Indonesia

What an amazingly bustling, hectic place full of friendly people. It was in Kupang that we cleared in through customs and obtained our cruising permits allowing us to tour the islands. In kupang there was also the Oyster party which featured most of the top figures in the city to greet us all along with some excellent local food and drink for the evening. Unfortunately I had two mishaps that evening. One at the start when I drove our tender through a mooring line for a small local fishing boat which cut it and the boat drifted off slowly, in my defence the line was about 100 ft long and under water, luckily the boat was recovered quickly. The second was when I got back to Proteus a bit later than Tosh and Bry, walked into the corner of the cockpit table and fell on my right knee twisting it badly. This would put me in a lot of pain and nearly out of action for a week or two. It still isn't fully recovered now three weeks later. Arranged by our top Oyster representative, Debbie was a trip up to the local orphanage. Along with this were many toys to play with including pen and paper. These kids didn't have anything and the boys even had to sleep on the floor! So off to the bed shop on the way to buy mattresses for them to sleep on. It was even apparent that the staff hadn't been paid for months so a donation was made to help them too. There is a bit of corruption in Indonesia and it seems bizarre how the police can afford a new shiny helicopter in comparison!

After Kupang we made our way up and round the North of the islands which is by far the most picturesque route full of beautiful bays, beaches and reefs. This took us round to Rinca in the Komodo reserve, home to many thousands of Komodo dragons. We took a tour along with others from Amelie, Spent, Sulana, Wolfhound, Purusha and Serendipity. This took us a long way round the reserve where we found Water Buffalo and the Komodo dragon. One buffalo was having a bad week and had been bitten by a dragon and was in the long process of slowly dying.

Next along was a trip to Gilli Air, a party island and fun place.  Once more there were a few Oyster yachts here and we had a big dinner ashore and a snorkel in the afternoon to cool off before up early to leave for Bali.

The sail to Bali was brilliant with good breeze, an interesting crossing across one of the busiest shipping straights in the world (not very daunting for anyone who has been across the English Channel on a busy day) and the sight of hundreds of the local, outrigger fishing boats going the opposite direction to us

Now tied up in Bali International Marina. This isn't as glamorous as it may sound and I may have had too higher expectations for the marina after hearing its name but the staff were very friendly and helpful and the bar was good. Bali is by far the most manic place I have ever visited, even more so than Kupang. The absolute highlight being a few of us jumping on new 250cc Kawasaki dirt bikes and heading inland up the mountains. This turned out to be an incredible way to see the island although Tosh and myself with very similar riding experience (neither of us can actually remember the last time we rode a motorbike) really did over sell ourselves to the tour guide and told them that we had ridden thousands of times and it as all good. So we set off and after a few metres were on the beach riding at high speed on the sand and over technical rocky outcrops. At this point it was running through my mind that I was massively inexperienced for this and there was almost certainly a massive crash going to happen imminently. As soon as I had excepted the inevitable I felt a lot easier and just got on with it. The tour took us through rice paddies, dirt tracks, hill sides, public roads and into the centre of Bali about 1000m up. The guides were excellent and encouraged a bit of rowdy behaviour so there was plenty of over and even undertaking, wheel spinning, donuts and wheelies plus a couple of crashes thrown in for good measure

This was some of the most fun I have ever had!

Another trip into Bali and to Kuta where the Bali bombings took place a few years ago. There was no everdince of any blast I could see, just a huge contrast from the inner of the island which was green and luscious to streets of knock off shops and bars and restaurants here, all pleasantly there to the soundtrack of a big ocean swell lapping up the steep beach.

9 October, my birthday. After much trying to persuade Tosh not to leave, I was at sea for the first time on my birthday. This was not the best fun I've had and I've decided to miss it out and do it again somewhere else.