Bali Postscript

Fleck
Sat 4 Sep 2010 05:58
Sept 4th 2010 ?Saturday
 
Position 7:30S 114:56E
 
I may be talking to myself, but I'm doing plenty of that anyway, and at least on the blog someone may be listening! Quite a lot of the boat noises do sound a bit like snippets of human conversation, but I havn't made any imaginary friends  - yet. So, yes missing Hannah loads, but otherwise good to be back at sea and making progress (more about that in a monent).
 
It was wonderful to see Conny out here, and to see how relieved she was to get her daughter back! Bali probably not the holiday destination that either of us would have chosen if not for the particular circumstances, but actually lots to see and do. Achievment stars went to Hannah for learning to surf, and to me for never once crashing our hire car. All too soon they were on their way back to the UK. Terrible things, jobs and school!
 
An excellent start to the next leg of the trip yesterday, motoring and sailing up the Selat Lombok against the current. Made easy for me by an old sage at the marina who looked in his almanac and pronounced: 'Leave at 09.00 hrs, hug the north shore'. And it worked very well with an exciting burst of sailing at the end as 30 kts of wind shot us out of the narrow top of the passage into the Bali Sea.Unfortunately that was just a local effect of land breezes, and since midnight there has been no consistent wind at all, and a very lumpy sea, which is making everything rather difficult. It is also extremely hot today. An exhausing couple of hours with the spinnaker this morning came to naught, as the wind swings from north to south every few minutes, and rarely gets more than 5kts. So motoring, and even this is slow progress in the lumpy sea.
 
Destination is Bintan Island just south of Singapore, its more than 800 miles. This is a very big part of the world.