Tuesday 10th May 2022– Kupang

I was up early as I had a million things to do to prepare for our departure. Right away I started making water and charging the batteries, then I down loaded the weather while having breakfast, then after that I did my washing. 

I had to put some more money into my Indonesian phone card as it had expired. Then I got stuck into a job I have been putting off since leaving Lombok. I emptied out all the stuff stored in the starboard front room so I could put on the mattress covers, then I had to put everything back in again. 

I got rid of all the cardboard, and all the old bintang beer cans and most of the bottles of wine. (I gave the wine to Ryley) The next job was to install a new paddle wheel for measuring our speed through the water. The one we have hasn’t worked since leaving Perth several years ago. 

This was a big job and I had to remove all the floor boards in the port hull and the wooden access panels in the saloon to access the old cable and to pull the new cable through. In the end I decided it was best to leave the old cable installed and to put a terminal block in the port bathroom cable duct. 

This would also make it very easy to change the paddle wheel in the future if needed. It’s always a stressful moment removing the paddle wheel while in the water, leaving a two-inch hole in the hull shooting a geyser in the air while frantically trying to insert the new one. The new paddle wheel went in OK and was working fine, so now we use this to see tidal flow and measure distance traveled. 

After this project was complete, I cleaned up and packed away all the tools and put everything back together. After the water tanks were full, I pickled the water maker and then got in contact with my agent to see what was going on. 

He had already been to immigration and then to the Harbour Master this morning and had all my clearance documents completed and passports stamped without me having to come along with him, so I was very happy. This meant Sirocco and her crew had officially been cleared out of Indonesia. 

The trouble was I wasn’t ready to leave yet. I still had to do a few more jobs on the boat and I wanted to do some more grocery shopping before heading off. My agent was flapping a bit, but I knew I had 24 hours grace to get underway and I also had to time our departure to the arrival of our next anchorage tomorrow night.

 

We went for a very long walk and had the worst lunch ever at the Red Doorz Hotel. The food was awful and the service was crap, oh and yeah, I'm STILL waiting for my chips. It was stinking hot there too.

We walked all the way back to the dinghy doing some grocery shopping along the way. Luke stayed onshore while I went back out to the boat to do some more boat jobs and to get Sirocco ready for our departure tomorrow.

 

I had a shower at sunset and then headed back into the beach to have some dinner and a few beers. We got back to the boat around 22:00 and I wasn’t sad to say goodbye to Kupang for the second time.

 

Track Sirocco’s progress

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