I hope to have a look at Sumba after that. Mix & Louie- I suggest you get a flight to Labuanbajo as well, because this area is not to be missed. I'll be in contact later.

Slogging Eastward

Sumbawa:
As I write this in the port hull of Tribute I hear Peter and Kate teaching each other to sail and having lively arguments about the readouts on the instruments in the cockpit. They are both wrong, but on the calm waters, and without any fixed plans for any day- who cares? Since the last blog we've picked up Peter from Gili Trewangang. The Lonely Planet warned that it was a bit of a party island, so Peter and I retired to the boat. Kate however went hunting in the pubs for the elususive Two French Doctor Chicks that are so vital for my future plans. She later thought she managed to find one, but got very drunk in the process and fell out of the dinghy and wrecked her phone and whatnot.

The whole crew decided to aim for a life of moderation and contemplation for the rest of the trip. And remarkably, that is what seems to be happening. After a bit of snorkelling and wandering on Gili Air we bit the bullet and sailed to the other side of Lombok. Near a nameless village we dropped the anchor and went for a sightsee to find we had left the tourosphere. Between Peter and myself there's a 20 word vocabulary in Indonesian, but, to parapharase Chairman Mao: with a smile and a background in charades you get further than with a smile alone. A boy cut down some coconuts from a tree for us and someone else showed us how to skin them with a machete. Everyone is smiling and helpful. The daily chores now include swotting Indo from a phraseboook.

The next day we travelled to some uninhabited islands between Sumbawa and Lombok that looked really good on Google Earth but are otherwise not mentioned in any of the guides aboard. It was magnificent, we snorkelled in water with 30 m visibility over imposing reefs and I wend wild with the camera. We crossed the strait, spent hours finding an anchorage on Sumbawa and were the main event of the week for the many kids in the village we visited this morning.

...Two days later, and we lie moored on a coral reef. Directly below Tribute there is a near-vertical, coral encrusted precipice going down to unmeasurable on the depthsounder. The water is incredibly clear- often I saw the crew's bright fins underwater in the distance before I could see their heads above it. Snorkelling over the wall felt like taking off on a hangglider. The moon is full and there is a warm breeze coming off the island, carrying wafts of woodsmoke with it.

We seem to make slow progress Eastward. There has been little wind and so many distractions! We anchored in Tor Potopaddu yesterday, an almost fjordlike indentation in the Northwest Sumbawa coastline. The fishermen pointed out a good anchorage and hung around the boat for an hour or so, later replaced by all the kids from the nearby village who paddled out in their little outrigger canoes. They were mainly curious, but also hoped to get a pen or a magazine or sweets. I dished out some of each but soon realised that the demand was endless.
Today we made it in a nice breeze to Moyo Island by lunch. Despite lots of healthy snorkelling, and being up before dawn, and playing chess, and meditating a bit at sunrise- the absence of vegetables and beer will drive us toward some sort of town. But of course, there's a volcanic island with a saltwater lake on our way and probably more reefs and sights. It may just take a while.

And the boat goes on..ladidadidi,ladidadida

One of the 3 surfbreaks off Lebongong

An installment on the wanderings of Tribute: BUH, Hutch and I meandered from Gili to Senggigi, the main tourist resort on Lombok. We played to our strenghts in this foreign country by eating more nasi goreng and drinking Bintang. The water, already filthy with plastic and other debris got even more so after a short deluge which washed the sewers into the sea. Next day to Bangko-Bangko near Desert Point where on the arvo there was no swell, in the morning it looked frighteningly big with a four knot current sweeping past the point. Gave that a miss again.

We headed West for Bali. The fast current swept us Southward where we saw an endless line of big breakers- overfalls in 200 m of water. I don't know how high they were because it was hard to judge distance but it looked very nasty out there. I was quite tense for the next couple of hours, there was not enough wind to sail out of trouble if the engine were to conk out. BUH and Hutch shrugged their shoulders, draped themselves over the couch and closed their eyes, only to awake near Nusa Penida. The Southern coast consists of 50 or 100 m high vertical limestone cliffs. Deep, dark blue water, upwellings and whirlpools around the cape and no sign of the usual little fishing trimarans all morning, it was a bit eery.
Made it into Benoa without major dramas where Kate was waiting for us. We waved to a fellow cruiser in a dinghy who shouted back 'Zat was ze WORST anchoring ever! I vill tell ze Harbourmaster'!
Granted, it wasn't slick or elegant but what is it to a grey and grumpy German?

A good reason to drink Bintang and eat nasi goreng in the excellent marina restaurant. A day of provisioning in Kuta was next (Mate! You Aussie? I can get you Billabong shirt cheap!) and I write this on the calm seas off Bali. The plan is to sail to Gili Air again to await Peter's arrival. But Tribute can't do much in 6 knots of wind, and 2-4 knot of headcurrent. Aiming for Nusa Lembongang instead, we may have to sail to lombok to get a favourable current because there doesn't seem to be one off Bali.

Update on the update: Lembongang is GOOD! There are some permanently moored docking stations for the day-cruise boats- complete with waterslides and live music- and one of the charterboats offered us his mooring. I gratefully swam over with a sixpack of 'real Aussie beer!' and got a batch of hot loempias in return. The water was clean and clear, there was coral onder the boat and by midday a grommet surfbreak suddenly appeared a 100 m away. Great fun! With a couple of local kids and some laid back old tourists on the waves, the kids shouted someting that sounded like'Yagibolobolobohoo!' when a wave came through, six people took off at a time with most or all falling off again. Lots of little restaurants ashore- this comes recommended, it is only an hour by ferry out of Benoa.



The Trades haven't started yet. It is hot, and there's hardly any wind at all. By night the sea is glassy. I've been sleeping on the trampolines and sticking my head through the hatch into the cabin to watch the nights' movie- we stocked up with 30 of them in Kuta. When there's a bit of swell, there's a vertical airflow trough the tramps as the boat goes up and down which is better than none at all.



I've been grilling the 2 passing cruisers that we've met for info on the Northern route to Komodo and what I've understood is that good anchorages are few, the scenery is stunning, and nightsailing is hairy but sometimes necessary. Looks like it is going to be a suck it and see affair. Peter and Kate will need a crash course in boathandling soon.

Anyway, all is well on Tribute. My fondest to everyone!

Bait is attached to a small kite which is then flown over the reef.