Belongas Bay - Rock and Roll!
Digiboat's "Product Testing"
Simon Blundell
Mon 2 May 2011 23:45
08°52.06S 116°02.66E
Somewhat more
swell in the Indian Ocean since my last visist to Sth Lombok - and considerably
larger surf! Although deep in the bay and protected by two headlands, the swell
still managed to find us (who invented refraction, and WHY?). So we had a rolly
night as El Oro was determined to remian beam-on to the swell as much as
possible.
Otherwise a
terrific anchorage just 100 m from a breaking surf and surrounded by the high
ragged mountains that make up most of the S coast of Indo - Sumatra, Java, Bali
and Lombok (haven't been further E yet).
Surfers went
around to ocean beach for a surf followed by land inspection, then Shore party
went to the local village (Teluksepi) to stock up on some greens for our trip -
not a very inspiring village by all accounts.
Meanwhile I
dived on the boat to scrape off the carpet of black-stripe mussels which seem
particularly attracted to our heavily dosed TBT antifouling. Usually we leave a
trail of dead sea creatures in our wake, but the mussels seem to thrive on the
poison. These are a banned species in Australian waters and on arrival at
Christmas Island the Fisheries Dept will apparently be diving on the boat
inspecting the hull for black-stripies and Indonesian refugees. They claim that
if any banned species are found, the boat gets tented then hauled out - at our
expense on a "cost recovery basis", hate to see THAT bill! Seems good incentive
to stop out of sight of Xmas Island, grab the hooka and do a quick final
check.
Left our
prospective land owners at the local village waiting for a "taxi" to take them
back to Gili T, and weighed anchor at 11am tossed the lures overboard and headed
for the ocean.
SJB
3/1300LT