Pura vida...Evita's voyage to the Seven Seas

We have finally arrived in Batam, a huge commercial port located at the furthest northern tip of Indonesia, just 26 miles away from Singapore. From here we'll clear with customs in a couple of days and we will leave Indonesia for good.

The journey from Kumai, Borneo lasted a week and it was the most challenging passage we had to face so far. Our intentions on leaving Kumai were to slowly sail up north and stop in the many islands along the way, possibly visiting Sumatra too. We soon realised our ideas were not feasible. We have always known we were pretty late for the sailing season and that was one of the reasons why we never encountered other sailors. The rainy season had officially started a couple of weeks ago and I was really dreading it. We had read the books and after gathering all the information we thought we would just face a couple of squalls. How wrong we were soon proved to be! On average there are only 8 stormy days in December ...well we must have caught all the stormy days while at sea ...

It rained every day for the duration of the passage. Usually these squalls last for under an hour and in a matter of seconds you experience from 5 to 35 knots of wind. Everything happens very quickly and its very easy for things to get damaged as the boat gets knocked around so badly. Suddenly the sky just opens up and pours water fiercely and with no mercy. We would encounter around 5 of these squalls per day. With our new radar technology we were able to prepare the boat in advance and know exactly when it was going to hit us and for how long, but still wasn't easy.

The worst came during the night as there is absolutely no visibility and we had the added scare of the thunder and lighting. We had never experienced anything like it before or thought it possible. The sky would just roar and send this massive thundering bolts. It was petrifying feeling how small we were in the vast sea but beautiful at the same time. The worst about getting hit by lightning is that you could loose all the electronics on the boat so we just stored the essentials, radios and satellite phone, inside the oven which apparently prevents it from getting damaged. Or maybe it was just Ian humoring me....

After each one of this episodes we would be exhausted and left picking up the pieces ready for the next one. During this 6 days we hardly slept as we both had to be on watch during the night. We were also permanently wet. The winds came from the north during most of the trip, which is the direction we were aiming at, which meant we were permanently battling against the waves. This creates a very uncomfortable pitching and rocking motion which just never stops. As a result the trip was painfully slow and was only possible relying on the engine.

The amazing thing is that the kids carried out with their routine and the school work while Ian and I struggled through the day like zombies. Not once were they scared. They just think its all part of our big adventure plus they have blind faith too.

Everyday aboard Evita is eventful and never without surprises. I won't bore you with all the details but the other technical problems we encountered were an added challenge to the journey. After the second day at sea, the water maker stopped working. Soon we were using the reserve water and we ended the trip with only a few litres to spare.

Next, after a massive squall both sails got damaged. The Genoa had two massive splits in the middle and the main sail was becoming unstitched. We couldn't carry on using them.

We had used up nearly all our diesel plus the reserve diesel. We had started with full tanks which usually would last us for at least a couple of months but now, after just under a week, we only had around 30 liters left. We needed to find a safe anchorage, which we did, and we managed to change the sails and also find some fishermen to get us some diesel but still not water.

We arrived in Batam this morning and headed straight for the restaurant, as our main staple had been pot noodles for the week! I'm sure we are going to enjoy our short stay in this duty free heaven place. This is the first marina we come to since leaving Australia but still no foreign boats any were to be seen! We really do miss interacting and meeting other sailors. We made so many friends on our first trip but in Indonesia we seem to be the only sailors.....

We'll keep you updated. Next stop Singapore...

The principal reason for our stop here in Kumai was to visit Tanjung Puting National Park, which is just a few miles away from here. The park is home to an estimated 6,000 orangutans (orang = man; utan = forest), which is around 10% of the remaining Bornean Orangutans. Orangutans, whose range once encompassed large parts of southeast asia, now survive only in Borneo and Sumatra, and on both of these islands are threatened by loss of habitat through deforestation, the principal driver of which is the growth in palm oil production (check your cosmetics bottles – their contents probably derives from one of these islands). The situation in Sumatra is more acute then here in Borneo, and some suggest that we will soon see the first recorded extinction of a great ape (the Sumatran Orangutan is a different species from the Bornean).

A lot of work is done in the park to support the population, and the park also serves as a rehabilitation centre for animals that were rescued from unviable habitats, or from various forms of captivity. As part of the reintroduction process a number of feeding stations have been established (to help the animals that have either lost or never developed the food gathering skills), and these form the focal points of the tour of the park. The stations also help in supporting a larger population in those areas of the park than would be possible with natural food sources alone.

