North Bali

Sunrise in Lovina

We left the mooring in Medana Bay Marina, Lombok, none too soon. A few days after we left a north swell came through and two moorings broke, putting one boat on the beach. Ouch! When we left Medana it was to head to the middle of north Bali. We thought we'd stop at the tourist island just off Lombok, Gili Air first. Unfortunately the decent moorings were full and the anchoring didn't seem too friendly. So we headed over to Teluk Kombal, a large bay on the Lombok mainland. We carefully selected an empty mooring in the deep waters that was perfectly lined up to hear the blaring sounds of the mosque onshore 5 times a day.

Next morning we left in the early dark to the serenade of the 4:30am mosque chant. No need for an alarm clock around here. The winds were decent and the swell was up as we crossed the channel between Lombok and Bali. We had considered stopping at the open beach anchorage at Amed on NE Bali, as it is supposed to have good snorkeling. We gave it a pass as the large swell was clearly heading into the bay. We continued on past the many FADs (Fish attraction devices) like the one above. It's been interesting to see how each island builds them differently, according to their own traditions.

When we approached our Bali destination, Lovina, we were not sure it was going to be an acceptable anchorage. It looked very open and the wind was up with the swell still running.  There was one boat in the anchorage, so we called up s/v Anna Carolina, a Dutch cruising boat, on the VHF and asked if the anchorage was reasonable. With their encouragement we came in and tucked behind the partial reef into a nice, smooth anchorage.

We spent about a week in Lovina. It is a sleepy Bali tourist beach town, not anything like the crazy, Australian bacchanals of south Bali beaches we've heard about. Cheap happy hours for tourists and  cruisers. Quality meals for dirt cheap. Plus a high end grocery store with all kinds of local and foreign treats. Lovina was not good to Georgia. We had a string of mechanical issues while here. Some bad fuel in the dinghy engine resulted in a couple of removals and cleaning of the Tohatsu carburetor before she started purring again. Then Balmar 110amp alternator (white beast in photo) decided to pack it in. The bearings are totally frozen on the shaft. In addition if you look in the picture at the left end of the alternator mount arm, you might notice the bolt head is snapped off the mount. I suspect this happened when the bearings froze and put a heavy, sudden load on the mount. I tried removing the bolt, but was afraid I might break it off, leaving us with no easy way to remount the alternator/water pump belt. This is not a location where you want to get mechanical work done. Fortunately we have been lugging the original Yanmar alternator around for the last many years. I remounted it and Jerry rigged the mounting bolt. We a little luck it will get us to Malaysia where I can get it fixed properly and maybe have the Balmar alternator rebuilt. 

We did take a taxi ride from Lovina into the Sangaraja, the old Dutch colonial capital of Bali. It has some of the old colonial buildings, most in fairly rough shape. Stopping at the old museum and library was interesting. Above are some of the left over high tech gadgets from Dutch era.

In the library were hundreds of boxes of palm-leaf manuscripts. Dried palm leaves have been used for writing here since at last the 5th century BCE. Most of the manuscripts housed here are copies made from originals that are in private houses. The copies have been created since the 1920's and are still being done. The palm leafs are cut and naturally dried and pressed. A process that takes up to a year. The manuscripts cover wide ranges of spiritual, historical and medical information.

The copying is still going on. The process is tough because the image needs to be scratched into the leaf. The result cannot be seen by the artist until later when ink is rubbed into the grooves. Plus there are no erasers for making corrections. 

We really needed some get in the water time, so when we left Lovina we motored to the NW end of Bali to the small island of Menjangan. The area is a park and it was nice to see the volume and sizes of the fish on the reef, something we haven't seen a lot of in Indonesia. 

No good pictures, but it was also interesting to see the native deer and monkeys foraging on the reef. Unfortunately, the last Bali tiger was shot in 1937.

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After a few days of snorkeling in Manjangan we started our passage to Borneo. First stop was a nice day sail to the island of Raas. Then we left on a 24 hour run to Bawean isalnd. This turned out to be a tough sail. We motored for a good part of the first morning and then had winds the rest of the way. We saw quite a few fishing boats and nets in the daylight, but as night fell the fishermen went to work. There were hundreds of them continually spread over about 60 or 70 miles of our course. They mostly display bright white lights to attract fish or squid or whatever can be harvested. With that many boats its hard to believe there is much left to harvest. The boats are so dense that you are continually making course adjustments to avoid them and any possible nets they may have out. To complicate issues there are also free floating nets with small, white quick flashing lights on them.

