Sail with Jenny in the fjords of Norway

Archive for the ‘2015 season’ Category

Cocos Keeling here we come!

The day has been good and we made 192nm on 24hours, so the passage will be fast but not comfortable the sea is very disturbed. The day was very nice with less wind but in the afternoon the wind and the sea came up again. Lucky for us that we had sailed us upwind so we
could bear off a little. Just now there are a lot of rain showers around us which means squalls and more sea, but it is good to get the salt of the boat, sometimes we have been a little submarine.

I do not even want to think about that this is a very short passage compared to the ones we have to do before get to South Africa, but still we have a good time specially when we get to new places.

The boys managed to put out the fishing line today – there was two bites but we never saw any fish, which was a disappointment for them
(but not for me). We also had some dolphins visiting the boat and it was great to see them again it has been a long time since we saw dolphins playing around the boat.

We have a problem with the “kick” the “hydraulic cylinder” that holds the boom down, there is a leakage in the hydraulic hose to it because  we found oil on the deck. That is one of the issues that have to be fixed when we get to Cocos Keeling. Another one is that we can not get the vents on the deck watertight. There are not a single day without maintenance so it is good that the skipper is a handy man.

The wind has just dropped dramatically so I have to go out and see what I can do with the sail.
(One hour later) Nothing to do about the sails there are black clouds all around us so I will not put out more sail before they have passed. I can see the light of the day and that is always nice to know that in an hour it will be daylight.

Our eta is still tomorrow morning – only one more night watch and we will be in azure blue clear water again – and a new place for us.
Cocos Keeling belongs to Australia so we need visa which was very easy to get online.

All good for now the wind picked up and a rain shower came along with it, so the boat got a nice wash from fresh water.

All good for now
Crew on Jenny

Left Jakarta and Indonesia

Thursday 12 September at high tide we finally managed to leave Jakarta and for all of us it felt like a relive escaping from the very polluted dirty city with all the mosquitoes.

We got both our parcels (the gator and the control unit for the freeze) with good help from the Norwegian Embassies.
Our further sightseeing plans was skipped due to a lot of maintenance work (engine, wash down of the mast, gator repair, etc. etc.), and our desperate needs to get out of the town. But again the people of Indonesia are very friendly and nice and we never felt unsafe walking in the city. The last day after checking out I managed to take the “boys” to the shopping mall and to a nice Indonesian restaurant (Oasis) with local food and music, but we had to little time to really enjoy it.

After we left the marina we had a very nice sail to the outer island of Jakarta and stopped for the night outside a village. Next morning we repaired the main sail halyard before we set off to Sunda Strait. Before rounding into the Sunda Strait we were circled by an Indonesian Frigate  which was escorting a large bulk carrier that was on fire. At night we anchored of the main land before dark and next morning there was no wind so we had to motor some time before the wind came up so much that we had to put in two reefs and hide in the channel for the night. I made pizza and we went early to bed but because of the wind we did not get so much sleep.
Today Sunday 15th September we left our shelter and set the course for Cocos Keeling, it is still a lot of wind, but the forecast tell us it will come down tomorrow. We have good speed and at the moment we have an ETA for Cocos K. early morning Wednesday.

More news tomorrow, as you know the first day at sea is not very pleasant.
Lucky me I only have one more hour to go on may first night watch.

Batavia Marina er en koselig marina med god mat og drikke, men av og til må vi stikke nesen ut av porten og da er helv…. løs.  Trafikk, eksos, søppel, kloakk, rotter, mygg, etc. etc.  det er faktisk ikke mulig å beskrive lukten og lydene rundt oss når vi går i gatene uten fortau og med 1000-vis av mopeder / biler /sykkler /drosjer/kjerrer  rundt oss på alle kanter og skulle vi være så syndig å ta en taxi står vi stort sett i kø….Vi har aldri og kommer sikkert ikke på lenge til å se noe verre, vi jobber intenst med vedlikehold av båt (mens vi venter på deler til kjøleskap og rortetning) for å komme oss bort herfra.

Med god hjelp fra den Norske ambasaden fikk vi endelig delene vi trengte og god hjelp fra lokale håndtverkere og personale her på Batavia Marina har vi nå fått reparert rortetningen, vacumbryteren for hovedlensepumpen og oljekjøleren til gearboksen og i tillegg også noen reparasjoner av presenning trekkene til skylights.

