Dancing with the Big Boys

It's the morning of Day 3 of our passage north towards Batam Island, our last stop in Indonesia before crossing the crazy shipping straits to enter Singapore. Already over 300 miles traveled since we left the muddy river in Kumai, Kalimantan, Borneo, and around 275 miles still to go.

Our Kumai adventure spending time up in the rainforest with the Orangutans, fireflies, crocs, and Probiscis Monkey's was amazing! It ranks up there as one of the highlights of the DK sailing adventure so far. It will be better told as a story illuminated with photos on our website when we can can update again in a week or two. So for now, just know that our brief, yet powerful experience with some our closest relatives, the very orange, hairy, extremely personable orangutans, has left us feeling mixed emotions of joy, respect, but at the same time sadness, as they are pretty much doomed to live much longer in the wild because of loss of habitat.

We have had to move a bit quicker lately, having set up a haul-out appointment in Singapore to have an insurance survey done, and while we're at it, some new bottom paint and a repack of our liferaft. It was a toss up between doing the work in Singapore or Malaysia (prices almost awash), we have opted to just "get 'er done" sooner, rather then later so we can be finished with that business. This means that we will be holed up in Singapore for a likely 2 weeks or so.

Our passage so far has been pretty easy, considering we have been around boat traffic ever since we left the river. Yesterday and the last two nights have been extra exciting, as we have found ourselves in the main shipping lane for transiting cargo ships heading north/south between Indonesia/Australia and Singapore/SE Asia. Back in the Pacific Ocean days we used to be pretty concentrated on just one ship on the radar in our vicinity, paying close attention to it and making sure we alter course if we need to avoid a confrontation with a gigantic steel beast. But now, in the Java and South China Seas, we have gotten used to 5-10 ships on our radar, plus the smaller Indonesian fishing vessels that dart here and there (or are sometimes just anchored), that often don't even show up on the radar. Not to say we don't sometimes get our blood pressure pumping and the hair standing up on the backs of our necks when we are getting to close for comfort. But, like anything, you just get used to it and it becomes less stressful, like driving a car in Bali. The difference is that I started really liking the thrill of driving in Bali, but dodging container ships is just annoying and tiresome.

Nicole has confirmed with me on this passage that we WILL be getting new chart-plotters with an AIS system sometime in the next few months before heading across the Indian Ocean. AIS is an electronic monitoring system that all "large ships" have and now many smaller ones, that lets you receive, or send/receive, your boat information such as course steered, speed, vessel name, captain's name, etc. It reads the information from all boats in your VHF radio vicinity and allows you to monitor the ship's around you. Many of our cruiser friends have this system hooked up now and none of them regret it. It's just one more modern tool you have available nowadays to feel safer around the big boys. But for now, we deal with what we have: our eyes, ears, and our good friend, the radar.

It's now blowing 20 knots from the SE. And the really cool thing is that its BEEN blowing 10-20 knots from the SE ever since we left Kumai. We have read many old cruiser blogs of their experiences up this stretch of water in almost no wind. Motoring, motoring, motoring for days. We think traveling in the beginning of September has helped us out, still on the cusp of the monsoon changing and the transition period beginning. We have also been lucky with no thunderstorms yet. I won't hold my breath on that one, but we are only 90 miles away from the equator and still dry. For those of you that don't know, the area around Singapore is one of the most notorious for huge lightning/thunderstorms in the world. Not to be taken lightly, and super scary as a sailor. We'll cross our fingers and do our best to not offend the weather Gods...better look into that.

Nic's asleep and I have to keep poking my head outside to check the radar for ships. The sky is a white haze and it's so hard to see any vessel unless it's within a few miles, hence the importance of radar. Onward we head to the northern hemisphere again, DK dancing to the music of the Java Sea.

--Gar

Crossing the Java Sea

After almost 2 months tied up in Bali, we are finally sailing again. Our time in Bali was just what the doctor ordered: fun, interesting, easy, and a perfect place to gear up for the next adventures. We spent almost 5 weeks messing around on the island and additionally pulled off a 2 week surprise visit to the U.S. to see our families. Both adventures so needed to replenish our energy and take a break from the boat for the first time in a year.

