Indonesia - Bali

September 3, 2006

Position: 12 28.0 S 130 51.3 E

We left Bayview marina at 1000 hours this morning and spent the night anchored in Frances Bay at 12 28.0 S 130 51.3 E. This was the first time we had moved DoodleBug in four months and we were anxious not to "bend" anything within view of our marina neighbors. We were surprised and deeply touched by the crowd of folks who came to see us depart through the Bayview lock, to help with the lines and to wish us a safe trip. We have met some really nice people in this marina and we hope that we will perhaps meet up with them again. (Maddox now has a "pen-pal" in Darwin who was born about the same time). The tide was still rising in Sadgroves Creek and this helped slow the current as the correct and narrow channel through the mangroves and mud banks is difficult to discern at times. To add to the challenge, the river is full of anchored or moored boats that naturally prefer the deeper part of this tidal river. We twice had to cut between moored vessels to favor the opposite and deeper side of the channel and we passed these boats a lot closer than I would have preferred. We dropped anchor in the head of the bay that the creek empties into and far enough away from the mangroves that we hoped we would avoid the bugs. As we anchored, Annette saw a 3 foot "wing span" manta ray and together we watched a peculiar kind of jellyfish swim up to the side of the boat. It was about the size of a slice of toast and similarly flattened. All other invertebrates of this type that we have avoided, have been cylindrical or umbrella shaped.

The few miles down the river had produced a shaking and vibration of the propeller drive train on DoodleBug. A "speed run" in the open harbor had shown low engine RPM and a maximum boat speed of perhaps 6.5 knots, well below the hull speed of 8.5 knots we would normally expect. I suspect that the cause is the growth of marine organisms on the hull and particularly on the propeller, throwing it off balance. We also had a transmission drive shaft seal replaced while at the dock and the engine was unbolted from it's mountings. Perhaps it isn't lined up correctly? Now the hull and prop are painted with a special and expensive paint, that is supposed to shed these unwanted passengers as the hull moves through the water. Therefore the vibration may simply go away by itself. I wanted to dive the hull, inspect the prop and clean some of the growth off while at anchorage but the jellyfish we watched, reminded us that Darwin harbor also contains aggressive sharks, saltwater crocodiles as well as the lethal "box" jellyfish and sea wasps.

We spent Australian "Father's Day" napping and reading and enjoyed a great sunset view of the city skyline of Darwin. At nightfall, I fired up the generator to top up the batteries and after 10 minutes running, it shut itself down. What the heck?! I had serviced the unit just weeks ago and tested it and all was well. Was the oil low? Did I mess up putting a new fan belt into it? I decided the probable cause was a failure in the salt water cooling system and an inspection of the pump showed that the rubber impeller had shredded itself. An hour later we had installed a replacement pump and had tracked down 10 of the 12 missing rubber "blades" on the impeller.

The generator was then fired up and is now running perfectly. At 0400 hours the anchor alarm on the GPS went off, waking us from deep slumber. The tide had turned and again I had not allowed enough range on the alarm setting. False alarm. Back to sleep. We are definitely in cruising mode again!

September 4, 2006

Position: 12 17.8 S 130 10.1 E

We left the dock at Cullen Bay Marina at 1030 hours after clearing with Customs. We are now motor-sailing west into a near headwind. By tomorrow morning the wind is forecast to have shifted to a more advantage SE direction. In the meantime, we are close hauled on main about 20 degrees off course and beating through an uncomfortable chop. Our position at 1615 hours local time is 12 17.8 S 130 10.1 E (UTM time is 0845).

September 4, 2006....later

We had spent last night at anchor in Frances Bay and this morning had a series of appointments. The first was to take on duty free diesel at the "Fisherman's Wharf" fuelling dock. We raised anchor at 0720 hours and found unsurprisingly, that it was caked in thick black mud. When we arrived at the dock, all possible access to the fuel lines was blocked by moored fishing boats. The boat at the end of the dock had a deck-hand visible and we asked permission to tie up alongside. The deckhand was very friendly, said this was OK, and helped take a line from Annette. Just as we had finished tying up, the trawler captain appeared and told us that he was leaving immediately and we needed to untie. This we did and while muttering curses under our breath, we "hovered", while he pulled away from the dock leaving us to sidle into his slot. We were fortunate in that we had reconnoitered the dock a few days earlier and measured the spacing of the pilings. We thus were rigged with a fendered 8 foot plank over the side to come against the rough piling. Tied up and still on schedule! I climbed the primitive stairs to the jetty, ran over to the fuelling office and handed over my authorization for duty free fuel. We only needed about 100 gallons(400 liters) but the rigging of the hose and manhandling of the same down to DoodleBug seemed to take forever. Finally we were done and back to the office to pay the bill. The fuelling dock manager kept taking phone calls and laboriously typing endless numbers into his computer. Meanwhile I pretended to be unconcerned, whilst internally fuming and remaining completely cognizant of my 0930 appointment with the Customs officials at another jetty, four miles away. Finally we got a bill. Then the credit card machine would not work. While the manager chatted lightly about the electrical charging problems of his credit card reader, I was screaming inside. Approved! Thanks! Have a great day! I sprinted back to the dock. DoodleBug spun off the fuelling dock and we raced as fast as we dared push our off-balance, vibrating drive train, over to the Cullen Bay jetty. We weaved between bogglingly complicated warning buoys and clearly visible reefs, until we could see the jetty, pulled in and tied up at exactly 0930 hours. We had made it! The duty free booze delivery was waiting at the dock and we inventoried this and handed over the necessary paperwork. Our neighbor Tony from Bayview marina then walked up. He had driven over to see us off and to see if we needed help with anything. A three ring circus then developed, with Annette cleaning mud off the anchor at the bow, the crates of booze being loaded, me chatting to Tony and the arrival of the multiple Customs officials. After an intense, sweat filled hour, we had all of the stores loaded and stowed, the clearance paperwork finished with certificates in hand, we were pulling away from the jetty and pointing DoodleBug to the west. Our weather forecast was for light thermally generated headwinds, growing in strength during the afternoon. This is exactly what we found. We motored under a clear blue sky and watched dolphins and a large sea turtle swim by. By afternoon the headwind had grown to 14 knots and we have been babying the engine and trying to find an RPM that minimize the vibration. The chop was now building with spray covering the foredeck and we began to motor-sail with the mainsail, while tacking into the wind. With just the mainsail up and sheeted tight, we can sail to perhaps 25 degrees of the wind direction and the effect is to both steady the motion of the boat cutting through the waves - now at an angle, as well as to pick up a little more speed.

