Leaving Indonesia for Papua New Guinea

A lot of miles has been covered in the last 6 months. Can't believe we were in Thailand in April!

We are currently in Jayapura the border of Indonesia New Guinea and Papua New Guinea. We are clearing out today and then waiting for a weather window to head out to the Hermit islands, Admiralty islands and on to New Hanover aand New Ireland for Christmas and New Year. Gaynor is joining us there for a week which we are really looking forward to. Then we move on to the Solomon islands and then return to Australia via the louisiades and hope to reach Cairns July 2010. That is the current plan.

We are sailing in company with good friends Ginny and David on Pura Vida and have had a ball travelling through Indonesia with them. We caught up with them in the Bacan islands just off Halmahera and have basically day hoped all the way with a couple of overnighters when there was no anchorage available to us.

We were lucky to have yachts in front of us who wanted to be back in Australia for Christmas and who should be safely back by now. Please let us know! These boats recommended anchorages they enjoyed and this was fabulous. Some of our favourites were the Bacan islands SW of Halmahera, Dowralama, Kepulan Van Boo, Kaliem, Wakde and Yamma. All for different reasons. Some for the scenery, volcanos, thermal springs, some for snorkelling, bbq beaches, white sandy and turquoise waters, some for the locals we have met and shared great experiences with. Minty on Yamma was fabulous and her extended family/village made this anchorage very special, wish we could have stayed longer. The children on Wakde were fabulous to and allowed Natasha and James to paddle there canoes around the bay and swim with them.

Send us an email if you want a stack of waypoints!

We are madly shopping in Jayapura for the next 6 months food stocks as we are not sure where and what we will get from now on. Definitely lost a few pounds in weight running around in the heat.

All is going well here and we have loved getting your iridium texts and keeping up with what is happening Keep it up even though i will probably only get to reply once a week. It is great to get messages and makes everyone on board smile. We will have no mobile phone for this section, maybe not until we return to Australia in July 2010. So iridium is it. Best way to contact us is by Iridium text. We have the iridium on most days for a couple of hours.

We will be in Kavieng just before Xmas and probably around the Nusa island area.
http://www.nusaislandretreat.com.pg/
Check out the web page.

Amanda and Steve are usually up to date on where we are so contact Amanda if you need to.

Keep healthy, stay safe and big hugs to all
and if we don't talk before
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Blue Moon in Sorong, Irian Jaya

Just to let everyone know we have safely arrived at Sorong, West Irian Jaya. We are 3000km from Padang, Sumatra where the recent tsunami and earthquakes happened. Thank you everyone who texted there concerns that we might have been near to the disaster. We are all safe and sound. We are in company with Ginny and David again on Pura Vida and are making our way through Irian Jaya, Papua via Manokwari, Biak, Sarmi and Jayapura. Following General Douglas MacArthur's WWII push to the Philippines but in reverse!

We have been to a very remote are of Indonesia and sparsely inhabited. We have visited remote islands and been the first yacht ever to visit and have been welcomed like kings! The kids are a huge success with all the villages and James had everyone in stitches when we visited a school in Salawati and James did the year 1 work on the blackboard. A good attempt for someone who will start year 1 next year. I was so proud!

Natasha has nearly completed year 5 and is keen for the summer break. School won't start again till Jan/Feb 2010 when we collect year 6 in Kavieng, New Ireland hopefully....

Loving Indonesia and especially the mix here with Papuans. The singing has been fabulous. The kids harmonise so beautifully. Leaves us for dead!

Thanks all who sent iridium texts it was great to hear your news. Keep texting. We have been out of mobile range for a while and haven't seen a shop for 25 days but who is counting.....

North Sulawesi, Indonesia

We are currently in North Sulawesi in Indonesia and have been for two weeks. Email is a little tricky so hence this is coming via the satellite phone and Amanda - aka the Post Lady

We have survived the sail Bunaken rally in Bitung where 60 yachts were anchored in the Lembah Straits. I have been one of two thousand divers claiming the Guiness book of records for the largest number of divers, diving at one time. The previous record was 900. Have the T shirt and certificate!!

The rally was full of surprises and true Indonesian hospitality. Jakarta has poured a lot of money into the north Sulawesi community to make the whole event a wonderful experience. We have been entertained nearly every night, given numerous T shirts for this and that, hats, stuffed Nemo toys (the mascot of the event), cases of beer, cases of canned tuna (locally produced!), coffee table picture books of the area and islands from a Google earth perspective from the Major of the area, sports bags, day excursions to Takagong National Park to see Tarsius (world smallest primate) and rare black macaques, only found in this area. Been taken to Manado for shopping to great supermarkets compared to our experiences two years ago in the southern part of Indonesia.

