Boat and Travel Challenges

Seaweed harvesting area into which No Regrets dragged

BPO fleet at anchor in Tual

Carol drawing a crowd of  kids

Customs officials aboard MAGGIE in Tual

Boat and Travel Challenges

Oct 21,  2015

Currently we are on our fourth day of passage to Bau Bau in Sulawesi. At 11:45pm the first night the autopilot stopped working. Those of you who do passages can appreciate the nuisance that is. Someone has to be hand steering all the time. One person at the wheel, one napping in the cockpit as go-for and sailor, and one trying to sleep. We started with one hour shifts when there was more wind, but 2 hours now. We have been lucky that the wind and seas have been pretty benign. Today they have dropped to almost nothing. The parasailor has been up for 3 days straight. But tonight it will have to come down and we will motor to arrive in the morning. Everyone else will have made it by sunset tonight. The next programming doesn't start until Thurs afternoon.

We have had a run of logistic problems since getting to Indonesia. The biggest has been not being able to get any cash with our debit cards, neither mine nor Rob's. We have talked to CIBC and it is not a problem there or with our cards. Likely it is with the PLUS network. The other boaters have had no problems so we have borrowed some. Also Rob went to a money changer and exchanged our US cash for rupiah. The smart phone from Fiji wouldn't work with the network here even with a local sim card. Rob eventually bought another phone to call the bank, although not until he could get some cash. The salesgirl put $ on it but it would still not work but gave an Indonesian message. Fortunately Tuti was with us to translate and we had bought data and not voice. She helped us get that organized plus numerous trips to banks. Back at the boat the new phone does not give us an internet hotspot like the previous one did.

We regularly need to copy forms, etc, and had a printer onboard. It stopped working in Bora Bora and we managed to find another there. But the store didn't carry cartridges. In Australia we tried to get some but they don't carry the right ones. We bought supposedly equivalent ones but they won't work. Apparently with HP each country has their own cartridges that are not compatible!

While we were working on getting the dinghy and motor on deck for this trip the line came off the dinghy and it started to drift away from the boat. Fortunately Rob dived in and managed to catch it and pull it back. The "bad news" is that he had the new phone, camera, and wallet in his pockets. They are still drying out-haven't had the courage to check if they still work.

If that was not enough to feel frustrated, the loss of the most up to date glasses was. Rob took them off for a shower on deck but caught a lurch that caused him to step on them. The prescription sunglasses went overboard in Mackay when a line hit him. Fortunately he carries the old ones. This will be a Dec chore back home, for sure. We feel lucky that we had no problems with the anchor holding in Tual. We started to drag right away. When we raised anchor, it was poking into a plastic bottle full of mud. No Regrets did drag into the area behind us with all the buoys and bottles. They settled with the fishermen for $750 to do repairs to their lines.

Rob has been spending the days working on the autopilot. He had purchased many spare parts. There is a new circuit board in but it won't work until set up which can't be done while sailing. Both Rui and Norm have some experience with these parts and are willing to help in port. Being a larger city we may be able to get more money also.

Just heard that the Liberals won the Canadian election yesterday. That was a surprise. We'll have to read more about it when we get some internet.