Dragons at last!
Panulirus
CR and KN Williams
Sun 4 Sep 2011 04:07
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8.16S 119.22E
Sunday 4th September, 2011
Currently en route from Komodo to Lombok which is
on the way to Bali, doing a big hop of 2 days to catch up on lazy and slow
voyages. Had we seen the dragons the day before, we would have seen them
copulating, as it was yesterday we saw 4 grown-ups and one teenager. The
grown-ups were clearly recovering from the exertions of the day before and
scarcely moved.
The young one did move and even put his tongue out
at us. I thought I'd got a wonderful movie of titch running around, but I'd got
it wrong and just filmed 10mins of my feet.
 The others just sat and watched us all troup up for
the obligatory picture.
 I'm not sure why Clare's carrying something that
states the obvious, but note the Ranger standing behind the tree with a forked
stick to pinion the dragon should he move (they were all males). In parts of
London the stick would serve a purpose more closely related to the
bag.
We woke up this morning to 15kts of wind which
meant C couldn't see anything underwater and abandonned her planned snorkeling -
so we set off hoping for a sail, but of course once out of the bay it
dropped to 6kts dead astern; so, with 240 miles to go, we put the motor on. One
chap boasted that he'd done (further South) 17 miles in 2 hours without the
engine. I was tempted to respond by saying that we'd done 23kts with only
Clare's knickers on the forestay, but more sense prevailed.
K
The previous anchorage had amazing currents and
mini whirlpools. When the tide was turning (about 3 hours after HW or
LW...bizarre) we and a couple of other boats looked like ballerinas pirouetting.
The anchor hung on so all was well and we joined in an American cruising ritual
of sundowners on the beach. Heard more stories of fresh disasters in the fleet :
a boat rammed a (? unlit) fishing boat and lost bowsprit and goodness knows
what else. Lots of engine problems etc...The bottom of our fuel cans is
frequently filthy and despite filtering it all before it goes in the tank we had
to dismantle our primary filter and clean it as well as changing the
filter.
Seeing the dragons was fantastic. The young one is
licking its lips which means it is folowing a scent. A 6 year old girl started
wandering off and the Ranger certainly moved fast. She had been moaning for
about half an hour wanting a carry so perhaps that was why her parents were'nt
hanging onto her.
We got the tide right going back North. Doing 10
knots was great.
C
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