SEE YOU ALL IN AUGUST WHEN WE ARRIVE IN MADAGASCAR!!!
Friday, 19 June 2009
Thursday, 18 June 2009
Leaving for Chagos!
Finally we are getting ready to go! Well, we are two days away still as we will need a day to recover from my birthday tonight, also because you don't leave port on fridays right? Anyway, excuses apart we go on Saturday after visiting the local vege market. All good to go, burtterflies flying around our stomachs and some nervous laughs everytime we talk about it but we are SO READY!!!
For me it's the real deal, once we leave I will finally believe we will go around the world! I kind of had this crazy idea (or hope...) that we would turn around do Micronesia and the Pacific before heading back to NZ, but if we leave West, West it will be from now on. Sth Africa will be our midway point. Looking forward to seeing Chagos, heard so many good reports on it. Madagascar sounds great too, seems like its very similar to Vanuatu on its village ways, very simple, very primitive. Been advised to keep all glass and plastic jars as they still use animal bladders and seed containers to carry water etc. So you can get some good produce for a plastic water bottle.
Well, the blog will be a bit abandoned while we are doing the crossing so we will be back in August once in Madagascar. Promisse I will have plenty of photos and stories to tell!
Thank you so much for all the phone calls we received lately! We still have until SATURDAY the 20th to chat!
For me it's the real deal, once we leave I will finally believe we will go around the world! I kind of had this crazy idea (or hope...) that we would turn around do Micronesia and the Pacific before heading back to NZ, but if we leave West, West it will be from now on. Sth Africa will be our midway point. Looking forward to seeing Chagos, heard so many good reports on it. Madagascar sounds great too, seems like its very similar to Vanuatu on its village ways, very simple, very primitive. Been advised to keep all glass and plastic jars as they still use animal bladders and seed containers to carry water etc. So you can get some good produce for a plastic water bottle.
Well, the blog will be a bit abandoned while we are doing the crossing so we will be back in August once in Madagascar. Promisse I will have plenty of photos and stories to tell!
Thank you so much for all the phone calls we received lately! We still have until SATURDAY the 20th to chat!
Thursday, 4 June 2009
Fishing, Pro Surfers and a Snake
Tuesday, 26 May 2009
Amendments
Ok so here we are officially withdrawing our last degrading comments about the mentawais. We have finally seen what the fuss is about! Man the swell is here and it is everywhere! Yesterday we had A frames break totally for ourselves. Russ dropping on double head high waves and I in the water filming and taking photos with my new waterproof camera. I was a bit scared of getting in the water but I totally needed to register the moment. Hopefully we will be able to post some photos and videos soon. Russ had 4Bobs real good head and a half clean waves with only other 4 guys. Rifles is pumping and I had never seen anything like it. Big, long (300 meters plus) waves with unreal barrels. It was water poetry, to make the toughest cry from having survived. A time to remember. Thank goodness Russell didnt have any kamikazi aspirations and stayed put on the dingy with me. It can be a high price to pay for glory and we simply cant afford right now. So we stared, drooled and cheered those demented surfers. We thought of Mike B-S heaps! Man you would have killed those waves we are sure! So needless to say we have postponed our departure by another 2 weeks to make the most of it and to wait for the SE trades to come little bit further north. Keep tuned.
Sunday, 17 May 2009
Mentawais
We finally made it to the famous Mentawais group. And to our surprise we pretty much sailed all the way down here from Telo! Unfortunately the nice winds that brought us down kept us holed up in this mangrove anchorage for 3 days under lots of wind and rain. We were growing mold on our skins! But Russell got a nice session at bangbang and we are hoping to stay at playgrounds for a few days weather permitting. We cant really see us heading to Chagos soon. The trades are still far south so we need to be patient. Officials and the local "kepala desas" are very onto boats here and rarely miss a chance to hassle us for some money. Plus we had some very curious teenagers coming to our boat at 2 am, both times i woke up and got Russ on the case. But what can we do? Apart from touching the boat they have not come onboard although i believe they would given the chance. They are not violent and they are small time thieves looking to get something of the life lines like board shorts etc. Needless to say this isnt our favourite place. If you came this way unless you are very keen on the surfit, have an easy nature and a big wallet, it aint worth it. Stay from Telo north. But we are here and trying to make the most of it. The place is pretty and have a huge amount of waves with a huge amount of people too. Weather is better so things should be on the up.
Friday, 8 May 2009
Heading south
After 10 great days with Terry and Glenn onboard, we are back in gunung sitoli for a quick stock up before heading south for the telo group. The plan is to reach the Mentawai group within the next 2 weeks. We are looking forward to that as we missed this group of islands on our last visit. Russell is still waiting on the big swell and good quality waves. Although he has been surfing most days since we arrived in the Banyaks, he says the waves are still pretty average. I finally got the hang on how to reload the big gun and must say I am impressed with its power and accuracy. Gone are the days of my blue friend! I have speared 5 fishes with the new gun so far. Nothing massive but good to feed everyone. Glenn and Terry had a go with the gun too and didnt disappoint. All in all things are going well and we hope to be leaving Sumatra for Chagos fairly soon. Got butterflies on my stomach just to think of it!
Wednesday, 22 April 2009
Back in Sibolga!
Hey you all, this update should be a more laid back one... I promisse I won't winge so much!!! So here we go:
We spent over 2 weeks in our favourite spot, Bay of Plenty in the Banyaks grounp. Russ had plenty of surf although a bit messy this early in the season. I have had quite a few spear fishing days, nothing big but enough for a feed. Russ caught a nice sweet lip the other day, officially his first speared fish! We had the anchorage for ourselves for about 5 days then Capricorn (Mike & Kym from Australia) joined us, and then Nick from Sea Turtle (USA). It was great to catch up with some friends and have a great anchorage to do so. Nick left and after a week or so, Dancyn (John and LJ, from USA) finally made it! We only had 2 days with then and we did an overnight to Sibolga.
