Unforgettable- for all the wrong reasons

What followed was the most forgettable part of the adventure so far.

Seven days and four unrelenting nights of bashing our way south against a north westerly running current and a SE'ly wind, then 5 days/nights making still slow progress east ,against a diminished wind and current.
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The plan when leaving Bawah had been to use the SW'ly wind (still allegedly blowing in the northern hemisphere until October) to our advantage and arrive on the coast of West Kalimantan (Borneo),having sailed through the Tambelan Islands.

Well that plan lasted until about an hour and half after we departed.

Track from Anambas Islands . The wind precluded us from making the west coast of Kalimantan and pinned us to the coast of Sumatra  instead

Firstly the wind died then it backed to the SE along with some rain- oh well, boat can always do with a washdown! The wind then died again and a SW swell seemed to appear out of nowhere in particular, (well obviously it came from the SW, but why so suddenly?)

Motor/sailed for a few hours and then as the wind increased again from the SE we reefed the mainsail down to the second reef for the night , and ploughed on,slowly .

The 120nm overnight sail became a distant memory quite rapidly. Reduced to 3 kts (over the ground) against the dominating wind and current and being forced ever further in a SW direction, we realised by daybreak that the Tambelans were going to have to get by without us!

The twenty four hour distance was only 102nm or moving at 4.25kts.

From then on really it just continued to deteriorate.The sea state had become quite confused on top of the SW'ly swell. We had slammed a fair bit during the night and this pattern continued for the next few days.

Being pinned to the west side of the Java Sea , was the sailing plan that mother nature had decreed.

The most memorable event the next day, was that we crossed (thumped our way over) the Equator at 0932 (lmt), at longitude 105deg 10.777' E. We had managed a pathetic 97nm /4.04kts for the 24 hours.

During the night, thankfully in one of the periods of lighter conditions, we encountered our first and hopefully only, one of the infamous FAD that are used in SE Asia.

A FAD, is a fish aggregation device,or fish attracting device. They come in a variety of forms, and I will devote an entire photo post to them later.

For now all you need to know is they can quite largish structures , which float around the seas allowing fish to aggregate under and around them , thus making them easy fishing spots in deep water, but unlit hazards, especially when you are in a fibreglass 12.5m pod.

My total beam is 6.9m.

The FAD that we encountered – and apologies here, it never occurred to us to take a photo at the time, what with it being pitch dark and the unexpected contact occurring about 10pm when sailing along at 4 knots, was a bamboo structure in the shape of a St George cross.

A dozen or so 10-12m long bamboo poles (max circumference approx 6-8 inches) lashed together on the x axis and the same on the y axis. Strangely , although I was a sleep at the time, I heard it when it arrived.

Plumb between the hulls had gone the x axis, and athwartships, across the bows was the y axis. Could not have pinned it better if we tried.

So surprised were we, that it took a couple of seconds to figure out what had happened. A torch soon revealed what the issue was, and starting the engines , we went astern, and watched it drift clear, until it disappeared from the beam of the torch. An inspection by torch indicated some missing paint ,but apparently , thankfully nothing worse. Sometimes , moving slowly is beneficial!

Finally anchored off the NW corner of Pulau Bangka at 1300 on the third day after 72.75 hours of unrelenting bouncing around. Trying to keep your balance becomes very wearing in a swell that is a couple of meters in height ,combined with a sea state which is about 90 degrees opposed to the swell. Not to mention 72 hours of broken sleep patterns, as we kept watches.

I know K'Gari is a catamaran, but for the first time since I have had her, we have actually had to stow galley essentials like the coffee and the kettle , so that they were unable to escape their captive state and hurtle around free range!

The protection of Pulau Bangka afforded us two nights sleep

The next two days we progressed, still slowly, down Selat Bangka, (Bangka Strait) at least we were out of the 20 knot SEly winds and were really dealing more with the current! Joy of joys being inside an island in the relative protection and shallowness also meant that we could anchor at night and sleep a full nights sleep!

Clearing the Selat , we managed , as the crow flies 33nm in 5.5hrs as we tacked our way almost pointlessly, tryng to make headway.

Why you might ask were we not motoring? There comes a point where the sea conditions make use of the engine a complete waste of time, not to mention fuel and engine hours. Short sharp steep chop is one of those times , and as that was what we had , there was no point in bothering to try. It was far more comfortable to be tacking , doubling the distance travelled and making little actual headway.

The same can be said for the next few days. Once we cleared the protection of the Selat we made good speed and distance for the first six hours. Then it turned to custard again.

The next 96 hours we, spent beating our way south and east.

Arimbi Oilfield

Located north of Jakarta are oil fields. Having not planned to be anywhere near Java, I hadn't really studied their location. As it happens they were now between us and where we trying to get to.

The first one we passed through was the Arimbi Oilfield.
That took care of 12 hours of my life, but it was to get “better”. Further south and closer to the coast lies the Arjuna oil (and now gas) fields. This section was not so user friendly.

slow progress across the Arjuna Oilfield

Entry strictly verboten!

Not a problem to commercial shipping, but a definite blight to a yacht trying to go east in an ESE'ly wind.

Planning as were now were on a daily basis, looking for viable options, we had had as a last resort thought about Jakarta , but we didn't really want to go there, it just seemed that was where we headed under mother natures influence. The entire strategy now, was to get as 'quickly' as possible into the lee of the islands of the archipelago and hope that the wind would therefore be kinder . The oil fields , were just an added hiccup that we needed to deal with.

Another 24 hours of my life disappeared, beating our way east-ish, along the northern edge of the entry strictly prohibited , Arjuna field, the bonus being the weather actually started to ease!

Finally, just one more bit of the Arimbi oilfield loomed onto the chart and we beat our way past that, now with a vague plan to stop in a port called Semarang. However as the weather improved we decided against that and carried on.

The weather pattern had definitely changed. Instead of constant 15-20kts SE'ly winds, we could discern an actual pattern. From dawn to about 0800, the wind definitely had more of an east component in it , so this was the ideal time to be heading south towards the coast and using the east component to lift us. About 0800 the wind swung more to the south, so we would tack and make better use of that component.Then about 1100 it just disappear altogether , leaving us wallowing until we started to motor. Then in the afternoon it was back again from the south.....except the night we decided to stop and anchor in what appeared to be a spot which would be relatively protected from the south , only to find that the afternoon “breeze” was in fact onshore from the NE at about 20-25knots!

So once again we sailed on. 

Bangka to Surabaya track