Hello. I have been having a tough time uploading the pictures on the ipad. Our main laptop blew up a couple of months ago so we are making do with the ipad. I will try to put some captions on the pictures asap.
We arrived in Raffles marina after crossing the very busy strait between Indonesia and Singapore. We cleared immigration by going to a designated area in the boat while the immigration boat came up to us and we handed all the paper work over to them in a fishing net. This saved us a lot of time and money. We got the generator fixed after just a couple of hours the first day we were in the marina which is a very unusual situation as any of you with boats will understand! We have had a great time so far in Singapore witth lots of shopping and eating out. It is a beautiful city with great urban planing. We have visited Marian's Cousin Ben and wife Pat and had them out in the boat when we spent three hours moving to this marina. We had a problem which caused us to use the medical survices at Raffles hospital. We had come into contact with some dirty sand or whatever, and I don't want to thing what that might have been, and managed to get some worms growing in our feet. Ug!!! We alerted the other yachties we know and have found out others have the same problem and are greatful to know. None of this is as bad as our friend John on Sea Mist as he, after one week here has undergone a hip replacement. He is doing fine but will be off his feet for at lest a couple of weeks and then will have togo slow for some time. John is not good at staying put so it will be a strugle for him. He will be out of haspial on Friday. More later on Singapore.
Tuesday, October 30, 2012
Singapore
 |
| a cold one with John and Marian |
another beach
Marian in the palms
children in dugout canoes, a normal situation
Marian and Anne shopping
Friday, October 19, 2012
Nongsa Point
We stayed in Nangka for a couple of days just enjoying some quiet time. Callisto left for Malaysia as they are off to England on the 20th. That left us and Miss Behaving and we had a good evening with them and their children. We are the surrogate grandparents to the kids with Riley who is seven giving Marian lots of hugs. Lots of fun for us as we think of all our grandkids at home. Their was another rally event that we thought we would try to visit but after a half day sail we found that the event was up a river and the depth at the bar was two meters and we draw 2.1 meters so could not get in. Actually most all the boats could not get in and just is how disorganized this rally is. We then went to Belitung island where we anchored in a big bay with lots of huge boulders all about. The beach area was beautiful white sand with the consistency of icing sugar. There was a small restaurant ashore that all the cruisers were using that you just helped yourself to the beer in the fridge. The menu was small but the food was terrific and very inexpensive. We ended up staying four days and somehow the sail Indonesia people found out there were 15 or so yachts there and managed to put on a dinner and dancing. Very nice under the stars dancing on the beach with the evening temperature down to 30c. We were asked to talk to the vice regent of Belitung with our ideas on the rally. It as an interesting conversation.. We have really enjoyed the people in Indonesia as they are so friendly and want to show you all their ways of living.
We left Belitung at 0600 on the 15th Oct for a two night passage to Nongsa Point Marina. The day time is quiet with little traffic but at night all the fisherman show up with nets all over and no navigation lights. They have just some bright lights but are just white so no idea where they are moving or if they are moving. The radar really helps here as we can pick up there nets in the water and avoid them. Some nets are a mile long and maybe longer so it makes for a busy night. On the second night we crossed the equator and toasted Poseidon with a drop of Irish whisky. Sea Mist and Imagine were close by and we all congratulated ourselves for the crossing. It has been two and a half years that we have been in the Southern Hemisphere so it is quite exciting to be back where the toilet flushes the correct way.
We arrived at Nongsa Point Marina at 1100 on Wednesday the 17th and finally, with the boat plugged in to shore power turned on the A/C.. We have just had rain, very heavy rain , on the way up here which is the first since way back Townsville in Australia. It is HOT with 100% humidity so we really appreciate the air con. This is a full resort marina with good restaurants, Pools, and golf course. We are just 15 miles across the strait from Singapore and the shipping traffic in the strait is amazing. I think even busier than Gib. We just cleaned up the boat and enjoyed the resort and rested after our trip up here. This morning Friday I went with Gary off s/v Pursuit to play golf!!!!
Well I played last January in NZ so was not expecting for much from my game. Well I got what I expected. I sure need a lot of time on the range if I ever want to play without totally embarrassing
myself. We started at 0730 and had to quit after 14 holes as the thunder started to roll in. Not a problem as it was now really HOT.
We will stay here until Monday then it is off across the strait to Singapore for a week or so of big city living. We are looking forward to that and seeing cousins and a nephew while we are there. Also I can get the generator fixed so that we will have air con, water maker and washing machine running when we are out at anchor. There are some other boat jobs to do so we will be busy with that and site seeing.
Tuesday, October 9, 2012
Borneo
blog borneo
Our three days at the hotel were wonderful. The hotel is in an area called Nusa Dua. It is on the southern peninsula and is a gated area with lots of the big hotels with lots of security and very manicured. It is not what the town area is like at all. This area is what you would see in any western resort setting. The town of Dempasar and surrounding areas are very crowded with millions of motor cycles which makes for very interesting driving. We did a days drive after leaving the hotel through the middle of the island to Lovina Beach. Up in the mountains we drove past lots of rice paddies and believe it or not lots of strawberry growing farms. The strawberry juice was very good. On our return we drove the coast road along the north and east coasts and back to the marina.
We had hired a boat boy to clean and polish Kilkea when we were away and five days later the boat looked great. The cost was $25 per day so we were delighted that we did not have to do it this time. On the 25th and 26th we fueled Kilkea using jerry cans holding 20 liters each and we poured a dozen into the boat so that we now have full tanks. We were getting rather concerned with getting back our passports as we gave them to Sam the sail Indonesia rep to get an extension on our visa. He had them for a week and we could not contact him but at 1500 hrs on the 26th he arrived and all was well.
