RTW Leg 23: Indonesia and The Indian Ocean

Lucy ponders a sleeping Green Turtle

Its been 60 days and 5000 miles under the bow since Lucy brought you into Kupang on that dark night, dodging a myriad of invisible fishing boats with nothing other than our radar at hand and miraculously dropping anchor without incident. As Lucy and I respired voluminous sighs of relief, we were oblivious to the excitements that lay ahead. Had Lucy had a small traveling crystal ball, there is no doubt that her regular threat to head for the nearest airport would have been implemented without pause for hesitation.

Clearing into Kupang, this pair are from bio security.

Kupang is the capital of Eastern Timor and was a dusty, dirty and noisy place that brought home the sheer pleasure of the chaos that is Indonesia. It was a joyful contrast to Australia’s humorless rule book society where everything is dictated by draconian lists of do’s and don’ts. We loved Australia, but they do love their rules. Indonesia is in stark contrast where, for example, you routinely see an entire family of four; mum, dad, son and daughter on a moped. And guess who’s wearing the only helmet? Dad. The single hold Kupang had on us was to clear in with the usual round of visits to Customs, Immigration, Bio Security and Port Authority which, in all of our proceeding countries, could take anything from one to three hours. Here in Indonesia they take bureaucracy to a whole new level and even with our fixer Jemmy to grease the palms of the officials, an entire blistering hot day was taken to secure the necessary stamps, certificates, visas, licenses and authorisations, all laboriously receipted in long hand over triplicate carbon copy pads of yesteryear and finally thwacked into submission by the obligatory rubber stamp.

We gained a hill and were all about to climb the steps to seek some shade when our guide spotted this dragon. Blistering barnacles, a close call or what?

The next day we weighed anchor for an overnight passage to Komodo National Park. An archipelago between the islands of Sumbawa to the west and Flores to the east. Famed for the dragons, we headed directly to Rinca Island where we were assured of the best chance of a close encounter. Here we rejoined Patrick and Sheila of Moxie, a British couple who we first met in Darwin and were also circumnavigating. We four went ashore and collected a guide who carried a very long stick. A safety talk warned us of how the Komodo dragon can outrun a human, climb a tree and when they catch you they bite you and in so doing, inject you with a venom that slowly kills you while their saliva contains an anticoagulant encouraging you to continually bleed out laying down a scent trail which facilitates their tracking you to your death spot and din dins. The man with the very long stick led the way into the thick bush.

Always welcome, ever entertaining

One of the great enjoyments of our journey has been scuba diving. Did you know that scuba stands for self-contained underwater breathing apparatus? We have been spoilt rotten with diving in some of the world’s greatest dive spots and Komodo was right up there as one of the best of the best. We headed up to Bajo on Flores where all the dive companies operate from and signed up with Blue Marlin Diving. On a whim, we decided to have a crack at our PADI Advanced certificate which would involve five dives over two days. Each of the five dives focused on a particular specialisation for which preparatory study was required. One the first day we undertook the two compulsory modules: A deep dive to 30m and a navigation dive. The navigation requires you to wear a compass on your wrist and complete a number of exercises following bearings and back bearings. Poor Lucy, who couldn’t find her way out of a paper bag, found it all a bit much, retreating into one of her dark bad moods that took every encouragement to coax her from. An annoying ear infection cancelled day two for her but Broadsword’s medicine chest is replete with every exotic flavor of anti biotics you care to imagine. After a consultation with Dr John and his stethoscope, we soon had Lucy back in the water to complete and pass the course a week later.

You lookin at me??

We had a long-standing rendezvous with our friends Mark and Carol with whom we had booked a smart hotel for a week on Lembongan, a small island to the east of Bali. I had decided that we could sail Broadsword directly to Lembongan and put her on a mooring just along the beach from the hotel. The passage was three days. On the afternoon of day two we ran out of wind and I put the engine on, but instantly knew there was a problem and turned it off. The sound from the exhaust was wrong and it was obvious that the essential cooling sea water was not being pumped through. What followed was probably the worst 24 hours we have had on Broadsword since leaving the UK. I went through the usual checks: Check sea water strainer, okay. Remove intake pipe out of the hull fitting then turned the sea cock on; good flow. Unscrew the face plate of the impeller; looked good. Disconnect the outflow pipe out of the sea strainer and put in a bucket of water, turned the engine on; not good, no suction. Hmmm. This was about as far as I could get on my own. I phoned Volvo Penta (thank you Elon Musk), who connected me to their nearest agent in Singapore who was incredibly helpful talking me through a series of other checks and possible fixes. I was Tom Hanks speaking to Ed Harris. The beads of sweat rolled from my forehead as I executed the intricate instructions from Houston as the world held their breath, the fate of my crew in the hands of the gods. Four hours of trying this and trying that, all in a rolling boat in a pitching sea, resulted in the diagnosis of a failed sea water pump. In other words, the engine was fucked.

