It's starting to feel very equatorial – lots of gray skies, squalls, and that hot, sticky humidity. We've got about 80 nautical miles to go before we reach a channel between two islands by Irian Jaya Barat, the western end of PNG. The plan is to navigate through there in daylight, which will leave us just 35 nautical miles from the marina in Sorong. So we will slow down later to arrive at the channel at first light. Yesterday was a bit of a mixed bag, with some slow sailing and some slow motoring. It's funny how the wind could spring up from 360 different directions but always seems to come from every direction except the one we want when it finally decides to show up! We ended up doing a few tacks yesterday because it was constantly shifting around. We've seen a bit of shipping traffic and the usual assortment of fishing boats. We can always tell when a fishing boat is nearby without even looking because suddenly there are flies buzzing around the saloon. I guess eve...
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Well, it's fantastic to be leaving Tual behind and setting our sights on Sorong ! The journey is slow but steady, with the wind hovering around zero knts so let's just say it's "calm" today. It is great to be heading in exactly the right direction but a shame to be motoring, especially since we're totally reliant on the generator to keep those electric motors humming. It's a bit nerve-wracking, to be honest, as we keep a close eye on that recent repair and hope it holds out for a while longer. The thousand or so nautical miles from Port Moresby to Tual were a real test of our patience and a bit of a grind – mostly battling wind and current. So, I'm incredibly happy to be moving in the right direction now, and I am ready to call 4knts a decent speed! It's truly disheartening to be pushed further and further away from your destination by a strong current, watching that VMG (Velocity Made Good) dwindle down. Right now, we're navigating around a g...
Well, this is going to be a brief update, but I don't even know where to start. We arrived in Tual on Christmas afternoon, and I wasn't really expecting anything to happen, but it was nice to be anchored. We were told we would be cleared in the next day. We spent all day waiting for the Quarantine guy to come "in a few hours," "shortly," "he will be there in a while," "he just has to finish something," "after he's had his lunch." He finally arrived on the 27th at 11 am, and I wasn't very happy. I am at a complete loss as to how to explain the level of complete frustration and almost overwhelming perplexity of what happened when he got to the boat. He sat in the cockpit watching videos on Facebook. I wish I could say I was exaggerating, but I looked over his shoulder. Has our addiction to cell phones become so great we are completely oblivious of our surroundings and think it's acceptable to behave like this? It'...
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 apparent...
Well, the weather hasn't exactly been great since we left the Torres Strait. Yesterday was a bit of a rollercoaster – squall after squall with moments of flat calm in between. Then, from early afternoon, we were in a non-stop squall-fest for hours! Thankfully, around midnight the wind finally eased off, but now it's barely 5 knots, which is pretty much like trying to sail uphill on ice. So, we're playing a delicate game right now – trying to make decent progress in the right direction while also keeping an eye on our fuel consumption. Oh, and let's not forget the ever-present challenge of dodging cargo ships, tankers, and those dense clumps of fishing boats and nets! And a quick note to everyone on the Lewmar design team: the name "captive winch" kind of implies the rope is being held against its will on the drum and not allowed to bunch up and fall off. Maybe "unconfined winch" would be a more accurate name?