Sea Child started the Sail Indonesia Rally today, with zero wind and flat calm seas, at 1100 Darwin time. Two boats collided right in front of the media boat at the start, a monohull and a small catamaran. Sea Child was well away from this unfortunate collision, and the rest of the fleet looked fantastic with their flags and crew attire looking as sharp as possible. Sea Child actually had every country flag that we have visited since we began our circumnavigation over 4 years ago flying up the topping lift along the leach of the mainsail. What a beautiful sight!!

Since we have such light winds and no swell at all, the GPS is showing our arrival in Kupang to be approx. 54 hours from now. 426 NM to go, course 281.

While we will miss our friends in Australia, we will not miss the radical tides that Darwin presented. Every time we went ashore, consideration was given to where the tide will be in 6 hours, with the dinghy either high and dry or in deep deep water. Thankfully the Darwin Sailing Club had complimentary dinghy trailers to borrow to launch or move the dinghys. The farwell dinner last night was well attended by most rally participants. We have made some very good friends during this time and look forward to hearing how others are planning their journey west from South East Asia.

Sea Child has two new 120-amp alternators, 2 new mainsail battens that were recycled from the old mainsail cover battens, the freezer is charged and ice cubes are well stocked. We have also prepared our fresh food to be stored in green saver bags, which preserve the freshness up to 3 times longer in the cold storage. Hopefully this translates to salad greens for the next few weeks, rather than a short few days! We also splurged and bought ice cream in the freezer (nondairy and vegan, of course!) So we feel truly spoiled. This journey is starting out much better than our trip up Queensland Coast where the winds were +30 ESE, the charging system weak and the autopilot unable to help steer. Today, we are underway, motorsailing at 7 knots with "OTTO" the auto pilot able to take the reins and steer us towards Kupang. Nice!