Bali

After a thorough clean and having refuelled and rewatered, and the same to the boat, we have headed to Ubud for some relaxation. You might think we would be sick of the sight of each other, indeed, Geoff and Janet did head in the other direction on a motorbike. But who should we meet at a cafe overlooking Kintimani.
We also decided we needed some exercise after two weeks on the boat. Today we rode bikes 40 km. It was warm hot and sweaty, and would have been even harder if it hadn't been entirely downhill. The only exercise we got was in our fingers as we use the brakes. Dogs and chickens and children and motorbikes and cars and trucks and narrow lanes and all downhill meant we used a lot of brakes. I highly reccommend it. (Check the bike has good brakes, though).
Tommorrow it is back to the marina to resupply for our voyage East. We depart on Wednesday, Gilli, Lombok, Komodo, Flores, Timor, day sailing and visiting remote beaches and villiages, snorkelling, fishing and whatever takes our fancy.
We are not sure how much access we will have for updates to the blog, but you can follow our onward voyage via the spot (just to the right there). I will leave the sailing club link up but the tracker we all carried for the race has been taken off the boat (yes, they want them back).
Here are some pictures. Keep an eye out for the video that is too big to upload untilwe can get better bandwidth.

on the surreal sea

As we sail from the continent out into the vastness of ocean and we move to the second week our little cocoon shrinks around us. Be careful of the mind, they say, in such open-skied confinement. We jump overboard. There is something surreal about swimming two hundred kilometres from land and five kilometres above the sea bed, being towed by a rope behind a yacht that is the only boat in the entire world. We have not seen anyone since leaving Northwest Cape. We are doing this to gain rally points, we stop the boat to swim, to take underwater photographs.

But even more surreal is later on a moonless dark night with the phosphorescent stars above and below and the boat is not a boat but a spaceship flying far from home. A hundred dolphins herd flying fish against the hull and pick them off in a frenzy, fish and dolphins weaving and leaping in the light breeze, as we sail at timeless speed towards a distant galaxy. The fish are so panicked that they leap in desperation into the cockpit, hit the dreaming helmsman in the face, or through the open galley porthole to land dangerously close to the frypan.

And then we are running time-on-distance to some imaginary line, 10degrees south, bear away, come up, slow the boat, counting down, five, four, three, two, one, crossing now, exactly eleven am on the fourth, a line on the ocean fed to us and race control by a little yellow electronic brick and a few satellites. Are we sane?

Slow Down Some - sailors' scheme when nearly there!

Less than 100nm to go!
Although land is not yet in sight, we have seen plenty of evidence it is close, with a constant stream of plastic bottles and bags, bits of pvc foam, logs, reeds and other assorted rubbish floating past us over that last 12 hours.
Yesterday we also saw a group of 3 Indonesian fishing boats plying their trade, nearly 200nm offshore, and all of them with a lot less freeboard than Sandale. Lucky the sea conditions are quite benign up here....most of the time!
But still no other yachts have come in sight...where are they all?!! We expect that at least 3 race yachts have passed us in the last 24 hours, but none of them have dared come within sight of us. Do they know something we don't, and are making their approach to Bali in a different direction?!
Now, apparently we aren't really in a 'race'...that's why we are entered in the 'Rally' category of this event, so it doesn't actually matter that these other faster yachts (who gave us a 3 day start anyway) are going past us. Fortunately this doesn't mean we can't win, which we have been working hard at since well before we left Fremantle 11 days ago!!
To win the Rally category of the event we had to submit before the event started predicted times for when we would pass 6 specified lines of latitude on our way to Bali. We lose points for each minute early or late that we cross these latitudes.
There are also points deducted for use of engine and bonus points for novelty items such as a use of sextant, biggest fish caught, strongest wind experienced and best voyage video produced etc - watch out for Sandale's mini feature film 'The Stowaways', sure to be a hit and available soon at a blogsite near you!
Due to Marty's amazing navigational and weather forecasting skills, and impressive all round boat handling by the crew, we have crossed the selected lines of latitude within minutes of our nominated times whilst keeping engine hours below our free allocation.
That's why you may have seen our boat speed drop off over the past day (for those of you following us on the race tracker!), since we were actually ahead of schedule coming up to 10 degrees latitude, and have slowed down to ensure we pass on time. We have also given ourselves much more time than necessary to cross the finish line, which we now expect to reach tomorrow (Thursday) morning sometime - our 'official' finish time projection is actually 7.00am Friday.
As part of our clever 'Rally' winning strategy we plan to enter Bali and complete immigration etc tomorrow without crossing the finish line, and then motor out of the marina on Friday morning to cross the finish line exactly at our specified time!! Ahaaaa!!

So thank you to all those followers of Sandale who have been cheering us along, and celebrating that our little boat has stayed near the front of the fleet for most of the event, and please don't worry when you see us let a few boats get past us as we race past the finish line, and back again!!

So long Cliffs and Capes and Land masses

Who needs Wasabi when we have Service like this?

Passing Exmouth now and preparing to leave Australian waters. Sailing at 6 knots with fantastic following 20 knot winds from the SE, perhaps not quite fast enough to met our elected time at the next rally latitude 20 degrees. It is a rally though, not a race - but see, look at us, we are 3rd (for the moment)!
All well and slipping into the lovely routine of life at sea on a perfect ocean with fresh fish, classy service and fine company.

On the rhumb line to Bali

We are offshore 30miles west of Gnarloo, beautiful day sailing. Alone now - the last yacht in the fleet we saw was Tradewinds V that took off in the following winds this morning. It is 15 feet longer than us.

Caught tuna and mackeral yesterday. Ate sashimi but the caterer hadn't bought wasabi. The two stowaways are fitting in nicely and they don't eat much.

We missed our second target latitude by 2hrs 44mins, so now have to average 6.6 knots to make the next. We are now 50 kilometers offshore, on the rhumb line to bali with less than 1000nm to go.

video lunch

Geoff has just discovered that the tin opener does not work. It will have to be fresh vegetable curry for dinner.