The Langes head off around the World (no maybe about it)

2012-02-10T05:06:00.000-08:00

Well,Thailand has redeemed itself in my view just by the sheer beauty of the landscape. We have just spent over a week sailing and exploring among the karst limestone outcrops. Many of them have caves hewn in the outcrops which lead to circular enclosed spaces called hongs. We have swam through the caves, rowed the dinghy through and walked through a cave at low tide, each one offered us different experiences. I wish my brother was here so he could explain the geology of these hongs because they are quite amazing. The cave seems to be a hole warn through solid rock, once you are through the cave you enter a open circular area that is surrounded by sheer cliffs on all sides. The cliffs are generally straight up, several of the hongs opened up into another one. You had to go through a narrow passageway and another circular area opened up.

It was great fun navigating the dinghy through the narrow pathways.

An attempt to show the high sheer cliffs inside the hongs.
One night at dusk we sat and filled our senses with unbelievable vista around us. The last of the glimmering twilight was lighting the sheer rock face and you could hear the gentle waves lapping at the jagged cliff edge. I concentrated so I could cement that picture in my memory and hopefully I will be able to recall it when I wish. That night a vicious thunder storm blew through and I will not forget the brilliant flash of the lightning followed by an immediate crash of thunder, it was really close.
We finished off the week by visiting James Bond Island, made famous by the movie The Man With The Golden Gun. The scenery was spectacular but was spoiled by the fact that hawker stalls were set up to sell trinkets to the hoards of tourists that were crawling all over the island. We did manage to get a few pictures with just me in them though, so I guess there weren't that many tourists.

In the movie, this island had a solar collector on it that concentrated power to a weapon that blew up 007's plane.

That is me standing there it gives you an idea of how huge this slab is that just slid off the side of the outcrop.

I am really glad we sailed through this part of the world. There are just some sights that are so impressive when you can see them with your own eyes. The pictures don't really do justice to their beauty.

They really are magnificent.

You had to watch your head when you rowed through this cave.

2012-01-30T04:36:00.000-08:00

THE AMAZING GEOLOGY IN THAILAND

Sailing by these islands was awe inspiring. We dropped anchored by a few and went exploring around them.

We swam through this cave and came out in a natural hideaway that is called a hong. Here are the group of high school students we shared the experience with. The opening to the cave is in the middle of the background.

I am going to post this now and then go below and try and do some more, there is a lot of thunder and lightening about, the wind has just come up and it is about to pour.

Just in case they didn't have quite enough power!

So far for us Thailand has been all about tourism. It is a beautiful country but it is being spoiled by the grab for the almighty tourist dollar that is happening here. These pictures show the two types of tourists boats that proliferate. The traditional boat they still fish with that are being used on one of the islands to take tours out for a day trip and the new swift motor boats that pile in the soon to be sun burnt visitors for a snorkeling trip or visit to a remote beach. At the end of the day there are hoards waiting to be picked up in minivans to be transported back to their accommodations. The area we are anchored in has a boggling number of seedy bars where overweight older white guys sit and "chat up" younger Thai women. On the plus side there is the food, it is fantastic and cheap, the seafood coconut curries, the fried noodles with fresh vegetable and herbs, the chicken satay with peanut sauce, all really yummy.
The first few days we were here we couldn't figure out how to get around easily, we ended up spending a fortune on cabs. We went to order boat parts that were $25 and ended up spending $40 for cab ride. It really bothered me and we could not locate a map to figure out how to get around, I was frustrated and not happy about being here. An other cruiser told us about the bus

and how to catch it and we managed to get the boat parts we ordered and get back to the anchorage. We visited the town of Phuket as well and saw where the ordinary Thai's hang out instead of the tourist trap that is around here. We are going to go back into town tomorrow and have a look around. We had another great meal before we headed back to the boat so things aren't looking so glum.
Phuket really caters to cruising community. There are a lot of people getting major work done on their boats here. We have ordered a new cover for our main sail and went to visit the loft to place our order. It is one of the hugest factories I have been in. The amount of floor space they have for all the sails they make was astonishing. The place is called Rolly Taskers and it is know throughout the sailing world.

2012-01-21T01:20:00.000-08:00

At sea 07 26.6 N 099 10.7 E southeast of Phuket, Thailand
We have been slowly making our way north to Thailand for the last 5 days. The winds have been very light most days with a sea breeze of about 8 knots coming up in the afternoon, so the sailing has been lousy. The scenery makes up for it though! We are in amoung the limestone karst islands that Thailand is famous for. If you ever saw the movie James Bond 007, The Man With the Golden Gun, it was filmed not too far from here. The islands are monoliths that rise up out of the ocean for about 300 feet, straight up. Their sides are usually striated cliffs, with crags and caves covering their sides. We dropped anchor beside one and as we motored around in the dinghy we spotted ropes and rope ladders that are used to climb up and gather up the birds' nest for soup, a very dangerous undertaking. Yesterday we stopped at the Emerald Cave and swam through an 80 meter long cave, some in complete darkness that opened up into a small round inlet with a beach on one side. There were towering cliffs around all sides, it was amazing, the area used to be used by pirates to stash their plunder. There were plenty of tourist boats around and the customers would get off the boats in life jackets and swim through the cave all holding on to one another, it looked like an fluorescent orange line dance in the water. On our way back we decided to go when we would be alone and we could not find our way through, we had gotten off to the right when we needed to go left. Another group started back and we thankfully followed them.
Today we are headed halfway across an open stretch or water to Phuket and we should arrive there tomorrow night. The next day in Chinese New Year and we hope to there are lots of festivities on the island. We won't check into the country until Tues. as we have been told that we will pay an exorbitant amount if we check in on a holiday.

2012-01-10T06:25:00.000-08:00

A travelling chicken coop under construction

We are back in Langkawi now. It is very quiet and I am missing our family. I wonder what they are up to?? We arrived back to heat and humidity and the Royal Langkawi International Regatta. There are lots of racing boats in the marina and hordes of sailors and volunteers running around in matching t-shirts. I am feeling a bit miffed that we did not volunteer before we left for Christmas and we would have been in the thick of things, but Barry didn’t want to because we were going to be arriving back just the day before the regatta started. Oh well, we have been busy getting ready to leave and hope to cast off the lines tomorrow. We will sail around the island for a few days and then head for Phuket, Thailand. We went diving today, Barry cashed in his coupon I gave him for Christmas. The visibility was very poor but there were tons of fish and some very interesting coral. We saw 4 tiny seahorses as well as a huge moray eel, and a somewhat irate lobster. It was good to get a Malaysian dive in our log books.

Our last few days in Bundaberg were taken up with theconstruction of a chicken coup. Trishreally wants to have fresh eggs every day and so she is pursuing this goal. Inkeeping with her recycling philosophy she has scavenged materials to build whatwill become a travelling chicken coup. Apparently she will be able to move it about the yard so the chooks (asthey are referred to down under) won’t totally destroy one part of heryard. She got some material for theframe from a dumpster parked outside of a building site. The conduit was found at the dump store andthe tin roofing material was discovered a few days later in the same dumpster,which is just down the block and around the corner and I think the chicken wirewas acquired from the dump store (which is a veritable treasure trove forTrish, she faithfully visits whenever she can to see what she can acquire, Ispotted an almost new bodem and the perfect paper towel holder, a duck head andfeet.) Graeme, the craftsman, went to work with his radial arm saw and his tapemeasure and pretty soon a travelling chicken coup was emerging.

Trish with electric drill and screw driverwent to work fastening bits together; these chickens are going to live likeprincesses. I was sorry to leave beforethe project was finished, I managed to convince the kids to go for a bike ridewith their Grannie one evening freeing up some quality building time. The shots of the kids are when they weredrawing on the grass just outside the construction zone. The coup is plenty strong enough; the kidshave been climbing all over it.

Our three weeks in Australia just flew by. It was wonderful to spend the holidays withfamily. We really enjoyed sharing thetime with Graeme’s parents. We spentmany days down at the beach with the kids while Trish and Graeme kiteboarded. It was impressive to see howthey both improved with some quality time in the water. A couple of days therewere some hot shots from out of town strutting their stuff and WOW were some ofthem good. They would launch themselvesin the air and do all sorts of tricks before gracefully landing and zoomingaway. There were some awesome faceplants and body slams as well. Too bad the gingerbread houses don’t suit theAustralian climate. I said to Trish if she does it again, you would have tomake the houses one day and eat them the next day, no leaving them on displayfor days. It was great taking the land cruiser down the beach one day, atypically Australian Christmas outing. I am so glad we went!!!

CHECK OUT THE DOOR WITH THE LATCH TO GET THE EGGS.
I DON'T THINK A LANGE CONSTRUCTED THIS ABODE.

2012-01-03T18:46:00.000-08:00

We went to the Botanical Gardens the other day and Quinn got to go and ride on the cane train. Quinn is definitely train crazy , he has Lego trains and Thomas trains and then there is the cane train. The growing of sugar cane is a huge industry in the Bundaberg area and a group of volunteers have restored a number of diesel and steam engines and run it as a tourist attraction. We went last week and had a ride with the steam engine but we made a special stop today because the diesel engine was working.

Quinn got a special treat because they opened up the engine compartment so he got examine the big diesel engine, then had got to get up in the cab and blow the whistle. That was the highlight of his day. Last week after we rode the train we went and fed the ducks and the pukekos, a very odd looking bird that we first saw in New Zealand, another name for them is swamp hen. I uploaded a video of Quinn and June doing some gymnastics in the living room. If you would like to view it go to the side panel on my blog and click on the link.

2011-12-28T12:46:00.000-08:00

A PICTORIAL TOUR OF THE MARTIN YARD

The front of the house, Quinn's bike and a ride em car from the dump store, partially visible in the foreground.

Trees around the yard, it is hard to tell but this one is in bloom with lovely lilac flowers

Red hibiscus along the house and a lovely pine in the far background.

The Land Cruiser, we all fit in it, plus groceries and kites and boards.

The Land Rover, the current project, soon to become the work vehicle/camping truck.

The El Camino, the family took it for a spin the other night to pick up scrap lumber from a building site.

Mint, basil, tomatoes and beans in the background against the fence

There was one ripe one the other day, I can't wait to taste more.

An existing well that Trish has added a pump to, she could raise baramundi in it, they are delicious.

The koi that currently reside, they have had babies since Trish got here, the kids love feeding all the fish.

Trish has become a very avid gardener, I am constantly amazed at how much she has learned. We gave her a subscription to the gardening magazine of her choice in the store. She built the container using scrap metal she had rescued at the local dump store and then hauled soil in and filled and planted the raised bed. The running vines are rock melon and in the bed there are tomatoes, herbs and marigolds.

Fruit of the vine, rock melon, otherwise known as cantaloupe.

2011-12-26T22:08:00.000-08:00

A Martin/Lange Christmas 2011

Check out the horse for June, I think Santa has arrived!

Quinn figuring out Santa left him stuff in his stocking.

June at 2 1/2 took a long time to come down the hall on Christmas morning, can you figure out why?

It's a Lego Christmas.

Graeme with his favourite present, a new torch and check out the hat that Thrifty Santa brought him!

Trish, Jackie (Graeme's mom) and me examining the make-up kit her father gave her. It was almost an exact replica of the one he gave her 20 years ago!

Grannie Annie painting June's fingernails, she was so good sitting still to have it done.

Quinn observing the world in his own unique style!

Graeme and his brother David cleaning the prawns!

The carnage of the gingerbread house, Graeme figures it was acid rain!

Grandpa Barry doing "his thing" in the kitchen!

June doing her disco imitation.

The beach is definitely part of an Australian Christmas.

2011-12-22T19:10:00.000-08:00

GINGERBREAD HOUSES, AUSTRALIAN STYLE

Making gingerbread houses in another climate has been a learning experience. In Canada you cook the gingerbread one day and then leave it out overnight to harden. NOT IN AUSTRALIA. I woke up the day after making it and went to check on how hard it was and it had gotten softer. The humidity is very high here. In Canada we heat up sugar to stick the gingerbread together and it gets very brittle and works like a charm. NOT IN AUSTRALIA We made the houses and the next day most of the roofs had slid off. The sugar had just melted. We have put the deficits down to sub-standard Australian building practises and the weird cane sugar that they have here, good Canadian sugar beet sugar would never have melted like that!!! We sent 3 houses home with the neighbours but did not send the houses home with the cousins, big mistake. The roofs have fallen off and the kids don't know, we may have to try and fix them. I was talking to my daughter Jen in Canada and she suggested toothpick and drills, I THINK NOT!

The kids were great, all of them being very patient waiting their turns to get icing piped on and they didn't fight over the kinds of candy that were close to them. The men helped a lot, Grandpa Barry supervised June house building and even managed to put on a candy or 2 himself. Graeme made a beautiful lattice roof and then drew June and Quinn in a window waving! Trish was so organized and helpful with all the kids and then decorated the only house with the chimney while Graeme and his brother took the kids out for a run around the block to work of some of the candy high. Jackie, Graeme's mother and I jointly decorated a house and the Southern Cross appeared on the roof as well as a myriad of stars. It was a fantastic day, and the Lange gingerbread tradition moved to another continent. Trish's neighbour said that she would like to do it again next year, another convert. Graeme and Trish have another small fridge and we are going to put the houses in their to save the ones that haven't fallen apart yet.

Substandard building materials needing to be propped up.

Graeme claimed this looked like a suburb in Calgary!

2011-12-19T23:18:00.000-08:00

Grannie and Grandpa arriving on the train, Quinn's favourite thing in the whole wide world

We are in Australia again, at our daughter's house. Trish, Graeme, Quinn and June live near Bundaberg in a roomy home on a very large lot. The house is built with cinder blocks, something you wouldn't use in Canada but in Aus. it is very cool and it won't get destroyed by ants and wooden houses might. Trish is busy gardening up a storm. She has cherry tomatoes that are almost ripe and a melon has appeared on a vine. I am very impressed with her new found knowledge of what can be grown in Australia and the techniques to be used to grow her crop. She must have inherited her love of gardening from her Grandpa Sam and her Grandma Shanks, it certainly is in her jeans :).

Our grandchildren are marvellous little people. Quinn is a very inquisitive little boy, he had a used circuit board that he brought to show me. He is only four and a half and he showed me the paths on the board and said cars could go on them and pointed out what I thought were batteries were definitely not. He loves trains and we have spent more than a few happy hours building tracks and making the trains go around. He knows that bats eat the seed pods of a tree in the yard and he knows more than I ever wanted to know about ants. June, who is two and half has a delightful sense of humour, which I think is quite unusual in a child so young. She has an astonishing vocabulary and I have found myself wondering a couple of times who is talking. She is as cute as a button and when she smiles and says something silly I find my self grinning from ear to ear.

Quinn with his caterpillar bridge

Barry and I are loving the break from the boat, room to move about, a queen size bed, luxury in the extreme. I actually pruned a hedge the other day(I am not sure it is quite straight though) it has been a long time since I have done any gardening!! There are big reclining leather chairs to sit on here and a full sized fridge to put all our Christmas treats in.

Barry with Trish's kite.

The other day we headed off to the beach and Trish and Graeme went kite boarding. Graeme went zooming off and Trish headed off after getting us and the kids settled. I am hoping I will get a chance to try it the next time we go. Quinn, June and I hung out on the beach and made a bridge for a caterpillar to cross. Trish and I have been planning to make gingerbread houses. We are going to have seven kids over and they will each have their own house to decorate, mayhem!! We went into town today and had a marathon shopping expedition, everyone survived, even Grandpa Barry. The best buy in his opinion were the shorts he got at the thrift store.

BEFORE

We made a huge paper chain to decorate the house. First we got the kids to paint pictures and then we cut them into strips and glued them into a 5 meter chain. Trish and Graeme are non-traditionalist so our Christmas tree is the outline of a tree stuck on to the cinder brick wall. The tree is outlined in tinsel and lights, it has decorations. Trish and I spent about 2 hours last night very carefully taping this tree together. This morning we woke up and everything had fallen down. We bought some sticky tack today and very quickly stuck it back together. Trish is sure it will stay up this time!!!!!!!!!

AFTER

I had better go, I am hoping to make some shortbread this afternoon. No luck, the afternoon has gone and supper is on the go, perhaps after supper.

2011-12-08T23:14:00.001-08:00

Royal Langkawi Yacht Club

This is a pretty flash place we are staying. There was a big party of the upper deck the other night. We are about as far away from the clubhouse as you can get, but that is okay because there is ferry wash that hits the other end of the dock but does not affect us too badly. Cat's-Paw IV is second from the end on the finger that is the furthest away from the camera, the dinghy is on deck and has a blue cover over it.

There is a big aeronautics and marine show on in town this week. Apparently it is not just a show but they are selling the jets. This boat that docked at the opposite end to us name is Anna. One of the other cruisers googled it and it is only number 90 on the list of top 100 mega yachts. The sign at the end of the gangway says "Attention, this is a private yacht and you are being monitored on CCTV". I always made sure I smiled at the camera as I went by. The crew were working on the helicopter, attaching the forward rotors. Just before it sailed we walked by and they were loading some things in heavy long thin rectangular containers. Our buddy who was with us said he figured they were getting ready for a crossing to the Red Sea and the containers were magazines for big guns and the chopper was ready to do recon duties to keep those nasty pirates at bay. I wish them luck.

Langkawi is a duty free island, so a big part of the economy is based on selling duty free goods. There are whole stores dedicated to selling chocolate. I have never seen so much chocolate for sale in my whole life. The Cadbury and the Toblerone sections were particularly hard to resist.

It seems that Corning Ware, Corelle as well as the all time favourites perfume and liquor are particularly well liked. I must tell you about dining out in SE Asia. You are never sure what will appear to join you at the dinner table At one spot in Penang I took a look at the food at the one end of the restaurant and it looked fresh and clean. We walked into the store and had to wade through about 2 cm of water that was coming from the tanks in the middle, I think. (That should have been the first clue) The tables were pretty grubby, sand the floor was pretty filthy, our food came, it was mediocre and then a mangy old dog wandered in. He had no hair left on his hind quarters and he flopped down on the floor one table away from us and patiently waited for a tidbit. The other night we were in a much more respectable looking place. It had marble looking table tops and it was nice and clean. A cockroach skittered up the wall beside to see what was happening, I told Barry to wave his menu at him and away he went. The food was delicious there, Thai chicken, spicy prawns and great mixed vegetables.

