Farewell!

BUH has arrived, and thrown a Hullett-sized spanner in the finely tuned organisation of S/V Tribute. He tried the old trick of 'forgotten my sleeping bag', but was fobbed off with a spare and still had to sleep alone in the starboard forward coffin. The victuals are getting hammered.
Brad Beaumont, and ex-Carnarvonite now deeply into the marine matters of Dampier, lent us his ute & threw a barbie for us so we are developing a soft spot for the harbour.

The Customs MAY be able to clear us out today so it is all hands on deck to fuel & provision everything to the gunwhales. The forecasts are for nice Easterlies initially and then a patch of at least 2 days of NO WIND AT ALL. There's a low lurking off Java, too.

But anyway. We're off soon, aiming for landfall after a week or so in Lombok. I wish everyone well!

Cabin Fever

We did an overnighter to the Montebellos, had a look around the lagoons and anchored in Champagne Bay for the night. That was fine. The next day it was 30+ knots all day until it eased in the late arvo, and I got a kitesurf in. That was all well and relaxing too. The next day- 25-30 knots again. The books were losing their charm, all the odd jobs had been done (Hutch even cleaned the cutlery tray) and we sat beady-eyed in the cabin eating a third breakfast and realised we'd contracted Cabin Fever. There is only one cure: we secured everything and set out in the late arvo into a 20 knot headwind. The waves, whipped up by two days of strong Easterlies were three metres high or so and we got drenched, slammed and centrifuged. Again a night sail. Tiring this time- Dirk the autopilot does the steering, but needed constant adjustments- in the gusts the boat would accellerate to 8 or 9 knots, then slam into waves and drop off the back of them. Wet and uncomfortable .The solution was to head up 5 degrees, to keep things at 6 knots or so, and following the waves up & down. But in the lulls this higher angle would stop Tribute in its tracks on the next high wave, cured by 5 degrees down again.
Anyway-after 16 hours of this we arrived in Dampier. Bruce 'Useless' Hullett is on his way and it looks like customs is closed until Monday.

Life at sea

While near the huge submarine radio base at Northwest Cape, it is prudent to shield your brain from radiation. Visit Exmouth to find out why.

We made it to Surerrier island just before sunrise this morning. A bit of snorkelling and recuperating, by late arvo we were on our way again. The Monties are the next stop and we need to get there with the sun high in the sky to navigate the bommies and reefs. Anyway, not much news, we are settling in nicely on the boat. Hoisting all sorts of sails to cope with the flukey winds and taking them down again. Making meals at strange times. Motoring over glassy sea in the Mary-ann passage at the moment, Hutch sound asleep. The lights of oilrigs and beacons litter the horizon. Moon low in the East, it is very pretty.

I've noticed that running the watches - asleep or awake at any odd time in the day or night interferes with memory. Mine at least. Everything becomes sort of blurry. Whatever!

We've changed the hooks on the lures to singles and crushed the barbs. And made some sort of a foamrubber slipway for the fish on the back, so we can release them (this is a 114 cm mackie) more or less unharmed.

On our way at last...

There was a pleasant farewell party on Tribute last night, where fresh VMG and tortillas were served. Checking my email later- Bruce and Hutch suddenly need a visa! Frantic phone calls, netsurfing etc, etc. Hutch and I left this morning just after sunrise and I'm writing this off Coral Bay, I had to check email to see how the visa saga was developing and I'm on watch anyway with nothing to do but stare at the swells, the moon, the single double-reefed sail and the dimmed instrument lights. It feels WRONG to be internetting on the high seas, but by wishing for everyone's dreams to come true at the next falling star, good may come of it after all.

A ray of hope!

It may be luck or chance but the past few days appear to have been guided by fate and karma more than anything else. It involves someone 4 degrees removed from a me, and resulted in stretching a conceptual loophole in the bond-system until it was large enough to allow the possibility of Tribute sailing through. If it succeeds, I am in karma-debt. You all are. Let's be nice to everyone.

The boat is asymptotically approaching readiness, and only another 100-odd pieces need to fall into place and arrive at three different addresses at the right time. My house and shed and finances and insurances, permits and taxes and other obligations are a different matter altogether, and if I didn't have likeable neighbours attached to my unit I'd be burning the lot behind me. I'd also like to sign my own death certificate to get registered as deceased by the bureaucrats for a while.


Anyway, it is all systems go and I hope to opdate this blog once Hutch & I are on our way to Dampier!

DISASTER STRIKES!!!!!!

I won't bore you with the good news- the boat is cleaned, antifouled & ready to sail & I'm on holiday. As of last week, Bali Customs is enforcing a 45% boatvalue bond system to release the boat for cruising in Indo. The procedures for paying it are hazy, there is no known system for getting it back and to my knowledge nobody's ever been game to try it. I discovered this three hours ago.

As things stand: The Bali Marina tells me that in Kupang things are more flexible. This is pure hearsay, last year Kupang was the only known port to actually enforce the bond and it caused the Darwin-Kupang Rally lots of grief. If this is confirmed or not denied, then Bruce, Hutch and I may have to sail to Kupang which is upwind. Bitch, bitch.

Bali is still an option, but for a max of 2 weeks with passports impounded.

I called the CAIT people, who announced that shipping agents and marina operators etc will have a meeting tomorrow regarding this. It is unlikely that any boat would ever visit Indo at all under the bond system, and they'd all be without a job. Something may come out of this. I'll find out tomorrow.

Keep ya all posted.....

It is coming together!!!

Good news all round!

• Tribute has been included in the National Shipping Register, of course I'm still awaiting the paperwork but that's one potential unsurmountable obstacle out of the way.
• And it looks like I've got insurance! Pending this, that and the other and mindful of the fact that their idea of 'Indonesia' stops at 10' S which leaves some islands and a lot of ocean uninsured. Not having insurance and sitting on a boat >200K would make me think VERY hard about cancelling the plan so this is very welcome. Insurance is 4% of boat value, which makes me think that they have calculated that less than 1 in 25 boats go total loss on this trip. Nice thought. Inspires confidence.
• The shadesail is a work of art in black and marine blue and installs in minutes over the foredeck . We'll give it a test-run ( G&T at midday) over Easter, when a Monkey Mia trip is planned.
• BUH has picked up the new 2.4m RIB tender in Perth, reckons it will fit 3 or even 4 adults with a payload of 450 kg, and weighing 36 kg should not be too hard to stow on the back deck.
• The Australian Government has generously decided to subsidise the purchase of a satphone for Carnarvon Medical Centre.
• Haulout is planned for the 2nd of May, Craig will service the Yammy while Tribute's on the slipway which saves hours of akward lifting and carrying.
• The Indo, Oz and Q flag will be testflown today!

****** STOP PRESS***** Tribute is now officially the quickest boat in Shark Bay in 2008/9 and took the T-shirts home after a great weekend of racing. I know Ray Ellis and whoever owns the Shotover at Monkey Mia will doubt or protest this statement BUT having a big mouth is cheap. Please contest this on the racecourse- you've gotta be in it to win it.

And while blitzing the CYC cup in a haze of adrenalin and testosterone, Tribute also won a far sweeter, sociable and mellow trophy- that of having taken the most people along racing over the season.

I should explain that Division One of CYC consists of two boats- Tribute and Echo. And Echo was absent on a number of races, on one of which we had 12 or 13 people aboard.

Were there a prize for best catering and amount of alcohol consumed, we'd be up for that too.