By nightfall the wind had begun to drop and we resumed our direct course into the dying wind and calming seas. We had a three-quarter moon and when the moon sank to the appropriate angle in the early hours of the morning, the sea flashed silver lights, as though strobes were scatted over a wide area. Annette counted shooting stars on her watch, while Ed saw dolphins close by in the moonlight.

Sunrise on September 5th was a spectacular light show through the thin layers of cloud on the horizon over DoodleBug's stern. The wind has now dropped to the 2 to 3 knot range and is beginning to clock around to the east. We are finally at sea.

September 5, 2006

We have often been asked, "Don't you get bored under passage?." Today was a typical sailor's day. It was calm in the early morning and I decided to repeat the "engine speed run" test I had made in Darwin harbor. This is simply pushing the throttle to the maximum position and then motoring for 10 minutes or so, while noting the maximum RPM and boat speed achieved. In Darwin the engine RPM maxed out at 2500 and the boat speed at around 7 knots. This morning the RPM was the same and the speed was nearly 8 Knots. My diagnosis was that the "on engine" fuel filter needed changing and that some of the slime had sloughed off the hull by its passage through the water.

The winds were almost non-existent, so we just stopped the engine and spent about 45 minutes changing the filter, purging the air out of the new filter and checking the engine and transmission for fluid levels. I was just finishing up, when a large turbo-prop aircraft flew over at low altitude. Annette was going ballistic as she had been waiting all morning to see if she could get a close up picture of the Australian Customs and now could not locate her camera. We talked to the Customs folks who thought we were "anchored" in 300 feet of water waiting for wind. (Our anchor chain is 200 feet long).

We restarted the engine and the new filter made absolutely no difference to the RPM. Gosh Darn! It probably needed changing anyway. By now the wind was beginning to pick up and it looked like we could go to a port broad reach (with the wind coming over the port side from the rear). We would need to pole out the Genoa and began to rig lines and poles on the starboard side of the boat. Thirty minutes later we were hot, sweaty and definitely needed a cool beverage. We were also under sail! Ten minutes later the wind died and we were back on engine. In fact the forecast winds never showed up and we continued to motor into light headwinds for the remainder of the day.

After lunch we had spotted a small pod of dolphins and also seen our first flying fish, so I remarked to Annette that we needed to rig the trolling lines. (BTW, the dolphins have always ignored these). In a trice, Annette had both trolling lines rigged. Twelve minutes later there was a small tuna on one of the lines. We hauled him in and threw him back in the water to grow bigger, while we sincerely hoped the fish had by now learned a lesson and we could read our books in peace. Twenty minutes later there were two fish, one on each line. We threw the smaller one back but the larger tuna was approx. 30 inches long (8 servings) and looked just like dinner. For some reason, tuna spit up blood when they are landed, even though they are just hooked through the mouth. By the time he was subdued and in a plastic tub, the stern of DoodleBug, plus most of Annette who was doing the subduing, was coated liberally in blood. It looked like a charnel house back there and she had not even begun to think about the fillet knife. Annette filleted while I cleaned the blood off the boat. Forty five minutes later, the fish was cleaned and the boat was "cleaner". We did not redeploy the fishing lines, as this was way too much like hard work. Next Annette had to shower herself, then launder our blood-stained clothes. She absolutely swears by "Incredible" stain remover (Incredible Inc. of Houston, Texas 1-800-468-7592), for removing the blood stains. If O.J. had used this, he could have saved himself a fortune in legal bills.

Supper was very simple - tuna in a chardonnay, lime and onion reduction with toasted, then steamed rice. Just as we were about to eat, a loud bang echoed through the boat and a shudder ran through the hull. We had hit a large piece of timber floating in the ocean. I checked the hull for visible damage and found none. There were several other large hulks of timber in the near vicinity and then no more. Sunset and we rig the boat for night passage. A typical day ends.

