Kupang

departing Lewoleba

Leaving Lewoleba we motored down the coast for the first 15 or so miles, past a substantial Christian statue on a headland and eventually rounding the SW corner  of the island  and setting course with a perfect breeze to take us to Kupang.

So perfect in fact, that we reefed down the mainsail so that we didn't arrive at 0200 in the morning.

The reef did the trick, at sunrise we were still miles away! Then of course, the wind died and it was back to the iron mainsail. We shook out the reef and as we had the engine going, we made water as were still undecided about how long we would be at anchor off Kupang.

Arrived off Teddi's beach- named after a local entrepreneur ,who it appears at one time was 'the go to man'. just after 1200hrs, with a full tank of water.

Teddi's beach. Fort Henricus out of shot to the left and 'Cholera Creek' at r.h.s.

Shortly thereafter we were visited by the very helpful Ayub, who offered his services as agent for checking in, Kupang being a very popular destination for arriving in Indonesia. Undeterred when we vouchsafed that  we were already an 'entered' vessel, he also mentioned that he could assist us with fuel,tours, victualling, in fact anything at all, and that our dinghy would be safe at his beach.
We took note of  his phone number.


Later that day we went for a bit of a peek at the beach that Ayub had indicated, about 400m further east from our anchored position, just for future reference.

When we decided to step ashore to go for a look around and to find somewhere to eat, we actually chose the beach immediately off where we anchored .In the yacht cruisers world, it is  referred to as Teddi's beach. Historically, it was the beach that Bligh stepped ashore on  at the conclusion of  his epic 47 day journey, when he was cast adrift from the Bounty by the mutineers , with  18 of his crew who were still  loyal to him, or perhaps just not "in" with Mr Christian.
Unlike Bligh, we were greeted by a couple of 'likely lads' whose speciality was apparently looking after your dinghy whilst it was beached.It didn't seem a particularly negotiable point, and as my idea was to return to the beach and find ones dinghy in tact , preferably with a still functioning outboard- call me suspicious if you want, it wasn't worth haggling about!
So for the equivalent of $5, an eye is kept on your dinghy. Its not exorbitant ,it's the fact that there seemed to be no question that every yachtie would be an easy target , and thus they had apparently "claimed" the beach for their own personal benefit. One wonders how they did it , but in reality I probably don't want to know.
They also could supply fuel,water,food, anything that was required and they were quite adamant that anybody else we might chose to deal with would undoubtedly be a scuralous rouge ,hell bent on ripping us off.

Thus we used Ayub, when it came time to getting fuel!

We had by now decided that with less than a fortnight  left on our visa, that we wouldn't bother to extend it. We had been looking to do so,back in Bali ,but the thought of days without my passport , whilst it was apparently processed, deterred me, having been passport less in Vietnam for 10 days , after the original stuff up at the launching of K'Gari. Then having left Bali, the more I read about visa extensions, the further east in the archipelago one wanders, the harder it appeared it was going to be.

We now  had two options at least from Kupang, which is on the island of Timor
We could clear out and head directly for Darwin, or we could clear out and then cruise up the north coast of Timor and enter into  East Timor at Dili. In East Timor we would be able to obtain a visa on arrival.
Studying the available weather charts , we decided we were actually going to get a better wind angle from Kupang direct to Darwin. So Dili remains on the "to visit" list for another occasion.