Our trip started on Monday morning when we boarded our Klotok, a traditional wooden boat, with a crew of four – captain, first mate, cook and guide. Although the boat was quite rustic, it was for us a luxury trip, to have nothing to do on board other than sit and wait to be fed, and very well fed we were. For good measure, our support team also included a “guard”, who sat on Evita for the three days we were away. In principle this was to protect the boat from problems which might arise from Evita sharing the mid river anchorage with some much larger cargo vessels, all of which swing 180 degrees on their anchor four times a day with the ebb and flow of the tide. (Another hazard we became aware of was the risk of being hit by floating islands of vegetation which liberated themselves from the shore of the river – on the first day we were here a disturbingly large one passed within about 15m of us). To be honest I am not sure what the guard could have done in most circumstances, other than shout at the cargo ships, as we were instructed to lock the boat and leave no key. He was therefore unable to use the engine – necessary in case he had to re-anchor.

We stopped at three feeding stations, operated by the Orangutan Foundation. This is an organisation set up and run by Dr Birute Galdikas, one of trio of women trained by Louise Leakey in the study of wild apes (the other two were Diane Fossey and Jane Goodall). Dr Galdikas was also the driving force behind the establishment of the national park. At the feeding stations, food is placed on a wooden platform by park rangers and slowly the orangutans (mostly females with their young) come down from the trees to eat the bananas and sweet potatoes in front of a gallery of spectators, cameras clicking. It is fascinating to watch these animals swing through the trees, with a great awareness of which branches can support their not inconsiderable weight, and feed, and in particular to see the social interactions – the junior individuals waiting until the more dominant animals have had their fill before moving onto the platform. This was most apparent at the first station, where the local alpha male was feeding when we arrived.

Male orangutans are much bigger than females, and develop cheek pads as a sign of their strength, using them to intimidate rival males. These are the impressive individuals, and were lucky enough to find the dominant males at two of the three stations, including the local celebrity, Tom, which we saw at the third station, Camp Leakey.

The park is also home to many other animals. We saw several groups of long tailed macaques and proboscis monkeys along the bank of the river, and saw signs warning of crocodiles, although were disappointed in our search for these. We also saw a gibbon at Camp Leakey, which didn't seem to understand the orangutan pecking order at the feeding station and got into a fight with one of them. In the fight between agility and strength, honours were even.

We are now in the rainy season (although according to the Lonely Planet guide, it rains all year here, just more in some months than other), and boy did it rain! We stopped at a village on the edge of the park today on the way back while it was raining; the villagers are clearly far smarter than we are, and there was absolutely no activity at all in the streets, other than the torrents of water. We did feel sorry for our boat guard. The poor guy would have had very little shelter on board, as we do when we are sailing, so we hope not to encounter rain like that at sea.

We all thoroughly enjoyed the excursion (another holiday from the holiday? Or maybe this could be termed a biology field trip!), and the good fortune of being able to see these amazing animals in their natural surroundings. Once again – as with many of these places – it is tinged with a sense of being lucky to see things before they disappear, because deforestation is continuing apace. Although the good work being done in this particular park in encouraging, so maybe there is some hope.

Next move for us is back out of the river, and then westwards towards the islands off the SE coast of Sumatra. Another two day passage, and then island hopping up towards Singapore.

So until next time.....

We arrived in Kumai this morning after a fairly tedious passage from Bali. Tedious in the sense that there was so little wind that we had to endure the noise and the fumes from the engine for about 80% of the time, plus the absence of a breeze over the deck makes the heat even more intense. For most of the time, also, we were on tenderhooks as to the reliability of the engine, as we were getting repeated overheating warnings. I guess a water cooled engine designed for northern Europe struggles when the water temperature exceeds 33 degrees as we have had in the last few days.

Anyway, we arrived OK and are now looking forward to a trip on someone else's boat, up the river here into the national park to see our cousins the Orangutans. More later...

We haven't given up on the sailing lark, but it is going to be a shock to the system when we head off on the next passage. After our little tour of Bali, we took a plane to Yogjakarta (known as Jogja) in Java this week for some more land based tourism; we had found a secure place to park Evita here in Bali (a necessity for inland travel) and from what I can work out such places are not easily found in Java. So off we went on Air Asia, which seems to be the local equivalent of Ryanair...great up front prices, with plenty of add-ons, and unsocial flight times, but still decent value.