September 5, 2006

Position: 12 13.2 S 127 51.1 E

Just an update on our position as of Tuesday at 0900 UTM: Position: 12 13.2 S 127 51.1 E; Weather: clear and sunny. All well on board.

September 6, 2006

In the wee hours of this morning, I had seen a small radar echo and a dim light on the horizon to the southwest. I had assumed it was a fisherman, since the target was not moving and as the night wore on, we gradually overhauled the vessel. By first light I found the object behind DoodleBug's stern on the horizon and what I could see, looked like the top of a mast with sails. I hailed the yacht on the VHF and raised "Wet Spot" - a 32 foot Swedish single-hander. The captain had worked for sixteen years in California for a large Volvo dealership and we chatted for a while. He said, "It gets lonely out here". He was just drifting along, waiting for the wind to blow, as he had limited diesel onboard and had been unsuccessful at getting an Indonesian entry permit at the Darwin embassy. He is planning to stop at Christmas Island but without wind, his multi-entry 90-day Australian visa was going to expire before he gets there. If you sail to Christmas Island without stopping in another country, then Australia considers that you have never left Australian territory. We should not face that particular problem, as we will be stopping in Bali. This is only the fourth sailing vessel we have encountered at sea during the past three years. Sure enough, a large container ship also showed up - the first ship we have seen since leaving Darwin and although it passed 10 miles from DoodleBug, it passed within 2 miles of "Wet Spot". At 0930 hours I noticed an aircraft on radar approaching us on a direct course. I yelled to warn Annette and she grabbed her camera, while quickly putting on a tee-shirt, as she doesn't want to be "Miss September" in the Australian Customs new fundraising calendar. The aircraft turned out to be a helicopter which flew over us at altitude. No call on the radio, therefore not customs. Australia has oil production platforms out here, so maybe a rig shuttle?

The most amazing sea life we spotted today were sea snakes. We must have spotted a dozen over the course of the day, just basking on the surface. They were large snakes, better than 6 feet in length and colored a sort of light, yellowish, striped tan - sort of like giant tape worms. The expected wind blew fitfully for maybe 30 minutes before dying. We managed to sail for perhaps a total of two hours at around three knots before the wind gave up and we went back on engine. By tomorrow morning, we will have burned perhaps a third of our diesel but will be close to Ashmore reef. We plan to stop there and wait for the winds to pick up before continuing on to Bali. Ashmore has no crocodiles and is supposed to be fantastic snorkeling and diving. It is also noted for having the greatest number of species of sea snakes recorded at any location in the world.

September 6, 2006

Position: 12 14.8 S 125 24.1 E

Just an update on our position as of Wednesday at 0815 UTM: Position: 12 14.8 S 125 24.1 E; Weather: clear and sunny. All well on board.

September 7, 2006

Last night we had passed near some oil installations. I believe that the wellheads are on the sea bed and whatever they are extracting is pumped into a moored oil tanker. I had noticed a slightly acrid smell as we passed and just assumed it was emanating from the production. A few hours later, the smell had not dissipated and Annette mentioned to me that the pilot berth felt very hot. Under this berth are the battery banks that store power for DoodleBug. When we examined the batteries, they were almost steaming and spitting acid. What now? We cleaned up the mess, added distilled water to the low cells and disconnected the power cable from the single 12 volt engine starting battery, as this seemed to be the worst affected. Our diagnosis is that we are somehow overcharging the cells, a problem that would be assuaged if we could just get enough wind to sail! Early morning had us approaching an Australian warship (the frigate "Northumberland" ?) on a heads on course. I said to Annette, "Let's play chicken. I bet he swerves first". And of course they did. The wind remained in the range of 2 to 6 knots all day and by we were close enough to Ashmore Reef to motor on and anchor there for a few days.

The radar next showed a smaller vessel in our path, that as we approached, looked like two small fishing boats drifting together. The binoculars then showed us, it was in fact a single wooden dhow, with sharply rising bow and high stern and looked like two vessels as it was painted in a rainbow of different colors. We altered course to pass it's bow as we saw floats in the waters off the dhow's stern. Perhaps thirty minutes later, three lateen rigged dhows sailed across our stern. We are in Asia! The chart reads "Indian Ocean". We are no longer in the Timor sea.

