First day sailing and our headsail clew broke free! What?
There it flapped, the big headsail and we just looked at each other and thought “ What now?”
We had just left, do we turn back? Try to fix it?
So down it came and Chris got to work on it. After a while we hoisted it back up. What a palaver. The fixed lasted all of 5 minutes……so up goes the little headsail, all good but it did slow us down a lot.
The following few days we had wind on the nose, funny jumpy waives and it was all hard work. The auto-helm was working good so spent the days reading and sleeping. The kids had great time watching movies and gaming.
After 5 days we anchored in Kupang. What a feeling! So happy to be on the move again, so looking forward to explore and taste the food.
Agent sorting out the paperwork, pcr tests done, SIM cards delivered, all we had to do was sit there for 8 days quarantine.
Chris did a better fix with the headsail, school, washing, cooking and movie watching, the time flew. And we were free.
Had first taste of Indonesian food, a smoked beef dish that is only made in Timor.
Chris had his birthday so we all got invited to the Swedish boat, Sans Peur. Great evening but not one photo.
One by one boats left and when our paperwork was sorted we left for for the island called Flores and a town called Larantuka. A straightforward motor sail for a day and night. The one thing we had to keep a lookout for was the FADS. Fishing devices, usually made out of bamboo that they plonk anywhere.
Then during the day they tie their boats to it and fish.
We had trouble anchoring in Larantuka. Very deep with poor holding so moved up the channel a bit and managed to anchor outside the residential houses. And soon enough we had kids and youngsters visiting us. Happy people indeed. These guys got a nice paddle from us.
Our local guide, Ridwan took us out for a day of sightseeing.
Went to a local village and bought material, ikat they call it.
We also went to a waterfall, nice and cold.
The other village we went to we managed to upset the chief. Oh my…..I thought our guide knew them as this was the place for the drum made out of human skin. We went to have a look and of course should have asked permission first. Then there was intense discussion for the following 10-15 minutes and I just stood there waiting to see what’s going to happen….
The local children were gathering around us, curious and laughing. Anyway, got permission and I got my photo….
Larantuka is a busy town.
After 4 days it was time to go. We knew we only have so much time in Indonesia before the weather changes so the next stop was on the east side of Flores, a two night sail to Labuan Bajo.
As Chris pulled the anchor up the windlass decided to die. Couldn’t believe it. What now? It’s all deep anchoring from now onwards. I had a vision of Chris to manually pull up 40-50m plus chain…..don’t think so….anyway off we went and let’s see how it goes.
moodyfinn 