So here we go again...

We left Benoa Harbor, Bali, a few days ago, en route to Kalimantan, Borneo, 450 miles to the north.
Once you exit the reefs you are back in the gamut, fighting against the intense southerly currents of Selat Badung channel, as you attempt to head north. Within the hour we had 5 knots against us as we struggled to make miles and the daylight waned. We realized quickly there was no way we would round the eastern tip of Bali before sunset and this would put us in the midst of the hundreds, possibly a thousand, Balinese "spider" sailing canoes launched from the cliffy beaches at nighttime. We didn't like the reality of that for our first night out, thought it over and decided to change course for the touristy island of Lembongan, just across the channel, in hindsight a great decision.

We fought the current for a couple of more hours and then pulled into Lembongan and grabbed a mooring next to our new Italian friends boat, Falabrach. They stopped by to say hello and tell us stories of the surfing adventures, followed by our friends on Magnum, whom we hadn't seen in over a year and had just come up from Australia. So fun to actually see boats we know again and enjoy a bit of cruiser social life after being on our own for so long. It's definitely going to be a real change this year from last, as we are now back on the very traveled cruiser road again.

The next morning we left at sunrise, cup of Bali coffee in hand of course, and motored across the channel towards Bali. We hugged the coast as the wind started piping up and the current intensified. Hours later at the eastern tip we fought the 3 knots against us with 30 knots of wind on our tails, generating some pretty big standing waves. DK kept plugging away and soon enough we were further north away from land with the current diminishing to only 1 1/2 to 2 knots against us. The sun was out and seas were small again and we said good bye to the volcanoes of Bali blurring in the distance.

For whatever reason that first night we found ourselves in a confused mess of water. Swell was coming at us from two directions and with the wind directly on our butt. We were rolling around in a disgustingly agitated way with everything banging and creating some sour-looking glum faces on the both of us. Sleeping sucked and so did the reality that there were fishing boats everywhere.

But thankfully by afternoon the next day the swell and wind were both consistent from the SE and we had a sweet mellow sail on again. As we passed through the small islands north of Bali and entered the Java Sea, we were in the mix of fishing boats, fishing outrigger canoes, and very large ships. Welcome to the Java Sea. At first it was a bit much and was pretty intimidating to be around so many boats, but we realized as time went on that the fishing boats mostly keep their distance, and its only the big ships we really have to worry about. We've heard about how many boats are out in these waters but now we are actually experiencing it, learning to deal with reality of changing course often and having 5-10 boats on your radar at one time. So far so good and sometimes it's not bad at all as all we are really seeing are the small sailing outrigger canoes that scoot around like little flying fish and don't give us any trouble.

So here we are in the middle of the Java Sea, we are almost truly in the "middle" of it now, and the depth is 200 feet. What a trip that is!! We are in a major body of water, at least 150 miles to the nearest land mass of any size, and it is only 200 feet deep. So strange and interesting this archipelago of Indonesia.

We have had our hand-lines out most of the way baited with some cool new lures I ordered from Hawaii, with zero luck. Not even a bite, not yet anyway....only a few fish caught in Indonesia to date, so sad compared to the reality of fishing in the Pacific.

Tomorrow we should arrive to the Kalimantan, Borneo coastline and begin our journey up towards the town of Kumai, the entrance to Tanjung Puting National Park, one of only a handful of places in the world where the orangutan lives. We plan on dropping our hook in the muddy river at Kumai and taking a local klotok Indonesian motorboat up river for 2 or 3 days to visit the various camps and also to see the rainforest. We've been told by many people its a highlight of their whole Indonesian adventure, and I'm sure we won't be disappointed either. I mean really: jungle cruise on a local boat, orangutans, crocodiles, thousands of mosquitos, what's not to like!

That's it from the DK blog station...We'll do our best to get back into our "blog rhythm" again...

Stay tuned for some upcoming Borneo monkey stories...

Big Love from Team DK

--Gar