Hello! Sorry this was slow to come, but much of the journey to Lombok, where we’re are now, wasn’t very nice at all. I’ve gotten over much of it now with good food and company.
More about this later. :)
We left Boom Marina at 0600 morning for an anchorage with clear water for hull cleaning.
Six in the morning might sound early but the Call to Prayer started at daybreak at 0430 so we’d been up for a while. We’ve been used to a 0530 call but Indonesia has 3 time zones.
Our anchorage for the night was on the border of the
Western and Central times and our watches couldn’t decide which we were and kept jumping forward and back.
Just outside the entrance to the marina was a big dredger. It wasn’t working when we passed and looked rather in disrepair from a distance. As we passed, we could see that it hadn’t been dredging mud or sand but the remains of rusted boats and metal structures from the seabed decorated its deck. There more were piles of recovered wreckage next on the shore near the marina entrance.
The current between the mainland and island was over 3 knots. The water swirled and eddied over changes in depth to the seabed.
The VMG is the Velocity Made Good towards your waypoint. 7.9 knots is a speed we need help to achieve. 5.8 knots is our average cruising speed and the speed with which we passage plan.
It had been quite the opposite when we arrived at Boom Marina. The current was just as strong but from the wrong direction. It’s quite discouraging when your boat speed is 5 knots but your SOG (Speed Over Ground) is 2.
Madura Island on the left and Bali on the right.
Our anchorage for the night was lovely. It was calm and peaceful and we saw a number of large turtles. We had only one local fishing boat for company. The Indonesian fishing boats are the prettiest and often most elaborate when compared to those of Thailand and Malaysia.
In the early evening, they rolled up the tarpaulins they’d been sleeping under and motored off to fish for the night. If we’d had more time, we would have stayed another day to snorkel and swim. The water was lovely and clear and there were things to see. We hope to visit t again on our way north in November.
In the morning we headed for the Airport Anchorage, which is convenient for going around the bottom of the Bali. We didn’t particularly like this anchorage the first time we used it on the Indonesian Rally, and we liked it even less this time. There was a lot of swell coming in, which made it rolly and hard to sleep.
South of the southern most Indonesian islands is the Indian Ocean and there’s always a chance of ocean swell. When I checked the weather later, I saw a cyclone moving along the north coast of Australia. It’s likely it was that that was sending us the swell. If we’d gone over the top of Bali, it wouldn’t have affected us and the whole journey would have been much far more pleasant. *Note to for the return trip.
We took this route as the currents are very strong on the east Coast of Bali. Tim had it planned so that we’d be going north when the current was strongest. It was a great idea but for some reason we had a lot more current against us than expected. It was 5 knots at times though because we were going across it we didn’t feel the full brunt; 3/4 brunt perhaps. There were moments when our VMG was negative as we were being carried away from our destination, the island of Lembongan, but we got there in the end.
Lembongan is a popular surfing destination thanks to the swell I’ve been complaining about. The day we arrived lit looked amazing. We are anchored in 11 metres of water on a patch of white sand surrounded low rocks and probably coral. It was too deep to be sure.
Between us and the town is a reef.
This was a very different day. The dolphins hunting over the reef didn’t mind the surf and boats ferried surfers and swimmers to frolic in it as well.
About this time, we discovered another cooling system problem with the engine. Tim had noticed that the engine temperature was higher than normal as we were approaching Bawean. Not to the over heating stage, but a little hotter than normal. We were almost to the anchorage, but stopped the engine and sailed in light winds. We used the engine to anchor and then let it cool to check the coolant level.
The water level was low, but as it’s a Ford Transit engine and tough as nails, it hadn’t got anywhere near to over heating.
So we had a leak from the water cooling system. We’d been motoring for hours through the night so it was a slow leak. Tim investigated, couldn’t see any drips and decided, in conjunction with our mechanic in Pangkor, that it could be the cooling tower in the heat exchanger. The engine was installed, brand new, in 2001. The cooling tower is original and as it uses salt water to cool the fresh water coils, over time there can be some corrosion and the fresh water leaks into the salt water. A new cooling tower is an eye-watering £650. Ouch. But it was ordered and Tim will bring it back from the UK in May.
As we sat at our lovely anchorage the bilge pump went off for a couple of seconds. This isn’t generally a problem. Every time we bring up the anchor, the water runs off the chain in the anchor locker and in to the bilge. When enough accumulates, the bilge pump whirs into life and pumps it out.
A little later it went again, so Tim had grabbed the torch and had another look around the engine and found the culprit. A copper pipe had been being rubbed by tougher pipe since the engine was reinstalled in Pangkor almost a year ago. The hole had finally got large enough to leak enough water make itself known.
So we got out our flexible epoxy, which sets in 6 hours and is fully cured in 12 even underwater, cleaned up the pipe, mixed up the epoxy and fibre-glassed the hole into oblivion. The pipe was back in place before dinner. We are quite well practiced at this now. We started the engine first thing in the morning, checked for leaks but the repair was perfect.
Happy with our repair, we headed off to our final destination, Gili Asahan, one of many islands of Lombok. ‘Gili’ is island in Indonesian.
We like a nice early start on a nice flat sea.
This was a much easier trip. The currents were a little more favourable and the shipping lanes, marked in pink, weren’t nearly as busy as the Singapore Straits. It was only 25 miles from start to finish and we were there by mid afternoon.
We’re in the same anchorage as Philip on Bruno’s Girl and he’s been showing us what there is to see and where to eat.
A good time is being had by all.
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