Photo: Arafura Sea, south of the equator.

The voyage south from Bitung was becoming arduous due to lack of wind. We crossed the equator and headed to the island of Bacan and the anchorage at Selat Sambaki. This was an idealic place to lay on anchor a couple of days to see if the wind would finally arrive. But after two peaceful nights we continued 100 miles south to another remote anchorage tucked inside the island of Tawa, with Dan's eagle eyes successfully conning us through the reef entrance. But still no wind....

After waiting two more fruitless days for the wind to arrive, we decided to make the dash south to Ambon and I felt uneasy. The engine was beginning to worry me. Grey smoke was blowing from the exhaust and drifting in the light breeze but Dan kept me re-assured. He's a diesel engineer with huge experience driving overland adventure trekking trucks through Africa and other remote parts of the world. I sensed he was uneasy too, but he was simply loving this too much to care. "I've seen much worse" he kept telling me....

We finally made Ambon, once again, in the dead of night. We knew from other sail boat skippers that Ambon was a difficult place to anchor and its bad reputation did not disappoint. It was awful, dirty and dangerous. The only safe anchorage we found was under the scrutiny of the Indonesian navy and they moved us on just as we were all about to get some much needed sleep. The dinghy landing was probably the dirtiest we'd ever experienced and the amount of rubbish in the water meant that our engine had to remain off for fear of sucking plastic bags into the sea water intake. This was not a place to linger for very long but we needed to check out of Indonesia and go through customs and immigration. Lauren and Dan were also jumping ship here to continue their travels through the islands. I myself was glad to get away from Ambon harbour because we were not safe. After three restless and difficult days we left, refueled and replendished...

But where was the much fabled east wind from the Arafura Sea that I was relying on to take us the remaining 600 nautical miles south to Australia? Nothing.....

All we had was a strange, glass calm sea only interrupted by the occasional shoal of dolphins and three large sperm whales. Luckily, we had loaded up with extra diesel in jerry cans on deck so we had the range to motor all the way to Darwin if need be but the engine was still worrying me. Our new racor twin filters were easily coping with the awful diesel we were picking up in Indonesia and our infamous diesel bug problems were now a thing of the past. But I could sense distinct changes in engine pitch and the exhaust smoke was worsening. We needed the much vaunted easterly wind to give our Volvo engine a rest. Sänna is a sailing boat and we rely hugely on our sails to power us, our engine being only an auxiliary means of propulsion. The weather forecasts downloaded through our HF SSB radio showed nothing for the next three days so we were in for a long drag, our alternative being to just sit and drift with the current like the old sailing ships of the distant past. So we kept going.....

Eventually, something had to happen and it did. I stopped the engine to check it over and I found the sea water cooling pump leaking water and, even worse, a small hole had appeared in the side of the turbo heat exchanger. It was blowing hot air with a mixture of water and oil all over the engine cover hatch. I knew the sea water pump would probably be ok because we'd had this problem before, but a hole in the engine? Wow! I called Dan on the Sat phone and he told me not to stress. He'd had much worse on his many overland trips, but I didn't believe him....

So I bunged the hole with epoxy glue purchased from a hardware store in Bitung and it held. I told Marie it was her chewing gum she'd chewed and thrown away and I could tell she was visibly impressed. I decided not to elaborate further as her praise was both welcome and unusual. So we kept going...

On day five out from Ambon we were nearing Australian territorial waters and early in the morning we were buzzed by a twin engined aircraft from Australian Customs. Over the radio they requested our details and they circled us three times checking us out. But we had already conformed with Australian regulations and previously informed them of our ETA before we left Ambon. They were expecting our arrival and they were friendly, helpful and offered assistance when we informed them of our worries about the engine. We declined their assistance. I told Marie I had full faith in the strength of her saliva mixed gum but I could see she was having her doubts. She'd already found my discarded epoxy glue container. So we kept going...

We continued SE, negotiating the shallows and shoals of the Timor Sea with little or no wind to hinder us and after another day and night we neared the entrance to Darwin harbour in darkness. The buoyage was easy to pick out and I didn't want to hang around with engine smoke advertising our presence to any laughing Aussies. It would be an easy entrance and we altered course into the ship channel. As dawn crept upon us we turned to port out of the navigational channel and picked a good spot in Fannie Bay to drop anchor. The chain went out in seven metres but we had to allow for an extra eight metres of tide too. It was calm with a beautiful sunrise and red Australia was there before our eyes.

We had arrived safely after five years trying and we needed sleep...
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