Lat 5`51.6S Long 112`37.8E
We are anchored at the west end of the harbor on the south side of the island. The island is very hilly, reminiscent of the Society Islands. There are five fishing boats anchored near us in the harbor and three anchored at the opposite end of the harbor. Directly in front of us on the shore there is a line of small, low buildings mostly covered by the trees. The lights from them at night are more visible than the buildings themselves by day. The main part of town is farther to the east, where the shore is built up for a couple of miles. The majority of the buildings visible are large buildings with red roofs similar to the ones in Bali. There are two piers. One is a big pier with a huge ship tied to it and a building made of corrugated metal at the base of the pier. The second pier is much smaller, with an out of place green building with a green roof at its base. Small structures dot the mountains behind the main area of town. There are five large radio/cell/TV antennas. From here it certainly looks like quality of construction is more comparable to Bali than Flores or Timor, but then again, Labuan Bajo looked nice from the distance, too.

Yesterday we spent the day getting Kosmos all fixed up. We are pleased to report that pretty much everything was easily fixed. Eric was able to use a mallet to push the antenna support back into shape. We secured the kayaks and dinghy, and Eric put a towel under the dinghy cover to stop the chaffing. Eric secured the boom and paravane chains. He put a coating of gel coat where it had been chipped by the locker door. Eric washed the propane sensor and now it works fine. He tightened the screws on the hatch that leaked. The wind is still strong and making big waves in the bay, so it is still uncomfortable here.

Yesterday we also contacted the weather router we sometimes use, OMNI. We hadn’t contacted him before leaving Bali because the report seemed pretty straightforward. He told us that the reason the weather was so much worse than was predicted because there is a cyclone in Australia that is affecting the weather patterns up here. He told us that conditions were going to be bad no matter when we left and told us that leaving today would give us our best overall run. He advised us to take a more northerly route than southern for better winds.

Part of us was dreading going back to sea knowing it would be bad. Part of us was ready to get out of the rolly anchorage, feeling like if we were going to be rocking we may as well be at sea. We were braced for conditions to be just as hellacious as they were coming in. Had we been going more east there would have been several places we could stop and hide if we couldn’t handle the seas, but going north the hidey hole options were limited. The closest potential stop was Karimata, an island off the coast of Kalimantan (the Indonesian half of Borneo), which was 300+ miles away. The plan was to stop there to take a break there for as long as we needed to in order to regroup.

This morning, when we brought up the anchor, Eric secured a small fender to the anchor to keep it from banging around. We were pleasantly surprised to find that conditions were better than expected, being merely “miserable” instead of “hellacious”. The wind is 21 25 on the nose, with gusts up to 30 from time to time. The waves are much smaller at 6 – 10 feet, but still steep and still hitting at incredibly rapid intervals, so we are bucking like mad crazy. Almost all the waves throw water spray over the bow of the boat still, but now the windows are sprayed by the waves, as opposed to smacked by them. We have to hold on to the boat with two hands at all times when upright. When lying down, your whole body rocks back and forth with the motion of the boat. When you try to drink anything, the rocking of the boat makes the opening you are drinking from move, so half the time you miss your mouth and spill all over yourself. It is not fun, but like we said, it is so much better than the last run that it doesn’t seem that bad.