Our clearing in Sibolga was very hassle free, just slow and burocratic as expected. Our first night in Sibolga saw us battling a 50 knot winds, strong rain and (lots of) liughtening for about an hour. We dragged a bit and were too close to Capricorn so Russ had the engine on which could just hold our position. Once the rain abbated a bit and the lightening seemed a bit further away (we were using the old trick of counting between seeing the light and hearing it), we pulled anchor and tried to re-anchor about 4 times (blodly plastic bags...) until we managed to get a good hold. Since then, our nights have been very still which is a relief to the nerves but bad for the nose as the place stinks of rotting fish sometimes!
Russ managed to fix the old propellers at this Chinese mechanic shop (he was trully impressed with the services, and all so incredibly cheap!) so once in clear waters we will change the new ones (bought just 6 months ago!) for the old ones (15 years old) and send the new ones back for a refund. It just simply doesn't work properlly, we bought feathering props and guess what? They don't feather! The rudder arms as well as the back of the boat seem to be dancing to a different tune of the rest of the boat. Russ reckons we are loosing at least a knot in drag. So the new kiwi props propellers are history mates! Bring back the old briskies!
I have restocked the boat and we are not ready to have a fantastic time with our two friends, Terry and Glenn, which are flying from New Zealand to join us for two weeks. After that we will drop them off and start heading south through the Telo and Mentawai group until the SE trades start making their way further north. We hope to be leaving Indonesia late May and arriving in Chagos on time for Russ' birthday on the 7th of June.
I know everyone is concerned about the situation in East Africa, but we don't plan to go to Tanzinia, Kenia or even Seychelles. Our route should see us further South than that, in Madagascar and Mayottes before heading to Sth Africa. By the time we get there, which should be sometime early august, we believe and hope things are a bit more settled. We sure are relieved to not be travelling under an American flag though... our American friends are hiding their flags and only travelling in convoys now... such a shame that things need to get to this level.
So much to look forward too! I guess this year will be full of interesting stories. The only sad part of it all is that I won't have my SAILMAIL to pass information as it happens! I am quite upset about it, but the modem is broken and there is very little we can do here. So while in Indo I can get my GMAIL email without problems but after, from here to Chagos and Madagascar we will be out of the air for about 3 months. Very sorry but if you all had a HF radio we could be in touch!
I did say I wasn't going to winge...sorry...
Anyhow, here are some photos of our latest... Love to you all!
We spent over 2 weeks in our favourite spot, Bay of Plenty in the Banyaks grounp. Russ had plenty of surf although a bit messy this early in the season. I have had quite a few spear fishing days, nothing big but enough for a feed. Russ caught a nice sweet lip the other day, officially his first speared fish! We had the anchorage for ourselves for about 5 days then Capricorn (Mike & Kym from Australia) joined us, and then Nick from Sea Turtle (USA). It was great to catch up with some friends and have a great anchorage to do so. Nick left and after a week or so, Dancyn (John and LJ, from USA) finally made it! We only had 2 days with then and we did an overnight to Sibolga.
Our clearing in Sibolga was very hassle free, just slow and burocratic as expected. Our first night in Sibolga saw us battling a 50 knot winds, strong rain and (lots of) liughtening for about an hour. We dragged a bit and were too close to Capricorn so Russ had the engine on which could just hold our position. Once the rain abbated a bit and the lightening seemed a bit further away (we were using the old trick of counting between seeing the light and hearing it), we pulled anchor and tried to re-anchor about 4 times (blodly plastic bags...) until we managed to get a good hold. Since then, our nights have been very still which is a relief to the nerves but bad for the nose as the place stinks of rotting fish sometimes!
Russ managed to fix the old propellers at this Chinese mechanic shop (he was trully impressed with the services, and all so incredibly cheap!) so once in clear waters we will change the new ones (bought just 6 months ago!) for the old ones (15 years old) and send the new ones back for a refund. It just simply doesn't work properlly, we bought feathering props and guess what? They don't feather! The rudder arms as well as the back of the boat seem to be dancing to a different tune of the rest of the boat. Russ reckons we are loosing at least a knot in drag. So the new kiwi props propellers are history mates! Bring back the old briskies!
I have restocked the boat and we are not ready to have a fantastic time with our two friends, Terry and Glenn, which are flying from New Zealand to join us for two weeks. After that we will drop them off and start heading south through the Telo and Mentawai group until the SE trades start making their way further north. We hope to be leaving Indonesia late May and arriving in Chagos on time for Russ' birthday on the 7th of June.
I know everyone is concerned about the situation in East Africa, but we don't plan to go to Tanzinia, Kenia or even Seychelles. Our route should see us further South than that, in Madagascar and Mayottes before heading to Sth Africa. By the time we get there, which should be sometime early august, we believe and hope things are a bit more settled. We sure are relieved to not be travelling under an American flag though... our American friends are hiding their flags and only travelling in convoys now... such a shame that things need to get to this level.
So much to look forward too! I guess this year will be full of interesting stories. The only sad part of it all is that I won't have my SAILMAIL to pass information as it happens! I am quite upset about it, but the modem is broken and there is very little we can do here. So while in Indo I can get my GMAIL email without problems but after, from here to Chagos and Madagascar we will be out of the air for about 3 months. Very sorry but if you all had a HF radio we could be in touch!
I did say I wasn't going to winge...sorry...
Anyhow, here are some photos of our latest... Love to you all!
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