Geologically the Ashmore Reef is part of the Australian landmass and lies some 200 miles from the Australian mainland and perhaps 100 miles from West Timor. Australia maintains the reef complex as a National Nature Reserve (and also maintains sovereignty over the adjacent oil reserves, of course). The reef is approximately 14 miles east - west by eight miles north - south. The sky was ringed with low clouds and in the direction of the reef, the clouds were noticeably tinged green below, reflecting the color of light from the lagoon. The Indian Ocean cruising guide had warned of a complex and dangerous entry, with many "bombies," and recommended calling the resident ranger to see if he would guide us into the lagoon. There was no response to our radio calls and a sweep of the reef with binoculars, showed a small sand island with two palm trees but otherwise entirely uninhabited. With Annette on the bow scanning for obstacles, our reef entry was entirely uneventful. We did not even see a "bombie" (boat crushing reef pinnacle) and after motoring into the inner lagoon, we picked up a substantial looking orange mooring buoy labeled "Customs". A couple of hours later, we were joined at the moorings by four or five Indonesian fishing dhows. They tacked in under sail and each had a crew of eight or so. It was interesting to see a man sitting out on the end of the bowsprit and handling the jib as they sailed right up to the mooring buoy. In the early evening the crew of the nearest dhow had left in small canoes to go fishing off the reef, leaving a single man on board. Later, he began yelling in an agitated way and waving his red tee-shirt over his head. The fishing canoes returned at a high rate of paddle and Annette said, "Look, there is a warship". We looked across the reef entrance to see the gray shape of Patrol vessel "Albany" with a RIB (rigid bottomed inflatable) approaching us at high speed. The RIB contained eight sailors in combat rig and eased onto our stern quarter while we chatted to them. They were very friendly and declined Annette's offer of Australian meat pies (she is not a fan of meat pies). They patrol the area daily to control illegal immigration and were not in the least bit interested in the local Indonesian's fishing operations, although they did board and inspect each of the moored dhows. We of course are on the patrol boat's mooring but although I offered to move, they said that was fine. Sun sets over the Indian Ocean lagoon with the dhows bobbing quietly in the gathering dusk and the smells of wood fires cooking supper wafting across the still waters. We were tired, so I microwaved a meat pie.

September 7, 2006

Position: 12 13.2 S 123 00.4 E

Just an update on our position as of Thursday at 0600 UTM: Position: 12 13.2 S 123 00.4 E on mooring at Ashmore Reef.

The winds have been light to non-existent all day so we have put into Ashmore Reef for a few days to wait for better conditions.

September 8, 2006

Today we are on a mooring in Ashmore Reef lagoon and it is a "work" day. The wind had picked up a little and the lagoon had a two foot to three foot chop, with a wicked swell. The problem here is that the tidal range is about 13 feet and we were approaching high tide - thus allowing some residual wave action to cross the reef from the ocean.

We transshipped our spare diesel fuel from jerry jugs into the main tank and checked and cleaned the battery compartment. We checked every cell (54 of them) and only found about three that were marginal. This was a great relief and since we hope to sail the rest of the way to Bali, with actual, blowing, air type wind, the overcharging issue will be moot and give us time to resolve the cause. We inflated and launched the dinghy and were pleased to see that it not only floated but that the outboard motor started. We had not used the dinghy since New Caledonia and it has been rolled up and stuffed under piles of yachting debris in the stern locker. We were still bouncing around and our Indonesian neighbors on their fishing boat moored about a 100 yards away, were rolling even worse than us and looking positively miserable. Annette had made up a "care" package for them, with two cans of Corned Beef, some tea and a dozen rolls of lifesaver candy. I motored over to say "hello" and we mutually discovered that we had no languages in common. I even drew blank stares with my "Good Day" in Indonesian Bahasa language. Nevertheless we smiled, shook hands, waved goodbye and the like. There were eight men on board the wooden dhow and their ages ranged from teenager up to about fifty. Some were dressed in army fatigues but they all seemed very friendly and I saw no dynamite vests. Later that afternoon, Annette noticed a dugout approaching and we realized we had guests. We invited the three paddlers aboard and the youngest one introduced himself, with the only English word he seemed to know, as "Captain". We smiled and looked at each other. I asked "Bali?" and they shook their heads. The Appendix of the Bali guide book has perhaps four pages devoted to vocabulary, so I tried them on "Bahasa?". To this we got head nods and I then read "Selamat datang" - meaning "welcome". Smiles and nods. Now we were off to the races. We did the usual, "What is your name?", "Where are you from?". This produced elaborate diagrams on a notepad until we grabbed a large paper chart. They were delighted with the chart and all three poured over it. They immediately identified their Island as "Roti", which is north of us. We determined our mutual ages, the captain was 26, the oldest crew member was 52. We found out they were all three married with varying numbers of children and also that they did not seem to care for the cold drink of lime cordial Annette had given them. It was an interesting visit but we were frustrated by the questions we lacked the vocabulary to ask. At one point they were all three straining their eyes to see a boat on the horizon. I offered the use of my binoculars and it was obvious that the captain had probably used binoculars before but they were an alien technology to the other two. A moment of hilarity occurred, as we tried to get the older crewman to hold the binoculars up to look through them and brought back memories of the scene in the movie "Robin Hood", when Morgan Freeman offers his telescope to Kevin Costner. The captain had been greedily poring over my chart and asked if he could have it. I pondered about this, as the paper chart is carried as a backup in case we lose the electronic version. Then I rationalized that they were crossing the ocean without any kind of chart whatsoever and my use of the chart ends in Bali. I badly wanted to know if they had a compass or any other kind of navigational tool but this was beyond the limits of our four page vocabulary. When they departed in their flimsy and leaking dugout canoe, we wished them "Selamat jalan" - meaning "Goodbye" when addressed to the leaving party.An hour or so later, the chop had dropped a little and I kitted up with snorkel gear to check out the underside of DoodleBug. We are moored in over 100 feet water depth and the water is a little cloudy, so there was little to be seen other than the hull. I discovered that the sacrificial anodes that were replaced at Bundaberg were almost completely eroded and that the propeller blades were encrusted with marine life and carried evidence of having supported the habitat of some fairly large mollusks. The problem of the transmission vibration was now explained. The prop had been coated with a fabulously expensive New Zealand product in Whangarei during May of 2005 and when the bottom was repainted in Bundaberg last March, the prop was in perfect shape and was not re-treated. Apparently the Darwin organisms are exceptionally tenacious. Tomorrow we will take care of these items. An updated weather forecast predicts good sailing conditions for a Sunday departure.