To complicate things there are commercial ferries plus tugs with tows. The tugs are moving at about 3.5 knots (4 mph) dragging large barges of coal 500 yards behind them, often unlit which makes it dangerous to cross their paths at night.  

Here's a closer picture of the barges as we entered Bawean anchorage.

 As the sun comes up after a long night most of the fishing boats are leaving or have gone home. This one was still anchored in 250 feet of water with a crew of about 6 guys sitting on their haunches. They say the fishermen can be pretty superstitious. Twice I had a fish boat motor directly at me while on watch. The first time I had to start the engine and drive the opposite direction to avoid contact in the night (ignoring the fact that the main was prevented all the way out and I was now heading straight upwind). There are three reasons they do this. One is to warn you by coercion that you are sailing into a net. The second reason is to give the bad fishing omens an opportunity to jump from their vessel onto yours, ensuring a good catch for the the rest of the night --- this is fine with us as we don't fish.  The last reason being that they didn't see you because they are blinded by the bright fishing lights they have on. I think this was the busiest time I've ever experienced on watch. It was non-stop for 5 hours. 

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After a good nights sleep in Bawean we left for another overnight to the Kumai River, Kalimantan Province, on the large island of Borneo. This passage had its fair share of fishing boats, but nothing compared to the previous one. The boats did add a little twist in their lighting with many of them also displaying extremely bright green lights.

By the next morning we were working our way over the Kumai River entrance bar and up the long river. We were greeted in the entrance by some significant commercial traffic, including two of these 300 foot passenger ferries plus a number of tugs with tows. 

Ever wonder how all that palm oil gets into low cost food? A barge full of palm-oil nuts, heading out the river to be loaded onto a ship most likely destined for China. The smog on Borneo is often very bad due to the fires set for clearing the land to plant more coconut plantations

Here's a picture at the town of Kumai, about 6 miles up the river. While the Indonesian style freighter tied to the bank is interesting as this is a particularly large one, the real reason for the picture is the warehouses behind it. These are three and four story buildings filled with swiftlet birds.

These birds make their nests out of solidified saliva. The nests are collected and then cooked by the world famous chefs -- OK Chinese chefs -- for bird's nest soup. This very expensive soup can be used for anti-aging and to "raise" libido. As we sit in the anchorage in-between the blasts of the mosque loudspeakers we hear a constant tweet, tweet, tweet. These noises emanate from the Chinese owned warehouses, not from Washington DC. At first we thought it was the captive birds. Turns out it is recordings at the top of each building attracting more swiftlets who come in to build more nests for harvesting.

It is pretty hot and humid anchored here in the river. It reminds me of the summers in Florida sans air conditioning. Probably to be expected 160 miles south of the equator on the island of Borneo. Tomorrow we head out on a 3 day, 2 night river boat tour to look for the wild orangutans in the jungle and probably do some serious mosquito spotting too. 

Paul

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Cruisers notes:

Tluk Kombal, Lombok: black mooring ball 08*24.279S,116*04.562E 77ft.  This ball is well situated to hear the mosque.

Lovina anchorage: 08*09.577S, 115*01.297E in 32ft. Good spot to reduce swells.

Menjangan anchorage:08*05.944S,114*29.961E n 45ft. Protctd and calm. Good snorkeling off the island reef.

Raas anchorage: 07*07.071S,114*30.245E in 25-35feet. Easier entrance is around the outer reef and take the more easterly opening. 

Passage from Raas to Bawean: heavy, heavy fish boats. If you stay just south of the rhumb line you will have the majority of fish boats to the north. Tugs come through here with big tows. They mostly have Class B AIS, some of which we only picked up at 1.5 miles.

Bawean anchorage: 05*43.903S,112*40.140E in 19ft. Good holding, lots of room. Staying more to the westerly side of he anchorage keeps you a little further from the tug/barge traffic and closer to the mosque loud speakers.

Passage to Kumai: Not near as bad as the previous passage, but lots of commercial and fish traffic. 

Kumai River: follow the guide book waypoints as a rough guide. Charted nav aids and ranges are in place. Lots of large commercial traffic in the by and up the river. No need to wait for high tide. Tidal current is 1-2 knots or so.

Kumai anchorage: 02*44.356,111*44.050E 27ft.