This means I have little to say about currents, wind patterns and nautical mishaps, so will leave it to Oskar and Raul to describe the highlights...

Jogja (Oskar)

Right now we are in the same place as the capital of Java was seventy years ago . . . Jogjakarta. We arrived here by plane by plane not by Evita, so we could go faster for once.

When we got here we were quite impressed by the amount of becaks - a form of transport that has two seats and a cyclist at the back who did an awful amount of work. When we went on one for the first time we squeezed all five of us on one of them which took us to the bird market (not just a bird market as it had bats, snakes, fish, mammals and tons of reptiles, about thirty of them crammed into a small cage or tank).



The next difference from Bali we found was the weather. Every afternoon at 1 o'clock it was pouring down with rain!!! And you could always hear the thunder rumble in the sky. This is because the rainy season has already started here but not yet in Bali.

Twice in our travels in Jogja we went to the kraton (the sultan's palace), once to watch some of the traditional dancing and once to see a not very interesting puppet show in Indonesian. So far our Indonesian is not going that well although Daddy and I are the ones making the most progress - not that it is that much.

Once when we were in a taxi, going to a museum we found out that our uncle Nick had just had a baby called Bella and I started to throw up out of the window of the taxi because I was sick (that'll be a nice thing to remember....not). Thankfully the rain was in full swing and it managed to clean the taxi.

Until next time, bye from Oskar....

Borobudur (Raul)



On Monday morning we went to a Buddhist Temple called Borobudur. It was a magnificent structure with the tall central stupa piercing the sky far above. The statues caught the light of the sun and turned a magnificent golden colour. We learnt about the interesting history and culture of the ancient belief. We learnt about the three stages of the path: To resist desire, to control your mind, and enlightenment (to reach Nirvana). The reliefs told us the story of Siddatha (Buddha) and his life including his birth from the armpit of Maya (his mother), his son Rahul, his retreat into the forest and his enlightenment. We also learnt about the hand symbols of Buddha, each of which has a meaning: Witness, Blessing, Teaching, Meditating, Protection and the Circle of life. The mountains also had their own stories like one which was supposedly the architect who retreated into the hills to sleep after building Borobudur.

After a wonderful lunch at a warung (a street restaurant) we left for our next adventure where we went to a Tofu village, Pottery village, Batik factory and coffee shop. After the long car journey we got down, and walked into a wall of smoke. We then learnt that we were outside one of the many tofu factories in the village. We entered to a smell of burnt wood and soya bean, as we looked around the room I saw great steaming vats of porridge-like, bubbling liquids, a roaring fire, a sludge slowly bubbling across the floor and a chalky white cheese-like blocks which were stacked up against the far wall. As we ventured further in we heard men grunting and liquids bubbling. We were then lectured on the process of making tofu from soya beans by a man in green overalls and black boots. In the pottery village we watched the women fashioning pots, candle holders, bowls, plates and cups out of lumps of clay and then putting them out to dry in the sun or in a fire which acted as a kiln. We were then put to use by the locals and they had us fashioning crude clay bowls and cups. The Batik (traditional art using wax and paints) factory was not unlike the other places we had seen in Bali and Yogjakarta, but we learnt the difference between printed and real batiks, and stamped and hand-painted. It would have been good if we had know this before we had all bought stylish shorts.

Our next stop was the coffee-shop where they sell the most expensive coffee in the world (lawa), which (surprisingly enough) is made from civet (cat) faeces. The cats select the best coffee beans, eat them and then poop them out. These beans, if prepared correctly, make the worlds most expensive coffee (nothing special (disgusting even), although my Mum and Dad really liked it). Dinner was a delicious goat stew at another warung.

Last but not least, we left for a spot of meditation at a Buddhist monastery. When we got there we sat down straight away; it was very boring as it was 1 hour of sitting with your legs crossed and your back straight. It was especially difficult as the incense made you sleepy and there was no sound except for the distant mosque.