Have had numerous chicken satays, nasi gorengs (fried rice), gado gado (veggie salad with satay sauce- yum) and Mie goreng (fried noodles) and fried squid! Missing the roti chanai's of Malaysia (this is a flat bread that comes with curry or dhal. The north Sulawesi people are predominantly Christian which makes a change after Malaysia.

We have had a very social time meeting new friends from sail Indonesia 2009 and saying goodbye to old friends who have different schedules and plans to us.

We are currently waiting for Ginny and David on Pura Vida to catch up with us. They are still in Borneo at Kudat with a head gasket problem but hope to enter Indonesia in September. We are going to potter around the Sulawesi islands and snorkel and scuba dive and of course complete school work for a couple of weeks and then head east to Ternate and Halamera! The water is blue (true indigo blue) and warm and the coral is brightly coloured due to strong currents and nutrient rich deep water. The fish are small! But there are rare fish only found here. It is a divers paradise and off the beaten track.

We have a cruising permit valid for as long as our visa is valid (up to 6 months, which is new way of doing things in Indonesia). We have been given cheap extensions on our visas (half the price of sail Indonesia 2007) so currently have visas for 90 days as of the 12th August. We will get another extension at the beginning of November probably at Biak......

All is well on Blue Moon except for myself having an eye infection from a new brand of contact lens. They don't supply the one if use in Australia in SE Asia!! I'm sure it will clear up soon but it has curtailed my snorkelling and diving. Latest news is it is a cornea infection - a bit more serious and means new ointments and drops. Luckily there is an australian afliated eye clinc here in Manado. We will stay this are of north Sulawesi until the eye improves.

We have found a wonderful bay which is calm, great diving, snorkelling, white sandy beach, no shops and views of numerous volcanoes. None are smoking but from here on we will probably see lots of volcanoes and many active. For those who want to know the way point 01N41 125E09 - Petimti Bay, North Sulawesi. This where we are sitting as if write this email. Check it out on Google Earth.

From Manado we are going to explore the islands north of here. Looks good on google earth!!

Please text our iridium if you have a moment, we'd love to hear what you are doing and what is going on in the world. We have indonesian mobile now too.

Kuching, Sarawak to Kota Kinabalu, Sabah

Nearly time to change countries yet again so here is a quick update....

August 12th we will HOPEFULLY be in Sulawesi, Indonesia. We are taking part in Sail Bunaken. A seven day festival in Menado/Bitung on the NE tip of Sulawesi. Checkout http://www.sailbunaken2009.com/

We are currently in Kota Kinabalu enjoying the very luxurious Sutera Harbour Marina. Australia could learn a thing or two about how to run a marina from these guys. It is fabulous and all for 49rm bout A$17.

Included in this fee are three swimming pools to choose from, one is Olympic size, gymnasium, squash courts, tennis, table tennis, kids club, pilates, marble washrooms with complimentary towels, body wash, shampoo, moisturizer; free wifi, security day & night and free shuttle into town on the hour. It is the best!

There are two other kid boats here and Natasha has found some Australian holiday makers with a girl the same age and is having a ball. James is keeping up but only just!

We have lots of ground to cover to get to Indonesia and then internet will get harder. Amanda will be able to relay our messages when it gets difficult. We have another big leg of overnight sailing between Borneo and Sulawesi around the 6th August so would love to have texts on the iridiumhttp://messaging.iridium.com/
our number is 881631429195
don't forget your email address so we know who the text is from!

We have thoroughly enjoyed Sarawak & Sabah and still have lots of Sabah to see. The downside of Borneo for us....is the spinnaker has died, ripped across the middle and nowhere here to repair it. (Sorry Ken)! Solar strip died on current sails (tropical sunshine is the pits!) so a canvas guy here in KK(Kota Kinabalu) is fixing that up. Was hit by a corker of a squall lasting 5hours that took the 0.5m sea and 5-10knots of breeze to 3m and 25+ in seconds. Skies were blue with white puffy clouds. You couldn't tell what was about to hit. Sailed 75nm that day! Unusual in this are to sail so much. Have seen a waterspout about 2nm away from us and moving in our direction! We could see the sea being whipped up on the surface. Radical changes in course saw it eventually move away and dissipate. Too close... They say that Borneo has the most lightning strikes in Asia! Hopefully the weather will be kind to us as we move steadily east. Australia gets closer every day!

