Category Archives: Information

Information we discovered during our travels.

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 →

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 →

More Sightseeing in Bali

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Continued from yesterday”¦ We made our rounds around temple Tirta Empul, looking at all the structures, and then headed back to the car. We managed to sneak out the entrance so we could avoid the row of hawkers awaiting us at the exit. As soon as we were out of the temple complex, the pushy banana salesman was back, and despite having told her no at least 50 times, she managed to beat us into submission and we bought some bananas.

The next stop was a town called Bangli. We ate in a restaurant called Batur Sari that offers a nice view of active volcano Batur. While the setting was nice, the food was only mediocre and extremely over priced. Christi’s main course was $8.50, the same price as her gourmet meal in the fancy restaurant Kuta. The volcano never rumbled or spit up any lava or smoke that we could see, so we didn’t even get a show with our meal. We were also attacked by touts as we left, who literally surrounded us, all of them shoving their wares in our faces and demanding we buy their goods. We had a hard time getting through them to the safety of the car. That is our worst hawker experience to date.

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We made a quick stop at Continue reading →