September 9, 2006

This morning I used my scuba gear for the first time in over a year. I replaced both anodes on the rudder and spent twenty minutes or so, removing the deposits of marine organisms from the propeller. This propeller folds according to the loads, RPM, direction of rotation and the like. The three blades pivot independently and any kind of growth changes the water flow across an individual blade and they become unbalanced. My cleaning job wasn't perfect but it was a huge improvement on the status quo. We had been moored perhaps three miles from a tiny sand island named "West Island" that sported two palm trees. It also provides a source of fresh water for the visiting Indonesian fishermen, although our Australian Patrol visitors had warned us not to drink it and offered us water from their supplies if we needed any. We headed out in the dinghy to pay the nearest dry land a visit. There was about a two foot chop in the lagoon plus swells and these look very large from the perspective of a dinghy. Nevertheless we pressed on, albeit at half throttle and dodging the biggest waves. When we reached the island, it looked paradisiacal with the emerald green of the sea, the blinding whiteness of the sand beach and the few scrubby palm trees. The seas were also breaking well up the beach and although we could have landed and only got a little wet, relaunching the dinghy would have been very difficult. We took photographs but did not plant the American flag on the highest point. Back to DoodleBug but now motoring directly into the wind and waves.

As we were readying navigation and the like for a morning departure, we heard voices from outside. Sure enough, word had got around and there was another dugout off the stern asking for food. We gave them the balance of our corned beef (always a big hit) and a few other goodies and chatted a while, as two of the paddlers could speak a little English. They were also from the Island of Roti. We had already found out from our first visitors that it takes them two and a half days to sail here and they stay a month before returning to Roti. What we had been unable to ask before, was what do they do with the fish they catch? They obviously have no refrigeration. The answer is that it is dried on board. For a month's work the crew earn the equivalent of US ten dollars.

September 10, 2006

Yesterday afternoon we had readied the boat for departure and were not looking forwards to a night of bouncing around in the Ashmore Reef lagoon, when high tide would arrive about mid-night. We decided we could not be any more uncomfortable if we were out at sea. Just as the sun was approaching the horizon, we grabbed the fading daylight to drop our mooring, spun around and headed back through the reef pass to the open ocean. The light was not good for "bombie" watching but we were able to follow the GPS track of our entrance and felt sure we were clear of obstacles.

We rigged the Genoa pole to hold the sail in position for a dead run (the wind coming directly from the stern) and hailed the darkened warship that was approaching us. It did not reply on the first hail but after hailing again, we got a response and notified the Australian patrol vessel "Albany" that we were leaving. The ship running without lights and it's failure to reply to our VHF hail was a repeat of last nights events. The previous night we had heard "Wet Spot", the Swedish single-hander calling on the radio. He could see the patrol vessel on his radar and knew he was being shadowed. He sounded a little concerned and I so answered him and told him that the vessel was the "Albany". He responded that "Albany's" behavior, that close to the Indonesian coast, could also be the behavior of a pirate vessel.  At this point "Albany" cut in and spoke to him. They claimed not to have heard his hail but to have heard mine, when I called him. "Wet Spot" chewed them out for running without lights and their response was polite but unimpressed. It was too dark for "Wet Spot" to attempt the reef entrance into the Ashmore Reef lagoon, so he sailed off towards Christmas Island, muttering imprecations in Swedish, I suppose. We continued on our way to Bali with poled Genoa, winged main and mizzen and with the moon beginning to rise as a bloated and ruddy ball on the horizon.

Just after a very pretty sunrise this morning, we watched a large pod of dolphins playing and cavorting and then were passed by an LPG tanker and a conventional tanker. Again the mystery of how you don't see ships for days and then three vessels pass within a mile or so of each other. We continued to sail "wing and wing" on a near dead run for most of the day. At 1700 hours we were amazed to hear the sound of a motor and voices. We had been monitoring the radar and scanning the horizon every fifteen minutes, based upon a timer alarm. We were now passed by a 25 to 30 foot power launch with five men aboard. A few minutes later we saw another three launches a few miles away. We assume that they were long-line fishing as we were perhaps 50 miles from the southernmost point of the Island of Sumba. What was disturbing to us was that in the 6 to 8 foot seas we were experiencing, they were completely hidden from the radar. Did they use navigation lights at night? Did they fish at night? All night long we kept a very close watch for unlit fishing vessels. By morning we were extra tired and either didn't see any, or they never existed beyond yesterday's four vessels. Either way, there is no extra paint on DoodleBug's bow.

