To Jayapura

Our trip to Jayapura is colored with village life. We visited island after island of the kindest and most gentle people we have met. A surprise, as at first glance the Papuans dark skin, curly mops and incredibly strong bodies cut an intimidating figure. Wherever we sailed, we were greeted by a dugout with cries pointing to the best anchorage and assurances that it “ Dis ini aman” (Here is safe). Our days were filled with laughter.

Here are a few glimpses of some of the incredibly humble, happy and gentle Papuans we met along the way.

 Above left, Rickson, friends and family farewelling us from PP Mamboor.  Above right, Aba and John trying their first Cheroot.

Above left, John with his daughter hitching a ride - wonder how old she is? Above Right, Mathieus, Aba, friends and family. 

Our days in Kapung Warosa were filled with a steady stream of visitors. Children are the same wherever you go, and they all managed to find small scratches to get plasters.

Incredibly poor, most of the children were running around in 4th and 5th hand clothes, if at all and often gender was difficult to decipher with baby boys wearing pink frills. Max and Nadine’s baby clothes were much needed and greatly appreciated!
Max & Nadine are our lovely previous crew from Germany who brought a huge Maori suitcase all the way from Europe of donated childrens clothes that we’ve steadily been distributing for the last few months – it’s been a fantastic idea – wherever we go and one child gets some clothes, steadily all the children are brought out for a treat too – seeing these children wearing nice clothes is a real pleasure.

One of my favourites was P. Wakde where we were befriended by Macolod, we were all taken in by his gentle manner and tales of the islands history. A colourful history too as we discovered when Macolod and his friend Victoria kindly showed us around the island. We found Japanese gun boats riddled with bullet holes. An old overgrown runway used by both the Japanese and then the allies during the war. They even had a single dog tag from an American soldier. The island has plenty of bird life and even spotted cous cous.

We managed to discover WWII wrecks around the island with the help of drawings in the sand. Unfortunately visibility was poor due to recent rain and even waiting the squall to clear didn’t help so we’ve marked the waypoints and saved these for next time!

Saying farewell to Wakde and Macolod was particularly sad. It marks the completion of a great passage we’ve shared with Jean, and brings closer the end of our West Papuan adventure… I hope we come back this way again and see our newfound friends. On the bright side, at least we a travelling on Thyme and not the well loaded Perentis ferry!

Here's a map of our route over West Papua. I think waiting to later in the season (November being the NW transition) has paid off as we've experienced much better weather and less unfavourable current than normal. Let's hope it stays that way for our journey into PNG.

A Hookah in Kota Kinabalu

This is the time of year most people never envisage when they imagine a sailing adventure, so we thought we would share with you why we have paused in KK for 2 months. This is time when the jobs list is too long and you need to stop for a while to catch your breath and prepare the boat for more adventures. I naively thought I was escaping this, my most hated time of year but upon my return, sadly realized, despite Simons hard work the job list was still growing… not shrinking.

While I was assigned the usual array of sanding, varnishing, polishing and larder building and assistant jobs Simon was tackling building a new powerful hookah dive unit in a foreign country with 40kgs of goodies I lugged back from Aussie, parts ordered on the web from India, Malaysian sourced bits and bobs and a Honda motor we brought from the Philippines - fingers crossed they go together.

Loaded down with parts and much to the bemused stares of locals, we boarded the Inanam bus headed to Fast Fit where Mr Pung had agreed to allow Simon to build his machine. It took 3 days to weld and fabricate the body to Simons design with the boys speaking no English!

The drawings, scribbled notes and photos copied from the web slowly became dishelved…

as the unit took shape. Thanks to Alwyn and Ben in the workshop, they did a wonderful job!

With the build complete, we had better test it works so out to Gaya we sailed with plans to clean Thyme’s bottom while testing the hookah unit. It would be silly not to look at the reef too…

What is a Hookah?

Many commercial dive operators the world over use surface fed air compressor units – which is what this is – commonly called a hookah – a little like the power dive units you see but more grunt, reliability and safer fittings. A compressor at the surface, in this case McMillan 19cfm (alloy and stainless for the salt water environs) is belt driven by a petrol motor (Honda GX200). Compressed air is delivered into a reservoir – in this case the stainless steel frame and filtered before being sent down air breathing to a regulator used by the diver. All the fittings are special double action locking TEMA fittings. The filters meet international standards. The unit is capable of getting 2 divers to 40m, or 2 to 20m or so and 2 to 10m, although diving without back up tanks is with no deco within limits. We are always attached to the dinghy when diving, good for when we are diving new and unknown locations, particularly with current.

But wait there's more... the compressor can be used for spray painting, which is what Simon is about to start on – spraying the cabin sides after his port hole repairs. No more leaks!

In between jobs, we have managed to see some strange and interesting sights. A building on fire one morning, staff in a nearby restaurant badly burnt cooking on a grill that was being cleaned at the same time by someone with petrol!, sipping Dom Perignon overlooking the waterfront with some wealthy locals, an amazing fireworks display over the boat to celebrate the beginning of Ramadan, and we also squeezed in time to form a nice friendship with a 2 meter fish. He would appear under the hull every morning and evening and even let us swim with him. From the fish book we can only guess he is a Cobia?