Captain's report (Ian)

The crew all enjoyed the break from life on board (a holiday from a holiday?), possibly because with the exception of Raul school work was largely suspended. He diligently made good use of hotel internet facilites (much better than the boat) to check out a load of educational videos that are part of his coursework. The other two, particularly Eva who is turning into a fish, made good use of the hotel swimming facilities (as if they don't get enough opportunity to swim!), and all enjoyed the sightseeing, which stimulated some interesting debates on religion. Unsurprisingly they don't agree - after Borobudur Raul declared himself a Buddhist, and Oskar is now a Christian fundamentalist, whose holy trinity is God, Cristiano Ronaldo and Winston Churchill (a new on me!). Religious wars are breaking out!

Yogjakarta is a nice city in itself, and with the bonus of two amazing religious sites. In addition to Borobudur, there is the equally impressive Prambanan, a Hindu temple complex built at around the same time (i.e 8th/9th century). The temples were destroyed by earthquake in 1006, and lay under rubble and ash from subsequent volcanic eruptions for centuries until the 20th, when the reconstruction work was undertaken.



We are back on the boat now, and have jumped through all the hoops required to get an extra month on our Indonesian visas (three times we had to go to the immigration office), so we are just about ready to head back off to sea, for the trip up to Kalimantan, the Indonesian part of Borneo, to see the Orangutans. All that remains is to finish off the service on the engine, which I started but was unable to finish, as I could not shift any of the filters (hand tight means something else to those Aussie mechanics) so have put myself in the hands of a local expert. No loss on my part as the engine room is a hothouse in these conditions, so the least time I have to spend in there the better.

We were relieved when we got back to Bali yesterday to find that it has not yet started raining here. In Jogja there was a torrential shower every afternoon, which is bad enough when you can find shelter in the city, but something to be avoided if possible when at sea. More importantly the rains also herald a change in the wind patterns, so we are keen to make the most of the SE trades before they turn into headwinds.

From Gili Aer to Bali is about 55 miles, which is quite a long day sail. The added complication was the unpredictable nature of the currents in Lombok strait, so in order to give ourselves a decent chance of arriving in daylight we upped and left just as the sun was rising.

On the passage we had typical Indonesian conditions: No wind, light wind, wind from the right direction, wind from the wrong direction, plus favourable and unfavourable currents. A bit of everything really, although the main thing was that for most of the time we had a 1-2 knot current in our favour. It was erratic, though, especially as we approached the NW point on Penida Island (about 10 miles off the southern part of Bali) where there was so much turbulence in the water it looked as if the sea was boiling. At one point we hit what looked like a river in the middle of the sea which swept us sideways at over 5 knots, and for the best part of an hour we made next to no progress in the direction we wanted.

We did manage to get in well before nightfall, though, and moored up off Serangan Island, which is inside a lagoon at the southern end of Bali. Here we finally met Ruth, our Indonesian agent who had assisted us in getting cruising permits and visas for our stay in the country. Ruth looks after the moorings for the Royal Bali Yacht Club - a very grand name for what appears to be little more than an office and, err, moorings - which is where we have stationed Evita for the last week or so. The moorings are protected, and looked after, which gave us the opportunity to get off the boat and do some land tourism for a change.

With some trepidation - after observing road conditions as a passenger in Lombok - we rented a car for a few days. My apprehension was raised when I was told when signing the papers that rental cars come without insurance as standard in Bali (I wonder why...?), but by that time we were committed so nothing else to do but drive carefully.

First stop was Kuta, number one destination for a million Australians every year. If it the beach they come for, I have to say they've got much better at home. If it's the surf, I am not one the judge. And if it is the exotic, well there's some of that, but also much of the familiar. Very crowded, plenty of tourist paraphernalia - wall to wall handicraft shops - and buzzing with motorbikes, and probably more dangerous in that sense than anywhere else as the foreigners have not all been riding since they were 8 years old.

We spent a couple of days in Ubud, which is the capital for cultural tourism in Bali. The area abounds with workshops and artists' studios, and the town itself is full of handicraft shops, in general selling some nice stuff. After almost four months on the boat, the crew enjoyed staying in a luxurious spa hotel overlooking some beautiful rice paddies - the difficult bit was getting the kids out of the pool so that we could see something of the outside world. We did manage a couple of decent strolls around the town, visiting the monkey forest - very aggressive monkeys, who were more than a match for Oskar - and a wander in the heat through some rice terraces outside town. We also got to see a Balinese Dance show in the Ubud Palace - beautiful setting, and visually impressive show, although the meaning of all of it escaped us entirely. We weren't sold on the music either!

