Swings and roundabouts:

I spent weeks at Kanawa's charming budget resort where I developed a taste for the spectacular diving in the area. A holiday enlivened by a visit of the Hullett family and several diving and sailing and delivery trips in the Komodo Archipelago, but now Tribute is underway again and approaching Maumere.

Kevin & Kate are crewing and we've been following the N coast of Flores Eastwards for the past five days while slowly getting into a groove of sailing and anchoring, cooking, playing guitar and chess. Available charts are of too large a scale to be useful and what books I have on anchorages leave nearly all our sailing as a voyage of discovery. The winds have generally been light and the engine's been on half the time.

Because we are sailing into the sun we can't really leave all that early- the low sun reflecting off the the morning seas' mirror surface makes it impossible to see any shallows. And likewise, we aim to find a likely place to anchor by 4 pm. We discovered some excellent spots on the way but tonight's a pretty but shitty one surrounded by coral, I haver a stern anchor out and all alarms are set for depth and drift. The coastline has been beautiful and interesting, with lots of reefs and shallows and islands.

K&K went ashore at a small muslim fishing village called Rutang. They returned saying there'd be a wedding the next day and we were very much invited for the party that night. Ashore, a marquee had been built containing a small stage with three ornate chairs on it. A generator was humming and a wall of sound equipment was set up. Mind you, the village was otherwise quite threadbare with some 50 simple weathered wooden houses, unpaved paths, and no telephone or other signs of modernity at all.

There were about a hundred people of all ages gathered under the marquee who cleared a circle into which 5 chairs were lifted- for us and the two young men who spoke a bit of English. All watched intently as we tried to communicate, later some simple food was brought to us and on my request- the bride, who joined in our staged dinner with everyone watching and commenting on our every move or word.Later the Indo pop music was cranked up and feeling indebted we created much merriment by dancing-just us and the two young men.Everyone else watched.

Later we found Tribute had been burgled of cash and phones, but leaving cameras and computers.The remains of the satphone's credit was used up cancelling accounts. Everyone was apologetic, police arrived in force and for hours we sat through procedures before heading East again, penniless and incommunicado. We are heading for Maumere where I hope to procure a

phone, restock and to pick up Peter and Arnar. The struggle continues in high spirits!

Tribute to Indonesia

Back in LBJ, the noisy, colourful, dusty and bustling town built on green hills and overlooking 20 or so islands of the Komodo Archipelago. My little spot of 2009 next to the police station has been taken and I've tied up to some jetty remnants in the old harbour. There is a long line of food stalls ashore and boats of all sizes noisily come and go. Kids are flying little kites and fishing from dugouts, sitting on the trampoline under the shadecloth gives me a prime seat to watch it all.

Hutch & I chilled out on the Gillies for a good week, swimming to shore with our dry bags containing books, sunnies and rupias and just lazed the days away. We also discovered that the resurfaced road north of Sengigi deserves a mention with the worlds great motorcycling roads, both on account of the spectacular views and its curvaceousness.

The actual trip to LBJ was a rerun of 2009 except that we sailed Teluk Saleh, the big inland sea of Sumbawa where we snorkelled on the memorably named isolated reef of Aart van Nes- who turned out to be a Dutch captain in the 1600's. There is little dutchness that remains in Indonesia otherwise, but I discovered that an ashtray is called 'asbak' here, and an exhaust is a 'knalpot'.

I seem to be suffering from some sort of writer's block. I think I'm a bit in love with Indonesia and my writing does no justice to Indonesia's beauty. It is a great privilege to have the time and money (little as is needed here) to waft along the islands, to suck in the sights and take a digital snapshot every now and then.

Six days at sea

More complaints-The first couple of days there was too much wind, we had the hatches closed and water cascading off the roof every few minutes & spent our days and nights in the cabin. We did chalk up a 215 nM day though, which is more than respectable for a 38 footer. This was balanced by too little wind in the second half of the crossing- motorsailing. At first a blessing- the boat was cleaned, sumptuous dinners prepared, and books were swapped. Dolphins cavorting on the bows and stunning sunsets. We hit a log which cracked the bow and we ruined the screacher but overall made an uneventful journey to landfall under a bright moon in a bay on the South coast of Lombok. The next day we shot the strait and cleared in at Medana Bay.

It is good to be back in Indonesia. The polite and friendly people, the inquisitive kids, the nasi and Bintang, the surfbreak at Gili Aer- it is all still there. Hutch and I resolved to chill out majorly until we feel the need to head East & I will update this blog once the stresses of transoceanic voyaging have dissolved in the clear blue Indonesian waters.

Slipped the moorings

Just a quick note to say we've left and have checked out from the International Port of Carnarvon (Yes!)

We- Bruce, Hutch & me- used the paper-rock-scissors method to decide the watch- sequence, and I am on first. Everyone's asleep, and all is quiet but for the motor droning on. The loom of Exmouth is on the horizon.

It hasn't been an easy first day- last night off Coral Bay the wind wavered from all directions and ended up on the nose. In the process we've hoisted & downed all sails between a 90 m2 spinnaker and reefs on main and jib. By midnight things got very lumpy, and by morning we sheltered under the canopy because water cascaded over the roof and into the helmsman's hatch. And despite all the wind and spray we we weren't really getting anywhere, which was frustrating.

We've ended up tired, off food and sleep deprived, a state which can be produced much

safer & cheaper at home.

But there you are.

Kees

More possibilities

Hi all, and dinkum!

Some updates: the cumbersome but entertaining process of matching sailing intentions to bureaucratic possibilities has started. Going to straight to Labuanbajo is fading as an option but hasn't actually evaporated yet. A person in the know suggested that one doesn't actually have to clear in near landfall, as long as the vessel is en route to a place where the boxes can be ticked and providing one proceeds in an inconspicuous manner.

Next- there's grace on the CAIT- it can now be done within the month, so 1/4/11 is the new deadline and that's not a joke. Bear in mind the passport has to be valid for SIX MONTH AFTER ARRIVAL. This certainly screws me up, I have to go to Perth in person to get fingerprinted for the new Dutch passport.

But my demands remain! I shall not become an Australian citizen until I'm either excused voting duties or Australian politics become less of an embarrassment. Secondly, that a national bushflyexterminationstrategy be implemented- I think that civilisation cannot gain a foothold in a country where you need both hands (opposing thumb or not) to shoo them away.

Thirdly- There is the emerging possibility of making a one-way trip, and to keep Tribute in Indo for a season in Ace's new marina on Lombok. By the looks of the pilot charts (see http://www.offshoreblue.com/navigation/pilot-charts.php) the winds become increasingly southerly after August and certainly no sane Carnarvonite would ever encourage sailing southward from the Northwest Cape then on any sort of schedule.

So that may mean keeping Tribute in Indo for nearly a year. Assuming this is possible paperworkwise, it would also mean that the voyage would likely follow a similar route to the 2009 one. Having a boat in Indo is of course a good thing with lots of exciting possibilities, but not having a boat in Carnarvon sux.

Deliberations, negotiatons and peregrinations continue... Feel free to contribute to the cloud of uncertainties while I wish you all, unseen, the best of possible vibes.

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.