BING BANG BUNG

I've given up trying to remember the names of the islands we are visiting. There are 17000 of them, but I've realised that most of them have Bing, Bang or Bung or similar in the name, so I just try one of those or a combination of them.  I appreciate this sounds very disrespectful, but my ageing brain has made the decision to just remember the places that are off the scale beautiful or have created massive trauma.  

BingBang, BingBung, Bungban ... all highly plausible. Letter B must be the most used letter here.

You will all be familiar with the concept of the 'shit sandwich'.  Something nice, something shit then something nice to soften the blow.

Well since our last blog a month ago, we have been in the midst of a 'Shit Mille Feuille.' 

Let me explain. 

I last left you when we were on our way to Borneo.   

We stopped at Bawean island en route where we met several other fellow cruisers all heading for the Kumai river in Borneo.  We formed a little posse with our own WhatsApp group for communication along the journey.  This has proved to be very helpful for all of us.

We stayed a few days on Bawean and one of the highlights was a tour of the island by motorcycle and a trip to see the waterfalls. Sadly provisioning was very limited and definitely nowhere was selling beer or wine. For a country where the most hardy produce is double or triple packaged in plastic and foam, it seems strange that eggs get sold to you in a single plastic bag.  Yes, by the time we had bounced about in the dinghy getting back to the boat, we had a plastic bag full of scrambled egg and shells.

This is how eggs get sold to you unless you buy a whole carton.  I bought a kilo - about 10, but 8 were totally smashed by the time we got back on board

This is an individual lemon.  For some strange reason it requires
individual cushioned plastic packaging.

The tour of Bawean island was great.  Some of the padi fields are breathtakingly beautiful and we experienced a continuous paved road all round the island which was a first since we arrived in Indonesia. We stopped at a local Warung where the most expensive meal was 13,000 rupiah. - approximately 50pence.  To be fair apart from a bit of spinal column, the chicken had just been wafted over it rather than included in the dish, but it kept us going. 

The waterfall walk was a nice change, but a two hour motor bike ride to get there was probably low on the cost-benefit scale

We left Bawean and embarked on a stressful overnight journey to Borneo.  Sailing at night here is treacherous and we were both a bag of nerves.  There are so many hazards to contend with; shallow patches, unmarked rocks, fishing nets, unlit fishing boats, Fish Attraction Devices and huge squalls. Sailing in Indonesia is not for the faint hearted. 

As we approached Borneo I was on night watch and was convinced I could see the coastline, yet according to the charts we were 60 miles away.  That seemed impossible, but I could not guess what the massive line of loom was on the horizon, if it wasn't coming from cities.

Sixty miles away the lights ahead in the night sky looked like a UK or US coastline - densely populated and highly lit, but google maps did not suggest that was likely

As we got within a few miles, the reality became clear; this was a continuous line of squid boats and fish attraction devices with huge arrays of LED lighting to attract fish

As dawn broke we saw hundreds of squid boats, packing up to go home after fishing at night, with very bright lights shining outwards to attract squid and fish.  

This is what each light turned out to be close up.  They have huge out rigging with lights attached. We spent the whole night dodging them.  Trying to see the boats and squalls on the radar made for a stressful night watch.

You definitely can't afford to doze off on night watch

We finally made it up the massive Kumai river to the port of Kumai which is a very industrial place.  

Not a pretty town to be honest

Slits in the top of the building so the swiftlets can get in to make their nests

One of the main exports and support for the local economy is the sale of the ingredients for Birds' Nest Soup.  This area has thousands of Swiflets that make their nests in the tall buildings which have been created to encourage their nesting. There are tiny openings into the upper stories for the birds to fly into and make their nests.  The nests are held together with spit from the male, which then hardens.  This is a delicacy in China and Japan and commands high prices.  There are external ladders on some of the buildings to go up and harvest the nests.

The main reason for our visit to Kumai and one of the absolute highlights of our travels has been the boat trip up a tributary of the Kumai river to see the Orangutans. We left Viridian on anchor in the main river and embarked upon a romantic river boat trip where the crew steered us up in to the jungle, fed us, pointed out wildlife and generally pampered us.  It was a very relaxing experience, not worrying about navigation, provisions, organisation; all done for us.  Absolute luxury. The view from our open air bedroom was spectacular. 

Our open air bedroom with excellent mosquito protection

The evenings on the boat were delightful. It was so peaceful.

The food was plentiful and tasty, so we probably ate a lot more than we needed.  But it was nice to not be cooking and washing up for a while.  

We were lucky to see many orangutans and other wildlife, including Proboscis monkeys, snakes and kingfishers. 

This Orangutan has seen a lot of visitors.  She looked a bit jaded.

This Orangutan came to the feeding station to grab some sweet potatoes

This lady has a baby on her back.  I'm working towards that level of strength to body weight!

After Kumai we had some gruelling passages involving huge squalls and more fishing hazards on our way to Belitung.  The anchorages are very rolly in this part of Indonesia, so it's difficult to sleep.  We have worn our oilies more here than anywhere since we left Portsmouth over 9 years ago! 

The boom has taken a lot of stick over the last few weeks and when we got to Belitung we realised that the bolt had broken at the gooseneck where the boom joins the mast.  So Greg tied it up with Dynema rope and we decided we can not risk using the mainsail until we get a replacement part from the UK.

