I followed my track in and had no dramas exiting the 17 Islands National Park. Along the way, the wind picked up to 18 knots and with the main sail up we sped along at 7.8 knots for most of the morning until the wind died off around 9am and the sea's glassed out.
The land on the north side of Flores is very mountainous with lots of volcano's and is sparsely populated. I dragged the lure all morning, but all I could catch was plastic bags, and all of them were undersized and had to be thrown back. I’m not sure what the bag limit is for bags, but I’m sure I have exceeded it.
We haven’t seen any other boats or FAD's today, only us out on this lonely sea. It was a long passage at 77nm and I was feeling very tired. At one stage I asked Luke to take the watch and as soon as I laid down, I was out like a log. I quickly sprang too when the wind picked up a little and we finally made it to our destination for the evening, Watu Boga Beach, just a small sheltered bay in the middle of nowhere, with a couple of fishing shacks up under the coconut trees.
This place was post card beautiful !!!
We anchored on a small sand patch, 6m deep in crystal clear water then dropped the dinghy ready to go for a dive. I gave Luke specific instructions to barter with any kids he saw, to trade two pair of sunglasses for 10 coconuts and while I was getting ready to go diving, sure enough a canoe came paddling out with two kids and he negotiated the deal.
I came back from my dive just in time to see the reaction from the kids when they received their new sunnies. They were excited as Aussie kids on Christmas day, ripping the plastic off in a flash and whacking them on their faces, then one kid laughed at the other saying his sunnies were cooler, then the other kid wanted his glasses and a fight almost broke out.
They were so funny to watch as they rowed off and we were yelling "movie star" and "lookin cool dude". True to the deal, they arrived back a short time later with 10 coconuts, then Luke had a weak moment and gave them all my other remaining sunglasses, pens and pencils AND 100 IRP, so now I have nothing more to barter with and I was not impressed. At least the coconuts were in really good condition.
We never saw the kids wearing the sunnies after this as I think they got commandeered by the adults.
When I returned from a really fantastic dive, Luke said we had run out of water which was bad news, as I was extremely exhausted, it was just on dark and we were planning to leave early tomorrow morning and making water would take several hours. I setup the generator and after refuelling it, started it up and turned on the water maker.
The water maker started to make a strange sound and was struggling to suck enough water in. I checked the sea strainer only to find it had a crack where one of the pipes is attached and it was leaking heaps of water into the bilge. I spent the next hour fixing this leak and draining and cleaning the bilge, but after fixing the leak the water maker was still making a strange noise.
I then removed the water maker out from under the front bed and checked the impeller. The impeller looked fine, but one of the impeller cover screws was loose and it had been leaking water. I tightened all the screws and then decided while I had the water maker out, I might as well do a well overdue oil change on it.
I pulled out the oil drain plug and I managed to drain all the oil out onto the floor, completely missing the funnel in the slops drum, so then I had another lovely mess to clean up. After cleaning up all the spilt oil, I lifted the floor board and it was the only part of the STBD bilge that had not yet been cleaned and it was filthy, so I decided to clean that out while I was at it.
Finally, I had a quick shower before going to bed totally knackered. God I love boats !!
Track Sirocco’s progress
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