Sept 19-25
Hi All,
We left Lovina as planned at 6am on Monday Sept 19…..the run was in perfect trawler conditions, <5 kts winds, <1′ swell…..yes, all is right in the world again:)))) About two thirds of the way we hear:……. motor vessel traveling 28 deg about 4 miles from Ensco platform……yes, this is mv Mystic Moon…..channel 10……switching…..Sir your course is too close to the oil platform, please alter to at least 2 miles…..roger, changing course now……yep, a huge oil rig out in the middle of the Java Sea……we were in >3000′ of water…….wow, the technology nowadays even in Indonesia….btw Ensco is a UK contractor!!! We arrived around 4:15ish…….calm anchorage in 18’…..sweet as. Bella Vita was here……they had arrived this am and had changed anchorages from our planned Seabus island saying this Saur island was much prettier……white sand beach lined with palm trees…..perfect. But, all this area is quite inhabited…..and we have cell/internet albeit pretty slow……we had expected no people…..whoa!!! This seems to be very fundamental Muslim area as people are dressed very conservatively……poor Kathy had to go and put on something w/sleeves. We had Brett & Stacey over for passage beers and well, that turned into more wine and whiskey:))))
John hits the wall: yep, it is very hot and humid and I had a horrible night…..huge headache, nauseous and sweaty…..ugh…..maybe dehydrated but the water made me sick……took some Advil/tums…..slept in the FB and salon, but have felt poorly all day:(((( Doc Kathy says I’m just overly tired and need to take a few days to rest and get mojo back…..ok, I can do that…..nap, read, nap, read……:)))) Some locals came by in their canoe and Kathy traded a can of 7-up and cookies for a coconut…..it was a green coconut and I drank the clear liquid…..supposed to be full of electrolytes…..it was a very big coconut…..almost 2 full glasses……felt a little better a few hours later!!! I was better by evening so we had Brett/Stacey over for a butterflied leg of lamb dinner…..got a pretty good do on the BBQ….had with a 1998 Murieta’s Well Vendimia…..maybe a little past its prime but still delicious!!!
Trash: OK, the Bali trash gods had the last laugh….teach me to whine about it in the blog. On our last day there was plastic trash everywhere in the anchorage and Mystic seemed to be right in the tide line and in the thick of it…..we watched the trash go out and then the tide changed and it all came back in. I’m not sure if all the trash was from the recent rains and the trash washed down the rivers, they did not clean the beach as usual or some town just dumped all their garbage…..yes, there was that much!!! We wanted to run the GEN around 6pm but there was too much trash around….it would get sucked up in the GEN intake and plug the inlet…..not good…..so we waited until about 7:30 until all the trash passed us by……not a good scene!!!!
Time change: This is very strange…..but as we came into the Kangean island group the time changed on our phones….1 hour back…..it seems it might be like this all the way until we get to Singapore when it changes back…….1 hour ahead but that is West of us……some strange time zones here!!!
On the third day we went in the village……Brett/Stacey had gone in the day before and were overwhelmed by the friendly greetings…..so all 4 of us went in the next day. We brought gifts of notebooks/pencils for the children, tea and cookies for the families and fishing line and hooks for the men. Wow…..what a friendly greeting…….all smiles and lots of laughter/giggling. But, no English. We went into this family’s house and sat and giggled some more…..we did ask about the school and eventually they took us there but class was already dismissed…….it was about 11am???? We then went on a walk around the island….yep, about the dumbest thing we have done in a long while……maybe 3-4 miles in the hottest part of the day…….at first we thought they we were just walking down the street having us meet the other people on the island but then we went into the interior of the island……very dry, dusty and HOT….Kathy called it the Saur Dust March…..our feet and legs were black when we got back!!!! We were all unprepared…..we had no water but no worries, they quickly brought us some. There was a group of 3-4 men, 5-8 women and 5-10 children……it took about 1.5 hours……the interior is full of dried rice fields…..must flood in the rainy season!!!!
Passage to Bawean: We left Saur around 7am on Thursday Sept 22 for the 200nm overnight passage to Bawean……it’s 3am as I’m writing this blog and all is well!!! Again perfect conditions…..<5 kt winds, <1 swell, seas like glass:))))) We are going slow again to save fuel!!!
We did arrive in Bawean around 11:30amish on Friday 9/23. Anchor down, flopper out, and passage beers open by noon!!!! It was 200nm, took us 28.5 hours, ~7 kt avg!!! There was a lot of traffic……no resting on watch……maybe 30-40 local fisherman which were no problem as they had lights and moved out of the way. The problems were the cargo ships……we saw maybe 10-15…….we had to divert, speed up or slow down to about 5 of them to avoid……some had AIS and some did not!!!! We also had this NW 1′ chop most of the way and now it is coming into the anchorage and making things very rolly…..WTH…..where is it coming from as everything we have had has all been SE-NE……a little google search and WindyTY revealed there is a typhoon up north near China and it is sending SW swells into the South China Sea which are curving around into the Java Sea….ugh…..looks like we will have this crap for another day or so:((((
Arghhhhhh…..yes, we did have that crap and then some. We woke up on Saturday to very dark skies……good news, much cooler…..but by 8am it was raining buckets…….lasted for 3 hours…….good news, Mystic got a great rinse and the rain reduced the NW swell considerably……..so, I decided it was calm enough to clean the bottom…..which I did……lot’s of that green algae grass growing on the water line and some barnacles on the bottom……I put on my scuba gear and gave the bottom a good clean/inspection…..all is good, prop looks good, rudder shoe bolts all tight……but by the time I finished the NW swell was back in force…..as in Mystic rolling/bouncing several feet…….not so good when you are underneath……and it stayed rough all day……we even put out our 2nd flopper……ugh, ugh!!!!! The swell finally calmed about 3am last night……whoa….almost 48 hours of that crap!!!!!
We did finally get off the boat and make it to the village of Labuan. We had hoped to make it to the main town but discovered it was about 2 miles one way and in the heat we did not want to walk that far……we could not find a taxi or bemo….we could have gotten a ride on a motor bike but Kathy said no way:)))) So we walked around Labuan…..again were royally greeting by people…..hello mista……lot’s of children all giggling and touching you. We had one group of women stop, get off their motor bikes and walk up to us for pictures…..Kathy said adorable. We met this guy called Harry who had a little English and he showed us around and helped us topup our phone…..you say telephone pulsa and we added 3.5 G of data for USD7.5!!!
Tomorrow, Monday Sept 26, we are off on another overnighter to Kumai where we will see the the orangutans, just another 195 nm!!!!!
Hope all is well!!
John
Mystic Moon
GO MYSTIC GO
PS: Pictures on the website: http://mysticmoonvoyages.com/photo-gallery/nggallery/main-album/Saur-Bawean
PSS: Last blog I forgot some videos….here they are plus I loaded on the previous blog
