If you don't shoot, you'll always miss

Hi all,

This short bloggie just to say that plans are underway for another Indo trip, provisionally booked in for 10 weeks or so starting May 2011.

Plans for this expedition include hopefully starting where we left off in 2009, the Komodo Islands and Flores. Then exploring Flores and Sumba (SURF!) and hopefully departing from Roti (SURF!) and to reef-hop back to Oz on a broad reach visiting Ashmore and Scott Reef, possibly even Rowley Shoals.

That is The Plan. Since ancient times it has been known that in sailing nothing is certain. We can add another layer of uncertainty in the form of the Indonesian Bureaucracy which almost did us in in 2009. But, as the title of this blog suggests, if you don't even plan you can be certain that a trip of this magnitude will not happen.

Joy to all! May your cumulative feet tread rose petals only and your faces forever be spared from acne!

Kees

Cooking up a NEW PLAN!

I have painted myself into a corner for 2010 workwise. No time for transoceanic voyaging. A lazy alternative is to slowly cruise from the Von, via Gnaraloo, Waroora, Coral Bay, Ningaloo Reef, Murion Islands, Onslow, Montebello's and the Dampier Archipelago to Dampier. Gently. Cruising style. In May or so - when the cyclones have receded but the water is still warm enough to snorkel, spearfish and (kite) surf. I'll start beavering away on the boat, slowly, and find out if anyone's keen for what and how long.

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.