Kosmos Travel Log

Christi slept for 14 blissful hours and woke up refreshed and feeling great. Eric slept for about 9 and woke up still feeling tired. We were supposed to meet Napa back at the Lavalon at 11:00. We figured we could get in a couple of hours of sightseeing first. By 08:30 it was so hot you would think you were in a furnace. Instead of sightseeing, we ran the air conditioning and enjoyed the cool until it was time to go.

Napa had said he would be by as soon as he was done with customs and immigration, about 11:00, maybe 12:00. He showed up at 1400 (2:00 pm) to let us know he thought it would be another hour.

While we were sitting there, we had been watching the public transit vehicles go by. They are low, small mini-vans called bemos. Normally, we pay virtually no attention at all to public transit vehicles, but the bemos are something of a spectacle. They are (more…)

The ride inside the channel was pretty. There were islands on all sides of us. As we got closer to the islands in the channel to Timor, we could see that, while there is a lot of foliage, it is actually pretty dry, with much of the shrubbery brown. From 10 miles away we could see the tall structures of the city of Kupang in the distance to the right. We could easily pick out a refinery, with it’s big smoke stack. All the other surrounding islands have few structures, maybe one or two low buildings here or there.

Kupang has a population of 350,000 people. The refinery must be on the edge of town. We passed the refinery and moved towards the heart of the city, looking for the anchorage. The shore line is pretty sad looking. There are a few extremely nice buildings, but most need some serious work, and a few are dilapidated shacks that look like they will collapse at any second. There are several half built buildings that you get the sense will never be finished.

We were pretty sure that (more…)

10’ 9S by 123’ 34E - Yesterday the wind was erratic, and so was the ride. It would get calm, then rough, then OK, then calm… you get the idea. This morning seas have been reasonably good. We rolled up 2,000 hours on the main engine, which is a lot of time at sea. Eric saw something in the water that he thinks may have been a whale. He saw a spray of water and a flipper, so he is not positive. We made incredibly good speed on this passage, running at 1500 RPM most of the time and averaging over 6 knots. This has been by far our best passage overall, but it also had by far the scariest moments at sea we have ever had. Kind of seems like an oxymoron if you hadn’t read the full story.

Land was already visible when the sun came up. We were passed through some of the smaller islands to the south of Timor. There were islands on both sides of us. They are pretty low. Some have some small hills, but nothing too big. They are green and we could see some big stretches of beach on many of them. The taller mountains of the mainland – er, the much bigger island, at least, is visible behind the islands on our right. At 09:00, we rounded the corner of one of the islands and headed into Kupang, located on the southwest corner of Timor Island. The smell of land – dirt and vegetation — was strong. It is a good smell.

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Yesterday the bird left mid-morning, after having stayed with us a good 20 hours or so. The bird was not a good houseguest and left quite a mess behind. Eric had a lot of fun cleaning it up.

We had another unique sunset last night. The horizon was cloudy, and the clouds were a blue-gray color. The sky turned orange-gold, and the color contrast of the blue and orange was quite pretty. The sky slowly darkened to an orange-red before turning pink in the last rays of sunlight, all still contrasted by the blue-gray clouds. The spectacular colors brought on another moment of awe at the wonders of Mother Nature. The moon is almost full and gives off so much light that you can’t see the stars.

Sea conditions were about the same as last reported, though they did get better for a few hours. Even at its rockiest, it still was a much smoother ride than in the Pacific. That is, until about 04:00 in the morning. All night there were several dark, ominous clouds (more…)

The really good conditions lasted until yesterday afternoon, then the wind died again and the seas went back to fantastic. We know we keep saying it couldn’t possibly get any better, but it did. The swells dropped from 1 -2 feet to only one foot and came at slightly longer intervals, meaning smaller rocking less often. So great. For us, at least. Our friends on the sailing boat Fafner are at sea, too, and they are hating life with no wind.

Last night, Christi got off watch at 20:00 (8:00 pm). At that point, the ¾ full moon was high in the sky and not giving off much light. When she came back on watch at midnight, the moon looked (more…)