This is totally unrelated to anything but I have to tell you. The other night I was going to have a shower. We had rented a car for the day to do some sight seeing and we wanted to fill up our cans with diesel since we had the car. I asked Barry if he thought it would look too weird if I walked into the shower building with two 20 litre cans in my hands. He said it would not matter as long whatever I was wearing matched the cans!!! It paid off in the long run because the diesel on the dock was 3.00 ringat a litre and it was only 1.80 at the pump, we bought 80 litres so we saved the price of the car by filling up the cans that way.

I love the shape of the hills in Langkawi

We toured around the island with the car. Langkawi is a real tourist destination for Malaysia and SE Asia. It is a school holiday at the moment so there are lots of families visiting the island. We went up the cable car which went up 700m. There were wonderful views. The hanging bridge made me realize my vertigo has gotten worse over the years. I had to hold on pretty tight when I was looking over the edge.

I could feel the bridge moving as I held on.

An anchorage at the bottom of the hill, Cat's-Paw IV is about 20 km from here.

There is a 12m high statue of a Brahminy Kite perched on the shore fairly close to the yacht club. Langkawi apparently got its name from the eagle, in old Malay kawi denotes the reddish brown colour. I have seen quite a few of these majestic birds soaring around. Fishing for a living is very popular on this island and their colourful boats caught my eye the other day as we drove by.

Barry has been busy trying to resolve our electricity problems. We have not been able to plug in at the marinas because our boat is only wired for 110 power, it is 220 or 240 here. The other day he bought a universal charger which will take power from 90 to 240 and it will charge our batteries. We have been having to run our generator every day in order for the fridge to work. The water is so hot and the air temp is so hot that the fridge had been working almost continually to keep cold. It kept defrosting and we didn't know why but it was because our batteries were too low. No longer, Barry managed to replace our old battery charger with the new one and the boat has not blown up yet. He was very reluctant to do anything with the electricity but after consulting with others on the dock he figured it out and we are good to go. The only smoke that appeared was the stuff coming out of his ears.

2011-11-30T21:08:00.001-08:00

The beginnings of a new bridge to the island of Penang

We are now in Langkawi, our last stop in Malaysia. We are docked at the Royal Langkawi Yacht Club (doesn't that sound prestigious?) and will leave the boat here when we fly to Australia to spend Christmas with our daughter Trish and her family Graeme, Quinn and June. Since the last blog we sailed from Pangkor, north to Penang and then another 80 miles to Langkawi. Penang is an island whose capital city, Georgetown, was another important historical port. As we sailed into Penang we had to go through the pylons that had been erected to build a second bridge to the mainland, this will be about 26 km long. They machinery to erect the bridge was strewn across the channel and it was a bit daunting to thread our way through it all on the way to the anchorage.

lychees and mangosteens

We were anchored about 15 km from the main downtown area and there was no bus direct bus route, so we would have to take a cab and then the bus to get to the interesting part of town. The traffic on the island was horrendous, traffic jams all over the place and it seemed to take forever in the heat to get anywhere, not our most favourite stop. We wandered around Chinatown and through a wonderful market that had fresh fruits and veggies, roasted chestnuts and every kind of knick knack you could think of. I am sure that most of you have heard of lychees but mangosteens are something I had not experienced before Indonesia. They are delicious, you take the dark purple, brownish fruit and you break open the husk with your fingers. It is a thick husk but in the middle there are white sections shaped like orange sections with a pit in the middle, very yummy.

A novel way to transport eggs

We headed off after this to see a restored Chinese mansion, a baba, nonya house, this group of people resulted from the intermarriage of Chinese immigrants with Malay women. They took on many aspects of the Chinese culture but integrated some lovely Malay customs into their lives. The women were kept cloistered in the house, living the easy life with servants to tend to their needs. One of the handicrafts they indulged in to keep them busy was beading. Here is a lovely example of a beaded shoe, my mind just boggles at the amount of work this is.

The furniture in this house was very ornate, beautiful carved wood with inlaid mother-of-pearl. There was a huge collection of porcelain dishes with Chinese decorations of dragons, birds and flowers.

We headed off to see more of the city and walked by this beautiful mosque. We stopped to take in Fort Cornwallis, which was built by the British in the early 1700 century. It has recently been restored and it had a cannon in the walls that the Dutch had left that had a date of 1603 on it. It is fascinating the amount of history that is in this area, what with the Arab, Indian and Chinese traders followed by the Portuguese, Dutch and the British getting involved in later centuries.

We toured the war museum. It was located on a hill overlooking the approached, built by the British in the 1930's to defend the island. Unfortunately the whole island was ill prepared to defend itself. We have figured out that Pearl Harbour was Dec. 7, 1941, on Dec 11, 1941 Penang was bombed, then the Japanese landed on Dec. 15 and Penang was surrendered on Dec. 16. Not one Japanese soldier was killed on the invading force. Darwin, Aus. was bombed on Dec. 26, 1941. The Japanese were certainly on the rampage at that time. The Japanese then used the barracks as a POW camp and interrogation center after they took the area. They used POW to build the railway that was made famous in the movie the Bridge over the River Kwai. The barracks for the British, Indian and Malay forces were forgotten after the war. The building were over run by the jungle for 40 years. In about the year 2000 the building were rediscovered and restoration has taken place. There are tunnels under the ground to protect the soldiers and the munitions in case of attack. It was a sobering view of a part of the war that we were not aware of.

British barracks in the jungle.

2011-11-19T02:26:00.001-08:00

ROAD TRIP

The replica of a Portuguese trading vessel

The Dutch influence.

Barry has decided that he would like to leave for South Africa from the top of the island of Sumatra, which means we would not be going back down the Straits of Malacca. I really wanted to see the historic town of Malacca, so here we are. Malacca was a centre of trade where East met West since the 14th century. An admiral appointed by an Emperor of the Ming Dynasty traded here in the 1400's offering protection to the Sultan of Malacca. The Portuguese took over the port after the Chinese withdrew their support due to some ill omens in China and a change of Emperor.

The Dutch challenged the Portuguese and burned the town and imposed draconian taxes and duties on the trading goods. Malacca's star dimmed as merchants chose other locations. The British took over and were a little fairer but a fellow named Raffles decided Singapore was a better location and it became the hub to trading.

Chinese shophouses on the canal

I have been really enjoying my time away from the boat, we have been seeing the sights and visiting some of the myriad of museums that are here. We both enjoyed learning about Cheng Ho the Chinese admiral visiting the home of a Chinese Malaysian. The family has been here for six generations and the original immigrant made enough money to purchase three adjacent shophouses and make them into one home. They are long skinny houses with only a front door, the first house was to house the servants and prepare the food, the middle one was to entertain guests and the the third house was where the family lived. One of the most interesting features was in the master bedroom which overlooked the front door. There was a peep hole in the floor and if the master of the house didn't like who was knocking at his door he could poor water or worse on his head.
Through just pure dumb luck we ended up here at the same time as a performing arts festival. I took in 3 dances this afternoon, one which was held on top of the hill in the ruins of an old Catholic church. The food is terrific here as well, I have been gorging on the local speciality bean sprouts while Barry enjoyed chicken and rice balls this afternoon. We are headed off to sample some night life after spending part of last evening watching a judged Chinese karaoke contest.

2011-11-14T19:30:00.001-08:00

Pangkor Island as seen from our marina.

We had a wonderful tour of Pangkor Island yesterday. We reached the island by ferry from the marina and were met with a fleet of pink minibuses. The island is located about 2nm from where we are tied up at a marina which has been built on reclaimed land. There is a hotel, marina and a condominium complex on the island. The marina has good cheap facilities for getting work done on your boat and there are quite a few boats up on the hard awaiting the return of their owners. Okay back to the tour.

We went rocketing off around the island, the first stop being a partially restored Dutch fort which had been built to protect the tin supplies back in the 16th century. The reason the fort had been restored was because the local Malays attacked the fort and managed to rout the Dutch and this was considered a huge blow for nationalism. The island has a population of 90,000 people and voer 90% are of Chinese ancestry. The island runs on fishing and tourism, one side is dedicated to the fishing industry and consists of densely packed houses and little shops selling everything from nuts to bolts. On the shores there were a myriad of docks with warehouses and fishing boats tied up to the long docks that extended out past the low tide mark. The other side has a series of beaches and resorts dedicated to tourism. There were some spots to go snorkelling and diving as well as places that rented seadoos (the vehicle sailors hate the most after unlit fishing boats). I guess it’s not the seadoos we hate so much as the unthinking yokels that rent them and then play slalom with our anchored sailboats. I think we may head over there today and spend a few days actually relaxing and getting in the water while we are at anchor. Barry’s ankle is still not healed up, the process is very slow in the hot humid environment here, so he will not be going in the water. Okay back to the tour.

Our next stop was a wonderful Chinese temple. It spread out over several acres and was set up against a hill with waterfalls, fish ponds and a long set of steps up to the highest view point. The architecture was very striking as were the bright bold colours. We wondered around and were able to absorb some of the calm, serene atmosphere that pervaded. Our last stop was a sea food factory where they made every kind of dried fish that you could think of. We sampled dried squid, dried jelly fish satay, prawn crackers, as well as dried mango and tamarind. Then we were taken to a wonderful Chinese lunch whose taste and variety matched any meal we have had in Malaysia yet, it was delicious. The marina island in Pangkor has certainly gone out of their way to attract the cruisers’ business and make a very favourable impression on us.

A view from the top!

We may leave this afternoon for a few days at anchor on the west side of Pangkor Island or we may take a trip to the interior to do a little land travel. We don’t have to be at our next destination, Penang, which is only a 2 day trip away for another week and a half.

The two faces of Malaysia as the fishing boats sit stranded on the tidal flats infront of multi-family dwellings in Lumut.

2011-11-07T17:24:00.000-08:00

In front of the Twin Towers in Kuala Lumpur, remember the scene from James Bond where he had a running battle across the walkway between the towers.

We had a wonderful tour to Kuala Lumpur. We were on a first class bus with a great guide. The guide was very informative giving us a good overview of his country. Malaysia has a very active “Silicon Valley” where microchips are manufactured, as well as booming small appliance industry. They have a very employable work force with a high literacy rate, as a result many multinational companies set up factories here. We saw Toyota, Hyundi, Dhiatsu and many other car manufactures. Palm oil is a major crop, the refining of which is responsible for the fact that we can’t catch the rain water, it is too polluted, and our boats are gross, covered in the grimy residue from the air. Their rubber plant industry makes the best latex for surgical gloves. At the moment the government is encouraging young people to take up market gardening because industry has become so important that Malaysia has to import a lot of its food. Malyasia also has approx. 10 % of the world’s oil with wells on the eastern side of the peninsula. The majority of the population is Malay with Chinese being the second largest ethnic group and then people of Indian descent. Muslim is the dominant religion but Buddhism, Hinduism, and Christianity are all tolerated. For the first time we saw Muslim women dressed head to toe in black with only their eyes showing. There have been some fundamentalist trying to get a toehold in Malaysia but our guide explained when they began agitating they were quickly rounded up and put behind bars. The word Malaysia comes from the Himalaya mountains, the end of that mountain chain runs down the spine of the Malay Peninsula. Enough information!

The giant Hindu shrine at the Batu caves.

This picture does not do the caves justice, they were amazing.

Making roti, or an Indian style of bread, they served it for breakfast with curry.

We started our tour at the Batu caves. It is a marvel of nature where a huge Hindu shrine has been built. I bought a post card that shows the steps covered in pilgrims when they have the festival to honour this god. There were 257 steps to the top and we trucked up there and were amazed at the interior of the cave. It was hard to get a good picture but the rock wall was very steep with overhangs and there were monkeys that clamored up and down the walls with ease. We also visited a Buddhist shrine that was to honour the goddess of the sea, how very appropriate. We headed to downtown KL where we saw the gorgeous architecture that the British built during their colonial days here. Basically colonization started when the Portuguese first settled here, Marco Polo stopping in Malaka and identified it as a spot where the India Chinese and Middle Eastern traders had been stopping for years. The Portuguese settled and took over for awhile until the Dutch came into prominence, then the British started sticking their oar in. Eventually the Dutch and British came to an understanding, the Dutch got Java, the British, Malaysia. Malaysia achieved their independence after WW11 without any fighting, the British setting up a government structure and staying around until it was running smoothly in 1957. The Communists under Mao tried to take over the region but the Commonwealth countries brought in troops to help the Malay government and Malaysia remained a democracy. ANYWAY, I loved the fact that the very British Cricket Club building still stands on very prime real estate in downtown KL. It was very unusual to see brick buildings built by the British with very Arabic features, the windows, the domes and arches were a pleasure to the eye. The Twin Towers are the tallest twin towers in the world, our guide told us how much they swayed in high winds and explained that because Malaysia is out of the cyclone zone and not in the Pacific Ring of Fire (earthquake zone) it was considered a safe bet, geologically speaking, to build them.

A beautiful horse and rider guarding the King's palace.

The tallest flag pole in the world.

Must be a rugby mascot, right in central KL.

The Cricket Cub right across the street from the picture below, interesting they would preserve this building and the pitch which is no longer used because the ball would disrupt the traffic it they had a good whack at it.

The old British architecture with the fourth highest free standing structure in the world, the guide said the CN tower was the tallest but we thought the Russian's had us beat.

We spent the night in KL as we had to visit the Canadian High Commission in order to renew our passports. We spent our first afternoon running around getting our passport photos, we spent an hour and a half traipsing around a ten level mall searching for a shop. Barry says all the stores were selling pretty much the same stuff, they had a spa floor, a high tech floor, a roller coaster, like West Ed mall, etc. etc. That evening we went to Chinatown looking for a nice meal. There were the usual hawker stalls but these sold knock offs. Apparently there are A, B and C knockoffs. We needed a second umbrella so I got a Louis Vitton umbrella for 15 ringats, equivalent to $5.00 CND, yippee. Wendy and Ken from Cop Out were with us and Wendy and I nearly bought matching Prada handbags but reason prevailed when we looked at all the metal bits on the purses and figured that they would rust REALLY quickly. We found a wonderful spot for supper, a young gentleman who owned a video place showed us the way on the condition that we visit his emporium on our way out. He checked on us twice and was waiting when we exited the restaurant. Needless to say he made a few sales!!!!

The nest morning we hightailed it to the Canadian High Commission, filled out all the paper work and headed back to Cat’s-Paw IV in Port Dickson. We are motoring, motoring up the strait to our next destination, Lumut where we will stay at Pangor Marina. We have about 2 weeks until we have to be at the next spot so it will be nice to hopefully do some cruising around Lumut.


Durian is a fruit which apparently stinks like hell but taste like heaven, this was posted in our hostel.

List of do's and don'ts in the LRT.

Riding the monorail, it was very civilized at this time.

2011-11-07T16:15:00.000-08:00

We have had our first real Asian experience. When we came back from Kuala Lumpur yesterday we took a train and then a bus. We could not believe the shoving that took place to get on the train. Once the train doors opened everyone just shoved. It was quite scary, the people getting on wouldn't clear a path for the people exiting and they had to elbow their way out, then it was everyone for them self. There was a man holding a three year old boy in front of me and he had a bag. The bag was caught on the ground behind him and he was stuck, he couldn't go forward because the bag was holding him back and he couldn't back up because the crowd was relentlessly forcing their way forward. I pushed with the best of them, my former basketball training coming to the fore. One lady fell and I was thinking she might be trampled, unbelievable. Once we were in the train car, no one would move to the middle of the car, everyone was squashed by the doors. I tried to move in because there was more room and was blocked by a huge suitcase which was guarded by a small young woman. When we finally got off after a half and hour of standing sandwiched together and then a half an hour of sitting once we stopped at a trunk line and a whack of people got off we got on a bus. The same procedure happened. This time we were ready for them, a young adult about 8 or 9 tried to get his foot in front of me to force his way forward, he was right at elbow level, I spread them slightly and leaned his way and there was no way on earth this kid was getting past me. Barry said that he squeezed him out as well. Once I was in the doorway to the bus I put my arm out to the door so no one could go past and let the fellow in front of me step up before I crowded him. This journey definitely was not for the faint of heart or the elderly, and I thought Singapore was bad.!!! More about KL later, we accomplished our mission there and did the paperwork for our new passports.

2011-11-04T19:16:00.000-07:00

Cat's-Paw IV after passing under the bridge from Malaysia to Singapore

We are safe and sound in Port Dickson, Malaysia; about 200 nm up the Malacca Straits from Singapore. We have spent the last three days motoring into the wind and the current to get here. I thought we were not supposed to sail to weather, sailors do not appreciate having to run the motor constantly. We have joined the Sail Malaysia Rally and there is a trip to Kuala Lumpur tomorrow, so we had to get here in time. We have to get our passports renewed so will overnight in KL and hopefully be able to get all the paperwork done in one day. One of our fellow sailors tried to sail up the strait yesterday and basically ended up going back and forth without making much progress. Our motor faithfully chugged away day after day and Barry's timely maintenance has paid off in spades with its good behaviour.

We are at a marina, this one has a pool, toilets and showers as well as a garbage can on the dock at the end of the boat so we are both happy campers. We wake up in the morning and as soon as we move around we start sweating, we are told the humidity abates a little further north so we are looking forward to that. I will post more pictures once we return from KL.

2011-10-31T17:06:00.000-07:00

The Sultan's private mosque.