I almost had cause to regret the driving without insurance, when on pulling away from a T junction in Ubud I heard a noise from the rear nearside corner of the car. On stopping, we found a motorcyclist who, it appeared, had been trying to overtake on the inside, picking herself and bike up off the floor. Paula quickly took charge, sprinkling mineral water on grazed leg and pushing away the opportunists who were demanding we take her to hospital (the girl didn't think she need to). She followed us down the road for a while, which indicated that there was no major damage done, but we did wonder whether the opportunists would reappear later on.

After Ubud we visited the Jatiluwih rice fields, which are an amazing sight on the slopes of one of the large volcanoes in the central part of Bali. Over the course of generations, the farmers have turned the sides of the valley into a system of irrigated terraces, which has created a landscape so unique that it has been given a Unesco world heritage listing.



Our final stops on our brief tour were two Hindu temples, which provided quite a contrast. The first - Pura Luhur Batukau - is a beautiful place, up a valley towards one of the volcanoes, in a really peaceful spot in the forest. The second - Tanah Lot - is on a piece of rock just by the coast. Although the location is spectacular, the temple is so completely swamped by all the tourist tat that has grown up around it to render it more Disneyland than anything else.

Then back to the boat. All was fine but we were a little confused as it gradually dawned upon us that Evita was about 150m further north than the place in which we had left her. Apparently the guys overseeing the moorings had concluded that the original mooring wasn't secure enough so, using two dinghies as miniature tug boats, had moved us to a new mooring. I wasn't sure whether to be concerned that we had been given an inappropriate mooring in the first place, or pleased that someone is looking out for us in our absence. To look on the positive side, I will go for the latter.

Next stop Java. We arrived in Yogjakarta by plane this morning, but more of this later....

We arrived in Lombok after four consecutive daysails. This was a change from our usual practice, in an attempt to reduce the number of sleepless nights and give us a chance to see something along the way. Not sure it was entirely successful, as all it meant was that we spent all our waking hours sailing, and, as a result of unhelpful currents, stressing about whether we would get to the anchorage before dark. The penultimate stop was next to a small island off the NE coast of Lombok, where the failing light meant that we had to rely more than I would like on the waypoints from the guidebook (which unless given to 3 or 4 decimal places are not accurate enough to find all the narrow channels). The waypoints took us alarmingly close to the reef, but fortunately a local fisherman appeared who was able to show us the way into the anchorage, which was ideal once we had got in.

The final day was a bit of a slog into current and wind, which rose to 20-24knots in the afternoon and from right on the nose so we couldn't even motorsail. With the dwindling supply of Australian diesel giving me some concern - didn't really want to run out as we were entering the passage through the reef with 20kts on the beam - we arrived safely in Medana Bay, where there is a small marina (essentially a hotel with some mooring buoys, although they do have a floating pontoon as well), run by an English guy Peter and his Indonesian wife. They offer the services we were looking for - restaurant, laundry and diesel - so we were set. They also arranged a tour of NE Lombok for us, with a local driver. The last time we had gone so far inland was on Flores, and the contrast was quite noticeable; Lombok is much greener - in spite of it being the end of the dry season, the irrigation infrastructure means that they are still able to cultivate rice, which greens any landscape - and in Lombok appears much more developed and more densely populated. One feature you cannot ignore on the roads is the number of motorbikes, which buzz around like flies, zipping in and out of any space they can find. The roads aren't particularly wide, but that never seems to deter either the bikers or the car drivers from overtaking - years of practice have obviously honed their awareness of the size of their own vehicle, but I do wonder how many times they get it wrong. They go very close to each other.

Yesterday, after loading 200l of diesel by jerrycan and dinghy - and then trying to wash away the smell - we made the 5 mile trip across to Gilli Aer. Here we caught up with our friends on Tiki, who had done the trip from Komodo in one hit, leapfrogging us somewhere along the way. This is far and away the most tourist orientated place we have been to on the trip so far, with bars and restaurants lining the beachfront. People who visited here 15 years ago may have a different perspective on the development here, but it is good to be able to enjoy a barbequeued fish dinner sitting at a table on the beach under the full moon. Hopefully we will find that the internet connection onshore is also of "tourist quality" as getting connections has been a major difficulty, hence the lack of photos on the blog.