I thought I’d write another article about the Darwin-Kupang passage…just for those who don’t want to hear about the engine…and because there was indeed some good things about being stuck in the doldrums :

What’s good about no wind AND no engine ?

1) Good sleep : no noisy engine all day round and watches are not necessary as we are not moving very fast and there is no boat around…

2) No heeling, so life aboard is just like in a marina, you can go about doing your things easily. It is not as tiring to cook…so we cook good stuff !!

3) Finally, and that is the best…far from the crocs and jelly fish of australia, we can at last enjoy the sea…We jump from the boat and swim alongside it…sometimes we even go faster swimming than the boat!!!

When the boat goes over 2kn, we can’t swim as fast…so we get trailed at the back of the boat with a rope…a good shark bait!!! ;-)

It is very good to be able to swim, especially with the heat here!

We have set up the 5 o’clock drinks tradition : stop the engine (when it’s working !), go for a swim, have some drinks and nibbles while playing cards or guitar, enjoy the sun set (they are so wonderful with that weather ! The sun looks like a big orange balloon on the horizon, then all of a sudden in 2mn, it desapears completely!)…

Usually after sun set the wind picks up a bit, so we sail all night, wherever the wind takes us…but on the last few days, we’ve been lucky as the wind pushed us in the right direction…

We are totally aware of how lucky we are…leaving night and days with swimming costumes on…

After all the happenings, on the 8^th day at sea; land!…and soon after we got the welcome crowd coming to greet us : a pod of dolphins swam along side us for a while…

Then small sampan-looking fishing boat became very commun, with great waves at us when we sailed past (at last we have wind during the day as well!!!)

Kupang!

Here we are…Indonesia !…we’ve been talking so much about it! (not only at work if you guys read this…)…we have the feeling that the “real travelling” is commencing…Australia was great but too rushed…now we hope to have more time to discover the country…and more to discover too!!!

Our next steps are taking us from Timor to the southern Nusa Tengarra Islands : Rote and Sumba, which seem to be the more remote and more authentic culturally, then Komodo and the dragons, Lombok and the volcanos and Bali and the temples…

Not sure where we will be able to connect to the internet, but probably not before Lombok, early december…

In the meantime, we send you a heat wave for the Europe / US winter AND the New-Zealand summer ;-) (…) and a spicy wind from the spice islands…