Now the new VHF is installed, the dive machine complete, all hatches and port holes resealed, interior re-varnished, the V-berth painted, the engine cooling pipes re-welded, new coolant in the engine, oil and filter changed, water tanks cleaned out, bilges clean, new timber on back handrails, exterior varnishing complete, brass polished, larder re-stocked, timber where the port holes leaked replaced, cabin sides almost filled and painted now it’s time to start thinking of distant shores – Moluku and Raja Ampat dreaming…

Charmed by Romblon town

Romblon being the home of marble made me think perhaps I could replace our cracked bathroom basin with a marble model. It was removed from the boat and taken to David an English guy running a deli in town. He gave it to a lady who gave it to someone and work was started.

The kids around the port area were making themselves lilos from plastic bags filled with scraps of polystyrene washed into a corner of the harbor.

We passed the time at the close by diving board held down with lumps of marble and checking out the quarry’s where the marble is chipped out by hand and sculptured in to everything imaginable.

After about 3 days when the weather settled we managed to get in a dive at the Blue Hole (see notes below) on the northeast side of Tablas. The film crew from the Filipino TV show ‘Born To Be Wild’ was also filming at the same time so we are going to be on TV sometime around the middle of February. Their host who is also a star of their survivor series filmed in Thailand. Lucky they were not filming in NZ as there is no way they would have survived, they thought the water was cold!



Our basin was to take 3 days to make but after a week we decided to move on and made plans for it to be shipped to the next Island, Sibuyan. Marc and Renate after spending 3 weeks aboard ventured into the mountains for a 2 day climb of Mount Gunting Gunting. Pretty much as soon as they would have started their hike the heavens opened up for the first time since we have been in the Philippines and it rained …and rained. We were thinking of you guys. Before the rains started we managed to visit some of the local attractions a waterfall and river.


Next stop the cows (and maybe beef) of Masbate.



The Blue Hole
Is a vertical tunnel or chimney which you can enter at about 5m. It’s about 6m in diameter and you can descend into the hole until you exit onto the reef via a cave entrance at about 27m. It’s a great spot to dive as the visibility within the hole is good allowing you to explore the marine life within the crevices. From the mouth at the bottom you can sit and watch large pelagics and turtles swim by. We saw large dog tooth tuna and green turtle. A few days earlier a shark was seen at the cave entrance. We did the dive with the 3P’s – Ducks Diving who we found to be incredibly relaxed and friendly. The film crew of Born to Be Wild were also incredibly welcoming and fun to be out with. A few days before we dived some geologists were taking samples and confirmed it is not volcanic, but formed during the last ice age similar to a blow hole which over time has hollowed out enough to let us enjoy diving through it!

To the Bright Lights of Boracay

Leaving Coron behind we headed over to Tara Island catching a Tuna along the way. Sloop was pleased to be back into the quieter Islands where a run around was possible.

We found ourselves anchored off a deserted beach and hatched a plan to have a BBQ. Renarta marinated pork (Schaschlik from Russia with love) to have with baked potatoes and salad.

Looking back maybe we should have stayed another day, but unaware it was Friday the 13th we headed off for one of the worst trips in ages against the current and straight into the wind across to Mindoro. Finally after averaging 3.2 knots (5.7km) we reached a bay on Ambulong Island well after dark. A stripy tuna also had an unlucky day. Not game to enter the bay in the dark, which was full of seaweed farming and reef buoys we anchored out the front only to have security turn up on a jet ski with their guns. It turns out they only wanted to guide us in and show us around the Grace Island resort which was starting to take guests. The next day after our tour we had them out on the boat for a visit before we headed off to Masin Island.

With the weather now on the improve Masin Island was a great place to stop with loads of kids on the shore waiting for us. We took balloons over which was a great hit.

It’s a wonder the kids didn’t injure themselves running in the wind bare footed over lumps of coral to catch a balloon I let go. After seeing that we just handed them all 1 each.

After we got some coconuts and Marc threw some kids about we departed for the big smoke of Boracy to get more time on our visa.

Feeling left out, Marc joined the Balut club. Our unregistered vendor had to usher us off the beach into an ally way to avoid the police. A Philippine rocker dressed in doc martins, stockings and a kilt provided after dinner entertainment.

As well as us trying to convince a security guard to point his 9mm at Amanda. He even objected to holding Marcs water pistol.

Enough of the big smoke – let’s head for Tablas!

The Swedes Last Leg - to the Calamians

The Calamian Group was more about the swimming than the fishing with plenty of wrecks from the Second World War and coral gardens to explore.

Robin worked out that by rolling into a ball the fish would hang around close by. I had the opposite problem with the Piranha fish thinking my body hair was eatable.

Sadly, Coron was the drop off point for the Swedes after 40 days aboard, I know Sloop will miss Robins hat and his shoulder massages.



