Gili Air and Gili Trawongan

We seem to have adapted to our new life of cruising.  We fill our days with snorkeling, SUPing, eating, swimming and relaxing. We have met some fun, fellow minded yachties and take turns for drinks at each others boats.  Mush of the conversation revolves around sailing experiences, travel tales, galley comparisons, water makers discussions and air-conditioner envy.

mmmm....

The village at Gili Air is quiet and traditional.  The people are very friendly and relaxed.  Our local supermarket sells food, clothing, hardware,electrical goods. Photos say it all - don't you think!

On the way to the village

Traffic Lights for the horses and carts

Seriously!

Blue plastic chook moneybox or tube of sikaflex

Decisions, decisions

One of these things is not like the other ...

Daggy hat day

Heather had a dive with some fellow yachties from 'Pamplemousse'.  We drift dive in 23m off Gili Trawongan.  Visibility is excellent with loads of bright tropical fish, turtles, octopus, sea snakes, bump fish - alas so sharks today.

Gili Air

What and excellent place to be.  The anchorage is protected and deep.  Every day a little old man rows to the boat and hands us a flyer in a plastic bottle.  It informs us that they would like us to use their moorings rather than anchor and risk destroying their coral.  The parking fee is AU$5 per day - bargain!

The island has no cars or motor bikes.  Everyone uses foot, bicycles or horse and cart.  The roads are all sand tracks and there is a relaxed vibe.  There are loads of tourists as it is a diving/snorkeling dream.  The cafes have lounges and futons on the beach and everyone is friendly. We walk the perimeter of the island in 1.5 hours.

Gili Air

All good :-)

Spiders the size of my hand - eeew

Boat building

Senggigi, Lombok

There's not much wind so after a long day of motoring, we anchor at Sengiggi and we are the only yacht in the bay.  It has a dark sandy beach with over 200 brightly painted fishing boats on the beach.  The boats head out to fish every night and in the morning there are loads of baskets of fresh fish and much activity with repairing of nets and other boat maintenance.

Fishing boats with their catch

Senggigi from the boat

Steel De Breeze from the top of the hill

We stay 2 nights and enjoy the second night at The Sheraton - doing it tough again :-)  Graeme and I stayed here 20 years ago when the Fremantle to Lombok Race finished at Senggigi in 1993.  Its great to have long showers, a lazy day by the pool and of course re-provision with ice and fruit.

Dusk at the Sheraton

We feel clean and refreshed as we leave the beach with bags of clean laundry only to get caught is torrential rain.

We see something in the water and think it may be a headless chook.  On further inspection Graeme announces that the good news is it is not a chook :-)  The bad news is its a used nappy- eeew.

We board the boat, drenched, to find that our anchor is wound around steel and concrete 20m below - sad face.  We hire a young french diver to free the anchor chain and are on our way - happy face.

Gili Nangu - an optimistic visit!

We leave Nusa Lembongan and head for Gili Nangu.  We have read that it is a lovely spot with one warung and white silky beaches.  On arrival, we find it to be exactly as described.  What we don't know is that it is not a good anchorage   A few metres from the beach, the depth drops off to 30m with a roaring current between two islands.  Alas, we have a swim and head off to Senggigi.

Kintamani

Gili Nangu

Nusa Lembongan

Nusa Lembongan is definitely in the brochure!  We pull up a mooring in a pretty bay with surf breaks 100m away.  It is a beautiful spot with restaurants, warungs, surfing, supping (stand up paddle boarding), resting,  relaxing, motor biking, massages, wining and dining.  The bays and surrounding beached are beautiful however some of the island seems dry with cacti in among the mangrove swamps.  We decide to stay 3 days.

The Anchorage

Off to dinner

Children  - don't do this at home :-)

Riding over the suspension bridge to Cenegan

Awesome surf

At the blowhole and cliff jumping

Seaweed Farming

Getting ready for our cruise - off to Serangan

We spend a week of boat maintenance, re-provisioning, re-fueling, filling water tanks, laundering bed linen, drying mattresses and carpet,cleaning the boat.  We hire a lad to do the cleaning.  The guys purchase an air conditioner to dry the inside of the boat.  Mitch organises new steering cables in Perth and Sam and Josh arrive in Bali with a bag of nuts, bolts and boat fixing stuff.

In between this time, many friends fly in for Heather's 50th birthday dinner at The Three Monkeys.  It is a brilliant week of socialising, surfing, eating, chatting, swimming and shopping.  Many thanks to fantastic friends from Perth, Melbourne and Brunei who helped celebrate.

We organise local sim's for phones and laptops.  We do our final shopping at Hardys in Sanur then fill the esky with ice and bintang before and leaving Benoa Harbour.  Our friends Kate, Lisa, Meridee and David join us for the sail to our first destination at Serangan.  We stop for a swim on the way as the heat is stifling.  We are joined by a sea snake which is a bit disconcerting.  Apparently if we don't bother them, they won't bother us ... mmm.   We don't swim at Sarangan as it is a bit grubby with lots of rubbish and weed.  Graeme runs our visitors into Sanur in the dinghy and later we dine at a warung on the beach.  Overnight there is thunder, lightning and torrential rain.  Heather sleeps through it all to the disbelief of the gang.  We leave early for Nusa Lembongan the next morning.

