August 5, 2012 Underway to Bali-- What is our day like underway? Well, it depends on the sea state. If it is calm--which means winds up to 25 knots and seas under two meters--then we eat a light breakfast, clean ourselves up, then we read books as Auto drives the boat. We have a stop watch alarm that goes off every ten minutes and one of us looks at the six directions--right, forward, left, rear, up, and down (check the depth sounder). We also keep our radar on all the time and check it every ten minutes. There will be a little sail trimming--but usually not much. Sherry pre-cooks some easy meals like lemon chicken, pan pizza, sausages with potatos/carots/onions. She will heat these meals for dinner and have a morning and afternoon snack usually something salty. Again, with rough seas we will eat something very simple. At night, we like a three hour watch schedule--Sherry takes the 8pm to 11pm/ I take the 11pm to 2am watch/ Sherry takes 2am to 5am/ and I watch 5am until the admiral wakes up. When we started our sailing adventure one of our friends asked " who will be the captain?" Without skipping a beat Sherry answered--" There can be only one captain on a ship, and that is Gordon--but Iam the admiral." If we need to change or reef sails we call the off watch person up to help. Also, like last night, if there is another ship coming close then we call the off watch person up to help evaluate the situation. Last night we saw a large target on the radar as it passed us to our starboard. We only saw a small white light and nothing else. We are crossing the Savu Sea and not all the vessels show the normal lights--in fact, we have been told that small Indonesian fishing boats may only show a Bic lighter as their ship's lights. Also out here, we have come across wooden rafts that are very low in the water that are holding up fishing nets--kinda scary. I was thinking that we left Austrailia just as we were getting comfortable with Aussie-speak--G'day, How ya goin'?, yeah right, too right, big breakie, eskie, etc. When we arrived in Kupang we quickly learned some words of Indo Bahasa. The first word we learned was tidak (drop the k)--which means no--we had to use that to ward off the street vendors. We have also learned terima kasih (thank you), silaka (please), di mana kamar kecil (where is the toilet). Sherry has learned more words and she surprised the locals when she said something in their own language. I get frustrated and start speaking Spanish to the locals--that gets everyone confused--I am good at that.
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We just had way too much fun in Kupang...
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Young boys dancing for us in traditional outfits at the Mayor's party.
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Sherry with Claus and Laila our Swedish friends from S/V Comedie.
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Michael, Gloria, G+S at the Moyor's party--too much fun.
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August 4, 2012 Yesterday, after our orphanage visit, we said our goodbyes to everyone as we were planning an early morning departure today. The rest of the Sail Indonesia fleet was heading off to the island of Alor for more partying, drinking, and tours. We had to leave our friends and head directly to Bali (much to the relief of my liver), a 505 mile passage. We need to park our boat at the marina in Bali in order to fly to Hawaii for our youngest son's wedding. We are sad to leave our friends and the fun times we have had with them, but--up at 5:30 am and away by 6:17 am--"We're off on the road to Bali". lThe photo is pre-dawn as we were getting ready to leave--Paikea Mist is the boat in front of us.
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