Heading to Indonesia!

After a wonderful year and a half "down under" in the land of Oz, we are sailing out of Darwin today headed for Indonesia with the Sail Indonesia rally. We are so excited to be starting the next chapter of our journey and are looking forward to all the lovely and remote locations along the way. Our planned trip takes us up to Banda (the Spice Islands), over to Sulawesi for some of the best diving in the world, Komodo to tickle a dragon, then over to Bali. We then continue on to Borneo and will visit the orangutan santuary. There are many more stops and we'll update the blog whenever we have internet connectivity.

with Equanimity and Joy!

A Celebration, Two-for-One

So, leaving Cape York and heading across the Gulf of Carpentaria was done with a bit of trepidation. We heard many stories about how rough it can be, so we closely watched the weather, talked to locals, state of the tide (springs and neaps), etc. Boats queued up waiting for the right "weather window", which came on the 26th of June with a mass exodus from Seisia of about a dozen boats for the big dash across "the Gulf". It turned out to be a great trip... no worries mate, not sure what all the fuss was about. J We also knew that a new high pressure system was moving in down south and it would get windy again in a couple of days up here, so were thinking about continuing on to Cape Don, another 2 days. But since it was Sherry's birthday the next day and a rest sounded good after 345 miles, 3 days and 2 nights at sea, we put into a small bay. Two Island Bay is located just under Cape Wessel, which is at the top of a long line of thin low lying islands about 75 miles from the mainland. Basically, we were out in the middle of nowhere. But we weren't alone as 7 other boats stopped there as well. The boat 'Rutea' offered to host a celebration cocktail party... How convenient is that with Sherry's birthday the same day! It was great fun and a wonderful day. Here's a little video clip to record the extravaganza.

 

 

We stayed here a few more days waiting for the high to move on and let the winds settle down a bit. We decided to put to sea somewhat early as it was still a bit blustery, but we knew we wouldn't make it sailing all the way if we waited another day as the winds were expected to die before we got to the other side. So we put up with strong winds and big seas (3-4 meter waves) for 24+ hours that rolled EQ around quite a bit. But she’s a good sailor and the autopilot didn't miss a beat, so all we had to do was hang on. 405 miles, another 3 days and 2 nights later, we were motor-sailing into Darwin with light winds and a lovely sunset, happy to be in one place for a few weeks. J

Now, that's 2214 nautical miles from Brisbane and the RQYS, where 1464 of those miles was up the coast of Queensland and 750 miles across the top of Oz. All in less than 2 months. Certainly not enough time, but we're on a mission to head into SE Asia and the "Orient". J

So, that's the news from EQ, where the winds a fair, the seas following, and the crew content.  J
with Equanimity and Joy