At some point I will put a selection of photos on the blog so check outhttp://bluemoonofoz.blogspot.com/
occasionally!
Sarah

Blue moon update #5

We arrived in Sarawak, Borneo safely after 2 nights and three days at sea. We had a smooth trip most of the way with squalls most nights and the odd tanker, barge or two and fishing boats to dodge. We had to cross the shipping lanes in two spots. Those for ships heading into the gulf of Thailand and those heading out into the south China Sea to Honk Kong, Vietnam, Philippines and beyond. Oil tankers are everywhere along the Borneo coast as this is one of Malaysias main sources of income along with palm oil, logging etc.

We arrived at Tanjung Datu and spent a lovely morning walking through some of the oldest rainforest in Borneo and were lucky to see a treeshrew and mouse deer. Haven't seen a rafflesia (world's largest flowere and very smelly) yet but hope to at one of the many national parks in Sarawak and Sabah. Borneo is made up of Sarawak, Brunei & Sabah along the northern edge, the rest is Kalimantan which is part of Indonesia. There are 27 native tribes living here as well as the Malays, chinese, indian and indonesian.

We hope to see the traditional Dayak tribes when we leave the Santabong river who still live in traditional longhouses with multiple families but lucky for us gave up headhunting 50 years ago. We met a chinese man who runs a fish farm and he said he was from a chinese family "Ting" who came from China to Borneo with Brooke one of the first white Rajah's. His Grandfather had his head removed as it was required as dowry for a Dayak tribe wishing to marry their son to another Dayak tribe 50 years ago. This resulted in Ting's family moving from Sibu to Kuching.

We will be sailing to the Sibu area in the next couple of days and passing through a river system still inhabited by Dayak's and hope to get some good photos. If you are luck you will get an invitiation to enter the longhouse and experience their culture! Food, dancing, music and drink their leathal rice wine! We know of some who have had the opportunity to test out blowpipes and dress in traditional costume.

Kuching and the Santabong river has been a great experience for us. We are here with about 40 yachts. Some are here for the Rainforeat festival and some are moving on like us. We have two weeks to reach Kota Kinabalu and then 2 weeks to get round the top of Sabah. We are on a mission as we have decided to do Sail Bunaken on August 12th and have 1000nm to go in 5 weeks. We have been told that at least half of this rally are looking at doing it. They are offering free CAIT's and social letters which will hopefully smooth our way into Indonesia and allow us to spend up to 6 months in Indonesia. We plan to stay in Indonesia till mid December and then sail into PNG on the north side of Irian Jaya. BUT plans can change!!

All's well here, Natasha has done lots of school work and done 2008 & 2009 Naplan year 5 testing with great results for most areas except spelling!! Jamie has his numbers to 20 and most of his letters now so will definitely be ready for school (year 1) next year. We've had the company of two other yachts and have been to see Ice Age 3 and celebrated Natasha's birthday with a trip to an Orangutan sanactuary and a visit to a pottery warehouse where Natasha tried her hand at a potter's wheel very successfully!

Have lots of photos to put on the blog so checkouthttp://bluemoonofoz.blogspot.com/
or try sending a free message to us on
http://messaging.iridium.com/
our number is 8816 314 29195
don't forget your email address.

Keep in touch, hopefully we won't loose our heads in the next week......

Sarah

Blue Moon update #4

We have now moved on to the east coast of Malaysia and have been sailing around the Tioman Islands and surrounding islands. It is so nice to be in clear, unpoluted water and actually see some decent sized fish. The Tiomans is a marine National Park and is supposed to have a 2nm exclusion zone for fishing but no one appears to have told the local trawlers. Obviously they are cautious about illegal fishing as the fish life is definitely healthier than in Thailand and the west coast of Malaysia. Not a patch on Australia or the Louisiades (PNG) though.

We have dined on Red Emporer, Mangrove Jack, squid, Moreton bay bugs(slipper lobsters is the true name as these obviously don't come from Moreton!!) and prawns. Makes a change from chicken and we are so missing pork! In a muslim country, it is very difficult but not impossible to get bacon or pork. The chinese still like it, so in communities where there are a majority of chinese someone will sell some pork!

We are about to depart the malaysian east coast and sail across the South China Sea to Borneo - the malaysian part. We should be in Kuching in time for Natasha's 10th birthday on July 3rd and then we will spend a month travelling up the coast to Brunei and then to Kota Kinabalu. Then we have to decide the timing for the next leg through Indonesia. Either Sail Bunaken in August or north to the philippines for a month - Palawan and then back to Borneo and across to Sulawesi in September. Choices, choices!!

Feel free to text us
http://messaging.iridium.com/
8816 314 29195

Will email once we get to Kuching. Here's hoping for flat seas and 10kts of
breeze from the south west.

Sarah

2009 update #3 - First leg - Sebana Cove

Well the journey has begun.