September 10, 2006

Position: 11 16.2 S 120 39.4 E

Just an update on our position as of Sunday at 1020 UTM: Position: 11 16.2 S 120 39.4 E. We decided that Ashmore Reef lagoon was a little lumpy and put to sea yesterday at sunset.

September 11, 2006

Today found us sailing parallel to the coast of the Island of Sumba. We are about 50 miles from the southern coast but there is no sign on the horizon that any such land exists, other than there is a now a haze that was not present before. Human generated air pollution or just a change of atmospheric conditions? Indonesia is the world's fourth most populous country with a population of around 250 millions. We would expect some evidence of their presence, even out at sea.

We have been sailing on a broad reach with sunny skies and big following seas in the morning. By afternoon the swells died down a little and we noted a 160 mile run in the 24 hours since left Ashmore Reef. A "quiet" day just watching the flying fish explode from the sea. Some fly a zigzag pattern for long distances and others seemingly crash out of control into the side of a wave. We are still eating our tuna caught last week and so these fish are safe - at least from DoodleBug predation.

September 11, 2006

Position: 10 10.4 S 118 16.0 E

Just an update on our position as of Monday 9/11/2006 at 0940 UTM: Position: 10 10.4 S 118 16.0 E. We are about 200 miles from Bali and should arrive Wednesday morning.

September 12, 2006

Early this morning we noticed some fishing boats on the radar. When we were close enough for visual contact, we could see that they looked like deep ocean trawlers, with a high vee shaped bow but with the living quarters built on the swept up stern. The four vessels were scattered in a line across our path and we noticed the nearest boat turn towards us. We turned away from him, as we were not interested in polite and intimate discourse in eight foot seas. We prefer to communicate by radio at such times. We then noticed that we were passing close to a buoy with a radio antenna attached. We assume that these are "drift" nets. I am not sure exactly how they work - as in, why don't the fish swim around the end? What I understand is that they are suspended some unknown depth below the surface and drift in a line carried by the current. We saw some buoys with a flag attached but they were hard to spot in daylight with the wind producing chop and sharp eight foot swells. I seriously doubt that they are illuminated at night, so we just plan to give the fish herding boats as wide a berth as possible. Annette is feeling a protein deficiency and cooks eggs and bacon for breakfast and a magnificent steak in red wine sauce for lunch.

September 12, 2006

Position: 09 02.3 S 115 50.9 E

Just an update on our position as of Tuesday 9/12/2006 at 1040 UTM: Position: 09 02.3 S 115 50.9 E. We will heave to around midnight local time, bob around for four or five hours and expect to arrive at Bali Marina at dawn tomorrow.

September 13, 2006

A run of 153 miles in the past 24 hours and we will arrive at our destination in the small hours of the morning. I carefully pick a spot in the ocean about 15 miles from Bali and determine that we will "heave to" at this point for four or five hours. By then we should have drifted within 10 miles of our destination and will sail in at daylight. A look at the instruments before midnight showed us rapidly moving towards the south pole. We are in a strong ocean current that is passing down the west coast of the island of Mataram and taking us with it. As we passed into the current, there were rough seas and breaking waves all around and the immediate reaction was we were going aground somewhere. We did not expect to find a current "rip" so far offshore and there is no indication or warning on the chart of a strong flow that we measure in the range of 4 to 5 knots. The island of Nusapenida sits in the channel and we suspect that there will be an eddy or calm water in it's lee. By 0400 we are drifting off Nusapenida but the hope of a quiet four or five hours of sleep has been blotted by the sail north against the current. At 0500 hours we hoist sail and after fighting the current on the west side of Nusapenida, we arrived at Benoa harbor, Bali and tied up alongside the dock in the Marina. DoodleBug is in Bali!

September 13, 2006...later

We arrived at the Bali at 0800 hours local time (0000 hours UTM) and tied up at the marina. We have already cleared customs, immigration, and agriculture plus found the ATM and turned in a load of laundry to be done. You can tell a lot about the local economy when you aren't even offered the option to do it yourself. The ATM was a bit of a challenge when the notice appeared - maximum amount for withdrawal 1,250,000. Now the exchange rate is about 9,200 rupiah to the US dollar. Quick now, how much is 1,250,000 rupiah in US dollars?

We have had breakfast, hooked the boat up to city power (I removed the ground pin to make the plug work) and are now heading back to bed. We are in Bali!

September 13, 2006...still later

We motored into Benoa harbor, Bali just after dawn and anchored off the yacht club. Within a few minutes, the marina staff had arrived and we called them on the VHF radio. They acknowledged that they had a berth available for us and DoodleBug was soon swathed in lines and tied up alongside their dock. It seemed only minutes before we had Customs, Agriculture and Immigration officials on board and were knee deep in the usual paperwork. "Has anyone died of disease during your last voyage?". "Provide a copy of your last de-ratting certificate". "How many tons of cargo are you discharging in Bali?". The marina had provided an agent "Mahdi", who made helpful suggestions for the more obscure questions. We gave the customs agents printed lists of anything and everything that they might want us to declare. They appeared to be near fainting when they saw the contents of our liquor locker, even though it contains less than half of what we left Texas with three years ago and its contents were listed on the piece of paper they were holding. They decided that this locker needed to be sealed until our departure. No problem. They then did a repeat on the beer locker. It had to be sealed. "No way!", I said, "You can seal away her wine but not my beer! I will be buying more before I leave Bali". "OK" the agent replied. (It's a guy thing).

