Cocos Keeling

We arrived here in Cocos keeling last Monday night on a lovely clear moonlit night which made it a lot easier for anchoring off Direction Island which is where the boat is now. Direction Island is uninhabited so no modern world facilities like internet. We have come across to West Island on the ferry today for a World ARC tour so now we have an hour on the internet! The anchorage is absolutely idyllic and we wake up to surf on the beach and waving coconut palms. Beautiful! We leave on Monday for a sail to Mauritus which should take just under 3 weeks.

Bali island tour

Yesterday we took a bus tour around the island stopping at various places en route. Bali is 120 kilometres long by around 40 kilometres wide so not very big! Our day started at 8.30am and we were picked up by a coach which fortunately had good AC as it is very hot and humid here with daytime temperatures reaching 32 degrees C. We had to negotiate the rush hour traffic to get out of Denpaser the capital of Bali which is very busy with a lot of scooters and also cars. Bali has a population of c4 million people with most living in the city. They drive on the left hand side of the road but there seems to be no rules as in two lane highways cars and scooters pass either side and seem to drive in 3 lanes most of the time! The Police were out in force trying to keep the traffic moving. Our first stop was at a silversmiths in Celuk where we saw a man pumping the gas by foot to melt the silver. There was a big shop and we were invited to look around. Some people bought jewellery but not us. Next was a woodcarving place in Mas where they spent hours hand crafting pieces of wood into very elaborate shapes to make beautiful ornaments and other more practical items. The next stop was a temple known as the Elephant temple. Most of the people here are Hindu but there are also Muslims and Christians but our guide explained they all get along. All down the streets you see little shrines like boxes with trays of flowers and other things which are offerings to their Gods. Sometimes there is a piece of cloth draped around which is checked black and White or yellow with White. Each colour has a significant meaning which I have forgotten already but something like White is peace. We then went onto a plantation where coffee is grown. The most famous Bali coffee is made from the droppings of a cat like creature called a Luwar they breed and feed on coffee beans which then get ingested and pass out the other end. The end result is then washed and dried and ground and is known as Luwar coffee. Very expensive apparently but supposed to be the top coffee here! Our lunch stop was at a good restaurant overlooking Mount Batur which is an extinct volcano that last erupted in 1933. Lunch was an excellent Indonesian buffet. After lunch we had another temple to visit the Holy Spring temple where they had healing waters. Finally we visited the monkeys inside a rainforest where several small grey cute monkeys played around and took food from some hands in the form of sweetcorn on the cob or sweet potatoes or bananas. Managed to get lots of pictures for the record. The Marina here is quite small but the staff are extremely obliging. I went shopping today at Carrefour and returned in a taxi with several heavy bags which were taken to the boat by the smiling staff who seemed eager to assist. Peter had stayed on the boat to try and fix a small problem with our battery charger not working. However by the time I returned after lunch he had fixed the problem and now all is well again. We are now nearly ready to go on Monday. Customs clearances are actually being done on Sunday for us. So then we leave on Monday!! Tonight is the prize giving event.

Bali Arrival

Arrived Bali very early this morning after a very slow passage. The winds were very light and it was a struggle to sail even the Parasailor for much of the time so hence we had to motor for about 440 miles of the 950 miles. The last 24 hours were particularly difficult as strong currents pushing us back meant we had to turn the engine on about 35 miles off Bali Marina and we had a really slow ride. Anyway we are here now and after a couple of hours snooze have been beavering away getting jobs like laundry and customs and other mechanical stuff done.

Tomorrow we have a day trip around Bali so hope to see lots of interesting things like temples and markets and the extinct volcano!

Time is short here as we are leaving on Monday to sail to Christmas Island (a new destination in the itinerary) for a 48 hour stop then onto Cocos Keeling. Both of these places are Australian dependencies so good job we saved some Aussie dollars!

Ayers Rock

Just arrived back after our trip to Ayers Rock. We flew to Alice Springs then took a day tour to Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park which is where the famous Ayers Rock is. The tour company picked us up from our hotel just after 6am and dropped us off again at 11.30pm that night! The trip was really well organised and we got to see the 36 domes of Olgas as well as Ayers Rock and the day ended with a champagne BBQ dinner watching the sun go down in sight of Ayers Rock. We went with Marie & Charles (Dreamcatcher) and also met up with the crew from Wind Dancer whilst at the Rock! Both Charles and Peter climbed all the way up Ayers Rock whilst Marie and I stayed at the base and did a guided walk around the rock. One lasting momento of the day was the red desert sand which got everywhere! Only just finished cleaning our trainers which are now white again!! The whole landscape in the Northern Territory is wild and barren with lots of scrubby grass and bushes over the red sand. Real cowboy country. It is hot during the day (25 degrees) but COLD at night (3 degrees). Darwin is really hot by comparison at 32 degrees(day) dropping to 20 degrees by night. Back on the boat now and doing my shopping list as we need to fill the freezer again for our next trip. We had to eat up all meat and fruit and vegetables and dairy products before entering Darwin so the cupboards need re stocking!