July 23 2016
Hi All,
It’s time to leave Australia and all the wonderful people and sites we have experienced. We are actually very sad to leave the South Pacific. Wow…..what a ride and experiences we have had. We left Panama Feb 2013…..about 3.5 years ago!! It is always hard and somewhat unfair to pick a favorite place/country…..we’ve had a wonderful time almost everywhere we have been. Australia has just been kick-in-the-pants fun…..the people extremely friendly and helpful, marine technicians some of the best we have experienced, world class wines and food, and marvelous nature and critters!!!
As sad as we are to leave we are also as excited to go to Indonesia. It has over 13,000 islands, ~260 million people., the world’s 4th most populous country….and the 16th largest world economy and member of the G-20…..whoa!!! We have joined the Sail Indonesia Rally and we are set to visit maybe 10-15 of these islands so just a brief introduction of the islands, people, history and cultures. Southeast Asia will be very different from our USA, Latin America, Caribbean and South Pacific adventures……very different cultures, history and religions. Here is the link for our schedule. We will probably stay w/the Rally at the beginning, and then join up in the middle and end and go out on our own in between 30-50% of the time
http://www.sailindonesia.net/rally/schedule.php
Our first passage is to Kupang, in West Timor…..about 470nm, 3 nights….we should arrive early morning on Tuesday, July 26. The forecast is for great trawler like weather…..<10 kts for the first 24-36 hours, then 5-15kts, for the next 24 hours, then 15-20 kts as we get near Kupang…..all pretty much behind us so it should be a good ride……and we will be fishing!!!!
Boat Stuff:
Watermaker: well……can you believe it, we ran a few more pressure tests, installed a pressure gauge which confirmed the Spectra internal panel gauges are reading correctly……and the unit is now running normally!!!! Yippee, but we are a bit concerned that we did not find the root cause and the issue might return…we shall see. The official conclusion is we must have had some environmental or blockage issue that has somehow resoled itself in all our cleaning and testing……hmmmm!!
Other items: new door handle on cockpit transom door (the lock mechanism on the old one fell apart), new magnetic door holder for master head door to keep it from banging in rough seas, top up air in auto-pilot tank reservoir, touch up SS and some other polish points!!
Kathy was busy cleaning inside, making numerous provisioning runs, buying a few spare parts (mainly fuel filters as we hear some of the Indo fuel may be a bit dirty….ugh), filling at the numerous Indo and Australian forms., getting our Indo social Visa et al!!
We are both somewhat rested from our 2 month passage from Sydney and the 5-day road trip around the Top-End Territory so good to go…..move it out Mystic!!!
Hope all is well!!
John
Mystic Moon
GO MYSTIC GO!!!!
What a fantastic website. A friend of mine posted a photo of some boats in Cairns Marina. I saw a boat called Mystic Tide and remembered your boat when we were in Darwin staying at friends place in Cullin Bay. We are from Wollongong south of Sydney. Got the name wrong but did a search on mystic moon and found your blog. We saw your boat tied up when we were going on the Catermeran cruise on the harbour. It was funny reading your blog on Cullin Bay. Glad you enjoyed Australia and stay safe on your future adventures!