We are in Malaysia now, at the bottom of the Malaysia peninsula, which is the most southern part of Asia. It is hard to believe but we could travel from here to France by land if we chose! We have been at a marina since we arrived in a city called Johor. The marina was built for a very rich fella to moor his boat and it has great slips but there is no infrastructure, no showers or toilets, quite odd. There is a huge complex though with fancy restaurants where there is live music every night so we have been enjoying ourselves. Malaysians speak a form of Bahasa, which was spoken in Indonesia, but a lot of them speak English as well. Johor is a modern city with shopping malls, large grocery stores and huge modern highways with interchanges and overpasses. The predominant religion is Muslim but it does not seem to be a fundamental sect that has power so the women wear head scarves but they are the most beautiful colours. In the grocery store yesterday the clerks had matching beige uniforms with a splash of red at their throats and beige head scarves, Malaysia's head of state is a sultan that is like the royal family, the lineage passing from father to the oldest son.

The opulent interior of the new state admin building.

Marble mosaic

We visited the new administration centre on a bus tour the other day. What an absolutely impressive complex. The downtown area was getting crowded so the state leg. moved to an area where they could build a huge complex. The inside of the building was so impressive, they had a waterfall, a museum explaining about the history of the gov't, and the interior of the legislature. All the desks had marble highlights, there was a gorgeous marble mosaic on the floor, the seats were the softest leather, no expense was spared. There are female members of the governing body, so it is an enlightened Muslim society here.

We headed to a pineapple museum next, who knew there were so many varieties of pineapple?? We got to taste a couple of varieties and the new one that they have just developed was so sweet, you wouldn't believe it. I hope the one I have on the counter is that variety. If you take the leaf of the pineapple plant and scrape it you can get a fibre from it and they had examples of clothing made from pineapple thread.

Next we headed off to a village where the ferries went from there to Singapore. When we arrived there was an absolute deluge of rain. It seems to happen everyday about 1400 hours, big black clouds form, the lightening flashes, the thunder booms and the skies open up. There is no laundromat here so you wash your clothes first thing in the morning, hang them up and hope that they dry in the very humid environment before the skies open up. Yesterday I had the wash out and was doing some internet work on another boat and rain started. I ran all the way back to the boat to find that Barry was already on the job and had most of it in. I ducked inside to close the windows and the hatches. ANYWAY, back to the tour, we had a lovely lunch in this village, and looked out on a very typical Asian waterway, filled with local fishing boats, houses on stilts and tourist boats.

The tiger is a very important symbol in Malaysia, and they are now a protected species here. The sultan has even stopped hunting them, so you know they are serious about protecting them. Below is the official coat of arms for the Sultan of Johor. The Islamic symbols of the star and the moon are in the centre and below it is Arabic writing. We are headed off north up the Malaka Straits today, that is the body of water between Malaysia and the Indonesian island of Sumatra. It should be an interesting journey because the tankers from the Indian Ocean transit this strait and the Malaysian fisherman set nets all along the shore, so sailboats are left with a narrow corridor where they can safely make their way north. Our next stop will be Port Dickson, from there we will travel overland to Kuala Lumpur where we need to renew our Canadian passports.

2011-10-25T23:07:00.000-07:00

Singapore

A more than lifesized billboard

What a city, although we are attracted to more wide open spaces, Singapore is something else. It is very clean and it's inhabitants are very busy people, hustling and bustling around the city. We are on the western edge of the city and the marina provides a bus into the closest large mall. Malls and shopping seem to be what Singapore is all about, besides architecturally stunning buildings of course. We have been doing the tourist bit, we have visited Little India, Chinatown, wandered around the much sanitized inner harbour and we took a city tour.

Their is a styalized boat on the top of this structure

The population is a mixture, it seems mainly Chinese but on the MRT, the rapid transit line, we have seen the broad faces of Koreans, the dark handsome good looks of East Indian people, the Malaysians, and the white folks, left over from the British rule, no doubt. While on the MRT if you want a seat you have to rush to get one, there are reserved seats for the elderly and pregant women but the young S'poreans seem to be oblivious to the fact that they shouldn't be sitting there. On the other hand once the middle aged folks noticed the tensor bandage on Barror ankle they would leap out of their seats and offer it to him. The young folks were too absorbed in thier IPhones to notice, I think they were watching TV on their devices.

Gold Necklace at $65 SD a gram!

I am sure we didn't belong in here

It was packed in Little India both the times we headed there. Deepavali, the Hindu festival of lights started today and it is a public holiday. We had a delcious Indian meal there, eating off a banana leaf. We browsed through many stores and managed to resist buying any gold, but when we were in a tailors shop, the owner tried valiantly to sell Barry and Ken from Cop Out a tailor made shirt, no luck.

Deepvali decorations

We sampled some delicious Indian food here, eating off a banana leaf. The Western Union office was packed with East Indian men sending money home to their families back in India. The women were garbed in an array of colours and patterns that made up their saris. Western women would not have dreamed to put this combination of colours together, but they were often stunning. It seemed like they were decked out to celebrate the holiday, but often they would have shopping bags over their arms. We stayed until nightfall to see the light festival but left before the craziness that would have been the countdown at midnight.

The "boat," the flowers in the foreground are on every overpass.

A Buddist temple in Chinatown.

I am going to leave you with these visual images of Singapore. We leave for Malaysia tomorrow, that rally starts in a few days and it will take us north up the Malaka Straits to Langkawi. We have booked tickets to go to Australia for Christmas so we can spoil our grandchildren and visit with our daughter and son-in-law, if we continue west we may not see them again for a very long time.

A typical Singapore scene, a high rise with construction work going on beside it.

A very sanitized Chinatown as compared with San Francisco.

Singapore River looking towards the down town.

My favourite statue in a city full of them.

A typical apt. building, they are everywhere. A taxi driver told us a 3 brm apt. cost $290.000 CND.

The Singapore Flyer, at least 20 stories high.

The Central Business District

Not sure what it is, but it sure is unusual.

2011-10-20T16:44:00.000-07:00

Natural Gas Tanker

Unbelievable, we sailed up the Strait of Singapore and lived to tell about it! Singapore is one of the busiest ports in the world, tankers, tenders and tugs march up and down the Strait with precision and speed. Well perhaps I should qualify that, mostly with precision, when we approaching up a channel between two islands we heard the frantic calls of a freighter trying to issue instructions to change course and then he called out to all ships to keep clear because he had had a collision. This was not a conversation which settled our minds about the difficulties in crossing a very very busy shipping lane.

I will admit to be a tad nervous, my head was on a swivel, my mouth was dry and my guts were churning. I

Tug

couldn’t sit still jumping up from the cockpit to go below to look at the computer to make sure we were on the correct track, I was a wreck (this, of course, had nothing to do with the cup of coffee I had drank in order to stay awake)! We had gotten up at 0300 and motored up the side channel, against the current, in the dark, where there were fish traps lurking to grab us and crazy Indonesian boats with lights on the wrong sides going hither and yon, just to confuse us. We managed to navigate that channel and were absolutely amazed as the dawn broke over Singapore. There was a wall of tankers in a line down the strait and the mass of high rises that is the city state rose up to meet the sky. We wondered how we were ever going to get across!

huge 10 story platform

As the sky brightened and we got closer to the action, motoring parallel to the shipping lane Barry figured out that a lot of the tankers were parked and there were actual gaps between the tankers that we might be able shoot through (ya right, shoot through at a commanding 6 knots). The tankers came in all shapes and sizes, car carriers, container ships, natural gas contraptions, another was piled 3 stories high with sand, long ones, fat ones, skinny ones and on and on. We reached what we figured to be the shortest distance across and we angled in toward the oncoming tanker, before he was past us we straightened, gunned the motor and went perpendicularly across. Barry had timed it to a T and although I was extremely worried about the tanker approaching from behind, doing mental calculations in my head, judging distances and rates of closure, frantically trying to convert knots into distance covered in minutes, he just knew it was not going to be an issue and coolly turned the boat on a parallel course to continue on to our destination.

rogue American sailor with his police escort

As we turned out of the Strait we were beside another sail boat who decided to cut the corner and go inside a marker that clearly indicated you were supposed to keep outside. There was a huge platform that must have been at least 10 stories high that probably had something to do with the massive natural gas works that dominated the corner. I turned to observe a largish power boat come thundering towards us. It was the Singapore police, with their mounted machine gun on the bow bearing down on us. As soon as he saw the other sail boat he put on the brakes and closely escorted him; Another dark blue police joined in and for awhile this free spirit on his beautiful Swan (a type of boat) merrily motored along seemingly oblivious to his double escort. I was hoping that they would get on the radio and give this non rule following American the what for, but it didn’t happen.

We went past another tanker parking lot, where they just hang out waiting to be serviced. Some had tenders beside them offloading their cargo. One that was filled with pipes had humungous no smoking signs all over it, yikes, we were that close to a potential James Bond pyrotechnical display. On the right side of us was a breakwater that is part of the reclamation of the port that is going on continually. There was piles of weeds and garbage in lines where the tide had pushed them. At this point we were motor sailing at over 7 knots due to the 3 knot tide that we lucked into, and the fact we had finally turned off the strait after 35 nm of wind on our nose. We were extremely please to dock at the marina and step off the boat into another world.

It is an opulent first world spot with a hotel that features a massive lobby overlooking the marina’ that has dolphins with sprays of water gushing upwards out of their playfully open mouths. There is a pool with a waterfall, a swim in Indian food restaurant and a hot tub area featuring jets that soothe you as you gracefully recline on the curved surface. I thought I had died andgone to heaven when I saw kite boards for rent, but it turned out they were wake boards :( but on the other hand we had an international 10 pin bowling tournament last night. There is a free shuttle into a huge mall which Barry and I are going to brave today. Plans are in the works for a Singapore Sling in the next few days, stay tuned!

2011-10-15T08:28:00.001-07:00

We have left Belitung and are headed for Singapore. We plan to take about 4 or 5 days to get there, no hurry. Belitung was a whirlwind of activity. First the president of Indonesia was coming and we had to figure out a way to pick 10 people to meet him. It was decided that boat names would be chosen out of a hat and then the crew of the yacht could arm wrestle each other to see who was going to meet him. We were all invited for a dinner with him but 10 would have a private meeting. Then it became known that the president was busy and the vice-president would appear in his place, no problem the 10 people could still meet with him. In typical Indonesian fashion he did not show up to the gala dinner and the 10 people who were chosen got their knickers in a knot for nothing. Oh well, it was lovely to see everyone dressed up, they had requested the men all wear batik shirts, so Barry now has a very nice rusty red batik shirt, we had to shop for awhile before we found one large enough to fit.
The last day we were in the anchorage the security was phenomenal. The vice-president, the minister of defence, the minister of fisheries, etc, etc were to visit the site and speeches were given and a display of dragon dancing took place. Wendy from Cop Out and I wandered around, had my backpack frisked by commandos with M16's and then I asked if we could have a picture and they happily posed, but no smiles from them. There was a sniper up in the wooden tower and there were bomb squad, riot police vehicles hanging about. I will post pics when I get to Singapore. We were positioned where the performers would go on the stage so we got to talk to the kids who were very nervous about performing on national TV. The day ended up with a party on the beach which the guides and the boat boys participated in. The boat boys have been valet parking our dinghies all week, which has been really handy all week with Barry bad ankle. Speaking of which it is almost all healed up and he is walking around with only a small limp. The valet parking consisted of the guys picking up our dinghies, turning them around so it was easy to launch, and sometimes they was a double row stacked up down the beach. That was the official end Sail Indonesia, we will join the Sail Malaysia Rally in Singapore and head up the west coast of Malaysia to Langkawi.

2011-10-11T18:28:00.000-07:00

Welcoming Dance in East Belitung

School children out to visit the boat to practice their English.

The internet is excellent today, yahoo!!! On one of our tours we visited a school and had fun telling all the teenagers we were from Canada and we knew Justin Beiber!!! There is Beiber Fever all over Indonesia, he is hugely popular. Anyway after the tour was over one of the yachties suggested that it would be cool to show the kids our boats. About a 100 kids showed up, 24 yachties were sitting on the beach holding up their boat name signs and the kids came tearing down the beach to find us with matching pieces of paper, they piled in the dinghies and off we went, a mass of dinghies roaring away from the beach piled up with kids. We had them on board for about an hour and tried to get them to speak English to us, they were very shy but we did get some information out of them. We gave them Canadian flag patches to sew on their clothes!

Canadians celebrating Thanksgiving in Indonesia!

The picture of the guys on their horses was a very unusual experience. This island is very close to Malaysia and the Chinese influence is also very prominent. LUCK is huge here as well as the belief in demons. This group got on their horses and called down their demons and then they rode the horses around, drank potions to get themselves into an altered state and then tried to exorcise the demons. The exorcism consisted of being whipped, eating handfuls of hot chili peppers, and eating glass. One fellow actually went a bit crazy and charged into the crowd, there was a very huge guy there to control the horse riders if they were in danger of hurting themselves or other people. Another fight with a demon was demonstrated by the fellow above. He wrestled with his demon in form of a ghost. The ghost was a bunch of rattan fibers bound together covered in white material. This fellow rolled around on the ground trying to break the rattan in half, you could see the strain on his face and in the tenseness of his muscles. He would wrestle with the ghost sometimes on top, sometimes underneath and he would pull with all his might using his feet against the ghost as leverage. Every once in awhile he would stop and collapse and rest for awhile before resuming his mission. This went on for quite awhile and he ended up with the ghost bent double. We think he won so that would mean that he got rid of the demon and the village would have good luck for another year.

Update: The president is not coming so we do not have to move our boats 2 miles away from the beach, which if it came true we would all have left for Singapore.

2011-10-11T07:30:00.000-07:00

The much improved foot

Welcome Ceremonies In East Belitung

Just to let you know we are alive and well. We are in Belitung, Barry is on the mend. We are nearing the end of our time in Indonesia and the big wind up is tomorrow night with the dinner with the President of Indonesia. There has been a blizzard of activities today, the most fun being yesterday, Canadian Thanksgiving. I organized a get together to celebrate, Cop Out our buddies from Calgary graciously agreed to host the event because they have a 42 foot catamaran. We had it at lunch time and I cooked 2 pumpkin pies, everyone brought a special dish to share and we had a blast. The best part was we had to organize a presentation to the regent or head of the area and all the other cruisers. Well, there were 3 French Canadian boats and 4 English Canadian boats and what a time we had coming up with a Canadian tune that would please everyone. I wanted to do a skit about a hockey game with the Canadiens playing the Flames but I was voted down. We ended up singing a couple of verses of C A N A D A by Stompin Tom and Wherever You Are by Celine Dionne otherwise known as the Titanic Song, it satisfied both groups. We practiced until I was almost hoarse but once we got up on the big stage we muffed Stompin Tom but did a credible and heartfelt rendition of Celine's big hit, which the Indonesians know and love.

The internet coverage has been REALLY BAD, but it has suddenly improved tonight. More later.

2011-10-05T10:22:00.000-07:00

We are on our way north and will not be near an internet connection for a few days so we will not be able to answer any questions you have about Barry's condition for a few days. He seems to be healing very well but I had a few concerns so we just called up our Doctor Daughter and fired away. It seems like the care I have been giving his wound is acceptable but she gave us a few hints to perhaps make the healing progress faster, whew! Barry is able to do his watches and is now putting weight on his ankle and seems to be getting around much better. He has 3 stitches to pull together the hole they made to drain all that ugly pus. They will have to come out soon!!
Tonight it felt like we were Kevin Costner in one of our favourite movies, WaterWorld. We were dodging oil tankers and oil platforms all night. "Tankers to the left of us, tankers to the right of us, here I am stuck in the middle with you." One in particular reminded me of the Exxon Valdez as portrayed in WaterWorld, it was moving very slowly and at one point we will both swear it did a 360. I tell you very unusual behaviour for a tanker. They usually go in a really straight line at about 15 knots and you just have to get out of their way. It was so confusing, he seemed to becoming towards us, yup, the radar confirmed that, so we tried to duck behind him and then he turned a 360. I finally got on the radio and told him we were a sailing vessel asked him to tell us what he was doing and where he was headed, NOTHING! He just kept getting closer and closer until he was less than a ź mile away so we just rolled in the sail, turned on the motor and motored 2 miles in the opposite direction to get away from him.

Did I mention that I was doing ALL the chores on the boat while Barry was in hospital? It really made me realize how much he does and how much I missed his company. I got my fill of putting diesel in the tank, mixing gas for the outboard, taking the garbage in on a regular basis, changing the oil, changing a lower shroud that needed replacing, hoisting the dinghy out of the water every night and worst of all, doing all the dishes! Barry's Mom must have done a great job because Barry never complains about doing the dishes so as a consequence he does most of them. I am so glad he is getting better and it is great to have him back on board.

2011-10-01T06:40:00.000-07:00

At it's worst, notice the small incision I made to drain it.

Woes in Paradise

The very spacious if not so clean room.

When you get a cut or a small little scratch in the tropics you had better pay attention. If you don't it will get you. Barry got a very small cut in his ankle from his rented fins when we were in Labuanbajo. He looked after it, he disinfected it, then covered it in Vitamin E, a week later he went on a 2 dive trip in Bali. The first dive was okay but by the second dive he had no energy and was really worn out. He went back to the boat and slept. I was on my trip to Ubud, when I got back to the boat the next day his ankle was red and swollen. The following morning we had our Canadian doctor buddies over to have a look and it was determined that he had a urinary tract infection and his ankle was infected. Barry went on antibiotics but the ankle had become to infected to be treated by them . Our buddies sailed away leaving instructions, I was to make an incision to drain the pus if it got to a certain stage. I did this and we decided if it didn't look better by the next day we should head to the hospital. Our Australian friends took us ashore and Barry hobbled into a taxi with a plastic bag on his foot so if wouldn't get sand or sea water in it. To make a long story short, he was put on intravenous antibiotics and they operated on his ankle because it had abscessed. He spent 5 days in the hospital and now is on the road to recovery, his ankle is growing new skin to replace the stuff they scraped off and he has stitched to close up the hole they made to drain the pus.

Needless to say it was a very anxious time for us and I have waited until he was better to let you know because all you would do was worry and there was nothing you could do about it.


The view from Barry;s room, gorgeous.