Dusk at Serangan

A Podium Finish

SECOND ON IRC AND PHS
We are thrilled to gain second place with General Lee in first and Circa in third.  The presentation dinner  finishes our race campaign with great company, good food and dancing.  It is also time to say good bye to Robbie, Trish, Jan and Kevin.  John has already left to join Clare and the boys.

Podium Place

The booty

Sunday Day 9 – Towards the Finish

We’re getting a bit tired now as it’s really steamy and hot – very difficult to sleep. The girls are black and blue with bruises.  The wind starts dropping in the afternoon.  We need to make water more often as we are drinking loads of it.  We also need to charge the batteries more often due to our increased use of the water maker and Wilhelmina, of course. All fresh food is gone so we are down to packet food.  We have lots of food however the cabin is hot so not so comfortable to cook in the galley. 

Getting ready for the finish line

We know the Lombok current is ahead of us.  It is the last stretch of water before the finish line near Benoa Harbour. The current is renowned for causing boats to go backwards in light breezes.  It is difficult to know our ETA however we are hoping it’s about 8am tomorrow.  Today we are ready to get to the end.

Things we are most looking forward to:
Bintang

Shower

Crisp, clean, white bed linen

Enjoying a wee without a moving toilet

Clean clothes

Trisha’s lips (ok, that’s Robbie!)

Some quiet time with partners

Terra Firma

Overnight the breeze is steady and we hoist the Code Zero which gives us some more speed however the wind is dropping.  We have 7 miles to the finish line and we are doing 1-2 knots - lordy - that's 7 hours - sad faces.  We can see the coast of Bali and the surf at Nusa Dua. The current and eddies are strong in some places.  We tack in close to shore but not too close because we are near to the surf lines at Nusa Dua.  Its hard for us to stay focused as we are so close to the end in distance and so far in time.  We are not operating at 100% and understandably get a bit niggly. 

First sight of Bali

Then, as we round the point, a Race Control Rib zooms up to say hello - we are so excited however the finish is still an hour away with a lightening breeze. 

Race Control welcome us at Benoa

We start the engine, drop the sails and motor up the Benoa channel.  As we are still using auto-helm, it will be difficult to maneuver into our pen. We 'raft-up' to the Race Control Rib so they can guide us into our pen.  Indonesian customs board and we complete lots of paperwork.  Cold bintangs are delivered to the boat by Race Control - many thanks! 

Guiding us into our pen as we have no steerage

Finally we sail over the finish line to cheers from the finish boat. AWESOME!!!

We have finished - happy faces :-)

Breeze: 5-25 knots

Saturday Day 8 – Blue Skies at Last and Gin Tea

At long last … we have sunny blue skies and the breeze is dropping.  Wet weather gear is replaced with bikinis, boardies and undies.  

The bunks are damp and sweaty. It is humid and we have all the cabin fans switched on.  We sleep in as little clothing as possible.  The sunscreen is in use and sunbathing has begun – this is more like it! We bathe today and it is wonderful.  Lunch is tacos and the mood is relaxed and happy.

Navigating via ipad

Twin bruises

Wilhelmina auto-helm

We are excited when we have 299nm to go.  We again enjoy our Happy Hour followed by fillet steak, red wine jus, mashed potato and coleslaw.

The sun sets and we realize we need to put up the new watch roster.  Heather puts up the wrong roster and sends the watches into chaos – oops – sorry gang – didn’t mean to have all that sleep!

The night watch see dolphins torpedoing through the water with phosphorescence streaming behind them - a fantastic sight. 

At 3am, Lyn offers to make tea and coffee for the night watch.  Unbeknownst to her, John has forgotten to put away the Gin from last night's happy hour and the plastic bottle is sitting in the sink.  Our gin is stored in plastic water bottles to keep the weight down on the boat.  Lyn happily fills the kettle with Gin and boils it before making teas and coffee's.  She passes the mugs of hot liquid up to the crew.  They wait a while for it to cool and discover that they can't bring the mug to their lips without their nostrils flaring and eyes watering - oh - what a moment for Gin De Vries!  By the way, what is the flash point for Gin ... mmm.

Breeze: 15-25 knots                                                                                              

Best de-stressing technique: Lyn (dental flossing)

Friday Day 7 – We’re Racing Again - yippee!

Grey and overcast today, lumpy seas, 25-35 knots, wet weather gear (again) – this was not in the brochure!  

We decide to put a third reef in the main as the sun comes up.  In the light of day, Brian sponges out the back locker to get a good look at the steering cable in the hope of perhaps fixing it. Everytime he opens locker, waves wash over the stern to once again fill the locker. We decide to trust the auto-helm as its still have very rough conditions.  The mood is glum and in the afternoon John decides to crank up Pink Floyd at full blast and we are instantly uplifted. 

Adding the 3rd reef to the main

In the afternoon, Race Control then inform us that we can still race with auto-helm – we’re back!   We are very excited and we affectionately name our auto helm Wilhelmina.  

Happy hour is very happy tonight.  John is our barman and entertainment.  He also prepares our freeze-dried meal – Thai chicken curry and rice which I gotta say is excellent. 

Doing the bum dance :-)

 The sun goes down and all is well.  Sometime after 3am, the clouds are again black and fast-moving.  Another squall hits us with rain, hailstones and 32 knots.  It lasts for an hour which is pretty good.  Roll on Bali! 

Breeze: 20-30+ knots