Good bye Following Sea

Hello from Indonesia.

After the great site "following sea" announced they're closing I'd moved over to Noforeignland and if you want to find me on a map this is your best bet for now, altho the site and "app" is a clusterfuck compared to following sea.

And so I intend to use this site again from now on, I like to write and write I can here.

Before I forget while in Sydney my new Genoa arrived from Lee's in Hong Kong, many thanks to Sarah&Paul, friends of my sister Lynn, who allowed me to have the sail delivered to their place and cheers to Paul who kindly delivered the sail, thank-you both so much. 

 Since I arrive in Indonesia three months ago I've been having a look around, I sailed across to Bali, my Niece Em (Emily) was arriving from Melbourne with her friend Pamela in a couple of weeks so I thought I would check out Serangan harbor, which is one of two enclosed harbors down south Bali, it turned out to be very untidy, full of rubbish, a huge rubbish dump nearby, first night there the smell of burning plastic was intoxicating, the second night the wind shifted and the smell was rotting rubbish, welcome to Bali, in saying that the people were delightful.

 Not wanting to spend two weeks here waiting for Niece I headed north to Amed, which is on the northeast coast of Bali, an open road-stead, I had planed to pick the Gals up here originally, (it was going to be less hassle to have them come across to Lombok) but moved on the following morning west to Lovina, which has a great supermarket, I even found some bacon!!  Altho compared to Pestell's from Nelson it was basically dog food, Fresh Bread but no Pane di Casa, the supermarket was air conditioned, so seductive, the anchorage at Lovina was great but windless at times, and a little breeze is a god sent up here believe me, (I was back here weeks later and talking to another yachtie who told me the water temp was 31 Deg, little relief there jumping in to cool down), Lovina is Lovely tho, the Hindu bar in the beach fun. I decided to head back to the constant sea breeze around Gili Gede, the home of (Marina Del Ray).

 

Niece and Pam arrived vire slow ferry from Bali a week later, we hung out by the pool, mooched around the islands snorkeling, picking Pams G'friend up a week later and headed up to Gili Trewangan, (party island), I felt a little out of place without a tattoo here, no vehicles on Gili T, only horse and cart and push bikes, Mushrooms available at the bar HaHaHa. 

I'd suggested to Em that we sail up to Kilimantan (Borneo) to see the Orangutans, I was keen to see them, feeling they were in some way a close relative of mine, me being a mutant Red head, Em said she was keen for an adventure. I was going over the safety stuff on the boat, like if I'm stupid enough to fall over board just keep going, then explaining about a ladder on the back of the boat that after falling overboard you could pull down in an emergency, "try it" I said, she came back with a gash in her newly blonde head, red blood on blonde looks way worse than red on brunette or even red wine on carpet, I cleaned it up "but no cutting the hair" she said, I had some 'old' antibiotics onboard, "so how bad is it" she said, head cuts bleed and always look bad, so I said "it wasn't too bad", "do you still want to go?" she was keen and so we left the the next day across the Java sea, we basically motored, motor sailed for three days, the Java Sea in shallow about 70M deep and full of fishermen and ships, oh for the south pacific, we arrived at Kumai in a down pour during a thunderstorm, my first real rain since Carin's, you could feel the boats relief having all that salt washed away. As about as smooth first sail for the Niece as I could have hoped for, she may disagree.

 

 Going to see the harbor master in Kumai was fun, he just wanted a selfie with Me and Em, (Can you imagine the 'Border Force!' in Aust doing this) he asked us to come back before we left, which we did, but the selfie guy wasn't there and they said go see immigration, they spell it Imigrasi, which sounds kind of sinister, like KGB or CIA, no yachtie worth his salt goes anywhere near the Imigrasi without good reason, mainly because if you do it will cost you money and they will first likely book you an appointment to come back days later to take that money. I not implying they are corrupt, it’s just that three visits days apart to extend an extended-able visa you’ve already been issued ??

I'd arranged a no frills, sleep on deck, two day trip up the river to see the wild life, being the cheapskate Uncle I am! The guy running the tour helped me load fuel on the boat before we left and had a guy arranged to sleep onboard while we were up river, in hind-sight not really necessary, one thing I have learnt since arriving here is the Indonesian people are very honest, I also feel much safer here than back home, I've given them plenty of opportunities to cheat me and not once have they taken it.

After saying how nice it was sitting in an air-conditioned car, we were informed we had been upgraded from my cheap skate on-deck tour to Air-con luxury for our boat trip, we had our own rooms with air-con after 6pm till 6am and being just south of the equator it was fantastic.

Huge boat to our-self's

 

To cut a long story short we had a great time, five star luxury, five crew spoiled us rotten.

After getting his more than fair share of food, Roger had sex with one of his concubines and wondered off, quite the show.

    

So we set sail for Bali, into a head wind, not that there was much of it, well we did manage 24 hrs without the engine, three and a half days later we made a little harbor in Northwest Bali, Banyu Wedang Bay, Em shouted me dinner which was generous, at a very flash resort in the harbor as usual the drinks bill was more than the food bill, cheap food tho about $15 nz for a main and quiet a swanky place, Em headed south to the airport the next day, she had been great crew, she's very tough, stood her watch, Thanks Em. I will be back here, the only decent harbor on Bali in my opinion, clean, very sheltered, surrounded by national park and resorts.

I made my way back to Gili Gede stopping at Lovina, Amed, Gili T and Gili Air for the first time.

Back at Marina Del Ray I prepared to fly home to see Mum and catch up with friends and family.

Fun trip home, back on the boat now anchored on the east side of Gili Gede chilling out.