The Indonesian approach to hospitalization is that the family rallies around. Their loved ones are never left alone, so when you go up and down the corridors there are people camped out with blankets and food, I spent most of the day with Barry but would go back to the boat at night, so as not to have the dinghy onshore unattended at night and to do boat chores in the early morning. The Balinese people were a bit shocked that I would leave Barry alone in the hospital. I found one man on the beach that was willing to take me to the hospital, about 15 minute ride on a motorbike, and come and pick me up at night. (I made him get an extra helmut, but I felt like a local hanging on the the back of the bike with my flip flops on my feet while he zoomed in an out of traffic). One night ,I had arranged to have him pick me up at a certain time, Barry went in the operating room to have his stitches put in so I called him to let him know that he should not come and lo and behold he showed up to keep me company while Barry was being operated on. He was very concerned that I would be alone without other family members and he wanted to make sure that Barry was all right.

Barry was his usual stoic self through the whole thing, trying to figure out what he had done wrong in caring for his cut and being disgusted at the cleaning methods used in the hospital. Barry worked as a janitor in U of A hospital for 2 summers. The mops the housekeeping staff were using did not meet his standards and he talked about how if they would just hire him for a week he could give them a really good seminar on cleanliness. We had a very nice room with air conditioning and a TV that had BBC World News but no kidding, the sink was clogged and in five days the housekeeping staff would just look at the standing water in it and then leave without cleaning it so there was a dirty soap scum left once the water eventually drained. The doctor was very professional though, and the nursing staff were very caring and if you called them they were very responsive. Altogether we were very lucky to be in a spot where there was good health care and we are thankful that the infection has been treated and Barry is well on his way to recovery.

2011-09-25T05:31:00.000-07:00

The market in Ubud, selling fresh petals for offerings.

She has holy water in the container on her head, she was at the agricultural temple.

A lovely crater lake.

A Balinese dancer.

The hot springs, a very picturesque spot.

The gorgeous water temple.

The serenity of the inner courtyard of the agricultural temple.

Doors on a private temple.

A whimsical wooden monkey.

View from the balcony where we had lunch.

Bali is beautiful, since we arrived a week ago we have been involved in a flurry of visiting with friends and touring to see the sights. There are over 70 boats in the anchorage, so we have managed to catch up with friends that we haven’t seen since we left Darwin, two months ago. I had a chance to go on an overnight trip to Ubud the cultural capital of Bali, Barry choose to go diving instead, he is now only 3 dives behind me, he said he had a great dive on a wreck that was a two hour trip from the anchorage.
I went with six other people and we hired a driver and a car and headed up into the mountains. We went up a narrow paved mountain road with switchbacks everywhere. Bruce, it was a perfect motorcycle route, but it was packed with tourist minivans, trucks with produce and the ever present motor scooter. I am really glad we hired a driver because it was nuts, people take such chances over here! As we climbed higher up the mountain the vegetation changed. The fertile volcanic soil was being used to grow such crops as oranges, grapes, coffee, tobacco, cloves, watermelon, mangoes and on and on. At one point there was a section of the road that had fruit stands galore with beautifully piled fruit. Our first stop was on the ridge at the top of the mountain with a wonderful view of the crater lakes. They actually farm long seaweed that grows in the lake and they make rattan furniture with it.
The people of Bali are mostly Hindu and Buddhism is their religion. It was explained to us that they believe in one God but there is seven manifestations, the god of wind, fire, earth, sun, water, rice and symmetry, so there are many, many temples. Each family has a temple in their yard which vary with the wealth of the family. Each village would have a temple and then there are special temples for different things. We stopped at a temple devoted to the god of water as well as one devoted to agricultural or rice. The guide at the temple of agricultural told us that temple had been built in the 15th century and was just used twice a year to bless the planting of the crops and the harvest. The atmosphere in the temple was so serene, you could hear the birds twittering and see and smell the frangipani trees, and I could sense the peace that dwelled within the grounds. The water temple was much larger and more elaborate, it had beautiful flowers all around the grounds, there were too many tourists for me to get a sense of serenity but the location on the edge of a lake with a mountain arising on the other side was spectacular.
We stopped at spot where they had Balinese animals that you could photograph and hold. If I had been on my own I would not have stopped because I do not agree with animals being kept in captivity but the group stopped. I got to experience a python being wrapped around my neck, yikes! I was okay when she put one around me but when she added the second heavier one I was freaked out. It started wrapping itself around my leg and then it started squeezing, fortunately they feed them on a regular basis so it was only a gentle squeeze. There were also flying foxes, or fruit bats on display as well as a beautiful iguana. The fruit bats had an amazing wing span, I held everything they had but I drew the line at the bats! On we went to a coffee plantation and I got my wish to see coffee beans on a bush as well as cocoa pods on trees, ginger plants growing, clove trees and vanilla plants. They have a special coffee here, the beans are eaten by an animal that is similar to a mongoose called a civet and when the beans are excreted the farmers pick up the “ca-ca” as the coffee grower called it, they dry the manure and then peel and process the beans and it makes a very expensive coffee. I am not a coffee coinsure so I chose not to taste that brand as it was the only one you had to pay to taste. I bought some ginseng coffee for Barry that tastes like coffee and Baileys without the Baileys, I drank the sample and did it ever give me a caffeine jolt so no more ginseng coffee for me except perhaps on the 0100 to 0500 shift!
Next we stopped in Ubud, which is known for it’s handicrafts. It was a zoo, tourists everywhere and a gazillion shops selling everything. I admired the wooden cravings, purchased some unique pottery, and ogled all the beautiful batik silk and cotton fabrics. We stayed at a budget hotel, but it had a pool and we had our own bathroom, I shared with another single female cruiser and we each had to pay approx. $10.00 CND per night. We went to a exhibition of Balinese dancing that night, which took place at the palace of the King. What an experience, the costumes, were brilliantly colored and covered in glitzy gold thread and the style of dancing was delightful. The eyes seem to pop and the head was jerked back and forth sideways on the neck while the shoulders were held still. The finale was a masked dancer who came out and played an old man. I could tell by his feet that he was not as young and nubile as the other dancers and when I saw him afterwards his head was covered in long gray hair.
On the way back to Lovina Beach the next day we stopped to have lunch at a restaurant that had a marvelous view of a volcanic mountain that had trails cut through the lava going in every direction. We did not have time to do any hiking but perhaps that might take place another day. We saw the marvel of engineering which are the terraced rice paddies. The hawkers at this location were fierce, we had to shut the doors on the vehicle in their faces to get away from them. We stopped at the hot springs on the way home and soaked away our tensions. The pool had gargoyles with warmish water spouting from their mouths so you could sit under them and let the warm water soothe your knotted muscles. There was a second pool that had the water dropping from about 5 meters and it pounded down on you. It was a wonderful way to end the trip.
We arrived back in the anchorage in time to attend the welcoming entertainment and a couple of days later had a wonderful time at the farewell feast. We will probably stay in Bali for a few more days before moving on.

Sorry but I am unable to put the pictures where I want them so they will just have to stay where they are for now.

Python power, yikes!

2011-09-17T16:05:00.000-07:00

Sleeping under a rock

On alert, not sure what we are going to do!

Check out these claws.

Water Buffalo before an encounter with a dragon

Water Buffalo after an encounter with a dragon.

Very hard to see in the grass.

Dragons

2011-09-17T15:28:00.000-07:00

We spent three days on our own around Komodo Island. The day we arrived in what we thought was the correct spot to see the Komodo dragons we spent put puting around in the dinghy looking for the concrete dock that was supposed to lead us to the ranger station. We were a little mystified but then another boat showed up and we thought we must be in the right spot. Well finally I went back over some stuff we had and figured out we were a bay to far over and we upped anchor and motored about 5 miles around a headland and found the spot we were looking for. The topography of the islands reminded us very much of the Sea of Cortez in Mexico, dry, brown vegetation covering very hilly islands that jut out all over the place, it was just missing the cactus. We went on a 2 hour hike in the Komodo National Park lead by a lad with a forked stick. The stick was to protect us from the dragons which can be very aggressive. They apparently are very quick and lay in wait in their wonderful camouflage and then attack and bite their prey, which can consist of goats, wild pigs, deer and water buffalo, as well as the odd stray dog that unsuspecting cruisers have let run around loose! They have poisonous teeth and their bite is fatal, a buffalo taking as long as a week to die while a human will succumb in about 2 days. We managed to glimpse about 6 dragons, one was fast asleep with his head stuck under a rock, another was lying in the bush checking us out as a possible meal as we jalan, jalan, pelan pelan by (that is Indonesian for walked slowly). We saw about 10 buffalo wallowing in the water, our guide was very strict about how close we could get to the animals while taking their pictures. Oh, by the way to get into the park we had to pay an entry fee, a fee for the guide, buy a permit to anchor, all not a problem but when they charged us for the number of cameras we had, I thought that was a little over the top! The next day we headed over to the "pink beach" where the red coral has broken up in tiny little pieces so that the sand appears to be pink, we had some great drift snorkeling with the dinghy. The current is so fast that you just hold on to the dinghy and the current takes you along and when you have had enough you just hop in the dinghy and away you go rather than trying to swim against the current away from or back to the dinghy. At the moment we are dead heading it for Bali, about a 3 day sail in order to catch up to the rest of the fleet and participate in the planned activities in Bali. It will be good to see some folks that we haven't seen since we left Darwin 2 months ago. Pictures once we get to Bali.

2011-09-11T16:19:00.000-07:00

We have just finished 2 days of diving, we dove 3 times the first day and Barry did 3 dives the second day while I opted for just 2. They were all really marvelous sites and we were thrilled with the fish life, the coral was just brilliant, some of the best diving we have had. The dive masters were excellent as well, humorous, very safety conscious, and pointed out many wonderful underwater creatures we would never have seen. There were lobsters, scorpion fish, flat worms, nudibranches, turtles, sharks, moray eels, and MANTA RAYS. The manta rays were wonders of nature, gliding through the water with ease and grace. Their wings, for want of a better word, would pulse downwards and would flow beside, above and around us. The first time I saw them we were diving and they were unbelievable, the second time I choose not to go diving and try and get some pictures. We had been snorkeling for about 20 minutes and had almost given up on seeing one when I turned around to talk to my partner about going back to the boat and there was one behind us. It was black above and below, most of them are black above and white below so this one was unusual and she glided by us and I snapped pictures as fast as I could. I was just pumped!!! Then we did another dive and it was the highlight, there were so many fish,of all shapes and sizes, great schools and 5k tuna hunting amoung them. The coral ranged in colour from deep purple to lavender to bright blue, all shades of orange and red, soft feathery types that hid small crabs to hard spiky green stuff, it was magnificent. Barry was ready to sign on to another dive tomorrow but we need to get moving so we can renew our visa's on time.

We are headed to Rinca Island today to visit the monkeys and the komodo dragons.

2011-09-09T15:03:00.001-07:00

BOAT BUILDERS OF TANAH BIRU

We sailed here specifically to see these traditional wooden boats that were being built on the beach. We did not expect the industry that we saw. The beach front stretched for over a kilometer and all along were beautifully hand crafted wooden boats of various sizes and shapes in different stages of construction. We were allowed to wander amoung the workers, converse with the few that spoke English and take as many pictres as we wanted. What an experience!The interior of the boat (above) was being finished off the beach in Tanah Biru. It was tied to shore and there was an electrical cord strung along the shoreline, at high tide that was fine but at low tide the electrical line was very close to the water. I guess they didn't have to worry about electrolysis eating away at the metal parts of the boat :)

One of the bigger boats on the hard, we did not get aboard this one to see whether or not the interior was finished at all.

The workers used a combination of hand and power tools. There were saws, drills and power sanders in evidence. For the shaping of the timbers traditional axes were used and much was done by eye without benefit of measuring tapes.

Father and son working on a lovely ironwood boat. The wood is extremely strong and very heavy. The young man could converse in English and was very helpful, pointing out the spot for us to catch the bemo or taxi to Bira, the next village. The day we left he was very pleased because he had sold a piece of teak to one of the yachties. The piece was the size of the timber in the bottom picture and it was sold for about $30.00 Canadian.

This gentleman was using a bent piece of re bar to find a log that would match the curve he needed to fit one of the spines of the boat.

This is the foundation of a craft, It will probably be a good size, note the large prow in the foreground of the picutre.

These were the smallest crafts with saw and were made out of hollowed logs. It is similar, but smaller, than the canoe we took on our seaweed farming tour.

We went to another village, Bira which had a harbour. This boat had been launched and we clamoured aboard, uninvited.

Here is the bloke that was working on finishing the interior. He was a wood worker and you could tell he was living on the boat, he had a rudimentary kitchen with a wok hanging up and a few supplies, his meager clothing had been washed and hung to dry in the back. The engine had not been installed. We wandered around, there was about 3 inches of water in the bilge, three very dark cabins in the lower deck (no windows). The deck of the roof where I took this picture from had been finished off with concrete!!

This is probably teak lumber being carried down the pier to finish the inside of one of the boats.

One of the yachties was a tall ship buff and had heard that a tall ship had come and done a TV series about the boat builders. He downloaded it off the net and made a CD and asked us to give it one of the boat builders. We watched it first and I managed to copy some of the footage. I am hoping to be able to upload some of it so you can see what a fantastic place this was.

2011-09-05T14:46:00.000-07:00

My first rice paddy

BAU BAU

Bau Bau was a very different experience. When we were in Wangi the police were there, but they were in the back ground. We had many a pleasant talk with them, they said they were there to protect us but we were not overwhelmed by them. In Bau Bau which was our next stop, they were omnipresent . The day we arrived the police boat came along side, we thought they were there to look at our papers, off gets a bunch of police in uniform, then one fellow in plain clothes and two children about 8 and 11, it was the police chief and his children. Ramadan was over and it was a big holiday, rather like Christmas, and he wanted to show off our boat!!!!! The bunch of them sat around our boat and one fellow crept around taking pictures and they spoke Indonesian to one another. The official in charge of our visit, whom we named Mr. Bau Bau, who could speak English made no effort to translate what was being said, he just toadie up to the police chief. We were quite mystified about the purpose of the visit for awhile.
We had chosen to anchor away from the down town area, the anchorage there was busy and there was no place to land our dinghies and one boat had dragged their anchor. We were out of town in front of a small resort which had a beach landing. The officials insisted that we go downtown but we politely tried to explain why we were staying. Then they decided that we needed protection 24/7 so they moved in on the resort. They commandeered a room and would not pay for it and caused no end of grief to the people that owned the resort. With the police sitting about no locals wanted to rent the cabins at the resort. At one point we went downtown and the officials and police had picked us up in vans and they insisted that we go back to the resort. We all staged a revolt and said we wanted to stay downtown and would find our own way back to the beach. A compromise was broached and they allowed us to wander around on our own for 2 hours. I am pretty sure they were following us though because when we went to buy some fireworks and we were arguing over the price all of a sudden one of the plainclothes police showed up and the vendor then gave us a very good price. One of the yachties offered to take Mr. Bau-Bau out for dinner the last night and then he asked if we would include the police and his driver!!! Their presence and heavy handed dealings with us and the resort owners left us with a very bad taste in our mouths.
We did have some wonderful experiences though. We were taken to a cave, when we arrived the generator which was to light the cave did not work so at first we scrambled around in the cave with very inadequate little torches. We climbed out and waited until they brought another generator. It roared away and we clamored down into the cave. It had all your cave characteristics, stalagmites and stalactites, a few bats, slippery floors, and tight holes to fit through. In other words it was a blast making our way down down into the ground!! In the flickering generator run lights we slipped and stumbled about 50 meters to find a beautiful under water pool of fresh water. Mr. Bau-Bau was already in the water, so I decided he needed some company so I slithered in. It being a Muslim country I went in fully clothed, my clothes were already grimy from contact with the walls and floor so a good rinse was needed. The water was wonderful, what a treat!
On Friday, which is the Muslim holy day, we escaped Mr. Bau-Bau (who had to go and pray) and spent a wonderful day visiting a Balinese village. I saw my first rice paddy, we were invited to one of the guides houses for lunch,we were introduced to a new fruit, we examined a brick factory Indonesian style and I got to pick ripe tomatoes from a field. The rice paddies were as green as green could be, there were acres of them on either side of the road and occasionally there would be a woman in the middle bent over planting. I was thrilled to see them and the realization that we were in Asia hit home. The new fruit was called jeruk Bail and it looked like a grapefruit but had a tougher skin, which had to be peeled with a knife and it was very sweet, almost like a grapefruit without any of the citrus tartness. I just googled it and I think it is a variety of orange. On our way around the village we stopped at an Indonesian brick factory. The locals dig up the ground and then shape the mud into bricks, they are then baked on top of a big outdoor kiln, many of the local building are made with these hand made bricks. It was such a treat to wander around a tomato field and pick ripe tomatoes, they were delicious although they were not a variety I had ever seen in Canada, the smelled and tasted like a fresh garden tomato.

The brick kiln.

Late that afternoon we were taken to a fortress that had been built on top of the hill by a sultan in the 1600 century. Bau Bau originally had a king and once the Asiatic traders influence became upper hand the country was converted to Islamic rule and the leader became a sultan. We were not allowed to see the museum (not on Mr. Bau-Bau's itinerary) so gleaned our information from Lonely Planet and Mr. Bau-Bau's nephew who was our guide!! The fortress was massive encompassing 22 hectores. There were no original building left but the houses that were built in that area had to be of traditional design and there were a number of graves that had been found.
We have moved on to Tanah Biru where there is a vibrant boat building industry. That is a whole different blog.

'An Indonesian Bank, any question where the money is??
Maybe here? A mosque in downtown Bau-Bau!

2011-09-02T15:36:00.000-07:00

We have been in Bau-Bau for the past 4 days. We have had some wonderful experiences. Yesterday we were driven out to a Balinese village and I got to see my very first rice paddy. It really made me feel like I was in Asia. We are just in the midst of leaving heading further west to a spot where they build large 200 tons traditional boats on a beach. I will give you the low down on Bau-Bau once we have established communications but just be aware there was spelunking involved.
I waited about 3 minutes for the picture to upload and then said I would wait another 2 and my patience has worn out. Hopefully the connection will be better further west.

