Never Sail on Friday!
17 October 2008 | Kumai
Karen
I didn't realize that cruisers were a superstitious lot but they are, perhaps with good reason. We remained in Darwin an extra day to sail on safe Saturday and had a great week's sail to Bali. We left Lovina on Saturday successfully missing the hundreds of fish traps between Bali and Bawean. We forgot and left Kumai on Friday!
Weather reports said that we'd have no wind for the next 3 days so we were prepared for a nice long motor sail. Within 15 minutes of lifting anchor we had enough wind to raise the sails and sped downriver until the jib blew out - the head strap broke and ripped out the bolt rope. After dragging the jib from the chocolate brown river, Terry raised the stay sail and we were off again. Meanwhile S/V Barefeet, our friends from Boston with whom we were traveling, dropped their main when they lost its twist shackle. By now we were in the mouth of the Kumai where the river currents fought with the Java Sea agitating the water like a washing machine for hours making boat travel unpleasant to say the least.
After 2 days of rough seas, in which Barefeet's spreader ripped her head sail, a 35 knot thunderstorm flattened the waters into the Caribbean colored South China Sea. We sailed comfortably for the next few days with only huge containerships and barges traversing the shipping lanes to worry about. Conditions were so pleasant we were able to make repairs and receive a few hitch-hiking birds that remained with us for days until we sighted land again.
We caught our breath at Nongsa Point Marina where we checked out of Indonesia and made preparations to cross the busiest container channel in the world, The Singapore Straits.
Cheers to never initiating a journey on Friday! KK