The morning of the 27th we left the marina after a hitch with Callisto's engine which was giving a fault warning. It was to do with the turbo on the engine and Michael could not get any boost so is now limited to operating the engine at lower rpm's and lower speeds. Once away we had to hug the east coast line of Bali to make use of the back eddies which we did for the rest of the day motoring not more than 100 meters from the shore. At least we got a great ocean view of the shoreline with literally thousands of small fishing boats with two outriggers that all head out fishing at night! When it started to get close to sunset we headed out to sea from the north coast of Bali to go seventy miles out to the island of Kangean where we arrive at 0800 and anchored for the day. You have to stay very alert at night as there are so many boats out fishing most with no lights or very low powered little flashing lights of blue red and green. All very confusing and it is a great help finding them all using the radar.
On Saturday the 29th we set off in company with Callisto on a three day two night passage to the town of Kumai up a river in Borneo now called Kalimantan. I set the fishing line when we were clear of the reefs and in deeper water and had a ten pound Mahi Mahi on board before nine am. Enough fish so the we motored on. Finally the wind came up around ten at night and we sailed the rest of the way to Borneo. The depth of the waters in this area of the world are very shallow with nothing deeper than seventy meter all the way to Singapore with most depths being in the ten to twenty meter range. On our third day we ran out of wind before we entered the Kumai river and worked our way upstream to the town a distance of fifteen miles. Now it is warm and even hot where we have been in the last number of years but once approaching Borneo it got really HOT and humid and with all this was smoke, lots of smoke. It seems that there is 98% illegal logging and land clearing on this huge island which is destroying the native jungle and its habitat. The sunsets in Indonesia are orange and you do not see the sun set as it is blocked out by all the pollution. Everything here is a little or a lot crooked with bribes the normal part of life whether small or big and we don't imagine things will change for a long time. We anchored with about twelve other yachts across from the town and spent the next day doing all the finishing details for our two day Klotok boat trip further up the river to the Tanjung Puting national park.
The Klotok boat is like the boat in the old movie African Queen which sounds like ka put ka put ka put. We have six of us onboard with Callisto, Anne and Michael, and Pakia Mist, Mike and Gloria. We were picked up off our boats and sit on the top deck of this seventeen meter long by three meter wide boat. We have a guide, captain and mate, and a cook onboard to look after us. The river starts out wide and keeps getting narrower and after six hours it was just wider that the boat when we arrived at camp Leakey. We saw an Orangutan and lots of proboscis monkeys and other kinks as well as crocodiles and other jungle animals by the time we arrive at the camp having had some amazing views ka putting through the jungle. At Camp Leakey they have reintroduced Orangs back into the wild and have a platform set up in the jungle where they put bananas out at three each day and call and the Orangutan come for the free meal. There were a number there with babies which they have every eight years so the little ones are with their mothers for a long time. They sure can eat bananas stuffing twenty plus into their mouth at a time! We stayed and watched the antics of the babies and mums for an hour or so before going back to the Klotok. Oh it was now really HOT with the temperature in the 40's and 100% humidity. Back on the boat we moved down the river a short way and just pulled into the shore, well jungle, and stopped for the night. We had brought some wine and drinks with us and just enjoyed the company as the darkness fell and all the jungle noises started up. It was very quiet and calm and the dinner the cook prepared was very good, basic but good, Now the crew cleared the table and chairs on the top of the boat and put out the mattresses and mosquito nets. So the six of us slept under the three nets on the top of the boat with the quiet of the jungle which was broken by the twilight of morning with many more animal sounds wafting through. Day two took us to two more camps where we saw more Orangutan's eating bananas. At the second stop we were watching this when there was great crashing and bashing noises heading our way. It turned out to be the dominant male they call Yannie arriving at the platform. He was thirty years old and was very big! You are only ten to fifteen feet away from these animals and sometimes a lot closer and you have to remember they are wild or at least live in the wild. They apparently share 97% of our genetic code but I really don't see any resemblance to us. They are pretty neat to see. We had a wonderful time and enjoyed the company very much. We were dropped off at our boats after dark and had a quiet night.
On our way from Bali we went to start the generator and got a fault code that indicates an over voltage problem and shuts down. This is a problem as we cannot make water, run AC, charge batteries and use the washing machine. So this morning we tied up to Callisto who pumped over some water so that we will have enough for the next couple of weeks when we will get to Singapore and have it fixed. No chance of that here. Now we have not had much good to say about Sail Indonesia as they do not ever keep to any schedule but today they have a day of festivities planned. So after getting a couple hundred litres of water from Callisto we were picked up in a long boat with others and taken to the visitors centre at the dock. There were singing and dancing along with something to eat and not many speeches and then we were off on a air conditioned bus to town where we all got into more long boats and toured up and down the river seeing the sights. Then we were dropped off at a big market before we boarded the bus and back to where we started. There they had tables all set up and a big lunch with more entertainment. After this back on the bus and down towards the river mouth where we were put back on long boats and ferried over to a big spit/sandbar which is a park area, where we planted a tree and released some baby turtles into the sea. When we got back to the boat we were exhausted.
Up at 0530 and off at 0600 down the river and off on a two hundred mile sail to a small island called Nangka off Bilitung island. We did an over night passage and managed to dodge all the fish boats but did have a tug and barge that seemed to not know the rules of the road or was just funning with us. We arrived just half an hour before sunset and are now anchored in twenty five meters on sand behind this small islnad.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