We have departed Danga Bay Marina on the first leg of the "Passage to the East" 2009Rally which will take us up the east coast of mainland Malaysia and then across to Borneo to visit Sarawak, Brunei, Sabah.

From there we are considering a three week escape to Palawan Island in southern Philippines and then around the north coast of Borneo via Sipidan and into Indonesia. We are currently putting together a plan for our cruising permit in Indonesia which will see us pass through Sulawesi, Halamera, Waigoe, and along the north coast of Irian Jaya to Jayapura.

From there we leap out off the coast to the Hermits, Admiralties, New Ireland/New Britain in Papua New Guinea. We will bypass Bougainville and head to the Solomon Islands and spend the end of the cyclone season around Gizo. Once the cyclone season has abated in April/May 2010 we will sail through the Louisiades, PNG and back to Australia, entering Cairns around July 2010.

This is a rough plan and we have been looking at other options and timings. The one I have mentioned is the most likely and takes into account traditional winds and currents at that time of the year also the monsoon/cyclone/typhoon seasons. So hopefully we get the right winds when we need them! Best made plans.....

There are 30 yachts here with the rally at Sebana Cove Marina planning the next stages of their yachting adventures. Some are doing circuits to come back into southeast Asia. Some are planning extended stays in certain ports while some will do a season in the Philippines.

There are a large number sailing back to Australia via different routes and time plans. It is an exciting and stressful time as the planning and Indonesian red tape is HUGE. Plus there is the provisioning and lack of resources and facilities in the areas we are heading.

From here we are heading to the Tioman Islands and will probably stay there for most of June and then sail 400nm across the China Sea to Borneo - 3 day/2 nights probably at sea.

So far the rally has been packed with experiences and culture. We have seen cultural dances from the Johor region of Malaysia (There are 11 regions altogether), visited the sultan of Johor's palace and seen the crown jewels! Dined on fabulous local foods (lots of sugar!), visited an organic fruit farm and sampled a huge selection of tropical fruits grown all year round due to the climate.Benn invited into traditional home stays,visited museums on history, culture, kites, spinning tops, traditional fishing techniques, been invited to afternoon tea at welcoming receptions at smart resorts, marinas and local village halls. We have been given free beer (not bad in a Muslim country) and free berths at Puteri and Danga Bay. We have been educated in Malay customs and daily life that without being on the rally we would have not experienced on our own.

The Malays are so different from the Thais in so many ways and the population is made up of a diverse mix of ethnic groups. There are the native Malays who are normally Muslim, there are the Indians (Hindu) and the Chinese (Buddhist, Confucianism, ancestor worship). Life is so varied and exciting, you never know what is round the corner. Festivals, marriages, funerals, celebrating life in general. Each group preserves its traditional way of life.

We are looking forward to visiting more of Malaysia and of course a spot of snorkelling in the Tiomans......

Finally heading south!

Well just over a month since the last update.

We have left Thailand for the last time and gradually sailed down through the islands back to Langkawi in Malaysia. We revisited old favourites and found new spots we had not been to before.

We revisited Krabi River again and did Thailand's best southern Thailand forest Wat! 1067 steep steps to the top but worth it for the view and the encounter with rare stump tailed Macaques with bright red bums and faces!!

We also spent a couple days in our favourite hong Pileh Hong on the east coast of Phi Phi Ley. Pura Vida joined us in here as the tides were perfect and Pura Vida being a monohull needed the spring tide to get in. Worth it!!

Ko Jam, Ko Kraden and Ko Bulon Le were all new to us and worth a visit. We had a special meal out at Ko Muk. The location of our first Thai meal and my birthday in December 2007. Spicy green mango and dried fish salad delicious!!

Ko Bulon Le is beautiful but needs the right conditions to anchor. Our last Thai Bart was spent here on our last chang beer.

Next stop was Telaga Harbour Marina in Langkawi. This is a good place to restock on food and alcohol as it is a duty free port. We also beached ourselves to antifoul. We hope this will last us till we get back to Australia.

Yesterday we had a fast sail averaging 9kts for a couple of hours! Averaged over 7kts and topped 10.4 on a 9 hour sail.We are now in Penang enjoying the delights of Georgetown. We head to Port Dickson next and check out Malacca and Cameron Highlands and then on to Singapore for Anzac day. We are thinking of attending the service at Changi.

The Sail Malaysia 2009 rally officially starts in Danga Bay near Johor Bahru in May and that's as far as we've planned!! Tioman Islands for a couple of weeks before heading to Borneo.We do have most of the charts now for the return trip and are gathering cruising guides and lonely planets on the areas we are going to!!

The wind is still northerly in the Malacca straits and the season hasn't changed to the SW monsoon yet so hopefully it stays that way till we get to Singapore!