Ventetiden på deler ble også brukt til sight seeing og siden Svein Jarle hadde slektninger som bor utenfor Jakarta kom de og tok oss med til en festival for folkedans og håndarbeid utenfor Jakarta. Dagen ble en fantastisk opplevelse av Indonesisk mangfold og kultur. Vi har alt for lett å glemme at det bor 220millioner mennesker i dette forholdsvis lille landet.

Heldigvis er menneskene blide, hyggelig og har alltid et smil på lur og det hjelper godt på.  Vi hadde tenkt oss til Bali eller JogJakarta på sightseeing, men vi orker ikke å være her mer enn høyst nødvendig – vi drømmer oss bort til Cocos Keeling som er vårt neste stopp.  Der er det axurblått vann og gode forhold for snorkling og bading her er det bra skitt og søppel og vi må trå veldig forsiktig for ikke å falle uti den åpne kloakken eller i sjøen som er brun som …..

English:

Batavia Marina is a nice Marina with good food and drinks, but sometimes we have to venture outside the gates and then he…. is loose.  Traffic, exhaust, rubbish, garbage, rats, mosquitoes, etc, etc. It is in fact not possible to describe the smell and sound when we walk in the roads without pavements and hundreds of motorbikes, cars, lorries, hand pulled trolleys, horse and carts,  around us on all sides. If we take a taxi we end up in an hourly long ques. We have never and will possible never to see anything worse ever.  Hence our work and maintenance of Jenny while we are waiting on our spare parts have got high priority such that we get underway as soon as possible.

With good help from the Norwegian Embassy did we eventually receive the parts we needed and with good help from local technicians and marina crew have now the rudder gland seal been repaired, the vacuum switch for the bilge pump and the gear box oil cooler been repaired. Some stitching repairs have also been done to the skylight canvas and a lot of good varnishing of deck trim and toe rail.

The time waiting on parts has also been used for sight seeing and Svein Jarle who has a relative living outside Jakarta organised a tour to a fair outside the city centre where they displayed dance and various segments of Indonesian culture from different parts of the country. It became a fantastic experience which showed the diversity of the Indonesian culture. We became very much aware of the size of the country which has a population of more than 220 million.

Luckily the people of Jakarta is nice, welcoming and always smiling to you. Our plan was to fly down to Bali or Jog Jakarta for sightseeing but now our priority is to get out of here as soon as possible. We are now dreaming of Cocos Keeling which is our next stop with crystal clear water rather than looking at the water here which is just Brown……as……

Jakarta

For the first time since we left Singapore we have had a day and night sail with good and steady wind from East and a pleasant ride towards Jakarta.
We have all enjoyed a hot day in the cockpit with not a lot of cloths on. During the night there was a lot of traffic so a good look out was necessary. Cargo ships and squid fishing boats with lots of light on, not like the small fishing boats with nets that we meet on the west side of Malaysia. We have later discovered (when Svein-Jarle was diving on the boat) that we probably had a net on the wings for some time because there is a mark in the paint on top of the wings, and we remember a loud noise when it went off and we got one knot more speed.

Early in the morning we saw the skyline of Jakarta and had to slow the boat down because we needed high tide to get in to the marina. After “circling” around to wait for the tide we headed for the marina entrance.
We knew that the channel into the marina was shallow and several times we asked the marina manager for the dept but he never answered us on that question but was very nice and helpful. At 16.00 we entered 14 cm before high tide and it got more and more shallow but the boat never really stopped it just went slower for a while. We saw 1,8m on the dept sounder and Jenny is 2.5 so we have probable made a nice plow in the mud. But we got in to the nice Batavia Marina with a beautiful reception and very nice
facilities so we where all very happy. The Marina manager was also helpful and friendly.
After having a good anchor dram we hosed down the boat with fresh water and had a good pizza for dinner.

The next morning after a good night sleep Jan and me walked to the old city of Jakarta (which is very close), but at some time we got lost and was helped by a lady named Hanna who is an English teacher and she more or less followed us to the center of Kota. We asked Hanna if she could be our guide in Jakarta and we will invite her our to the boat today and make arrangement for a guided tour. We always like to meet the local people and that makes all the difference, the city (what we saw) is dirty, smelly
and the people live in very bad conditions. But as always there is a rich elite that has a lots of money.
We look forward to meet Hanna today and listen to what she have to tell us about her city.