Serengan ,on the island of Bali.

Having spotted the FAD's just on sunset, we decided that perhaps two of us on watch, at least until the moon rose, might just enable us to avoid impaling ourselves on an unwanted floating house.

I do have a night vision scope, which is terrific, especially if there is a bit of moonlight, but the chances of finding these damn things floating around was still going to be minimal. At least by now we had the backscatter of some of the shore lights of Bali, so perhaps we might glimpse something, before we hit it, or, it hits us!

We didn't make a great deal of progress for the first half of the night, which was ok as a low impact speed is better than high. Eventually the fickle wind died and we motored. At least that gave slightly better visibility with the jib now furled, but a faster speed if impact was going to occur.

As luck would have it, we didn’t have any close encounters of the stoppable kind. The couple of FADs we did see, we either altered course to avoid or just watched them pass in the darkness. I have no idea how many passed us unnoticed.

On sunrise the wind came away with vengeance off the land and then died about 0900.

https://youtu.be/bi0jtWgkkz4

We rounded the NE corner of Bali just after 1000, flying at 8kts, 4kts of boat speed and 4 kts of current, having finally ,as if by magic , managed to jag a current that helped , not hindered our progress.

The current  running through the Selat which divides Bali from Lombok is  spectacular in its strength. We were sneaking down the close to the eastern coast  of Bali , and had for the most part of the day got the current with us. Current lines as I have never seen before, clearly going in different directions within a 10-20m width. We actually became quite good at crossing and chasing the current line we were after.

The wind was also an interesting phenomena here. Blowing strongly from one direction and for no apparent reason , suddenly a boat length later it is totally calm and then 60- 180 degree different to what it was moments ago!

At 1520 we arrived at Serengan harbour, about 5miles just north of Benoa harbour (Bali's main port).

Made it between the reefs and even found the buoys

To enter you just find the channel between the reefs which are either side  of the entrance. There are buoys, but a little difficult to locate when coming in late in the afternoon against the sun. However we had the multitude of returning day trip boats to watch , who gave us fairly big clue as to where exactly the entrance was.

Cruised up through the incredibly 'full' moorings, trying to figure out how you contact someone about picking up a mooring. No need to worry, we were approached and offered one by Mande.

We followed him to the mooring buoy and finally after 15 days, we knew we were able to stay as long as we now desired.