2011-08-28T14:53:00.002-07:00

I started off my birthday playing Mexican Train while we waited for vehicles to be arranged to take us to the event that was planned. Everyone loved the game and caught on quite quickly inspite of the language barrier.

Barry once again wowing the crowd with his Fiji moves mixed in with a sort of war dance from the movie Wind, the crowd just howled with laughter.

Dancing with the locals, having a great time.

The boys in the band!

After the initial welcome and demonstration of traditional games, we were treated to a culinary display. Here a women is making fish cakes, I know think I could make them as well as a delicious fish soup, although I would cut down on the amount of chilies I would add to the soup. They love their hot spicy foods here.

This was a demonstration of dancing, I think, but there is definitely a sense of martial arts in these actions.

The Indonesian women are always beautifully dressed, and everyone here is photo crazy. We have our picture taken a minimum of 10 times at every event we go to and when we walk down the street kids are yelling at us wanting us to take their photos.

There ended up being three people born on Aug. 27, another cruiser, Chris, the harbour master Geno and myself. I had baked a cake and asked that all the guides get together so I could share some cake with them. Geno found out when we were on Chris's boat for sundowners and he arranged a party with gov't officials and presents for Chris and I. Chris got a hat which everyone signed. An impromtu band was formed with a guitar and empty plastic water jugs being used as drums and we danced the night away!

This is the present I received from the Indonesian gov't, a lovely hand woven purse. These are some of the guides that have interpreted and shown us around while we have been here in Wakatobi.
What a super day, I don't think I have had such a memorable birthday since Jen and Barry organized a surprise party for my 40th, wow!!!

2011-08-26T15:33:00.000-07:00

The Indonesian woman put white on their face to make their skin look lighter, I am not sure if this is the case with this woman or she is just protecting her face from the sun.

The Bajo tribe were nomadic fisherman that settled in Wakatobi. They live in villages built out over the water. Their settlement here has become more permanent, they have built foundations for their house out of lava rocks that they dig up on a neighbouring island. The walkways between the rows of houses are lava rocks, that have been paved over and they have wooden bridges between the rows of houses. seems that almost everyone has a motor scooter and this settlement is no exeption, the only thing is that the small wooden bridges are not engineered to hold their weight so often the bridges have boards missing and the scooters slow down and bump across a 25 cm gap, unbelievable if I hadn't seen it.

Kids in the Bajo village playing in a coiled water line.

Liya village men welcoming us to a display of their traditional game where 2 men held hands and then attacked another couple of men using kung fu type roundhouse kicks. It was a game played to practice war moves and to ease aggression.Members of one village would attack another and after the games were over they would all go home happy.

If you don't have a motor scooter here you own one of these to transport your farm produce. I saw one fellow pulling a generator in one of these.
A picture of contrasts. A Bajo canoe with a sail is made out of heavy plastic, a tarp material, her boat is loaded with rocks!
At the underwater marriage ceremony which Barry would not participate in, the mascot for Sail Wakatobi showed up, she is a pygmy underwater seahorse. The fellow on the left of the picture is a policeman, dozens of which have been imported to Wangi-Wangi to make sure that we are safe! They seem to be very nice and spend hours sitting a talking with us at the office where we dock our dinghies.

Kids playing football amoung the coconuts near the beach.

Visiting our guide's family on a scooter journey around the island. Her mother and her grandmother are in the background. We had a fresh coconut to drink and they served a green mango with salt, quite yummy.We stopped at a beach which was called the 100 springs beach, the springs were fresh water running down into the ocean.

We were honoured to be invited to one our guides homes for supper. Here is her husband. squatting down as he gets our supper ready. He is on a bamboo mat and he smoked the fish over a fire of coconut shells. We had smoked fish, rice, Wakatobi sushi and battered fried bananas for dessert, the banana dish is called pisang goreng.

2011-08-22T15:36:00.000-07:00

Notice the sail rolled up on the canoe that is behind.

We are headed back to Wangi-Wangi island today. I would have liked to stay in Hoga longer but with the tides if we want to be close to festivities which are planned for tomorrow we had to leave this morning. The first patch we put on the dinghy failed and we have reglued and reclamped it. We are going to wait until we get back to Wangi to inflate it giving the glue almost 36 hours to cure. If that doesn’t work Barry may put epoxy on it, not sure if I like that idea, it would be terrible to clean off if it doesn’t work.

We managed to get in 2 dives while we were in Hoga. They were both terrific, the first dive was a night dive and we were picked up on the boat just at sunset. The boat was NOT your typical luxury resort dive boat, this was a local fishing boat. The motor is hand cranked and it just goes forward, no reverse, no idle just putt, putt, putt. Needless to say this makes for some precarious off loading with our boat and at the mooring bouys were they tie up to dive. Last night the fellow came downwind towards us and handed me long bamboo pole in which to pull them over with, the guy in the stern did the draw stroke with a paddle and the boat edged over so we could climb in. When we returned from the night dive the guy forgot to take us to the boat and we ended up strolling down the beach in our wet suits, with someone with limited English, along a very high pier and then hopping down onto a big boat, transferring to a slightly smaller boat and then into a local canoe with the same type of motor. Remains of a red snapper we purchased from this family, he filleted it for us in his boat and most likely took the remains home to make soup.

It is a good thing Barry has a new hip because 3 years ago he could have never managed it! Oh and since we took a local boat instead of a nice roomy regular dive boat, we had to put our dive equipment on in the water. It was interesting, I managed okay except for the weight belt, you put it on last after you have your tank and BCD on, there is a current running and the dive master is warning you not to float away., so I was trying to hold on and then use 2 hands to get on my belt, that did not work, I finally asked my dive buddy (Barry) to hang on to me so I wouldn’t float away. Barry has had a case of the dropsies the last 3 dives. In the first instance he dropped his weight belt (but he was hanging on to the underwater grid so that was fine) The second instance he dropped his flashlight on the night dive, (but that was okay because it wasn’t deep and someone else went down and got it), the third thing he dropped was his snorkel, it somehow became unattached from his mask and I saw it floating down and away. We had surfaced with very little air left and so I was not sure I would have enough air to go down and get it and reinflate my BDC so I just watched it float away. They say things happen in threes so we will see whether he drops anything else in the water!

Coral Research Centre

The coral is fantastic here, they call Wakatobi the heart of the coral triangle, the triangle being basically the Philippines, Australia and Indonesia. There was a superb mix of soft and hard corrals and on our daylight dive we saw schools of yellow fin tunas darting about. The night dive was quite different, seeing lots of Christmas tree worms, in various colours, a walking sea urchin, shrimps who scooted along with eyes that glowed a wonderful reddy pink colour in our dive lights, a metere long sea cucumber and something that was red and white striped that may have been a barber pole shrimp. Hoga island also has a big coral research centre on it where volunteers come from all over the world to do scientific studies. It was a bit of a slog motor sailing upwind to Hoga but I am really glad we went. Local boat
Yesterday morning we spent most of the morning marveling at the locals fishing. There is a combination of smaller boats with a single paddler and big boats with the unidirectional motors which have 2 fishermen. The schools of fish feed along the surface and make a rippling splash and the fisherman chase them. The guys with the engines have the advantage being able to swoop down and drag their lines through the schools. The single fellows paddle like crazy here and there, mostly upwind against the waves. When the schools take off down wind, the fisherman hoist their triangular plastic sails and away they go. Some of the big boats also fly kites, we are not sure what they do but I think perhaps it is to help them turn more quickly, these guys are amazing, fishing, manning the motor and steering with a kite, we were fascinated. Our buddies from Calgary on Cop Out have joined this section of the rally and we look forward to spending some time with them in Wangi-Wangi.

Fisherman setting sail, not a great pic but he was moving so fast it was hard to get a good picture.

2011-08-19T23:41:00.000-07:00

They say a picture tells a thousand words. We managed to puncture the dinghy, not just a small hole but a puncture about 5 cm long, ARRRGG! It happened when Barry was swinging the motor down off the boat like he has done a thousand times before. This time the boat zigged when it should have zagged, or perhaps it was the dinghy….anyway, the prop sliced a hole on the inside of the pontoon. Luckily we had a patch big enough to cover the hole and clamped it with an old plastic cutting board, something for the clamps to hold on to. We have not re-inflated the dinghy yet, but we did everything by the book so are really hoping that the patch holds. I am very positive that it will and for once Barry agrees with me.
We are at the island of Hoga at the moment, position 05.28 N, 123.45 E. ( I have been having a great deal of trouble hooking up to the internet through the HF radio so I apologize for there not being more position updates.) We arrived a few days ago after bashing to weather with the motor on for about 10 miles, and then not such bad winds for the next 10 miles. We had to go through a reef to get to the anchorage but it was no worries, wide and 6m deep. We set the hook and stayed there the night, the next morning the only other sailing vessel in the area left and we took up the only available mooring outside the reef, but in the lee of the island. It was shortly after that we punctured the dinghy, so we were alone with our problems. After we had fixed it, 2 more yachts showed up but they are anchored about 1 kilometer away inside the reef, so it feels like we have the place to ourselves. It is so nice and quiet here, no feeling of obligation to attend planned activities, no chanting for the mosque at 0400 hours, and some space to have some privacy. We have been giving some of our old line away to the locals that approach the boat but they are not happy with just one thing, one fellow through sign language asked for a hat, a ring, binoculars, goggles and fishing line. We gave them some fishing line we could afford to part with but they didn’t look too happy because it was not very strong. They will not barter for fish though they want hard cash for the fish and Barry ended up buying a lovely snapper, 5 meals of fish, for what he thought was $3.00 CND but was in reality $30.00CND, this is after he paid over $5.00 more for laundry than anyone else so he is not allowed to bargain anymore!!!!!
This island is a world class diving site, it is quite difficult to get to, so there are not that many divers around. I am anxious to get ashore and arrange for some equipment. We are planning on going back to Wangi-Wangi for other festivities which are being held starting Aug. 23rd. The activities include some local games that sound really interesting, I am sure we will get a chance to participate if we choose. I am quite excited about getting to watch some traditional Indonesian games in different locales around the island. We will also receive 100 litres of free diesel before we leave, bonus. I will let you know how the dinghy works out.
The patch has a small leak so we have put Sikaflex 4200 around the edges of the patch to see if that works. If it doesn't I guess we will have to go begging to the rest of the fleet for patching material and glue.

2011-08-17T16:20:00.000-07:00

tWe have had the most interesting, exciting and fun filled two days, it has been a blast. Yesterday in the morning we went for a tour of a seaweed farm. Tour is not quite the correct word because it was more like a family visit. One of the guides befriended us and offered to take us to visit her husbands family who lived in a village a ways north of town and were seaweed farmers. We jumped at the chance, rented a motorbike again and off we went. One the way we stopped to watch a pair of gentlemen shape the prow of a traditional boat, they did it by hand with very elementary axes and hatchets, all by eye. There was a little girl there, she may have been about three and she was busy cutting up a lime with this huge knife. Her younger brother, just barely walking had a hatchet taken away from him and he was very mad!!! Ade‘s (the guide) family make their living seaweed farming, fishing and selling sand from their ocean front property. The seaweed grows on long lines that are strung in the water with little pieces of Styrofoam to hold them up, you apparently need good moving water for the seaweed to grow and now is not the best season for growth because the sea is too hot, it is better from Nov.. to March. We were able to watch as they brought some seaweed in , there was a huge pile of it all attached to lines. A father and his son had brought it in a huge pile of it and then the mother and all the daughters stripped the seaweed off, fertilized it and then restrung the healthy seaweed back on the line so it would grow some more. We were told it would take a month before it would be ready to harvest again. The seaweed that was not going to grow again would be put out on long platforms to dry and it would be sold. It is necessary to turn the seaweed over in order for it to dry uniformly. Not a way I would choose to make a living.

Then we got to go for a boat ride in a very narrow, tipsy local boat. It had a very temperamental motor and there was paddling involved as well. Barry and I sat in the middle of the boat and tried not to fall out. The boat would seem to wobble at will and at one point Barry accused me of trying to tip it but honestly I was sitting as still as I could. We stopped and the fellow in the front hopped out and swam around until he found his fish traps and he swam down to get them, from a squatting position he quickly stood up and then just jumped up and over the edge. When he got back in, the boat hardly wobbled, it was amazing. The fish traps are all made by hand with traditional materials.When we got ashore Barry told them he would like to buy an old paddle, they were a bit mistified by the request but they found one, it used to be our guides husbands when he was a little kid. Barry was pleased as punch to get it and told them that everytime we looked at it we would remember them. To finish off an incredible morning we stopped at the guide’s sister-in-laws house and she peeled some fresh bananas and fried us up some delicious banana chips. She was expecting so it was okay for her to eat during Ramadan and the children were able to snack as well so we didn’t feel so bad about eating in front of them.
We had signed up at the gala welcoming ceremony for a free dive to celebrate Independence Day and we were told that we would be picked up at 4:00 in order to participate. We were in the process of thinking about getting ready at 3:10 when we were called and told our ride was here. Rush, rush, rush and off we went. It was incredible. There were over 40 divers there from all over Indonesia and we were the only white folks in evidence. The plan was that they would raise the flag underwater and they had a huge rectangular grid that had three levels. Divers hung on to the grid and an underwater microphone shouted out directions and the ceremony in Indonesian. We just followed suit, saluting when they did and smiling when the underwater photographer came by. Once the official rehearsal was over with we swam around and marveled at the gorgeous coral. This morning, Aug. 17th being Indonesian Independence Day, we were driven off to the real thing, once again without a cost to us. We got there and all the divers had kerchiefs on with the red and white colours of the Indonesian flag. The officials were in place and we were given a Canadian flag, Barry actually carried the Australian flag because there were no Aussies that chose to participate, man did they miss out!! The male officials sat on one side, their wives on the other. The women were dressed exquisitely, one in particular had a beautiful pink dress on with a veil and over top was a bright lime green garment with intricate lace, she really smiled when I told her that she looked very beautiful. Everyone wanted a photo with us, the divers, the military guys and the head dude and his wife, they all shook our hands as well, it was something I WILL NEVER FORGET!!
We are pretty tired because last night after the diving rehearsal there was a cultural dance presentation. It was so much fun, Barry was invited up to dance and he did his Fiji moves and everyone killed themselves laughing, what a hoot. The Indonesian crowd got into it as well and everyone was having so much fun. We did not get back to the boat until 2230 hours. Tonight apparently we are invited to dinner at the head dude’s house, at 8:00 P.M. I must go and have something to eat, it is almost 5:00 P.M. or I will die of hunger if I have to wait until 8.

Make sure you check out the blog just before this one because I posted 2 at once.

2011-08-17T16:03:00.000-07:00

We are continuing to enjoy our Indonesian experience. The people of Wangi Wangi are very welcoming, everywhere you go little kids yell out “Hi,Mister!”. My mission is to educate them to say “Mrs.” I have succeeded with one little girl, I recognized her dress and the second time I saw her she said “Hi, Mrs.” ah the little things in life! The officials are very organized here, every time we go ashore there is an interpreter to accompany us and show us where to go. It was very helpful the first day but when there are three people following you around and then sitting in the restaurants not eating when you do, it becomes a bit much. This morning I went ashore for a few errands and then spent the rest of the day doing boat chores, partially to avoid smiling for pictures and trying to learn Indonesian. Also the question of compensation is very hard to figure out. Are we supposed to tip them, do they do it so they can practice their English, are they being paid by the government, we are not quite sure.

Yesterday we lit out on a motorbike and did a tour of half of the island. We went with two other couples and had a blast. We stopped at a nice beach and went snorkeling and because of Ramaden the Muslims can not swim, so the usually crowded beach was empty but for us. Barry and I saw a sea snake and spent about 10 minutes watching it’s antics. The creature was white with black stripes and its body would undulate through the water with a fluid grace. The snake would poke it’s head into a hole in the coral and then slowly his body would follow and it would reappear up through the branches of an adjacent coral head. It was fascinating to watch and Barry said he saw it surface to take a breath. We got back on the bikes and toodeled off to the fancy resort (where we are headed tonight for the OFFICIAL WELCOMING CEREMONY {I am in agony trying to figure out what would be appropriate to wear}) to have lunch., apparently when Obama came to Indonesia he stayed there! (Sorry that rumour was false.)
We next toured the airport which had two huge pillars with a massive sign to announce that you had come to the facility. There was an entrance and an exit road but they were not paved yet and the rest of the airport was definitely a work in progress. Under one tree were huddled about 6 mini vans and Barry commented that it was the rental car return lot! Heather just so you know we saw some goats running around free as we left so perhaps they have a problem with goats instead of dogs on their runways!!
As we arrived back we met our buddies from the West Coast, Gavia Artica, which have 3 doctors on board and one of them announced that the leading cause of death among cruisers is motorcycle accidents. I was very pleased that I had my very cautious husband driving me around the island.
Well I must go and get dolled up for dinner, what to wear, what to wear!

2011-08-13T01:55:00.000-07:00

Azzwur, Fitre and I standing on the runway with the volcano I climbed in the background.

