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 [...]

12. Java Sea Crossing

22 October 2014
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 in Denpasar and needed to make some distance. Heading off to climes unknown without our valid passport in our back pockets was always going to be a risk. Much more on this fiasco later.....
We had enjoyed our stay in Bali, but it is always a nice thing to throw the ropes off and set the bow back out to sea, this time to 'Bawean Island', half way between Bali and Kalimantan (Borneo). Once again we weaved between the parachute thrill seekers attached to powerboats to clear Benoa Harbour. We always knew that making passage up the east coast of Bali was going to be a challenge, as the predominant current flow would not be in our favour, but we managed to stick close to the coast and make good time. The problem for this entire passage was fish traps. Simple but deadly constructions of lengths of bamboo lashed together with nothing more than a palm tree branch as an indicator. Fairly easy to spot on a well lit, calm day, but almost impossible to see at night, particularly if it is rough. The radar is also useless in seeing them. By the time your brain registers that there is a fish trap close by, you have either passed it or on top of it. So you sit there, hour after hour, staring out to sea, but it is up to chance if you are going to hit one or not. The trip would take us to Raas Island a passage of about 20 hours. Apart from the odd fish trap panic, it was an uneventful passage with us motoring almost for the entire journey.
We made our way to Raas Island to drop the anchor for a few hours for some sleep before getting going again. Raas Island is very clearly Muslim with it's impressive mosques towering above the rooftops. Our sleep was occasionally broken by the deep rumbling sound of explosions....unfortunately due to reefs being 'bombed' to collect fish. The bombing of reef involves a sealed container with brake fluid and chlorine tablets. The reef is destroyed and any fish in the vicinity is either stunned or killed, floating to the surface for collection. A very short sighted form of fishing, where the reef can take many decades to recover.
3 hours sleep and the engine was started again and off we went again for another overnighter. After being up all night, 3 hours sleep is just not enough, but we had to get on the road. Not long after leaving Raas Island the wind picked up and we hoisted the Gennaker sail and switched the engine off. Now our new favourite sail, the Gennaker stayed up for the next 24 hours. Again the fish traps were doing their best to wreck our dreams with us brushing up against one in the middle of the night. Only when it had passed did we actually realise it was there. No damage was done thankfully. Also to keep us on our toes was various forms of traffic. Everything from very large well lit ships, to small unlit fishing boats. As the night went on the wind increased and the seas built, but we were 'running with it', and Kailana was making good speed surfing down the fronts of waves. We pulled the Gennaker down at the entrance to the anchorage on Bawean Island, where about 10 yachts were there ahead of us.
The following morning we were up and ashore to hire motorbikes for a trip around the island. We had got in contact with Zila, a young girl who was to be our tour guide for the day. Due to the extreme remoteness of Bawean Island, tourists don't often visit unless they are sailing there. There is no landing strip so it is only possible to visit by boat. Hence, hiring motorbikes is a case of finding someone who wants to rent you their bike for the day. Zila was this person and provided us with a bike that had seen some action (71,000 km!) but would do the job nicely. Zila was to lead the way on her own motorbike and off we sped along the rough roads of Bawean accompanied by two other couples, Phil and Les off of Sagata and another Australian couple off of 'Zoa'.
Our first stop was to be a lake somewhere inland, a drive of about 1 hour. The drive meant leaving the main road and heading along a narrow paved path only wide enough for motorbikes. After a bit of a walk we arrived at a nice lake surrounded by thick forest. Our guide Zila was very insistent that we look at the lake but not swim in it. In the heat of the day this idea did not quite compute. Pressing for a reason she eventually let out that there was evil spirits and ghosts that lived in the lake and swimming in it would only bring about some 'black magic'. We politely ignored this advice and swam regardless.
Our little convoy of rattling motorbikes pushed on around the island. The road went from well paved, smooth, flat & fast, to almost off-road conditions, then back to good road again. Interestingly enough, our tour guide Zila had decided that our tour would consist of visiting all her relatives and having our photos taken with them. Our first stop was at Zila's mother's house. She wasn't there, so we pushed on. We were now zooming past some interesting scenery, but Zila didn't seem to have any time to wait. We stopped again, this time at Zila's auntie's house. Lots of pleasantries, then another round of photos with us and her family members, again with many mobile phones. It seems all her friends had given her their mobile phones to take pictures of us, with her family members. Again we sped, this time to her uncles's shop, for much the same as before.
The Muslim religion has a strong hold on the Bawean Island people, we passed Mosque after Mosque, some very impressive indeed for such a remote island. Several of the houses were obviously owned by people with lots of money. It seems that many of the men go to sea to make their living, with many working on ships. For this they will devote perhaps a decade of their lives to make as much money as possible, to then return to their island relatively wealthy men, living comfortably from then on.
By the time we had reached Zila's house for yet another photo-shoot, we had had enough, ignoring her cries, we sped off by ourselves, to then stop further down the road for everyone to catch up. We had made quite a spectacle during the day, 6 white tourists speeding around on motorbikes, not something the locals see on a regular basis by any stretch of the imagination! That evening we had dinner on Sagata, a couple of bevvies then got the boat ready for an early start for the long road to Kumai.
At first light the following morning, we were up and lifting anchor. From the word go, it was clear today was going to one of those days. Kevin announced it was going to be a bad day, and well, his self fulfilling prophecy came true. Leaving the anchorage we had about 20-25 knot winds to contend with, more driven by the wind coming off the island than actual sea wind. We hoisted both the head sail and the mizzen. After 12 miles, 1st officer (Rebecca) gave a clear and concise ship's status report to the captain (Kev) that 'the head sail was stuffed!'. The connection between the halyard and the top of the sail had broken, rendering the sail useless. The only way to fix it was for Kev to go up the mast, not really an option in the current conditions. Plan B, we hoisted the main sail, where one of the sail track 'slugs' (little plastic slide thingies that goes in the groove up the mast), split, letting the sail flap a bit, not quite rendering the sail unusable but meaning we had to be extra nice to it. Once the wind had died down a bit we went with Plan C, hoisting the Gennaker, which we then flew for over 24-hours, but also not without it's dramas. The bottom of the sail got a bit tangled with the 'pulpit' (the handrail looking thing at the front of the boat) and managed to pull it out of shape, cracking a weld. To free it Kev took to it with a screwdriver, promptly breaking a piece off the teak little wooden seat up on the bow. When we finally did bring the Gennaker down we noticed that the halyard rope (rope for pulling the sail up) was all chewed through, almost ready to break! About this time Rebecca closed one of the hatches and the handle broke off.
Now, with all these failures in mind, let's cast our minds back to the black magic warning from 'Zila' on Bawean Island we had not less than 24-hours prior to all this. Not that we are superstitious.... Anyway, none of the faults were showstoppers and all quickly fixed when we arrived in Kumai.
We got to the entrance to the Kumai channel early in the morning and had to slow down to ensure that we had daylight on our side. After a night at sea our brains tend not to compute things as logically as they should. Kumai is known for being shallow with lots of barges getting pulled around. It is also known for smoke and lots of it. The smoke comes from the slashing and burning of the jungle for palm oil plantations. To arrive at the anchorage we had to travel a further 50 miles up a very muddy river, with shallow areas to navigate across. The depth seemed to be consistently 25 metres for many miles and then once in the bay, it was 10 metres for many miles, then going down to 2.5 metres in some places. We could have dropped anchor many miles out to sea due to the amazing shallow nature of the seabed. We finally arrived later in the afternoon up the river at Kumai and dropped anchor beside about 20 other rally boats, happy to get there, 520 miles after leaving Bali.

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