Yacht Delivery Blog

Last night went pretty smoothly, mainly due to the absence of rain, giving us visibility. The familiar display of flashing green and blinking red lights – the local interpretation of navigation lights – filled the night sky. Interestingly, the number of flashing lights often hints at the size of the fishing boat. Vessels with three or more lights might even boast an AIS (Automatic Identification System). One encounter particularly raised our interest. A massive bulk carrier shared our course, with four fishing boats ahead. Two of them, thankfully, had AIS. The situation became a tense game of "chicken." The ship steadily approached the cluster, its bearing line seemingly targeted right through one of the smaller boats. We anticipated the AIS signal to vanish at any moment.  Surprisingly, none of the parties flinched. The fishermen continued their activities seemingly oblivious to the approaching doom. With the ship's deep draft hovering around 10 meters, we made a calcula...

This morning, a sliver of clear sky broke through the persistent clouds, a welcome sight after days of poor weather. This glimpse of sky, coupled with the first sighting of stars in ages, fueled a bold decision: we're skipping the planned anchorage and heading straight for Lombok! Currently, we're 17 nautical miles from last night's anchorage heading straight to sea, still cruising in shallow waters of only 13 meters. Interestingly, we've found ourselves leading an unexpected social media dance.  As we approach fishing boats, the scene unfolds through our binoculars. Half the crew frantically pulls in their nets, while the other half, well, let's just say their phones seem far more captivating. Capturing a video of a gleaming white 50-foot yacht for Facebook clearly takes precedence over the day's catch!  Honestly, can we blame them? To an average Indonesian fisherman, this must be a sight unlike any other – a UFO (unidentified floating object) slic...

Despite now being south of the equator, the weather remained unchanged even though we are several miles into the southern hemisphere! It's still very calm and the lack of wind made for a sweltering day. One moment, we were gliding through the water at a pretty respectable 7.5 knots, thanks to a helpful push from the current. We were cruising along nicely and then, just like that, our familiar foe returned – the primary filter housing clogged with debris from the tank. Thankfully, we've gotten used to this little dance, and it was fixed within the hour. My feeling is that we will eventually suck up all the debris from the bottom and this will happen less and less. Unfortunately, my hope of getting a mesh strainer in Singapore on one of Rhona's missions didn't pan out – they didn't have anything that would fit our 9mm hose. We also fired up the water maker today for the first time, and it functioned perfectly. We couldn't test it in Singapore because the water the...