Tuesday 15 October 2013

Mainly uneventful

On the crossing from Darwin to Kupang, Indonesia. There wasn't much to report, the winds were very light and on the nose for most of the way. This is when it's a good time to have a big six cylinder diesel in your boat. Progress was slow going in the aid of saving fuel but we did have a small visitor who stayed for the day
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The remainder of the journey was much of the same UNTIL KUPANG. If anyone was to ask me if it was advisable to arrive at night I'd have to say no, it's not a good idea... We did. The amount of unlit fishing buoys, nets, platforms and boats is incredible! At least the boats are all single cylinder diesels with no silencers so you can hear them coming. The main source of nav light is a strobing white, red, blue light if they have any at all. WELCOME TO INDONESIA





The bank balance

Sometimes living the life on a yacht is very good for saving money and living frugally. Australia is not the place for this kind of existence! Recently we have spent most of our time on land than sailing which has been great fun at times. This leads me to our time in Darwin, someone told me is the tenth most expensive city in the world to live in. Before leaving the sort of civilisation that Australia offers which is very similar in many ways to home, a few of us decided to have a lot of fun in between working on Proteus. This included watching the Australian Super Bike Series, go karts on an outdoor circuit which have been the best so far, Ed from Crazy Daisy's birthday night out and a couple of nights in Litchfield National Park camping. This was the best bit for me with twelve of us in three 4x4s barbecues, dust track driving, water crossings, getting filthy dirty, swimming under waterfalls, seeing some wildlife and having a few drinks. See here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kzJ2_u4WkjA&feature=em-upload_owner. Tipperary marina was also an interesting place to get in and out of with no room for fenders either side going through the lock gates and literally a foot in front and behind once the gates were closed. I'm glad we did it all, now the only area of Australia I haven't visited is the east coast, maybe another year