We are safely in Wakatobi. It was a good voyage, but we timed it slightly wrong, we had planned on good winds so timed the voyage for 6 knots per hour average. The winds were lighter than we had been experiencing so we were only able to maintain 5 knots. As a result we had to motor the last 20 miles to get to Wakatobi before dark or we would have been another night at sea. I had not been sleeping well so did not want to spend another night especially close to land where there could be fish traps, fish boats and other weird and wonderful Indonesian craft flitting about possibly without lights. Anyway we had the wrong co-ordinates for the anchorage and with the motoring we thought we would get there at 1700, as it was the true anchorage was 11 miles further so we ended up coming in after sunset, fortunately there was a full moon so we had enough light and the officials for Sail Wakatobi came out to help us find a mooring ball. There was a cultural dance thing at 2100 but we were too tired and cranky so just stayed on board and went to bed. We are now swinging on the mooring ball awaiting high tide and the port captain to come and guide us through the reef so we can anchor in the lagoon.
Here are some other thoughts and observations about Banda. This picture shows cinnamon being stripped from a old cinnamon tree. Our understanding is that they usually take the bark off a live tree and it will regenerate the bark, but that may not be correct. This tree was apparently old so they chopped it down and were in the process of stripping the bark. They score the bark and then they use a hammer to loosen it and then a screw driver to pry it off. After they just dry it in the sun, it rolls up as it dries.
We met this American couple and the Captain was an astronaut. He is also a cardiac surgeon and he went up in space on the Columbia and was up there for 9 days. His stories are very interesting. One of the fellows I walked up the volcano was a Lieutenant Colonel in the British army who was stationed in the far east so he has had lots of experiences here and he wants to go back to a mountain he climbed when he was 25 and he named. He wants to find out if they still call it by the name they gave it and he wants to climb it again!!!

2011-08-08T17:55:00.000-07:00

Yesterday we went on a day trip out to two islands which were are about 5 and 7 nm away, they are named Ai and Run. Ai was the island that the English held in the sixteen and seventeen hundreds much to the chagrin of the Dutch who wanted a monopoly on the spice trade. The English encouraged insurrection and the illegal trading of the spices and were a thorn in the side of the Dutch for a long time. On our tour we first went to three snorkeling sites and I would say that the last site we visited was absolutely fantastic. it was probably the best snorkeling we have experienced, the combination of the numbers and variety of fish and the outstanding soft and hard corals were awesome. Barry said to tell you that we found Nemo, there he was hiding in the anemones, I wished I had taken the camera.

We went ashore on Ai island and saw the fortifications the English built to fight off the Dutch. The village was beautifully kept and the houses ranged from beautiful homes from the colonial era to subsistence living in traditional grass or bamboo huts. The old fort and the mansions have been overgrown and seem almost at the point of collapse. In an old sixteenth century home someone had put a door on the opening and was obviously living there. We found an old cannon at the top of the fortifications just lying there amid the pumpkin patch.
We were transported over to the islands in a traditional island craft. Other boats we have been on have motors that just have forward gear, so it is really tricky to land and offload us onto our boats. The driver has to cut the engine and coast up to the boat and then they fend our boat off and we clamour off as quickly as possible. Since they don’t have reverse they take a big long bamboo pole and push themselves off the bottom until they are in a position to start the motor and go forward. The boat we took over to the island had three 40 hp outboards on it and he could reverse without a problem. We had been contemplating taking our boat over to the islands but we are really glad we didn’t. There may be sandy beaches but the coral leads right up to shore, and it is about 1 and ½ meters deep. When you get to the edge of the reef it just drops off to more than 40 meters, leaving the only possibility of anchoring to throw out your anchor on the beautiful coral back up and hang out over the 40 meter section, not something we would ever contemplate.
We plan to leave for Wakatobi today, it is a marine park that is very difficult to get transportation to and is supposedly one of the top dive spots in the world. Wakatobi is the name of the area which is made up of 4 islands, Wangi-Wangi, Kaledupa, Tomia and Binongko and it is located just south of the large island of Sulawesi. It should take us about 3 night to get there so hopefully I will be able to connect through win link and give you some updates on our position while underway.

2011-08-06T18:19:00.000-07:00

Fitre and Azwar

Boys lighting something at the end of the bamboo sticks and smoke would come out the end, a bamboo cannon.

Boats med moored at the pier in Banda

A couple of young men, Azzur and Fetrie have befriended us. They took on a tour of Banda Neira, then the next day they showed up at the boat and we set off to a beach which was about 30 minutes walk away. They are practising their English on us and we are learning Indonesian, very slowly from them. They came aboard yesterday and waxes and polished the part of the boat I didn't get done in Darwin so she is spic and span now. We may leave for the Wakatobi Islands tomorrow but we really like it hear and do not really want to leave.

2011-08-05T20:25:00.000-07:00

The climb up the volcano was pretty brutal. It was pretty much straight up but that wasn’t the whole problem. The footing was absolutely atrocious, it was small broken up bits of lava. On the way up you had to kick your toes into the scree and then dig for purchase before hoisting yourself up the next step. On the way down your feet had a tendency to slip and slide trying to throw you off balance and send you tumbling. I am really glad I wore my hiking boots because they saved my ankles several time. It was definitely worth the climb though, the views were stupendous. Gunang Api as the peak is called last exploded in 1988 and there are huge lava flows down the northern side of the island. We actually went snorkeling later that day just off one of the flows. The water was so clear, we saw beautiful coral, a moray eel and a bunch of different sorts of fish.

The last couple of days have been taken up with exploring other parts of the main island. We were walking along one day and two very nice polite you Bandanese attached themselves to us. They have been practicing their English on us and helping us with our Indonesian. We had them aboard yesterday and they marveled at everything but the only thing they took a picture of was the engine. Last night we were treated to an exhibition of “crazy bamboo”. It involved seven people holding on to a bamboo tree and a fellow with smoking embers running back and forth blowing smoke onto the bamboo. After a while the people holding the bamboo would start to sway and rock back and forth and it seemed no matter how hard they held on they could not stop from moving. Some of the cruisers tried it and one explained that you would loose your balance with the concentrated effort of holding on and then the guy running back and forth with the smoke you would loose your perspective and start staggering around. I hope to post a video of it, keep watch on the links section.
We are not sure when we are leaving it really is wonderful here and we are enjoying socializing with all the other cruisers and the anchorage is so calm and serene. I am even getting used to the 5 daily call to prayers.
More pictures later when the connection is better.

2011-08-03T16:46:00.000-07:00

The volcano in Banda which I climbed yesterday, 665 meters!!

Women in thevillage where the stone boats were, dancing and uncovering the feast.

The Dutch fort built in 1670 in Banda

The market in Banda with a big passenger ship in the background.

A boat being constructed in Banda, by hand, made out of almond wood.

The nutmeg and almond orchard.

Nutmegs drying in the sun, with the outer covering called mace on the top corner, it's red.

Dancing at the welcome ceremonies in Saumlaki.The village on the island with the nutmeg trees.
A floating platform, which the villagers fish from, our first site when reaching Indonesia.

A basket I purchased in the market, the woman I am with is the creator of the basket. It cost about $2.00.

We are in the Banda group of islands now, we had a great sail over. It was about 48 hours sailing, and we had wind on the quarter at about 15-20 knots, a sailors dream. We approached the islands at dawn and their outline gradually became visible as the skies brightened. It was gloomy, with rain clouds threatening., the top of the 665m volcano was shrouded in mist. The black scars of the lava flows stood out in contrast to the lush tropical forests that covered the rest of the slope. As we entered the anchorage, we spied the sailboats tied up med style, anchored bow out and then tied from the stern to shore, it should be on a postcard!
These islands used to known as the Spice Islands and islanders have been trading the spices they grow for hundreds of years. They were colonized by the Dutch who wanted a monopoly of the spice trade and the shenanigans they got up to over the years were typical colonial behaviour. Since arriving we have toured an old Dutch fort, had a delicious dinner at a local guest house and today we set off to another island to tour the orchards.
We learned about how nutmeg, cinnamon and almonds are grown. The almond trees are hundreds of years old and very tall, the villagers basically just wait for the birds to eat the outside of the almonds and they fall off the trees and then the bit with the nut in them are collected from the ground. The cinnamon is the bark of the tree, we picked the leaves of the tree and crumbled them and they had such a wonderful aroma. The nutmeg has three parts that are used. The outer shell has a substance they made jelly out of and then there is the mace, a red covering on the nut that is used in cooking, the inner nut then has to be smashed to get at the nutmeg. I bought some nutmeg in the market and am looking forward to having fresh grated nutmeg in some yogurt that I am making.
I am planning on climbing the volcano tomorrow, it is there and since we climbed one in Tonga and one in Vanuatu, how can I not do it hear. Barry’s ankle was acting up today so he is still unsure whether or not he is going to make the trek. There is supposed to be great snorkeling by the lava flow so we may try that the next day. Ramadan started on Aug 1st and lasts the whole month. For people of the Muslin faith this means they do not eat from sun up to sun down. It feels a bit odd to eat in front of them but I don’t feel the need to join them in their fast. This group of islands is predominately Muslim, this morning I was woken by the call to prayers at 0500, it just made me realize what a long way we are from home and how exotic these islands really are.
Sorry the pictures are out of sequence but the internet connection is too slow to fix it up.

2011-07-29T22:37:00.000-07:00

We are still in Saumlaki, Indonesia. We are having a wonderful time. It is great being part of a rally. We have had a welcome ceremony with dancing and singing and then an Indonesian snack afterwards. Then yesterday they took us on a tour. We went on a smallish bus, smaller than a regular Canadian school bus and we drove 54 km to a village where there was a stone boat. The drive took 2 hours, the roads were very windy and narrow and they deteriorated from good pavement to pavement with potholes to dirt roads. We were in a motorcade, in front was a police truck with the siren going, then there were 2 buses the size we were in then 2 more smaller vehicles, slightly bigger than a mini van and there were a few motorcycles as well. We would wave out the window to the villagers we passed, we felt like super stars. When we had to stand to have our pictures taken one sailor asked us, if we had split up with our boyfriend and whether or not we had kicked our drug habit!!!
At the stone boat village we were welcomed with singing and dancing and then led off to a feast. The food was cooked in a pit in the ground and was delicious, casava wrapped in banana leaves, taro, chicken and some kind of bean sprouts cooked with tumeric. Then we trooped off to the stone boat and another ceremony took place. I bought a piece of hand woven cloth that I am going to have a skirt made from. We have been exploring around town, Barry and I both had our hair cut $3.00 each, we had both had a meal for lunch for about $5.00, so we think we may have a chance to make ends meet while we are in Indonesia. We are headed to Banda tomorrow, the co-ordinates will be on the sail Indonesia site. Banda was known as one of the Spice Islands so I am quite excited about visiting there. The Spice Islands, it sounds so exotic.

2011-07-25T15:58:00.000-07:00

Arrived safe and sound in Indonesia about noon today. We fought the tide at the beginning of the trip and then the tide changed and it had a slingshot effect. We did over nine knots for almost an hour, I was in my glory. After we cleared the Australian land mass, the wind picked up and we did over 7 knots crossing the Arafu Sea (the body of water between Aus. and Indonesia). The winds were on the beam at 15 to 20 knots most of the time and it made for a rocky, rolly trip. I was actually a bit nauseous with the swell and wave action, but I ingested some candied ginger and my stomach settled down. We got lucky when we arrived and they came and cleared us before lots of other boats that had arrived ahead of us. There were 11 boats in the anchorage when we arrived, with 29 on this leg of the trip, that puts us almost in the top third, for sure in the top third of the monohulls, because there were about 6 cats here when we arrived, so we did good. We went ashore and explored a bit. I got a haircut, which I have been wanting for a few weeks but delayed because it would be cheaper here, I am happy (not ecstatic) with the results. My impressions were that we were back in Mexico, the vendors with non-first world goods, the shops all crowded together, the lack of road rules(scooters driving on the side walk), the hustle and bustle. Everyone seemed happy to see us and we were definitely an oddity on the street, everyone calling out to us. More later when I figure out internet access.

2011-07-22T04:24:00.000-07:00

Darwin Happenings

We are ready to leave tomorrow morning, we have spent the last week visiting spots in and around Darwin, interspersed with that are boat chores and social evenings. We became millionaires when we visited the bank and got out some Indonesian cash. This 100,000 bill is worth about $12.00 Canadian, so we have over 4,000,000 on the boat at the moment, I am sure I will have to do a lot of mental math once we get there. We also visited the Indonesian Embassy the other night and we sampled the food they had and watched the entertainment. They had some great dancers and some singers that had lovely voices. We learned a few Indonesian phrases and got some great handout about where we should go and what is offered there. We have been told that patience is required and things are done on Indonesian time and you can expect plans to change at any time. I will have to get used to "island time" again.

We visited a few sites around Darwin this week. We visited oil tunnels that were built to store the oil for the forces in WW II. They were built in the huge rock cliffs on Darwin Harbour. It was a real feat of engineering. They had photos of the bombing or Darwin posted on the sides of the oil tanks. I guess they kept the severity of the bombing in Darwin secret from the rest of Australia in order to keep up the country's morale. On our way back to the boat we stopped off at an old WW II hanger. It now houses the antique car club in town. The hanger is located right in the middle of a residential district, right beside it is a 4 story apt. block. The old runway is now a major street. Barry thought it was very unique that they have kept the hanger and let the neighbourhood grow up around it. I know that Graeme and his Dad would have appreciated these old cars. Yesterday we walked up the hill and visited the Fannie Bay Gaol. It was opened in 1883 and the last prisoner was transfered out of the jail in 1979. We were a bit surprised to read that when the war broke out and they evacuated Darwin and they needed the jail to house the troops, they just let all the prisoners go and told them they had to fend for themselves, I sure hope they didn't have very many violent offenders in there at that time.

I was going to get Barry to shut the door and shoot the bolt but I realized that I couldn't reach around and open it, so I decided I shouldn't chance because he may just have thought it might have been fun to leave me in there for awhile!!!! It was a pretty grim place with big thick walls where they kept the more dangerous criminals.

Barry went and visited the Air Museum and I guess they had a B52 Bomber in there. Barry was surprised at how small the cockpit was, he said it was quite cramped inside.The museum also housed the famous Spitfires with the painted sharks on them .

We were also very lucky to receive two packages from Canada this week. My family has come through in spades and helped beautify the boat . My Mom, bless her soul, has made another table cloth for the boat to match our new upholstery. She also, with her wonderful colour sense, choose some material to match the upholstery, both the items I received from her will enhance our living space considerably.The second package I received was from my sister-in -law Barb Shanks. She very generously made new covers for our cockpit cushions. The set we my buddy Helen made 4 years ago were wearing out, the sun and the salt had just about done them in. Our cockpit is now suitable for guests at all times. Before I received this new set of covers when I was expecting company I would take the old covers off because of the hole in one and the stains of the others. I have been enjoying sitting on the new ones all week. They shipped them to us at considerable expence to make sure we received them before we left and we really appreciate the fact they did this. THANKS VERY MUCH TO BOTH SEAMSTRESSES!!

I am not sure what the internet connections will be like in Indonesia, so although I will send in blogs to my brother to post you may not get many pictures for awhile. I have a few chores to complete on the 2 1/2 day trip to Indonesia, I need to sew a flag, this one is dead easy, red on the top and white on the bottom and I have some material left over for when I make the Tongan flag. I also bought new bug netting for the hatch opening and have a little sewing left on that before it is finished. We are going in for breakfast in the morning then the mass start of over 100 boats at 11:00 A.M. That should be an interesting exercise. I hope there is enough wind to sailing in and we don't have to loll around trying to stay out of each others way. We'll take pictures.

2011-07-16T22:12:00.000-07:00

KAKADU NATIONAL PARK

Barry and I went on a trip up to Kakadu National Park this week. The park is about 250 km from Darwin. We decided that we probably were not going to be in this part of the world again and we should take some time to visit the rock art that the park is famous for. I felt humble to think that people had been painting on these rocks perhaps over 20,000 years ago and their efforts are still there for us to view.

In this picture the paintings are on the rock face as well as on the roof of the overhanging cliff. The topography of the area was stunning. There are rock escarpments that seem to jut out of nowhere. We climbed up to the top of the first one we came to and the 360 degree view was just stunning. The rocks edge was very pronounced and the land fell away to become a flat river valley that floods in the wet season and although the ocean in 100 km away there is a still a tidal influence that far upstream. the view alone was worth the price of the rental car and the hotel room. We drove up one day, stayed overnight and drove back to Darwin by a different route the next day.

We got up early after luxuriating in the double sized bed, (oh, the room to strech out and have space for your arms at your sides). We headed off to hear a park ranger talk about how the aborigines used the plants, for food and to make baskets. We walked to an area where there an abundance of birds and saw this sulphur crested cockatoo trying to make a meal of this fruit of the pandanus tree.

One our way to the next rock art site there were these trees that had the gorgeous yellow blossoms , notice there are no leaves though. It was about 1.5 km out to this site and it was about 30 degrees so we made sure we were drinking a lot of water. About that stage, Barry's ankle had had enough and he did not climb up to the next lookout site. The view was not quite as spectacular as the first spot we went but suddeness of the escarpment was very evident.

Among the places you could visit were listed a number of billabongs. I wanted to experience a realy Aussie billabong so we went to one and it just looked like a big prairie slew, but at another there was moving water with areas where the land would flatten out and there would be a big pond. It was much nicer than the first spot. I think billabong just means a water hole.

Another thing this area is famous for is the crocs. There were numerous tours you could take where you experience the crocs up close and personal. We were lucky and managed to see two just on our own, well I guess I mean not on a tour, other people had to point them out to us. They are very hard to spot and you really have to know what you are looking for to see one. On the far side of the pond below you can see spiky parts of his back and his head is facing away from the picture. We were glad that we had seen crocodiles in the wild.

2011-07-05T17:56:00.000-07:00

We have arrived in Darwin safe and sound, 2000 from our starting point in Yamba, whopee. Here we are after visiting Customs to start the process for our departure from Australia. We are sporting our free Customs toques, the preferred head gear for sailors in the dead of the Australian winter. We heard the weater report yesterday and it was a chilly +30 degrees celcius in Darwin, go figure, why wouldn't they hand out lovely lightweight sun hats????

Check out the shell Barry is holding. He found it on a beach near a resort we stopped at just around the corner of Cape Don. It had been on the beach a long time and is pretty bleached out but it is huge, quite the find.