Finally everyone wished us a welcome to Bali and left us in relative peace to survey our surroundings. On our approach to the harbor, we had seen the Balinese fishing boats with their swept bows and high sterns but we had already seen these on passage. The skyline of the nearby town of Benoa was quite difference from the Pacific and Austral regions. Even in the distance we could see that the tiled roofs of the buildings had a distinct oriental look, with elaborate scrolled decorations at the corner ridges and along the rooflines. The other item we noticed, was the sky was filled with kites, all across the town and into the distance. Brightly colored eagles, dragons, butterflies and all specie of mythical creatures rode the wind. (of course dragons are not mythical).

The marina has floating concrete slipways but there was a slightly run down air to the dock. Like Denerau where we stayed in Fiji, the marina caters to large ferries and charter vessels. These massive vessels tend to damage the dock structure and their commercial operations discharge far more effluent and trash than a few cruising boats. The cruisers were also here from all over the world and this is our first contact with the cruising community since we left Bundaberg. The dock was also home to perhaps a dozen "boat boys". These are Indonesian day laborers who will wash, polish or otherwise perform labor intensive services on your boat for US$10 per day. Although this may not sound a lot of money - with sky high unemployment here and the usual wage for skilled labor at US$5 per day, the $10 per day for the casual boat laborers is considered a good deal by all parties.

We needed Balinese cash and received directions to an ATM machine, allegedly within walking distance. At the marina entrance, we had to pass a security checkpoint with multiple uniformed guards and a lifting barrier. All vehicles were stopped prior to ingress and the underside was examined with a mirror on a stick as well as the trunk searched. We noticed that the adjacent establishments had a similar security arrangement and were reminded of the darker side of Bali's immediate history. We found the ATM nearby and stood there boggled, as the video screen announced a maximum withdrawal of 1,250,000. With the Rupiah at 9,200 to the US dollar, our passage befuddled brains were mumbling, "Huhh??".

September 14, 2006

Today was our first pilgrimage into town and we took a taxi to the holiest of shrines, "Ace Hardware". Actually this turned out to be a bust, as it is the only Ace Hardware store I have been in, that did not seem to carry plumbing supplies. The traffic was fairly well behaved, not a lot of horn blowing, no running of red lights. We were impressed with the swarms of Honda motorcycles / motor scooters. The scooters were carrying up to five passengers each, sometimes loaded down with immense swaying towers of baskets or vast panniers of heavier merchandise. The scooters ignored the one way street signs and would pass either side of the four wheel traffic, using the sidewalk when other passage was blocked. Young, old, male, female weave confidently in and out of the traffic stream. I was really surprised that we saw no accidents. Many of the riders wore crash helmets but many did not. The law does not require the riders to wear helmets if they are wearing traditional Balinese dress. The other category of helmet less riders were the kids, often found hiding around the corner and waiting for the police check-point to move on, before they could continue their journey.

Ace hardware is on the outskirts of a village called Kuta and this village was the location of the 2002 terrorist bombing. We decided to visit the spot and walked past hundreds of gift shops selling every possible kind of carving, painting, tee-shirt, post card, surf board, jewelry and the like. There were several stores that were selling nothing but American Indian artifacts, feathered shields, tomahawks, "dream catchers" and carvings, as well as stores that sold Australian Didgeridoos. My guess is that these wares were not imports but exports. The one thing that was missing from this kaleidoscope of commercial enterprises was any sign of customers. Since the 2002 and 2004 bombings, the tourists have stopped coming to Bali. More than one million people have lost their jobs in an economy that was 60 percent tourism based. Bali is both a physical and political Island, with 95 percent of its population as Hindu worshippers. The 5 percent balance of the population are mainly city dwelling Christians and Moslems. This Island of Hindus lies in a sea of Indonesian Moslems. Indonesia has the largest Moslem population of any country in the world, with nearly two hundred million worshippers and the bombers came from this segment of the population. The site of the 2002 bombing is just a vacant construction lot with a large memorial to the over 200 victims who died, on the opposite street corner.

For me, the real horror was that this location is so anonymous. Just a corner bar in the middle of the main tourist drag. Not the tallest building. Not the longest bridge. Just a place where innocents, who were on holiday to have fun for a week or so before going back to work, were blotted out of existence. This is real terrorism and the damage to Bali has been enormous.

Our next goal was to follow the outbound flow of surf boards. We wound through tight alleyways of even more bars, gift shops, hotels and guest houses and suddenly popped out on to the beach. The young surfing crowd were here and the waves along the beach were performing their task to perfection.

We walked the beach for a while, dodging street peddlers and inhaling the scents of suntan oil, joss sticks, barbeque and spices, peppered with hammering rock music in a dozen languages. Our beer hormones were cutting in by now and we headed back to DoodleBug to correct the condition.