While in town Robin kindly located a Balut vendor. Balut is a duck egg that was firstly incubated for 23 days then stored in a hot steamy environment. Succumbing to peer pressure I joined his club by also eating one. Amanda also wanting to be in the club took the challenge.

With the boat refueled we headed over to the nearby salt water lakes for a look before heading north again.

Our new crew Marc and Renate from Germany had a bit of a bumpy ride with a strong easterly blowing but the anchorage was nice and walking up the hill gave us a good view of the area. Fingers crossed the wind drops off a bit tomorrow for our trip east.

Nuts in the River - leaving the Lassa

Using the outgoing tide most of the time we made or way down the river system to the mouth of the Lassa some 65 miles further north of where we entered the Rajang. Having a little bit of time on our hands waiting for the tide we decided to try some Betel Nut purchased from the market in Sibu for 3RM ($1).

The idea as far as we could tell was to combine the 3 ingredients into the green leaf and roll it up like a cigar. The Beer was in case everything went pear shaped.

The white paste was very bitter, numbed the tongue and tasted something like chalk with a generous splash of paint thinner. Don’t ask how I know what thinners taste like. We pushed on hoping that the combination of all the items would produce some magical flavor… it didn’t.

After 3 bites and the urge to vomit it went in the bin and the only euphoric sensation we got was the one associated with knowing we didn’t have to eat any more. An Internet search later revealed the mouldy leaf was probably tobacco. The green leaf from the betel nut or correctly named Areca Palm and the white paste is a mystery. Its often lime powder but not so in this case. The whole concoction is known to remove intestinal parasites and cause cancer. Maybe that’s what kills the parasites?
Next stop Bintulu.

Tana Toraja Take 2

The first step to checking out graves was to get a map. The second was to hire a Harley as the graves are spread out everywhere. Of course it comes without fuel


From here we managed to get out of town event free and headed off, map in hand for Lemo. Here we found an albino buffalo valued at 200,000,000 Rp equivalent of about $30,000 AUD. I think he was sick of tourists and had mastered the art of almost getting bystanders with those horns.
Here we hired a Tilly lamp and headed to the cave.




Trying not to stand on the many bones we wandered around looking at the offerings (mostly cigarettes) and coffins, some of which had only been there a few months. It smelled a little musty and damp as you would expect but that was it. Every available space in and on the cliff was jammed with coffins big and small.




Apparently the richer you are the higher up the mountain you get buried. We asked a couple of people how they get the bodies up the cliff but got no real clear answer.




After reviewing our excuse for a map, we cranked up the Harleys and headed off for a swimming hole. Things didn’t go quite to plan firstly missing the turn off and then my hog got a flat tyre in the middle of nowhere. Amanda swapped to Bruce’s machine to lighten the load and I sped off in search of a tyre repair venue asking locals for directions along the way. After parting with the grand total of $1.30 for the repair and having lunch we were back in business.




By this stage hot springs sounded like a better plan so back to the back roads we headed.




From here we started to head north again and into the pouring rain. Stopping for a freshly ground coffee (5 hp of grinding) sounded like a good idea at this point to wait for the rain to ease.




After a wet ride back to the Hotel and going through the now well rehearsed routine to get hot water, we returned the Harleys. Our final day was spent cruising around, sampling smoked dried Buffalo, local coffee and catching up on internet jobs before boarding the night bus back to Makassar. We decided to change bus company for one without a broken windscreen, with good air con, and working reading lights. Pure Luxury.

Tana Toraja

Amanda had decided that this was a place not to be missed and had everything organized before mentioning it was 11.5 hours by bus. We arranged for a local to watch the boat during the day, sleep in the cockpit at night and feed Sloop. Our top of the line bus was pretty good with lots of room to stretch out and air conditioning that almost worked.



After finding somewhere to stay in the rain at 9.30pm the locals advised us that going to see a funeral was high on the list of tourist events. Strange. Anyway with our introduction letter in hand off we went following the trail of trussed up pigs and Buffalo.

After a ½ an hour and 2 bemo (public transport mini vans) rides up into the mountains we were instructed that we were to walk from here. Lucky for us 2 school girls who spoke no English pointed the way.

Finally we reached our destination to be greeted by hordes of buffalo, chanting, and pigs squealing, dying, being rolled in the fire and chopped up. A true assault on all the senses.

The school girls edged us closer gradually and finally got us seated in one of the stands where members of the family brought food and drinks for the 100s and 100s of guests.

From our vantage point we could watch all the coming and goings and try to work out what was happening.

Apparently when a family member dies, they are kept sometimes for years while the family saves up for a big send off. The animals or whatever are brought as gifts for the deceased, some of which are slaughtered on any available bit of flat ground as a sacrifice. These animals are either eaten on the day or given to people to take home. How this all happens in what seems like chaos is anybody’s guess. Thankfully our gift back to us was cooked.

After sampling the local palm wine from Bamboo stalks we wandered back down the hill past kids sorting pig intestines for who knows what, looking for another Bemo.

Tomorrow we’re going to check out some graves!