Barry took this shot as we were sailing along in 10 knots of breeze. The currents were huge as we rounded Cape Don and passed through the Van Diemen Gulf just north of Darwin. We did manage to get these tides right so had it with us, we were not so fortunate going through Hole in the Wall. The last blog I wrote was all about getting to Hole in the Wall at the correct time so we would have the tide with us. Well guess what, after the flood tide flowing west to east in Thursday Island, around Cape York and all across the Gulf of Carpentaria, it actually flows east to west through Hole in the Wall. So we got there and the tide was running about 4-6 knots against us. We had taken down the sails and were making about 2 knots through the gap, when we hit a narrow spot and

we were down to 0.3 knots of forward motion. The engine was howling at max revs and we were making no headway, sails to the rescue. I unraveled the genoa and soon we were making 1 knot over the ground and we slowly made out way through, WHEW! So much for going the scenic way!! Notice the current in the picture, the rock was very layers and worn into intersting shapes.

Hole in the Wall as seen on our electronic charts

Barry finally caught a fish in Australian Water. This is after trailing a line for over 500 nm, at the minimum. This is a spanish makeral, we had him for dinner shortly after this shot. We visited a fishing store in Cooktown and the fellow there recommended a simply silver hook and said the makeral really go for them. He was right, we should have consulted an expert 500 miles ago!

We arrived in Darwin in the dark about 9:00 P.M. We usually do not come into port in the dark but the entrance was pretty straight forward and we droppped anchor at the back of the fleet. The next morning we went ashore, caught the bus downtown and charged around doing what was required. We went to Customs, we headed to the Indonesian Embassy to apply for our Visa's, I made a doctor's appointment to renew my prescriptions and Barry and I both had our eyes tested and ordered new glasses. We managed a bit of shopping and then headed back on the bus. We were very pleased with the amount we had done, now for more of the mundane chores such as laundry and boat chores, waxing the fibreglass and more coats of varnish. The tropical sun is just deadly. We only broke one thing on the way up, a block on the main sheet, at the moment Barry is sawing the bolt that sheared on it so it can be replaced. We are contemplating buying an AIS ( Automatic Identification System) which sends and receive electronic signals from other boats, (required on all tankers). I am not convinced it is necessary but it would be another safety system, it tells you where boat are and at what direction and speed they are travelling. It also identifies them by name so you can call up those big tankers by name and they are more likely to respond. Someone said it was a requirement in Singapore Harbour. Our radar is getting pretty old and rather than replace it I guess AIS is the way to go.

2011-06-29T07:46:00.001-07:00

I have the 9:00 P.M. to 1:00 A.M. watch tonight. We are crossing the Gulf of Carpenteria, the large body of water to the west of Cape York, it will take about 2 1/2 days to cross. At the end of the crossing we are going to go through a spot called Hole in the Wall. Great Slave Lake has one and I am pretty sure either Fiji or Vanuatu had one, but the name evokes visions of narrow openings surrounded by rocks. This particular Hole in the Wall is a fifty meter wide opening about a mile long, between two islands. It has up to a nine knot current running through it, so timing is vital. There are usually 2 high tides and 2 low tides per day, we want to pass through in day light hours on a flood tide, going from low tide to high tide in other words so we have to arrive between 1:00 P.M. and 7:00 P.M. tomorrow, June 29. At the moment we have to maintain 6 knots in order to get there on time. Glancing at the boat speed indicator we are doing well at 7.05 knots, that should make up for some 5.5 knot speeds earlier. If we don't think we are going to make it we have come up with an alternate anchorage at a nearby island,about 16 miles from the pass. Sailing to make a deadline like this is not particularly peaceful, you need optimize your sail set and get every last ounce of speed out of the boat. Barry has put the boat on automatic pilot instead of the wind vane in hopes that it will keep a straighter line and we will travel less distance. I was thinking earlier about poling out the staysail to add speed, but it is not practical at night.
When I came up on deck the stars were out in all their glory, I could see the Big Dipper and the Southern Cross in a turn of the head. I watched them slowly march their way across the sky over the course of the four hours. The boat is sailing itself, we are in the trade winds which means that the winds blow from a consistent direction although the speed does vary. This means that you set your sails and they remain in that configuration for days. The person on watch just has to monitor the instruments, the conditions and check for any boats that may pass in the night. To check, I stand up in the cockpit so that the lights from the instruments do not affect my vision and I scan the horizon. I do a slow 360 degree stare, making sure I peer around parts of the boat which may interfere so I see all the way around. I may see a freighter steaming toward us or the small winking light of another sailboat headed in the same direction or occasionally a cruise ship, lit up like a Christmas tree gliding past. Mostly all I see is the white of the waves as they careen of the boat and the sparkle of the phosphorescence the waves generate. Barry is on duty is a few minutes so I will get ready to put my head down for four hours and then get up to watch the wonder of another dawn, the first glimmers of light, the radiating colour of the promised sun, and the bright orange rising ball, the end of another night at sea.

2011-06-23T17:19:00.000-07:00

Cape York

We were very pleased to round Cape York. It is the northern tip of continental Australia and has been our goal for the last month so it was very gratifying to go around it. To the right as we are approaching it you can see the low cape in the background with York Island towering over the Cape to right. Most of our friends chose to sail right past and go across the top and down to a small community of the west side of the Cape. There was no way we weren't going to explore the Cape and take some photographic evidence of our passing this landmark. We were very happy to have our dinghy wheels when we got ashore. It was about a 150 meters of mucky sand bottom that we had to pull the dinghy over. It would not have been fun to have to haul it along the ground with the engine on. When we returned the tide had come in and we had about 50 meter less to traverse. We pulled it up that far in order to tie to to a tree onshore. That way we were assured it would still be there when we returned.

We hiked over to the tip, picking up rocks and adding them to cairns that other travellers had begun. On the way back we came across this huge termite mound. I thought if I held up my arms it would give you more of an idea how tall it was. Apparently the mud and they way they were oriented to the sun controls the temperature inside, one fellow said that they could maintain a 68 degrees keeping it nice and cool. York Island was calling our name though so we dinghied across and hiked up. It was a more rugged climb not having a path worn by thousand of hikers as there was to the tip. It was a fantastic view from the top, to the right of the picture below you can see the beach where we landed the dinghy. The boat is anchored further to the right in the lee of the cape.

There were more rock cairns all over the top of the island and I had to build a small inukshuk to commemorate our passing. If you click on the pictures they will enlarge for you and you can examine them more closely if you wish.

THURSDAY ISLAND

About 20nm across the Torres Strait at the Torres Strait Islands. I wanted to visit here so we headed across the strait. As we sailed through the group of islands we went past Tuesday, Wednesday and then we stopped close to Thursday Island which is the administrative center of the group. We are actually anchored in the Lee of Horn Island which is about 2 nm from Thursday and we have taken a ferry over to tour around. We went up to the top of Green Hill and got to visit the museum that was built to commerate the fort that was constructed here in 1893 when there was a threat of war with Russia. There was a great 360 view from the top. Below is a view over the town of Thursday Island and Horn Island where we are anchored is in the distance. Islands surround us so we have a lovely calm secure anchorage at the moment.

An example of the Torres Island art. We enjoyed our visit to the cultural centre.

Historically the Torres Island were known for the pearling industry that took place here. From the turn of the century until the 1950's and the event of plastics, oyster shells were collected for the making of mother of pearl objects, mainly buttons. I think pearls were a bonus, the shells being what was used. Pearling luggers as the boats were called would go out and divers would descend to collect the shells. At first men would just free dive as there was an abundance at depth that was accesible. As they had to go deeper to find commercial quantities the diving helmut and suit came into use. Onboard the ship the diver would have 2 people to tend his lines, one would have the air hose and one would have the line that attached the diver to the boat. There were stories in the museum of divers getting taken by the current while they were under the corral their lines would become entangled in the corral and they would be unable to free their lines. Many divers perished in this manner.
The industry attracted many races including Malasians and Japanese as well as the traditional Island peoples. The faces and statures of the people that live here now reflect this mixture of races and it has resutled in some very lovely looking folks. We are waiting here for the winds to drop until we cross the Gulf of Capenteria. It is a three day crossing and it is not the winds that are a problem but the waves they generate as they howl across the open gulf. We hope to leave on Sunday, I must make sure to ensure I get lots of rest before we leave.

2011-06-23T16:54:00.000-07:00

Images from Lizard Island

With our hiking buddies from Tucanu, Trevor and Jennie.

On top, recording our name at Cook's lookout!

Over looking the anchorage, Cat's-Paw IV is behind and to the right of the green boat.

2011-06-18T08:42:00.000-07:00

We are headed for Cape York the most northerly point in Australia. The weather has been great for this part of the trip, winds mostly 10-20 knots most days and it has been bright and sunny so far. We have been sailing from sun up to sun down everyday but today decided on a overnighter to make Cape York as the anchorages were odd distances between Cape York and Portland Roads the last place we stopped. We get up in the morning, pull anchor set sail, then have breakfast, once we have dropped anchor we get supper ready, eat, read for awhile then roll into bed. We stopped for 2 nights at Lizard Island and climbed Cook's lookout where he went to see if he could find a way through the Great Barrier Reef, it was quite the view from the top. You would need a nice clear day and a good telescope to spot the way out, it wasn't obvious. This coast has a lot of history attached to it. We just passed Restoration Island where Captain Bligh and his loyal crew members landed on his open boat voyage from Tahiti. They sailed from here to East Timor.

Today is our 37 anniversary, I was just reflecting on some memorable other June 18's. In 1986 Barry and I went out hiking in Tungsten and were chased up a tree by a grizzly bear. In 1994 on our 20th anniversary the kids surprised us with new silver bicycles and we went for breakfast at the Wildcat Cafe. Last year we were in Fiji and we went out for dinner at the Octopus Resort with the crew from Cop Out and had kava and were serenaded by the Fijians. I will have to make a note in my memory bank about this one, sailing under sunny skies towards the most northerly part of Australia. We are close to 10 degrees south and we can see the Big Dipper once again. We are keeping our eyes peeled in order to spot the Northern Star. Think of us sailing under the stars with the full moon shining down on us tonight, it should be a great sail!

2011-06-12T04:40:00.000-07:00

COOKTOWN

We have spent the last 5 days here, attending the Discovery Festival which is all about Captain Cook landing here in 1770. He entered the river after his ship, the Endeavor, went up on a reef about 30 miles to the southeast. He spent about 6 weeks here fixing up the hole they had knocked in the Endeavor's hull and then sailed away on their voyage back to England. The river which we anchored on is the Endeavor River and that is me waving from the balcony of the James Cook Museum. The town which now has a population of under 5,000 put on a wonderful show every year reenacting Cook's landing. They showed him coming in on a ship, encountering the indigenous aboriginal peoples, the marines standing guard and firing their authentic rifles, the discovery and the naming of the kangaroo by the white man, having a fight with the locals over a turtle and a reconciliation afterwards.

We encountered this dog just outside the museum with his croc. He was very attached to it and would not let go of it so I could throw it for him. There are warning signs posted on the Cooktown docks about the presence of crocs in the area so needless to say we did not do any swimming. Did you know they even farm crocs here in Aus. They use the meat in restaurants but mostly they are farmed for their skin, which they make belts, boots and fancy bags out of!!!

This is the anchorage on the Endeavor River from the top of Grassy Hill, which members of the crew of the Endeavor climbed to see if they could find a way through the Great Barrier Reef out to open water. Barry and I climbed up it the other day and then continued on down to a secluded beach on the other side of the headland. We met another couple on the way and he clamoured up a tree and lopped down a coconut. Shortly after this was taken we were sitting on a rock swilling down lovely refreshing coconut juice.

Australian's army decommissioned a bunch of Leopard tanks and Cooktown applied to get one. It was recently brought to town and installed on a specially reinforced cement base. The town invited the army band from Townsville to take part in the Discovery Festival and officially dedicate this tank. The band was a great addition to the weekend . They were in a word, terrific. They had such a wide repertoire which included military marches, big band swing numbers, cabaret style music as well as rock and roll tunes. I truly enjoyed listening to their music, in all they appeared 5 times around town and I only heard them repeat about 4 tunes. One of the vocalist had a great line. He had been talking about dedicating the tank and then the band went into a rendition of "The Candyman". After they were done this fella jokes "Nothing says land warfare like The Candyman", it just cracked me up. There was a female sergaent that had a great voice. She did a very nice rendition of Mac The Knife, but it was hard to reconcile this wonderful sultry voice coming from a girl dressed in army khaki with a big thick brown leather belt and polished black army boots.

Cooktown's other claim to fame is the goldfields that were found in the 1870's about 130 km away. At one time there were over 16,000 Chinese people living in the area, working in the goldfields, establishing businesses, and raising market gardens to feed the miners. After the parade was over they unvieled some statues to commemorate their presence in the area.

I had a hard time convincing Barry to stay here to see the festival. He was anxious to make tracks to Darwin, we have only about 3 weeks to sail about 1,400 nm. I think we are both pleased that we stayed and took part in the festival which brought some of Australia's early history alive before our eyes. We were pleased to see the Aborigines take an active part in the festival and have their part explained. Cook landed in an area that traditionally was used to settle disputes between tribes and so there was no attacks upon him or his crew and their visit and their interactions with the Aborigines were peaceful. We have seen very little of the Aboriginie people in the rest of Australia so it was good to encounter it here. They have a large presence in the Northern Territories so we hope to learn more about their culture further north.

2011-06-04T03:13:00.000-07:00

We got our Great Barrier Reef fix today. We are in Cairns, whose main industry seems to be tourism based on the GBReef. We debated on whether or not to go diving because the package for the day was pretty expensive but we decided that we couldn't pass up the area without going diving. Imagine being in one of the dive meccas in the world and not going, UNTHINKABLE. We had a very enjoyable day, going out on a very large cat with 60 other people. We thought it would be super crowded under water but there were only 4 certified divers on board and we went off by ourselves and had a great time. We took in 2 dives the first was a little disappointing but the second was marvelous. The variety of coral and the many different sizes and colours of fish were great. We saw another lion fish, always a thrill, a large moray eel, a trigger clown fish with large black and white spots like a cow and then a bright yellow streak along it top, there were also huge bivalves that pulsed away in brilliant greens and purple. We swam in and around large coral bommies and I did flips and turns to amuse myself. It is amazing what your body can do when it is not inhibited by gravity.

Cairns is nothing like I pictured it. I guess I should have know better by now but I thought Cairns (pronounced Cannes, Aussies seems to have a thing against pronouncing their "r's") was going to flat, surrounded by reddish sand and it would be a rather red necked, outback town. Nothing could be further from the truth. It has a stunning setting, nestled at the edge of the ocean with a backdrop of lush green mountainous hills. It seemed much more sophisticated than Townsville with snazy bars and nightclubs to entertain the glut of tourists. It is also a extreme adventure playground with bungy jumping, whitewater kayaking, and daredevil mountain biking trails available to any with enough guts and not enough brains to take them on. This weekend they are hosting a world class triathalon. There was a free concert last night so we boogied, or should I say ambled on over to see what was going on. There was some great talent on show with an up and comer called Jessica Malvoy as the head act. The screaming teeny boppers were a bit off putting but the show was worth attending.

Onboard the cat with Cairns in the background, it must have cost a bundle for that 65 person liferaft.

Relaxing on the cat's trampoline between dives. The wind was cool on the wet skin after we got out of the water thus the fleece and hoodie.

2011-05-31T17:27:00.000-07:00

Townsville, as seen from the water, quite the hill isn't it?

I was impressed by this former bank building, built around the turn of the century. A lot of the buildings in the down town area were off this vintage, a pleasure to the eyes.

From Townsville we sailed to Orpehus Island where we found this sign, not doubt torn down by cyclone Yasi that went through this area earlier this year. It apparently was the biggest cyclone to ever hit Australia.

Up in the bush we found this ruin. The fellow that built it apparently had to give up because he got a coral cut which became infected. I was impressed by the building and particularly liked all the windows he had planned to put in.

This is the sugar cane factory at the entry to the Hinchbrook Channel. The channel itself was quite dramatic with large hills on either side of it. It was tricky getting in the entrance being fairly shallow, a couple of times we saw 0.0 on the depth meter. We draw 1.8m and Barry has it offset by 2.0 meters so I never know when we hit zero whether or not we are going to go 0.2 below zero or not so we just sit and hope the boat doesn't stop. We entered on a rising tide so would have just had to wait awhile to float off but I am glad we didn't bottom out again. We are stopping at a spot called Dunk Island today and I hope to make it all the way to Cairns tomorrow. It is quite a ways and the winds are light so not sure we will make it.

The Hinchbrook Channel, living the dream!

2011-05-29T07:29:00.000-07:00

I have started posting our position again, so those of you that are interested can go to the side of the blog and click on Our Position and the relevant page should show up. Let me know if it doesn't work. We stayed 2 nights at Magnetic Island just east of Townsville. It was a very nice spot. Yesterday we took the ferry into Townsville. The city has a very dramatic setting backed by a very steep high hill. We went to visit the Naritime Museum and then wanting to see more of the city hopped on a city bus. We got a little more than we bargained for, it was a 2 hour bus ride and we toured every shopping mall in that section of the city. We had a very nice dinner at a Mexican restaurant when we got back to the downtown area. After the ferry ride then the bus ride back to the boat we didn't get onboard until about 8:00 P.M. It was good to be away from the boat for that long, a nice break from the 8 or 9 hours sailing that we have been doing every day. We are heading towards Cairns, I will post some Townsville pics when I get there.

2011-05-23T23:12:00.000-07:00

Looking west towards the mainland from Whitsunday Island

We have finished our cruise through the Whitsunday Islands. The scenery was gorgeous, the anchorages were very safe and plentiful but the weather was the pits. After the wind stopped howling the rain came. It sputtered off and on for about 3 days, so my memories of the Whitsundays will have grey skies and mist floating about the top of the peaks attached to it. We stopped by Whitehaven Beach, rated on of the top ten beaches in the world. The sand was definitley different, very fine and soft, wonderful to walk upon. We sailed around to the other side of Whitsunday Island and I climbed the Whitsunday peak at 430 m. to see the sites. Of course the peak was shrouded with mist so I could only occaisionly glimpse the water. I jumped in for a swim when I got back, it was very refreshing.

