Kailana

Vessel Name: Kailana
Vessel Make/Model: Nauticat 38
Hailing Port: Fremantle
Recent Blog Posts
06 November 2014

15. Singapore

Singapore is an amazing city. It is the city that never sleeps, always something going on with a plethora of places to eat, shop and drink. You can buy a cheap meal in a hawkers food stall for $3-5 (Beef Hor Fun quite a good choice) or you can go to a fine dining establishment and feel the need to either [...]

06 November 2014

14. Kumai to Singapore

From leaving Kumai (Borneo) we headed to Pulau Belitung. A distance of 330Nm, which we completed in 51 hours, hence 2x overnighters in a trot - not really our favourite. There was quite a bit of traffic to avoid at night, with both tankers and fishermen dotting our path north and not always on AIS, so [...]

26 October 2014

13. Kumai (Borneo)

We were quite surprised to hear that Sam, our Sail Indonesia agent, had made his way to Kumai. After going AWOL in Bali we basically wrote him off as being of any assistance with our visas, leaving it to a 'proxy' Agent named Ruth to organise the passports to be sent to Nongsa Point, our designated check-out [...]

22 October 2014

12. Java Sea Crossing

In the last blog we were happily sailing away from Bali, safe in the knowledge that our passports and visa extensions were speedily and professionally being processed before being sent ahead of us. Or were they? We had now dropped behind all the rally boats due to the immigration administration slow-boat [...]

07 October 2014

11. Gilli Air & Bali

The last you heard from us we were on our way to Lombok from Sumbawa. We are now back in the company of our other yachties. The crossing to Lombok was easy enough, only being able to sail about half the way. We stayed in a decent enough anchorage on the North East of Lombok, which proved to be a bit [...]

17 September 2014

10. Labuan Bajo to Sumbawa (via Komodo & Rinca Islands)

Indonesia really is a unique place. With a population of about 190 million, it has 300 different ethnic groups living within it, over 13,000 islands, with 580 languages and dialects spoken. That is diversity at its best. Not only does it have the largest population of Muslims, but it also has the [...]

