BALI TO GILI AIR> heading towards Borneo

The reversal of the Monsoon was approaching, as Parpar lay at anchor in the brown lagoon at Benoa, on the island of Bali. In fact, the transitional period had already begun, I had seen the first squall drift over the anchorage from the Northwest. Only a week before it was all trade winds and clear skies. Now a flat, humid calm hung over the island. Rain fell for the first time in months. It was time to up anchor and get moving.

Parpar had been anchored in Bali a month and a half. I had pulled out the propeller shaft to install a new coupling and figure out why there was so much vibration and movement around the stuffing box.

It came down to the engine mounts being too soft. In Cairns, Australia, I had installed a new Yanmar 3JH4E. The brand new Yanmar mounts were ridiculously soft and, at sea I watched as the engine swayed back and forth with the boat’s motion.

Now, a little late in the season, I needed to cross the Java Sea, and Singapore Straits, and eventually head up towards Thailand.

My girlfriend was home visiting family, whom she hadn’t seen since we had left the boat in Fiji, one and a half years before. She had purchased a return airline ticket to Singapore, so I was on my own for the next 1000 miles and twenty days at sea.

Parpar is easy enough to sail singlehanded, however the lack of wind and quantity of cargo ships, fishing boats, and other hazards such as fish rafts and stakes, made me a little apprehensive. I knew this was not going to be like sailing downwind in the South Pacific trades, where days went by without sighting a single ship, and the ocean was deep for hundreds of miles in front of the bow.

I perused the chart the day before my departure and came across such strange annotations as “dangerous wreck, position uncertain, use caution” and “some wrecks and other hazards have been omitted from the 10meter contour, use caution”. In any case, October 12 came along and if I wanted to get to Singapore before 20 knot headwinds kicked into full swing, it was time to go.

The Lombok Strait, separating the islands of Bali and Lombok, has a strong tidal stream, which sets south most of the time. This was to be my first sea-trial since I had reinstalled the propeller shaft, realigned the engine, and placed shims under the engine mounts to lower the engine’s relative position on the four adjustable mounting bolts. This, I hoped, would inhibit the pendulum motion the engine was prone to develop, sitting high on his mounts.

Once clear of the anchorage, I peaked down into the engine room. The shaft was spinning smoothly and the engine, at 2000RPM was not vibrating excessively.

A friend, Alf, on the yacht Freedom Fargo, was heading west as well, so we decided to set sail on the same day. I gave him a rendez-vous on Lembogan Island. There I wanted to scrub the propeller and do a few other underwater chores, which the murky water of Bali’s harbour prevented me from performing.

After a slow sail against the current I reached Lembogan on a beam reach, and took a mooring from one of the day charter catamarans that ferry tourists to and from Bali.

I was feeling great. The water was so clear, my mooring’s chain was visible to the seafloor. Slow swimming groupers and bright coral heads speckled the bottom. Silence on board was broken by the squelch of the VHF radio, Alf’s thick south german accent called “ hey Locky, why don’t you put your dinghy in the water, and come for dinner, I’ll try to catch something to eat”.

Alf was also sailing solo, as he had just finished a charter, and his next guests weren’t coming on board until Malaysia, 1000 miles away.

The next morning at dawn I hoisted anchor and began motoring into a 4 knot current that lasted all of Lembogan’s west coast. On the northern tip I rode a favorable current about 6 miles eastward and by that time the heat of the day brought the trades which pushed me along under full sail up the eastern side of the Lombok Strait 28 miles to Gili Air, a small island off Lombok’s Northwest tip.

Having made my official clearance out of Indonesia at Bali, I had my reservations about wandering around Gili Air, but once on land it was obvious this was a very relaxed place. The waterfront was lined with little Warung (eateries) and bars. A bartender leaned over to me as I walked past and said out loud, “here Gili Air, no police, no problem…”. I was relieved. As I found out in Indonesia, you can get out of most situations, but you must be willing to pay. The Police take advantage of the already corrupt system by stopping Giri (tourists/foreigners) on the street for no reason. Then, one officer usually makes up an intimidating story of what violation has occurred, and so on….Then they say, you must report to the judge, but all this can be solved right here for…..10US. Actually I got quite used to this in Indonesia and got into the habit of bargaining down the price. Or sometimes I would pull out my French I.d. card, which looked quite official, and tell them I worked at the French Consulate, this guaranteed they let me on my way with no further hassle. I think I pulled that one about four times.

Gili Air was a rolly anchorage, open to the wide Lombok Strait and the Indian Ocean…after two days it was time to sail north to Kangean a small island a third of the way to Kalimantan.…

………..to be continued…next up my autopilot breaks on a windy rainy night off the south coast of Kalimantan and I watch in vain, my futile efforts over the vhf and with a spotlight, as my friend Alf gets run down by a freighter.