Greg making use of his oilies

We are constantly looking out for squalls and adjusting our course to minimise them where possible. Squalls made up quite a bit of the shit in our Mille Feuille

Belitung turned out to be one of the delicious flaky pastry leaves in the Mille Feuille.  It is breathtakingly beautiful and largely unspoilt. We had never heard of it but apparently it was popular before COVID and has never recovered its full tourist trade, so it seemed very lovely to us.

The water is so clear - note the Viridian colour of the sea here

The granite rock formations are spectacular and the anchorage was beautiful. With our posse friends, we were the five boats on the anchorage. The water is so clear and clean.  We didn't see any of the debris, plastic and rubbish that we have seen in other parts of Indonesia.  We felt comfortable making water here. 

The granite rock formations are stunning and beg questions about their origins

View from the yacht club bar

Drone footage of Viridian on the left and our friends' boats in the anchorage. No filters.

Our evening meal at the beach restaurant - fresh fish and prawns with vegetables and Nasi Goreng plus 4 large beers - total cost £8

The posse out for dinner in Belitung

Well it couldn't be all relaxing and enjoying ourselves in Belitung.  We heard that we needed to get some interim paperwork before we can check out of Indonesia at our final port, so we hired a car and went to the town with Eduardo and Kamen from Shonandra to face the bureaucracy. It took all day.  We left the boat at 7am and finally got back at 6.30pm.  It involved hours of trailing from office to office, hanging around and then filling in paperwork with the inevitable charges at every stage.  It was exhausting and that was with the help of Kamen who speaks the language.  Imagine trying to do it by ourselves.

The captain had to fill in endless paperwork across four different offices and then back to the Harbour Master again to collect the signed documents

Here is the captain 'enjoying' using his boat stamp which is an absolute essential here.  I could  sense his satisfaction in giving the papers a good bang after 2 hours of bureaucratic madness

Three boats in our posse left Belitung and we followed with Shosandra the following day.  We are all now making our way west with the intention of finally checking out of Indonesia and checking into Malaysia. 

We headed to Gelasa Island which is a small and tricky anchorage which is why we went in two batches as there isn't enough room for five boats.  

We know there is a lot of reef there but it's hard to see at high tide.  Anyway we got the anchor laid after two attempts.  It was a nightmare anchorage.  the waves were rolling in hitting is on the beam all night.  we were rocking and rolling like a washing machine.  We got up early and stared in horror at the rocks at low tide.

pic from Greg

Shonandra set sail a few minutes before us.

Then disaster! We couldn't start the engine. We tried everything and it wouldn't start, so we realised we would have to sail off the anchorage.  We had one more go and got the engine to turn over, so I took up the anchor and as we started moving, Greg realised we had no power or drive in the engine going forward, so we had to float backwards off the anchorage and out to sea without being blown on the rocks.  It was awful.  Good job Greg is a very skilled yachtsman.

As soon as we got clear of the rocks we just got the genny out because remember we could no longer use the mainsail! So we were in a very vulnerable situation without a main sail and no engine.  We continued to try to fix the engine as we were sailing but it wasn't having it.  We messaged the rest of the group and said we were going to keep sailing including overnight because there was wind and we needed to get as far as we could while there was wind.  We were aiming to get to an easy access anchorage xxxxxx.

It was another night of sleeplessness with multiple hazards to contend with.

Endless squalls with torrential rain and high winds

A fish attraction device fixed to the sea bed

A tug pulling a barge of coal.  Not all boats have AIS. We thought it was an island looming up!

We were exhausted when we arrived, but how happy we were to see our friends coming out in their dinghies to help us into the anchorage without an engine.

Greg steering us into the anchorage under sail

The rescue party racing to our aid from S/Vc Tobyrruff, Le Reve and Malaika

And then they all piled onto Viridian and set the hive brain in motion to fix our engine.  They brought over their magic ingredient Start Ya Bastard (yes it's obviously an Australian product!)  but even that didn't work.

But after lots of trial and error, amazingly we got it going again.  It turned out that the rolling and rocking had dislodged something linked to the cold start which we didn't even know existed; so all our efforts to bleed the air and change the filters was never going to solve the problem. 

Anyway you are probably beginning to see why it's a shit Mille feuille rather than just a sandwich.

But this rainbow cheered us up

Sailing at night is particularly stressful in Indonesia, so we are constantly trying to get into an anchorage before dark.  We just made this one by the skin of our teeth.

But then waking up at dawn and experiencing this view, makes it all worthwhile

Just seeing the colours change over 10 minutes is magical

On our way to Nongsa Point we crossed the equator for the second time; this time going from the southern hemisphere to the northern and pointing towards home.

So now we have arrived in Nongsa Point Marina.  This is the first marina we have been in since Darwin nine months ago.  It is very relaxing to stop worrying for a bit. 

Of the four boats we have been travelling with for the last few weeks, two of them are heading to Langkawi to sell and to give up their boating dream for now.   Although it looks like a glamorous life when seen through the lense of a blog, with carefully selected photos, it is also quite a tough and challenging life.  It takes a huge toll on relationships, being in close proximity for 24/7/365 involving all of the power balances that shift in an arrangement that includes great danger and lack of creature comforts.  We are coming up to our 38th wedding anniversary and almost 10 years at sea.  It's a miracle we haven't killed each other...yet! 

We are looking forward to checking out next week, checking into Malaysia and then spending a few days in Singapore before we fly back to UK and start the countdown to Miranda and Jake's wedding. It may be a while before our next blog, but one things is certain, our life is never dull.

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