Just over an hour into my watch, AIS springs into action and tells me that the cargo ship Boston will be too close for comfort in about half an hour, her closest passing estimate wavering between just over a mile (comfortable) and about a tenth of a mile (terrifying). Given that I have been watching the blip on the radar and lights outside, this sudden information means that Mike is dragged out from his bed by his babbling wife who deems the situation so dire that she puts knickers on for the first time in a week.
Mike turns all our lights on and calls them on the VHF. No answer. After four tries he puts the engine on, alters course so that we will motor parallel to them and sits with our large spotlight trained on the sails making us as visible as possible. Eventually the Boston answers. Yes they know we are there. Thanks guys. We were sailing and had right of way – we shouldn’t have had to put the engines on and alter course.
We watch their approach, our new course meaning that they pass us about two miles to port then Mike cuts the lights and the engine, puts us back on course and returns to bed. Amazing. As the ship disappears into the distance, her rear lights looking like the planet Mars (she’s just trying to confuse me) I give the crew the V-sign – sea hogs!
We continue to sail through the night, watching as fishing boats crop up, lights blazing, then disappear over the horizon. None of them cause us any difficulty though.
I finish my watch at 5.45 am and thinking that I would sleep for ages, am severely disgruntled when I wake up just a couple of hours later. By this point the wind has nearly died again and Mike has put the engine on. When I get up I find we are surrounded by fishing boats, quite large ones which seem to spend their day going round in circles and getting in the way.
While Mike plays dodgems with the fishing boats, I tackle the problem I spotted yesterday with one of my dried food boxes, or rather, the stowaways in it – weevils, the little blighters. When we went through the quarantine inspection in Mackay, my boxes were free of weevils and all the food is in ziploc bags anyway. Suddenly one of these boxes has loads of these things in it. They are not nasty, and if you accidently ate a few they wouldn’t do you any harm, but the idea isn’t nice. I take all the bags out, flick the offending things off back into the plastic box then empty it over the side to feed the fish.
Photos: Fishing boats of all description get in the way
As we approach Bali, we have loads of dolphins all around the boat, but they don’t act like any dolphins I have seen so far. They are very shy. They come charging towards the boat, leaping and pirouetting in the air, then immediately they get to the boat, they make a graceful arc in the water and swim off in the opposite direction. How strange.
There’s also quite an abundance of rubbish in the water as we approach land. I have never been anywhere quite so dirty. The sea is strewn with plastic of every kind; plastic bags, food containers, bottles and such like, all caught up with floating dead sea grass, making huge streams of garbage. Not a very nice introduction to Bali.
While the generator and water maker are on I do a load of washing and I am almost finished when I stupidly lean over the machine and pull out a huge sheet which is heavy with water. My back shrieks in complaint and so do I. Mike orders me to lie down immediately, but after about 5 minutes I get up and carry on – I want to get done before we get to the marina.
Photo: Mike helping with the laundry
Approaching Benoa, it’s like being in Benidorm, but hotter and more frenzied. I have never seen such a crazy entrance to a marina or such a crowded expanse of water. You have to fight your way through water taxis, fishing boats, speedboats pulling people riding those stupid bananas, speedboats getting parascenders up into the air and small traditional one man fishing vessels. In fact, from a distance, the parascenders look like a huge flock of large birds.
Photo: Parascenders litter the sky
I go to make us a quick lunch. Intending a salad, I turn the tap to wash the lettuce and no water comes out. Given that we have been running the water maker and have a full tank, that’s very strange. I go down to one of the bathrooms and try the tap there. Same thing. Terrific. Water pump failure. I shout to Mike but there’s no way he can do anything about it now so we end up with cheese, crackers and chorizo.
Wary of making my back worse, Mike helps me tie the fenders and lines onto the boat. We are to go in a temporary position until Skylark leave as we are having their space. I am so pleased to see Stephen waiting on the dock with Suzanna to take our lines. When we are secure I get off the boat as quickly as my back will allow me and give him a huge hug. I will really miss him and Ed as they are now leaving the World Arc and taking Stephen’s boat, Skylark, to Singapore. I have always looked forward to seeing them whenever we arrive somewhere new. And I never did get my curry Stephen, so yes, I will land on you in Kuala Lumpur one day!
We take on some fuel at the dock and when Skylark eventually leaves, we untie the lines and move a couple of hundred yards around the corner and into the marina and secure her once more. Only Basia is left here, another Privilege catamaran, and she is moored next to us.
Mike tries the kitchen tap again and it works. Strange. However, ten minutes later it won’t work again. He strips the starboard bed out to get down to the engine room and finds that the fresh water flush to the water maker has got stuck in the ‘on’ position and the pump has overheated and stopped working. It also means that we have flushed 20 gallons of freshly made water out of the boat and now have the cleanest water maker membranes in the world. He knows he won’t be able to get parts for this here, simple as they may be, so in the meantime will flush it with salt water until we get to Mauritius or South Africa.
He goes off with Paul to customs and immigration to sort the paperwork out but they only manage to get half of it done before the offices shuts so he will have to go back tomorrow. All this for less than two days!
I go to arrange a sightseeing tour for tomorrow – a full day in a car with a driver and guide will cost about $40 US each and should take in most of the sights. Talk about a whistle stop tour!!
We get some work done on the internet and then head for the marina restaurant. With the ARC recently departed, we are the only ones in there. We opt for local food rather than ‘international’ – I can’t see the point of going to somewhere like this and having a burger. The food is excellent, and at around £3.50 a head, very good value although Mike’s beer costs as much as the meals.
Exhausted, we head back to the boat and crash.
Our position is: 08 deg 44 min S, 115 deg 12 min E
Distance so far: 12866 nautical miles
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