Impeller tickity boo

It was getting dark and the prospect of trying to find a safe haven with no engine on a dangerous coast at night with ferocious tides seemed about as sensible as chucking a pint of warm beer in Begby’s face. We sailed out to sea to get away from the hard stuff where we hove too for the night. I then contacted the small Marina Del Ray on Gilli Gedde off Lombok to see if they could take us. Ray was an utter diamond and gave sage advice and sympathetic support including preparing a boat to tow us in when we got within range. To do that, we had to sail north up the Lombok straight. Its impossible to get accurate tidal current information in Indonesia, whats available is limited to tidal heights and a general notion that the flood tide runs north between the islands.

Every hour I plotted a way point to track my movements. Note the start position at 0500 hrs in the top right then the drift back to the 0900 position.

On that basis, I planned to time Broadsword’s entry into the Lombok strait one hour after low water at 0500 hoping to ride a northerly flow. I worked Broadsword into position with strong 25 kts of wind behind but nothing could have prepared me for what happened next. As we neared the 12 mile wide straight, the tide in front of us rapidly increased and the waves behind rapidly grew. In short order we had 7kts of tide against us and with our boat speed at 6kts, we were going backwards. The following waves behind had grown to 4m monsters so there was no possibility of turning round and going back. If we had an engine, we could have crept close to shore where undoubtably the tides would be weaker but without an engine, I could not risk being driven onto the rocks powerless to extract from the dangers. Meanwhile, Lucy who has been off watch, gets up with all the commotion and goes to the heads at the precise same time as a huge breaking wave thunders into our cockpit. I’m standing on top step of the companion way taking in the mayhem when I spot the wave about to break on us and have just time enough to whip the wash boards up and save the saloon from a flooding. Lucy, unprepared and unaware is thrown against the wall of the heads as everything else down below dislodges and crashes about the place. We are in Wolfgan Peterson’s U-96 and a depth charge has just exploded. Lucy is crying and inconsolable. There was no doubt that we were in deep shit and if we had been in the UK I would not have hesitated for a moment in calling the Coast Guard and deploying the RNLI but this was Indonesia and the nearest they have to a rescue service is a wing and a prayer. This lasted for five hours. We were stuck not going forward and sometimes backwards, when a remarkable thing happened. All of a sudden, the sea transformed from a 4m tempest to flat oily calm. It was instantaneous. As if Poseidon was at the control panel for the sea and decided to pull down on the “calm” lever. The relief was palpable, progress could now be made and north we went round the Lombok headland and then a torturous beat into a diminishing wind, tacking through the intricate channels to Marina Del Ray arriving just before sunset where a tender met us and coaxed us onto a mooring. This was a most terrifying experience and really brought home how vulnerable one can be at the mercy of the sea.

Lucy chillaxing at Marina Del Ray

With a new sea pump on order from the UK, we left Broadsword in psychotherapy at the marina, and took a series of three inter island ferries to Lembongan, which, unlike Caledonian MacBrayne, were all on time and not cancelled. We felt like battle weary soldiers pulled back from the front line to rest and recuperate before the next big push. It was an incredible week with Mark and Carol, luxuriating in a bed that does not move, pampered by attentive staff and where every night was a party and every day an adventure. We had such a laugh it was just the tonic that Lucy and I needed after five months at sea on Broadsword and the trauma of the passage from hell. All too soon, the week came to an end and it was a teary farewell to our lovely friends and back to Broadsword we ferried.

A lovely week of fun and frolics with fab friends

You Tube and I fitted the new sea water pump and we were good to go. Broadsword cleared out of Serangan the port on the south east of Bali and the mighty Indian Ocean lay ahead. This behemothic ocean with a wraparound horizon and a never-ending sky would render Broadsword infinitesimal, like a tiny loose thread on a giant tapestry. I was excited, Lucy was anxious and it was these divergent perspectives that was core to our success. I enjoyed risk, Lucy deplored danger. I cut corners, Lucy put up road blocks. I was glass half full, Lucy’s glass was always empty. This balance and counter balance time and again kept Broadsword true and the crew safe whilst progressing the journey with a forward momentum . The Indian Ocean was our third ocean and in many respects the most challenging and dangerous with forecasts less reliable and conditions prone to escalate to violence without notice.

Refueling for the Indian Ocean crossing

There are three recognized routes across the Indian Ocean to South Africa: The southern route which goes to Mauritius and on past the south tip of Madagascar. The middle route goes over the top of Madagascar and then down the Mozambique channel while the northern route takes in Chagos and the Seychelles before heading south past Mozambique. All three routes are probably the most technically challenging and unpredictable of any passage on a circumnavigation. We elected to go north as we wanted to visit the Chagos Islands, while in Seychelles we were assured a safe and secure place to leave Broadsword for our return to the UK for work. The north route it was, 3500 miles on the rhumb line with the three C’s for stepping stones; Christmas, Cocos and Chagos.

We are aiming for Victoria in the Seychelles, then Durban. Our start point is Bali just east of Jakarta

Each of these three island have their own unique history to tell and their population a living testament to their past. Christmas Islands was established as phosphorous mine in the early Empire days and the indentured Malay and Chinese workers were the forbears of todays population. Now an Australian external territory, Christmas Islands is perhaps best known for its Red Crab migration as documented by David Attenburgh featuring over 100 million crabs simultaneously marching from the jungle burrows to the sea to spawn. After three days from Bali, we arrived at Flying Fish Cove and enjoyed two nights respite before our next leapfrog to Cocos Keeling.

