Indonesia

Saturday September 4, We made it! Confined to the boat, maybe for the duration while we are here. The country may reopen September 7, but then we’ll need 8 days of quarantine and 2 COVID PCR test $$ before we can go ashore. The plan is to depart around September 10. Our timeline is centered around cyclone season in Indian Ocean, which begins in November. We’ll sail to Reunion Island from here then on to South Africa.

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Eron from the marina stopped by our boat, he took our trash and laundry. We arranged with him to get fuel next week. They will also provision for us, we’re working on a list.

Cleaning day. We freshwater rinsed the salt off the boat deck. Also washed the galley floor and wood floor in the salon.

Our friend Judy we met at Shelter Bay Marina in Panama, asked about my sourdough bread, here’s the story.

While in Sitka, Alaska, we met this couple who saw our “Seven Seas” flag flying on our boat, as they too we members. She was telling me about a book she wrote, “Sourdough, A Beginner’s Guide For Vegans”, under the pen name of Iris Blume. I had never thought about making bread as we basically were coastal cruising at that point, stores were never far away.

I did a little research and created a sourdough “starter”. It failed, but I was still determined. I found an online class from the “Sourdough Schoolhouse” based in British Columbia, Canada. They offered at that time a free trial online zoom class, which I took in Anacortes, Washington while getting the boat repaired. Our sail to Hawaii was rough, while feeding my starter one day it spilled all over the counter. That was the end of that.

When in Maui, I googled sourdough starter and found Maui Artisan Sourdough. I contacted him as he was in Lahaina and so were we, and arranged to purchase dehydrated starter from him. I purchased the Sourdough 101 course from “Schoolhouse”. It’s been great! They have a closed Facebook group for enrolled students and also offer call in sessions with questions. There are also videos with the process. They offer other classes you can take like pasta and pastries, I most likely will do that when we return home.

The tropics have a few challenges as sourdough bread making is temperature dependent and it’s very warm there. I’ve had adjust my bulk fermentation times shorter and even refrigerate the dough for an hour to slow it down. I bake the bread now in 9 x 4 loaf pan as Dan likes that shape better than the round loaf. Now I typically bake a loaf per week or so.

Sunday September 5, fuel arrived unexpectedly in the morning, we thought it would be delivered during the week.

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Sail repair #1, the staysail. Patches were add to two places where Genoa sheets, when the Genoa was poled out, chaffed on the sacrificial sunbrella on the staysail. Lesson learned, keep the lazy sheet looser. The second was a 62” strip along the edge of the foot of the sail. Not my neatest job but functional. There is a slight burr on the sewing machine hook, caused by needle breakage, this often results in skipped stitches and or the thread fraying. I have filed the hook many times.

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With the wind picking up, we kept the sail on the deck, we will wait to repair the other two sails for less windy day.

Monday September 6, dinghy chaps repair. Wow, this took all day!

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First two patches were added to cover a couple of tears. We then cut strips of sunbrella and added about 4” to the depth on the sides. Shock cord was added at the bottom so it goes under the gray bumper lip. When purchased, the cover had Velcro glued to the vinyl to hold it in place, which came “un-glued”.

Tuesday September 7, completed our shopping list for the marina. I could get used to having a personal food shopper. Hope they select good items, we tried to be very specific. Also, our laundry was returned all clean a folded so nicely.

We met another boat here, they are from France who also know our friends on Falbala. Lionel and Yamile on s/v Le Rebelle. They were sailing here from Raiatea, French Polynesia when Indonesia closed and were unaware of the situation. After much effort to convince immigration to let them in, they gave up. Plan to leave here Thursday for Reunion Island.

Shirley Carter in her little yellow boat s/v Speedwell of Hong Kong, arrived here today. It was good to see her. She departed 3 weeks before us from Fiji.

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Wednesday September 8, Sail repair #2, the Genoa. At some point the leach line broke, it’s a line within the leach of sail to minimize its flutter, the leach of the sail has been fluttering horribly. The sail was lowered, Dan reattached the line, in doing so had to make a cut on the edge of the sail. We stuffed part of the sail through a hatch, put the sewing machine on the bed, to add a patch to cover the cut. Better than lugging the machine to the deck for a small sewing job.

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Sail repair #3, the Main. The wind calmed down just long enough we decided to drop the mainsail. Stitching along a large section of the tape on foot had come out. With the sewing machine on the deck, that area was resewed, with Dan adjusting the tape as I sewed. Then we reinforced the tape on the entire foot of the sail, sewing the length of it.

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Our groceries were delivered late afternoon. Funny how things get lost in translation. On my list I had 5 kilos of bread flour, we received 5 kilos of bread crumbs. Dan wanted a few bags of potato chips, at least they texted us a photo, it was of french fries, like fish and chips, I guess? Dan added cookies, they bought crackers. Not sure about children’s shampoo and many bars of soap, that probs belongs to someone else or to the person who did the shopping.

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Thursday September 9, Immigration stopped at our boat in the morning. They wanted to see our exit papers from Fiji as well as boat documentation, COVID vaccine and health documents. Very friendly guys, said the county may reopen Monday, the 13th.

The bananas we received yesterday were very ripe. Today I baked 2 loaves of banana bread.

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In the morning we’re departing Indonesia for Reunion Island. It will be about a 3600 nautical mile journey.