Current
I'm not sure what else I can say about headwinds and counter-currents – it's all starting to feel a bit like Groundhog Day! But we are slowly chipping away at the distance, and there's definitely light at the end of the tunnel.
Speaking of challenges, my friend Gary (who, as you know, is cruising in the opposite direction) reminded me of another exciting nautical feature of Indonesia that we haven't encountered yet on this trip: massive tugboats towing barges. This might not sound particularly thrilling until I mention the exciting part – they often have no lights or AIS! Sometimes, three tugs and barges will share a single AIS transponder, leaving two of them traveling in convoy with the "lucky" one that has AIS.
To add to the fun, there is (or perhaps "was" is the operative word) a 100-meter vessel about 5 nautical miles ahead of us that was simply labeled "other" on the AIS. Well, it was labeled "other" until they apparently either turned off their AIS or the front fell off and it sank. Who knows!
We've decided to clear into Indonesia at Tual, an island just ahead of us. There are two reasons for this. Firstly, the more I read about corruption in Sorong, the less inclined I am to hand over my passport to someone who's likely to confiscate it until we pay an agent to negotiate its return. Secondly, we're hoping to get some extra fuel there for the final push north, which looks like it might be windless.