Coconut crab, blue grotto, baby booby, banyan tree, inside of same banyan where the host tree has rotten away to nothing, big sky

Cocos Keeling was the personal estate of the Scottish Clunies-Ross dynasty. Gifted to Clunies-Ross by Queen Victoria, the Malay’s who worked the coconut plantations for five generations are the dominant population of today. Whilst through an act of self determination the Islands became an Australian territory in 1955, it was only in 1978 that the Australian government bought the islands from the Clunies-Ross who still live there today. We anchored off Direction Island which still had ruins and memories of a cable station, the junction box for under sea cables that linked Australia, India, South Africa and Great Britain by phone. The anchorage was congested with the Grand Large Rally fleet and we were ready to steal the march.

Cocos Keeling: Direction Island pier, surrounded by sharks, our anchorage (Broadsword second from right), and five generations of the Clunies-Ross.

The weather was blowing a hoolie and the forecast offered no imminent respite. We were faced with a choice of holding for an abatement in three days or cracking on regardless. Our schedule was tight and we’d rather spend the precious days in Chagos so with a collective “fuck it”, off we went. The moment we left the womb like embrace of the atoll, we wondered how sensible the decision had been. Whilst the weather was coming from behind, it was a steady 25kts gusting low 30’s with 3m to 4m waves. Whilst this is tolerable during the day, at night it’s scary. You cant see the waves nor anticipate the boat being hit and bracing accordingly. We would routinely put a reef in for the night watches, but if we got hit by a strong squall the poled out jib had to absorb terrific forces and usually a change in wind direction. At night you could monitor the squalls approach on the radar and if it looked like a bad un, we would wind the jib in and roll out the much smaller stay sail. Of course, all this took time, particularly in the pitch dark, and you had to be on your toes to react quickly. These edgy conditions persisted for four days. With watches and lack of sleep the conditions soon wear you down to just existing. As you can imagine, Lucy loved every minute of it. The weather calmed and the remaining six days clicked by with a mundane monotony filled with consuming books and discussing what creative delicacies we could conjure from our depleting fresh stocks. The remaining potato, with a five o clock shadow of mold, a mangrove swamp of roots, and a disconcerting liquified squelchy end was “perfectly edible” and put to good use.

Our potato put to good use in a Frittata

On our penultimate day it was obvious that we would not make Chagos by last light so we hove to that afternoon. This is a good stalling tactic but can also be used to survive a storm. You turn the boat through the wind but don’t tack the jib allowing it to back. Once round, you turn the wheel to windward and lash it tight. The idea is that the backed jib counter balances the main sail effectively stalling the boat. The perceived danger is that because the boat settles beam on to the waves, you could get hit by a breaker and if the conditions were terrible, knocked down or worse still rolled. The sea was pretty big when we executed the move and we were nervous of any ill-considered unintended consequences. In Rumsfeldian Speak: There were unknown knowns, unknown unknowns, and known unknowns in play. Round we went and it all seemed to work. With the wind and the current we were drifting north at two knots but that was fine. After four hours with sufficient time killed, we unlashed the wheel and tacked the jib and Broadsword was released from her tether heading for Chagos for first light.

Hove too with the jib backed.

Chagos or the British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT) is a collection of atolls 1000 miles south of India. The islands were previously uninhabited until the French installed copra plantations in 1793 using slave labour from Madagascar. The Brits got hold of them in 1814 and the slaves were emancipated becoming contract employees. Fast forward 150 years, the Brits did a deal with the USA to lease one of the atolls, Diego Garcia to build an air force base. The B52’s that bombed Afghanistan and Iraq flew from this base. Around 1500 Chagossians were forcibly removed to Mauritius where they remain today agitating for repatriation. Chagos is a highly secure and secretive territory and to visit you have to apply to the Foreign Office for a permit. With the exception of Diego Garcia, all the islands are uninhabited and there are only two atolls you can anchor at and only for a maximum of four weeks. My permit took three months to secure and we were visiting the Salomon atoll around 125 miles north of Diego Garcia.

Brisk and boisterous conditions

Broadsword slid through northwest pass an hour after first light, Lucy directed me from the bow like Kate Winslet calling to Jack, spotting for coral heads that aren’t on the chart but are as capable as an iceberg of piercing the hull. We expected to find a dozen or more other yachts but remarkably we were the only ones. We had the entire atoll to ourselves, the only yacht for hundreds of miles in every direction. We relaxed into four glorious days of paradise and perfection with unashamed nakedness, exploring ruins on land and corals in water, marveling at sun sets then tracking the stars. Indolent with books and absorbed in music. Sublime, rich, undisturbed sleep. It was utopia.

We could linger no longer and with regret and reluctance in equal measure, we weighed anchor and set west on our final leg to the Seychelles 1000 miles beyond, a six day passage where civilization would open her arms and welcome us back.

Going west under the gennaker

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