Saturday 26th July dawned and a few little jobs to do before crossing the start line for the rally at 11am. It was quite a spectacular sight with a 100 odd boats aiming for the line and for the first 8-9 hours we had a pleasant sailing breeze and then the wind died and up until 4am Wed, 30th we motor sailed as there was virtually no wind at all and all the boats were in the same boat!!. At one stage on the first night we dropped the sails completely as they weren't doing anything. A bit later on Dave put out the genoa and the next thing it completely dropped down on the deck and ball bearings flew everywhere- the top bearing suddenly went! Next morning we managed to jury rig it and we just pull it up on the spinnaker halyard but it won't furl so when we want to take it down we just have to drop it on the deck. Not a major really as it will still thread up the furler.

All in all it was a very enjoyable trip with flat seas and we were able to do a few little jobs while on passage, including another repair job on the dinghy so hopefully it will be right now. Hasn't leaked yet so will keep our fingers crossed. From Darwin through to Kupang the sunrises and sunsets were absolutely amazing - have never seen ones like it and the sky was just so red. Have some great photos of them.

We arrived in Kupang at 6,30pm, Wed 30th Darwin time (5pm local time) but had to stay on board all night as Quarantine had finished for the day. We did quarantine this morning (Thursday) and have been waiting all day for customs which has about 60 odd boats to do. Nothing happens in a hurry and it looks like we could be waiting for another couple of days. Amidst all this today the wind has got up to 20 odd knots and yachts everywhere have been dragging and some had no-one on board so their were rescue operations going on everywhere - real mayhem. Even the customs boat dragged, hit a couple of yachts and then disappeared. So for a few hours nothing was happening and then the Australian end of Sail Indonesia called up on the VHF to say that we could go ashore and do Immigration, another bit for quarantine and do the land based customs bit. So we high tailed it in to shore and found it to be a sobering thought to find that some boats were impounded! After doing that we were sent to some customs officials who we took out to our boat and after doing the boat thing were handed a big notice to put on our boat to say we were impounded and we can not leave Kupang until Customs actually remove the notice (virtually house arrest and can't leave Kupang) - could be a day, could be seven days!! It appears that it is all political as there has been a new Governor and he is throwing his weight around as the Agent for Sail Indonesia voted for the previous Governor. One has to really keep a sense of humour or one would be in dire straits. Some of the Americans are getting really upset and agitated but we just all have to go with the flow. Hopefully it will all be resolved and maybe we may have to pay an extra 50,000 rupiah which is just over $A6. One would think they would be better organized with 120 plus boats coming in and it being a big event for them. It even featured on the National Television which we saw last night.

There are numerous guys ashore waiting to help you with your dinghy and then charge 35,000 rupiah (just under $A5) to look after it for the day. However as we were only going ashore for an hour or so Dave objected to paying and had quite an argument about it, especially when we can carry it ourselves as ours is so light. We are not obligated to use them but they made out we had to - more money for the Government coffers. We don't mind paying when it is for a full day but object when it is only for a short time. However, when we took the two customs guys out to our yacht they still helped carry it down when we did not actually need the help. Catala and us are going to take turns at taking our dinghy ashore so we are only paying the one fee each day between us. After Customs had done us we ferried them across to Catala and then from there they went to Gitano so we did them both a great favour.