September 15, 2006

Friday morning I was on deck clutching a cup of coffee and chatting with a fellow cruiser "Bob", when "Harry" came by. From the conversation between Bob and Harry, I deduced that Harry was unemployed and looking for work. We hired him to wash, polish and wax DoodleBug and soon loaded him down with a huge pile of soap, rags and polish. Later that morning, Annette went out with several of the other ladies from the marina, for a "girls day out". This consisted of a visit to a spa in Kuta for various massages, followed by lunch and shopping. Rough day! Meanwhile back at Doodlebug, Harry and Ed went to work. My task was to climb the mainmast to repair the forward deck flood. This is a sealed beam lamp that illuminates the foredeck and we use it a lot foresail-trimming at night. The bulb is a type used for aircraft taxiing lights but it was not the bulb that was shot. The bulb is held in its fitting by a plastic bezel and this had broken just as we arrived at the Bali Marina. In fact, I had found the broken ring on deck. Finding a replacement part was impossible in Bali and I "repaired" the fitting by weaving a retaining net from nylon cable ties. It all seemed to work and I descended to the deck, narrowly missing Harry who was cleaning stainless steel below and was barely through my first beer at the bar when Annette struggled home with her purchases.

September 16, 2006

By now Annette was thoroughly embarrassed by her lounging at the spa while I slaved on boat chores, so she insisted that I come shopping with her. We stopped off at a spa and each had a two hour massage at US $3 per hour. We then waddled over to a restaurant for lunch . Another "girl's day out" and I was invited! In the evening we joined the "2006 Sea Bali" yacht rally, who had put on a buffet with floor show at a restaurant in the adjacent bay. We were looking forwards to chatting with the other cruisers but unfortunately, the restaurateurs had their music cranked well past the pain threshold and it was impossible to hold any kind of conversation. In addition, the food really sucked and was the worst we have had in Indonesia. Disappointed, we gave up well before the floor show and headed back to the relative quiet and calm of Bali Marina and DoodleBug.

September 17, 2006

Today we had hired a guide and driver for a tour of Bali. As we headed north, we passed through a series of small villages specializing indifferent Balinese arts and crafts. In each village we made a stop at a largish establishment and were shown a demonstration of the art or process, as applicable and were then skillfully ushered into a showroom, where the various products were for sale. We saw batik production (batik is a very labor intensive style of dyeing cloth, with multiple colors and using wax to prevent the different colors from mixing), gold and silver smithing, traditional and modern oil painting, plus wood carving. In general, the quality of the workmanship was quite high, with reasonable and negotiable prices - at least by US standards.

The drive alone was fascinating, as the road was fairly narrow and winding - perhaps two lanes wide, with parked cars and trucks on the verges and all sorts of business establishments such as local cafes, furniture stores, tire repair. The vacant lots between the buildings would be taken up by rice paddies and so in the midst of commercial modernity, would be peasants wearing conical straw hats and wading calf deep in mud, perhaps planting or weeding the rice crop, or perhaps fishing for eels in the flooded fields. Our driver would overtake other cars or trucks, even though there was oncoming traffic and parked vehicles reducing the width of the road to a single lane. In the midst of this seeming chaos and adding to the challenge, motorcycles swarmed everywhere and appeared to be oblivious of traffic flow, or even which side of the road they were supposed to be on. Several of the motorcycles were loaded down with panniers and huge loads of construction materials that would have filled a pick-up truck. Occasionally a chicken would wander aimlessly across the road. We saw no accidents and no road kill but how this was possible remains unsolved. The road then became more rural and passed through more rice fields where the steep hillside were terraced and brilliant green with the young rice shoots.

We made a photo stop and found our first aggressive peddlers. These were attempting to sell a cornucopia of tourist junk to us, while simultaneously bewailing their economic condition, the economic condition of their family, the devastation of the cyclone, the May 2006 earthquake and the price - all in the few seconds before we clambered back into our taxi. The closer we approached our lunch destination of the Kintamani volcano, the more demanding and aggressive we found the peddlers. Outside the restaurant where we had stopped for lunch, I watched a petite and elderly Japanese woman virtually assaulted by nearly ten peddlers, who were towering over her and thrusting their wares in her face. She turned and fled back into the restaurant. We had lunch there and enjoyed a great view of the volcano and nearby lake "Batur". The volcano erupted last year but it was a minor eruption with no local casualties. Our guide insisted that we could hike the volcano tomorrow morning but we easily concluded that the steepness and desolation of it's ash strewn slopes are best viewed from a restaurant bar.

Next stop was the Goa Gaja elephant cave temple (Ed had to wear a sarong so as not to offend the Hindu Gods) followed by a drive to the Southwest coast for sunset at the Tanah Lot temple.

The highlight of this portion of the trip was when Annette noticed a man on a motorcycle, with a basket containing a live rooster on one side and a plastic bag containing a dead rooster on the other. These were fighting cocks and the plastic bag contained the loser. The basket is custom made in Bali for transporting live (and illegal) fighting cocks and Annette was able to buy a basket (sans chicken) from a roadside store for US$6.The Tanah Lot temple sits impressively on a tide swept rock outcropping and we did arrive there in time for sunset.

As we approached the temple, a swarm of small bats issuing from a nearby cave, reminded us of what it is that bats eat and after Annette was blessed with holy water and anointed with rice by the Hindu priest at the temple, we headed back to the marina. A fascinating and fun day.