Category Archives: Cruising Guide

Information for other cruising boats. Our experiences finding places to anchor, dealing with officials, provisions, etc.

Eric Grab, Pseudo MD for Karimata

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Lat 1`40.7S Long 108.54.2E
We both got a fitful 10 hours of sleep and felt much better in the morning. We decided not to leave until 1600, giving us a full 24 hours of rest before setting off again.

In the late morning a fishing boat came by. Due to the language barrier, it took us a while to realize that someone was hurt and they wanted our help. One of the younger men, named Weren (sp) spoke English the best and became the interpreter. We decided that Eric should go to shore with the first aid kit and Christi should stay at the boat monitoring the radio. Eric hopped in their boat and they headed toward the structures we could see from Kosmos.

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The small village had a lovely beach. There is a dock, and just as the fishermen yesterday told us, the water is much calmer in front of the village. Upon arriving to shore, Eric was taken to a hut where a man had a big gaping wound on the left side of his forehead. They had already Continue reading →

Arriving in Karimata, Indonesia

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Our good attitude about the “miserable” sea conditions didn’t last long. We were still very aware that it could be worse, but the fact of the matter is it is hard to maintain a good attitude when you are in such misery. Human nature. Sea conditions were identical as reported when we left. The good news is neither of us got sea sick, although Continue reading →

Bali to Singapore Day 1-2

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Our visa expired on Tuesday, so we absolutely had to leave. Monday was one of our typical get ready to go days. Eric changed the transmission oil and oil filter, which he describes as a “messy job”. Lots of oil spills, but easy to contain with oil aborbant pads. We went to the nicest grocery store in town, The Carrefour, to stock up on food. The Carrefour in Tahiti was one of the nicest grocery stores we have ever been to nicer even than Gelson’s. Like the Carrefour in Tahiti, it is inside a new, modern mall. The mall here is much bigger and nicer than the Tahiti one, which set up high expectations for the grocery store. We are disappointed to report this one wasn’t nearly as good. This one has a nice bakery, like the one in Tahiti. But there was no beautiful selection of cheeses and dairy products. The selection of western foods is somewhat limited. The eggs are lying on a table, and you take as many as you want and put them in a plastic bag, like produce, and they ring you up per egg. And, believe it or not, there was even less selection of frozen heat and serve foods here than in Tahiti. Good thing we had stocked up in Australia. It was raining really hard, causing traffic to virtually stop going both directions, so the trip to the grocery store took much longer than planned due to long transit times.

Tuesday morning we were planning to leave at 1100, trying to time it so we were on an outgoing current. Everyone had warned us it would be a very rough ride all the way to Singapore since Continue reading →

Whitewater Rafting Trip in Ubud

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We started the day with round two of fueling. We had been warned that fuel in Bali is dirty, so we filtered all the fuel with an external filter as it was pumped. We are pleased to report that the fuel did not have any debris or water in it at all. We are still going to polish it before we take off, to be safe. Kosmos is now level, which is nice.

After fueling, we went white water rafting. Eric went once many years ago and had a lot of fun. Christi once went on a week long white water kayaking trip, which was a disastrous experience where 90% of the time she was taking the rapids upside down. She does not look back on that trip with fond memories. Christi had been told taking the rapids in a raft was more fun than a kayak, so she was willing to give it a go. We figured that since it had been raining so much the last few days (we only mentioned the rain on days where it affected our plans, but it has rained at least a little every day that we have been in Bali), the river would be full and the rapids good. And we figured the water would be pretty warm, too, which is an important factor for Christi.

The company we chose is called Sobek and is just outside of Ubud. Much to our surprise, Continue reading →