4. Kupang to Alor Island

13 August 2014
We did a measly 20 nautical miles the day we left the dirty hustle and bustle of Kupang (2nd of August), and as soon as we were across the bay, ....we saw big mountains with smoke drifting out of the little villages that dotted the coastline...a refreshing sight. We were definitely ready to get out of Kupang once we had all our supplies in check. We left with a group of three other yachts, 'Beau Solais' (Terry and Addy), 'Sagata' (Phil and Lesley) and 'Esoterica' (John and Kerryn)...all retirees that we initially met at the Tipperary marina where we kept Kailana for all those months. We anchored in front of a quaint little village that night called 'Kurus'. Kailana was dwarfed by huge towering jungle-like mountains that looked like something off the set of 'Lost'. We had a quick dip in the crystal clear water which was so nice after not being able to swim at Kupang for fear of choking on a plastic bag or swallowing someone else's turd. We went to shore to stretch our legs and explore the local village of Kurus. Getting to shore was rather challenging as the waves were breaking and it shallowed off quite far out, with a very rocky bottom. Had we known, we would have armed ourselves with better footwear! As it was, we got to shore ....however, the mission wasn't altogether a dry one for all of us and there were a few causalities as far as dinghy 'props' were concerned, our dinghy prop that is. The locals that were gathering on the beach looked on with great fascination....having some good laughs at our expense! This was a village that didn't often (or ever) get tourists, so the 'gawking' began...! Once ashore, we were escorted to their village by the 30 or so villagers (mainly young male fishermen). The locals would be telling this story for a while, 'these silly white, round eye tourists with plastic boats and no shoes on their feet - why not practical wooden dug out canoes instead??" We must have looked so uncoordinated in our attempts to get to shore. So off we traipsed to have them show us their village, through the palms, past their water well and into their village. It was really fascinating to see their village and see how they lived, which seemed very 'organised', complete with an organisational chart of the village chief at the top of the tree, and the other family names shown in boxes below. Everyone had their little plot of land and knew how they fit in. The little village of thatched houses probably housed a couple hundred people and the road was one of the worst we had seen, so the little fishing village was probably pretty difficult to reach by land. With our broken Indonesian we were able to buy a couple pair of flip flops to protect our hooves for the trip back over the rocks. After a few photos of our new friends (the locals LOVE posing for photographs we soon realised), we returned to the dinghy and took ourselves back to Kailana. The next day, we crept north around the corner (25nm) to a bigger village called 'Naikliu'. The locals weren't quite so shy here, as before we knew it, we had dug out canoes surrounding our boats, with excited big grins looking up at us from all directions. All the children had taken any available wooden floating device, filled them up with as many bodies as possible and made a beeline for Kailana to check us out. The kids seemed to be constantly bailing water out of their canoes - and it was generally accepted that there is no 'staying dry' in these wooden outrigger boats...! The kids were jumping into the water and shrieking with delight. The curiosity of the children was lovely, and before we knew it, we had given away many of our 'gifts' we had bought in Kupang for the kids. We gave away countless books and pens to these 'very poor' kids that had huge smiles on their faces as they paddled away with their gifts in tow (no doubt getting wet on the way back). The village was bustling with activity; fires everywhere which signalled lots of cooking going on, a local soccer match was taking place just up from the beach, and many of the men were out getting fish in their dugout canoes. The anchorage wasn't a great one however, and we didn't get a huge amount of sleep. We had a long day planned on the boat for the next day so some sleep would have been nice!
The next morning we set with the intention of heading for a village called 'Winni', about 45nm up the north coast, just before the border of East Timor. A dinner had been planned for us yachties by the local government, however due to weather conditions not being in our favour, we made an executive decision to go across the strait and go direct to ' Alor'. We had some strange weather, with winds gusting up to 32 knots, and then dying down to nothing....so we ended up motor sailing the entire way. Some yachts had it really bad, ripping sails, damaging equipment etc. One Australian yacht did make it to Winni (would have been a horrible trip) and managed to tear a couple of fingers off in his windlass anchor system, who then later died in hospital from a heart attack! He was a solo sailor but had two European backpackers on board to help crew. We were so sad to hear the news and has shaken the entire fleet of yachts up a bit. It does beg the question if he would have survived ok in a Western hospital?
After a long day out on the water, fighting a 3 knot current most the way - we had crossed the Sawu Sea and took refuge behind a small island at the base of the entrance to the Alor Region. We hadn't wanted to enter the main channel to Alor in the dark as the Indonesian fishing boats are not always well lit and you want to be able to see what is in the water. We got in just after dusk and with great trepidation, anchored in the dark, hearing waves crashing but not being able to see them! Not our favourite way to enter an unknown anchorage. Where we ended up, was tucked in behind a little island called 'Treweg', but totally exposed to the southern swell, which didn't let up all night. We were anchored about 80 metres from shore in 25 metres of water....and not one of us got any sleep. It was the kind of swell that knocked the boat around, resembling it to a toy boat in a bathtub, with nature being controlled by a very angry 5 year old. Anything not bolted down in the cabin flying across the boat in the middle of the night, all night long. Looking very bedraggled, we upped anchor at first light and got the hell out of there. If only it were that easy. Our anchor chain had wrapped itself around a bommie, and after a few minutes we finally broke free of it. All in all, a pretty shite anchorage and one to be avoided. We motorsailed up the channel, where we were joined by a few other rally yachts that were just cominig in from sailing all night (hard core yachties that seldom run their engines!}. Desperate to get our heads down, we found a spot to anchor at the entrance of the channel that would later take us up to the village of 'Kalabahi' which is the capital of the Alor region. We found a lovely spot in beautiful clear water....the Alor region is famous for its great diving - being one of the top spots in Asia for seeing coral etc. We anchored in front of a little village and as soon as the anchor was set, we jumped over the side for a dip! Our anchor was lying on top of a bit of coral unfortunately but the thought of a good nights sleep won in the end. It was not great holding generally, mainly coral and little sand so the other yachts had a few attempts at dropping anchor. The snorkeling was pretty good with some cool looking fish to see, and some interesting looking fishing basket traps laid on the ocean floor to check out. As usual, we got the 4am wake up call from the local Mosque, with the chanting being boomed out on the loudspeaker to the village....nothing like front row seats! Quite lovely and mystical to hear during the day, however it can start to piss you off when you are overly tired - our 'Call to prayer' was a proper sleep! We got called over to yacht 'Sagata' that night for a BBQ on board...pretty sure Phil was keen to show off his big 'deck'. (New Zealand joke). Sagata do have the perfect 'deck' for entertaining - huge big teak foredeck with comfy bean bags supplied for a tired yachtie's comfort! We all mucked in and had enough food for an army. This was pretty much everyone's first meal after a few days due to most coming down with a bit of 'Indo Belly' at various stages of our stay in Kupang.
The next day, we thought we would go and find another anchorage that was sandy rather than 'coral'...and try and do some snorkeling. The area is full of really deep water, and it shallows off really close to shore, so we weren't lucky in finding a spot, however we did temporarily anchor off an island, which was pretty amusing. When the local kids that lived on the island saw us anchoring, they went crazy and started shouting and running down the beach, jumping into anything that floated, and headed towards us....all 40 odd of them! It was hilarious to think the commotion that we had caused in our arrival. We had about 30 very excited children climb onto the boat to come and see what we were all about. We were soon much 'lighter' in our giveaways with pens and books flying across the boat to our new friends. There was an elderly woman, with a mouth full of beetlenut (makes your teeth go bright red and gives the locals a semi 'high' feeling) that climbed aboard with some fabrics she was trying to flog. We were quite thankful she was there as arguments started to erupt when the gifts ran out - and she managed to get some control, as we were very much at the mercy of the invasion! It was all quite chaotic and quite funny.....and the other two yachts that were cruising alongside us (Sagata and Esoterica) were holding off, unanchored, watching us with great amusement. We had a couple of huge 'bommies' at our stern so we up anchored and said a 'somewhat relieved' goodbye to our 'very excited' friends.
We left this little idealic village and set our course for Kalabahi, capital of the Alor group of islands. We caught the rising tide and we pushed quite quickly to the town.
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