I woke up early as usual and made a coffee and while I was sitting outside in the cockpit looking at Gunung Api, the large volcano to our east, a large puff of white smoke shot out of the summit and for the next hour the smoke floated across in our direction.
No coral = no fish = hungry people
We left Kroko Atol at 13:00 heading south through the Boling
Straight towards our next destination Kupang where I planned to check out of
Indonesia. We sped along with a one and a half knot current flowing south surrounded
on either side by volcanos.
As we rounded the south western tip of Pulau Lembata and entered the Savu Sea where suddenly we came upon a two and a half knot current against us and I had to start the other engine and give it a bit of curry to maintain our six-knot average.
The wind dropped right off at dusk and we powered along into the
dark night as this was going to be an overnight passage. It was nice laying on
the trampoline in the dark and looking up at all the stars as we glided along.
A very large cargo ship crossed our path around 21:00 and a car ferry has been tailing us for most of the passage who is also going to Kupang. Sirocco has been chugging along quite reliably now for many days and hopefully the pulleys have now polished up enough to stop chewing out the belts and are back to normal. For dinner I cooked up a heap of delicious chicken wings that went down well.
Earlier on I noticed the freezer had gone off for some reason? Hopefully I caught it just in time, but now everything is fully frozen again. I had better keep an eye on it just in case there is a problem with it?
We have a little bit of moon tonight, so it's not totally dark. Earlier on I managed to make contact with our old clearance agent in Kupang. He was available to clear us out, but his fees had more than doubled. I told him his fees were way too high (compared to what we paid him last time) and so he reduced the price by about AUD$85, saying how everything had increased in price since I checked in (everything except for my salary) and to not tell anyone about the discount he is giving us.
I'm not sure if he is bullshitting or by how much he is
bullshitting, but I just want to get cleared out ASAP without any hassles. He
did alright last time, so I said yes go ahead and then I sent him a heap of
documents (by phone) so he could make a start on the process. I also asked him
to start the process tomorrow morning as soon as we arrive in Kupang sometime
after 10:00 so we waste little time and can get out of that crazy place as soon
as we can.
The moon went down around 11:30 and the night went jet black and the stars became brighter. For a while, I again laid on the trampoline staring up at the milky way and the southern cross, it looked like I could almost touch them.
Luke woke up and made a brew so I decided to try and get a little shut eye while he was up. We were now only 10,000 feet away from land, strait down that is, right in the middle of the Savu Sea. This region is very deep and the home of many sperm whales which are still hunted by traditional method in the village of Lamalera not far from here. Lets hope we don't bump into one tonight.
I didn’t get much sleep as my cabin was very hot and noisy with
the engine running. After a few hours I got up and relieved Luke at the helm.
The apparent wind had got up to 20 knots on the noise and the sea state was
rather confused making the ride unpleasant.
As we get closer to land hopefully the wind will drop a bit and
the sea state will improve. At 04:40 we are still 30 miles away from Kupang,
but I can see the glow of lights on the horizon. We have a large cargo ship
passing behind us and a passenger ferry in front of us, other than that things
have been pretty quiet on this passage so far. As it gradually became light, I
noticed a flying fish on the deck. It had been there for quite a while and was
well past salvation and too small for the fry pan so I tossed it overboard.
Track Sirocco’s progress
https://forecast.predictwind.com/tracking/display/Sirocco
No comments:
Post a Comment