Whitehaven Beach in the rain

We headed off to Airlie Beach the next day. Someone told me there was a rum bar which stocked rums from all over the world and said it was a must do. Trish also worked there over 10 years ago and sent us a post card. We had always wanted to go, now here we are on our own boat, living the dream. Anyway I guess this bar had a fire last week and is closed for renovations, just missed it by about a week, oh well, what can you do, first the Man from Snowy River Museum was closed, now this, I wonder what else that I want to see will be closed, things always happen in threes. We went into the spot where Trish worked and took our $1.00 coin and hit the "Pokies" as the slot machines are called here. We always go in and spend a dollar, Barry seems to be the lucky one and at one spot won $64.00. Here we came away $6.00 ahead, not bad. the most we should ever loose is $2.00 between us, some harmless fun. Airle Beach is a real tourist town, lots of travel agents where you can get tours of the Whitsundays, diving cruises, etc. There are also lots of bars and hamburger joints, there were not very many ethnic restaurants to choose from, I wanted a Thai meal but there were no Thai restaurants in site.

At the moment we are about 40 miles north of Airlie headed to Bowen. We hope to make up some distance in the next couple of days, so we won't go into Bowen our next town will be Townsville. We have been told that Magnetic Island is an interesting spot to stop so may spend a couple of days there. Hope everyone in Canada had a great long weekend. The ice in Back Bay in Yellowknife must be getting pretty thin.

Through the mist from the top of the Whitsunday Peak.

2011-05-17T23:14:00.000-07:00

The weather is still lousy. There is a huge high hanging over the east coast of Australia and it is giving us 25-30 knots of wind every day and showers. We are keeping our head down and hunkering down. Yesterday we put up the storm staysail and with that little hankerchief of a sail we went flying off across a sound to a more secure anchorage about 15 nm away. We are now at Shaw Island, one of the Whitsunday group, 20 degrees 30 min S and 142 degrees 03 min E. There is a Club Med about 4 miles across the bay on a different island. Here we don't have to put out the flopper stopper, the piece of gear that dampens the rolling in the boat, it is calmer, the swell does not seem to come into this spot.

We haven't been off the boat since we left MacKay, 4 days ago, and I am getting a big antsy. I was going to launch the dinghy earlier but it is so windy that getting it on and off the front deck would not be much fun and then as soon as I think of doing it the weather socks in, it starts raining or a huge gust comes up and the thought of managing the dinghy myself on the beach is off putting, Barry says he won't come ashore with me.

We have been spending our time doing boat chores, I polished the stainless steel the other day, today Barry did some sewing on the dodger, the thread is rotting from the UV. I made brownies a couple of days ago and then slowly ate them while I was working on my cross word puzzle book. I am getting close to finishing a cross stitch picture I am doing for Leeland, I am on the outlining part and it always seem to take longer. We changed the position of the receiving box for our wireless wind indicator and we finally have it working. There were way more dials than normal to look at when we sailed over the other day. Barry also seems to have solved the problem with no water coming out of the engine when it starts. He removed the end of the raw water strainer and noticed a crack in the metal end cover. He had a spare, he put it on and we have not had a problem since, he has ordered more spares. He must have been tightening them too much because we have 2 other cracked covers, unless of course there is another problem.

I am sure we have internet coverage because of the Club Med resort across the way. I have been trying to get the winlink to work on our new computer (e-mail through our Ham radio) but have not had much luck. The other day I hooked up the old computer and it worked just fine, I guess there is more than one way to skin a cat. Well I guess that is enough blabbing for one day, all I wanted to say is that we are alive and well.

2011-05-13T15:23:00.000-07:00

We are currently in MacKay, pronounced Mac Kai, we stopped here because we had run out of fresh fruit and veggies. I erroneously made the assumption when we left Bundaberg that there would be towns at most places we stopped along the coast, I was wrong. We left Bundy over a week ago and although we went shopping with Trish and filled here car with stores I had bought very little fresh food. The fridge is now stuffed with yummy fruits, veggies, yogurt and cheeses.

We have had a great time since setting off. The weather has been steadily from a southerly direction so we have had some terrific sails, wind on the quarter, the boat flying along at 7 knots at times. The other day our boat speed was reading steadily over 8 and I was loving it, Barry deemed we did not need to go that fast and pulled in some genoa, spoil sport!!!

We left the same day as our friends on Toketie, David and Linda. We have been keeping in touch with them on HF radio and we have arranged to be in the same anchorages a few times. It is nice to have someone that knows where you are. We stopped at the spot the other night and I took Linda ashored and we went for an hour and a half walk. Along the way we figured we have been walking companions in 6 countries across the Pacific. It was great to do it again with her in Australia. When we got back to their boat she cooked a yummy pizza and good times were shared.

We stopped in at Middle Percy Island, a spot where cruisers have been leaving signs for over fifty years. The island is leased by a family and they along with the cruisers have built an A frame building where you can eat and a wonderful tree house. The tree house had a kitchen and a bed in it, you could comfortably live in there for a week or two. I found an old board up by the treehouse and took it back to the boat. I painted a polar bear on it and put our boat name, our names and the date, as the sign said and screwed it into the one of the posts in the A frame. At another anchorage we were invited ashore for appetizers as soon as we had dropped the hook. There were 6 boats in attendance and there were representatives from 5 different continents, N. America, S. America, Africa, Europe and Australia. It was a lovely evening with the bonfire glowing on the beach.

We are meeting lots of cruisers that are going on the Indonesian rally, this journey has the same feeling as crossing French Polynesia. Everyone is heading in the same direction and you meet people, they leave and then 3 or 4 days later you see them again in another anchorage further north. We are enjoying being out in the islands away from civilization again. There is something rather magical about sitting in your cockpit watching the sun go down and the sky turning gorgeous shades of orange and red, with no one else within sight.

From MacKay we head up in to the Whitsunday Islands where I hope to spend over a week. We plan to stop in at Airlie Beach on the way and then amble on up to Townsville. We have a new computer and I have been having trouble getting our e-mail on it to work so have not been able to send any reports in that way. I will have to work on it, or just use the old computer to keep in touch a little more regularly.

2011-04-30T18:20:00.000-07:00

We are in Bundaberg at a marina. We decided to splurge and stay in comfort and safetly and have ready access to water. I wanted to clean and oil the teak and that takes a lot of water, thus we are staying at the dock. Patricia is supposed to be driving up here later today so we have are waiting for her to arrive to we can have another visit. We had some good sails getting here. We came up the Great Sandy Strait and found some nice anchoring spots. One of the spots was on Fraser Isalnd, apparently the largest sand island in the world. We wen ashore and found this old peer and these tress that were painted by the aboriginals of the ares.

We had some drama the day we decided to cross the bay to come to Bundaberg. It was blowing 20-30 knots but it was from behind so no problems. It was great until it started to rain and then it got really socked in and we couldn't see very far. We found the entrance to the river and turned on the engine and lo and behold we had no water coming out of the engine. Barry disappeared down below to change the impeller and I sailed around waiting for him to reappear. He did and the engine purred away and we headed in and Barry made a perfect landing at the dock and we have been here ever since.

The marina has a courtesy bus into Bundaberg most day, town is 6 km away. We have gone in a couple of days and yesterday I stopped into the local art gallery. They had an exhibition of photos taken during the floods that were here in late Dec. and Jan. It devastated quite a few businesses and homse in the area. I am glad that we were not here to experience it. Friends who were here at the time said it is the worst thing they have ever had to deal with.

We will be here unti Tues. and then we hope to make our way further north. I want to stop at Lady Musgrove Island, an atoll abotu 50 miles from here that has nice coral that we can snorkel around and enjoy. We are both looking forward to seeing Trish, Graeme, Quinn and June.

2011-04-22T21:31:00.000-07:00

ARRG... TURN BACK...YOU'RE NOT GOING TO MAKE IT

We are in the water heading north. We made it to Mooloolaba last night and enjoyed our brief stay there. We are now headed for the Sandy Straits on the west side of Fraser Island. We plan to do an overnighter in order to get there in the morning when the tide is right to enter the Wide Bay Bar. We will then go to Tin Can Bay to anchor. I guess that means we will have our Easter in Tin Can Bay and join our friend in Yellowknife that will be having their Easter on Tin Can Hill!!

We thought a sailing race that goes from Brisbance to Gladstone, about 300nm, would pass us by yesterday but they went across Moreton Bay and then went off shore whereas we are hugging the coast so we did not see hide nor hair of the boats. I was a bit disappointed, it would have been nice to see them screaming by.

Barry has a subscription to the Yellowknifer, the twice weekly Yellowknife newspaper and our youngest daugther, Heather, just got a job as a reporter there. We have really been enjoying reading her articles, she does a great job, with nice descriptive phrases and snappy endings to her stories. Keep up the great work Heather.

I have to note that in the Scrabble wars that take place regularly on our boat I am on a 5, I repeat FIVE game winning streak. This is unprecidented and I would like to say to Barry that I think I have "kicked your ass".

Happy Easter to all or friends and family. I hope the Easter Bunny is good to you, he plan on visiting Cat's-Paw IV and leaving a small contribution.

IT IS AMAZING WHAT PRESPECTIVE WILL MAKE YOU THINK

2011-04-19T18:57:00.000-07:00

We are on the hard in Brisbane and despite the not favourable weather we have managed to get two coats of bottom paint on. It rained cats and dogs, or as my buddy Mike might say, Siamese and Dobermans, on Monday but we sanded down the gouges we had created in Vanuatu and made sure the bottom and hull were really clean. On Tuesday the rain was spotty and we put on coat along the water line while I filled up the gouges with Epifill, five hours later I sanded the fill to near perfection and we start painting. The weather held until almost the last and then it sprinkled a bit. It was not ideal conditions but it seems to be okay. We put the second coat on this morning, one more coat at the waterline late this afternoon and we should be good to go.

The boat yard is pretty spiffy and we are paying a pretty penny, but it was the only spot that could get us in on short notice, we aren't the best planners. One of our friends suggested that we cancel out because it was going to be rainy but we are glad we didn't. I had visions of us being here over the Easter weekend but unless their equipment breaks down we should be going in Thur. around noon. Oh yeah, the spiffy marina, notice the steps, we don't have to clamber up and down a ladder. I wanted to do my impression of "Here she come, Miss America" down the steps (Notice the very nicely painted bottom in the background). The other very impressive thing about this marina is that the laundry is free, OMG, it is so hard to believe, you walk in and there is nowhere to put your money in the machines, I was flabergasted. As a result we are washing and drying, I might add, everything we can think off, today it was the covers for the fenders and the cockpit cushions. I will probably wash all our dirty clothes again tonight so we can set of clean tomorrow.

The other thing we have managed to accomplish while we are here is to change our chain (it is rather hard to do that when you are at anchor with a 4 knot current rushing by you). Barry never did like the link we had to put into our re-galvinished chain in New Zealand so we ordered new stuff and here it is. We marked it in meters, flourescent green and pink, hoping those colours will last awhile. This to a yachtie is a wonder, beautiful new chain, when Barry pulled it up it slipped through the gypsum without a catch and tumbled obediently into the chain locker. I hope there was some ohhs and ahhs out there from our cruising buddies because this is definitely a high light.

Just about to be hauled out

2011-04-12T22:37:00.000-07:00

I have added the Indonesian Rally site on our links which are listed to the right of the blog. This shows the route we will take, we have chosen to go the eastern route. At the moment there are only about 8 boats going to eastern route and about 40 going the other way so we are quite pleased about that as we do not wish to travel with a huge number of boats.

2011-04-12T16:10:00.000-07:00

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED

Yesterday I bought a ticket to the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary, caught a bus and spent the day being educated about the strange and unusual Australian animals. Barry didn’t want to come because he had seen koalas with Bob and Barb, boy did he miss a great day.
I got to hear about koalas and their two opposable thumbs, the reason why they are so lethargic and the fact that babies hang about with their mothers for over a year, they don’t even come out of the pouch for about 6 or 7 months. They also had a talk about snakes, the fellow had a black headed python wrapped around himself as he explained the 2 most important things to do if you are bitten by a venomous snake. The first thing is to not move around to much and stay calm (I think the staying calm part would be extremely difficult!!, the second is to bandage the limb that was bitten with a tensor bandage. Apparently when you go bush walking in Aus, you should always have a tensor bandage in your pack, I did not know this and will add a bandage PDQ.
I think my favourite thing beside the talk on koalas was the raptor show. The people brought out about 4 different raptors and had them flying through the crowd and catching food that they threw up in the air. They brought out 2 kinds of owls, a huge eagle and a kite. There were also 2 very large eagles in the trees that could not fly that we got to have a look at. The biologist who gave then talk had some very interesting facts about owls and when they brought out the eagle she explained that he only weighed about 3.4 kilos, not much weight for a bird that size. One fact she mentioned is that if you find carrion in the middle of the road, stop and move it to the side because the big eagles which feed on it are not that swift at getting off the ground or hopping out of the way so lots of birds are killed by being hit by cars while they are eating on the highway. I saw a platypus swimming about, it was very small and agile in the water. It is a mammal that lays eggs, very odd. Just like the wombat and the koala they are a marsupial but their pouches open toward the back, so the babies don’t get hurt, interesting adaptation. A WOMBAT

They had some beautiful birds there and the first activity I did was to feed the lorakeets. I also saw a coccuburro that was just flying around free, we hear them calling most days here on the river.
I am so glad I went, it was a fabulous day. I got to pet the koala and feel the snake, it was very smooth, the koala was a little bristley. Hope you enjoy the pictures. I will have to think up a new mission, that one was so interesting and so much fun.

Barking Owl

White Bellied Sea Eagle

Wedged Tail Eagles (Australia's largest raptor)

Emu

Southern Cassowary

A Very Contented Koala

2011-04-08T14:40:00.001-07:00

A very poor picture of the Gold Coast

We are slowly working our way northwards. We had an unpleasant trip from Iluka to Southport which is in the Gold Coast. We had thunder and lightning for about 3 hours followed by buckets of cold rain. It is indeed fall here, it is colder and raining much more frequently. Our blood has thinned out considerably, we need sweaters when the temperature gets below 20 degrees. We were sailing along the next day with only wind, waves and beautiful long sandy beaches for company when up rose miles of high rises, the Gold Coast. We had an easy entrance through the breakwater and anchored just opposite Seaworld. We spent 3 nights there, the 3rd day waiting out bad weather before moving on. The next 2 days were spent slowing sailing down the intercoastal waterway. It was nice protected water although quite shallow in many places. This is one of the private homes along the waterway!!
We stayed one night in Tipplers Passage, went ashore and walked across the island to the ocean beaches and had a picnic. It was amazing to have the never ending beach with the dunes all to ourselves.

We continued on down the passage and came to an area that had confusing signage. It was confusing mostly because our binoculars have both gotten water in them and are not very clear. I got outside the main channel and went aground. Thankfully it was on a rising tide so we just sat there and waited for the water to rise. There was a heavy current pushing us further into the sand/mud so Barry had the motor in full reverse trying to get off. After a harrowing half an hour, we could feel the boat starting to bounce a little. Barry tried motoring forward, reversing, spinning the wheel and occasionally we would pivot slightly but the mud would not let us go. Finally Barry told me to roll out some head sail and the extra push from the front of the boat pulled us free. My heart did not stop hammering for about forty five minutes.At the entrance to the river this boat was having trouble with his main sail. He is sailing along in the lee of a freighter, do you see the guy up at the top of the mast trying to fix it???

We continued on the next day even though it was threatening rain. We covered the 20 miles to the Brisbane river amid thunder showers and sudden squalls. We only had the genoa up so we would just roll or unroll it according to the conditions and did not get ourselves in any trouble. It took us about 3 and ½ hours to come up the Brisbane River against the current. We probably should have waited except that would have had us coming up the river after dark, something we weren’t interested in attempting. The cruising guide said there were hot running showers available ashore so I was looking forward to that. One of our mates was anchored hear and came over to inform us that the shower facilities were washed away by the floods they had a few months ago so that wish will go unfulfilled. We are anchored right downtown just beside the botanical gardens. I am anxious to go ashore and find a laundry and then discover how to get to the animal sanctuary. I have not seen a koala bear yet and I have heard they at this place. I am afraid if I wait until I am further north the trees where the koala’s live will not grow there and there will not be any and I will leave Australia without a koala sighting, so this is my Brisbane mission!!

We had to go under two bridges but none of them opened this time

We are anchored just downstream from here.

2011-04-01T18:32:00.001-07:00

We are on our way north on the long trek up the east coast of Australia. Today we are hoping to get to Southport the beginning of the Gold Coast, about 60 miles south of Brisbane. It is a beautiful day for a sail, sunny, light winds and a gentle swell. Last night Patricia packed up the Land , Cruiser, putting all the bikes back in and this morning we hauled her up the mast to change the pesky wind instrument before we bundled her and the kids off the boat to make the 0830 tide. I told Quinn before they left that I was sorry I didn’t have time to play balloons with him again because the tide waits for no man.

Bob and Barb showed up again on their way north and we had a super day at the beach with them. We found a rectangular structure of logs stuck in the sand and we able to cover it with blankets, towels and cover ups to give us some much needed shade. Bob, Trish and I boogie boarded while Quinn and June hunted shells and crabs supervised by Grandpa and Gauntie Barb. The waves were not good enough to surf but we had terrific fun body surfing and using the boogie board to fly into the beach. We went again the next day and I forgot my bathing suit and went in wearing my underwear. The waves were so powerful the second day they were knocking my panties right off of me.
There was a rocky headland and we all walked down there and explored the tide pools. We spotted a sea cucumber, numerous hermit crabs, minnows and Barry found a huge crayfish shell on the beach. Quinn and June hunted in the pools catching the hermit crabs and picking up some great shells. We had peanut butter sandwiches, fresh pineapple, almonds and water to keep the hungry monster at bay. Bob and I went for a bit of a swim and Bob went on a run down the beach in his bare feet. Barry sat and read his book and was green with envy. It was a super Australian Beach day, the beach was ten miles long and we had it to ourselves!!!!