Category Archives: Cruising Life

Describes an experience regarding the boating lifestyle of our travel.

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 →

Bawean to Karimata

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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.

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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 Continue reading →

Bali to Singapore Days 3-4

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Continued from yesterday”¦ We neared a couple low, flat islands at 1700 (5:00 pm) on Wednesday. We changed course to get closer to them so we could be in more protected waters. Unfortunately, they were not a suitable place to stop, but at least in the lee of the island it was a little bit calmer. Christi’s nausea instantly went away and she ate a big meal. Eric felt less nauseous and managed to eat some crackers and drink some Pedialyte. We looked on the charts and found a suitable place to anchor off an island called Bawean that was 24 hours away. After an hour of idling, we pressed on, heading for the anchorage. Moving on was hard for Eric. He struggled with going out knowing the sickness would return. But he managed to do it.

Literally, the minute we were out in the big waves, Eric’s sea sickness returned. As the night wore on the wind and seas again got bigger. By Thursday morning the wind was at 34 with gusts up to 40 and the waves were 12 14 feet right on our nose (head seas). Surprisingly, Christi physically felt OK, but 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 →