July 28,
2014 Monday
We heaved up
anchor at 1118 hrs from our Horn Is anchorage and set sail for Saumlaki,
Indonesia (07-58.7’ S x 131-17.4’ E) 670 nm.
The Torres Straits are, reputedly, one of the windiest places in the
world. The SE Trade Winds blow 15-25 kts
throughout the day and when they are really developed reach 30-35 kts for a few
days. During the evening, the winds die
down around the islands but continue to blow offshore. The tides and currents in this area are some
of the most complex to be found anywhere.
It can be flooding on one side of an island and ebbing on the
other. Currents in the passages between
some islands reach 8 kts. Careful
calculation has to be made before heading out to the East or West. When we departed Horn Is., heading West, our
greatest thrill was the passage between Thursday Is. And Prince of Wales
Is. We reached a SOG (speed-over-ground)
of 11.4 kts!!, however, our speed through the water was only 6 kts. That’s 5.2 kts current in the passage between
islands. It will, most likely, be our
all-time speed record.
The rhumb
line to Saumlaki from Thursday Is. Is 283T.
The Trade Winds blow between SSE- ESE (135T) most of the time. What this means is that we are on the Port
Tack (sails carried on the Stbd. Side) or, if running downwind “Goose Winged”,
the mainsail is carried on the lee side and the jib is poled out on the windward
side. I’m not too fond of this method of
sailing downwind because the mainsail suffers some chaffing as a result of the
boom being so far out that the mainsail lays up against the lee shrouds and
spreaders. For me, the better option is
to use twin headsails. This eliminates
wear and tear on the mainsail and is the ideal way to sail downwind. At the moment, we don’t have twin headsails
so I am sailing with the “jib”. It makes
it easy to change tacks and allows us to reef in or out on the roller
furling. In Thailand, we will set up the
twin headsail system for the South African voyage. In the meantime, this system gives us an
average of 6.5 kts in 20-25 kt Trade Wind conditions.
For the
first several hours out of Thursday Is heading West, the sailing conditions are
perfect: favorable current, wind and no swell.
As the islands disappear, the wind and swell increase. Since the Trade Winds are blowing from the SE
(135 deg.) and our rhumb line is 283 deg. This puts the wind and seas on our
port quarter and causes the boat to corkscrew around. It’s not a comfortable angle to the Trade
Wind: a bit like being in a washing machine.
Still, the Valiant 40 is a very sea kindly yacht and handles all this
with ease. The Trades start to blow 25
kts gusting 30 and the seas build up to 10 ft.
There is a height difference between the Coral Sea to the East and the
Arrafura Sea to the West. When the tide
ebbs West, it sets into the Trade Wind
seas and causes them to become very steep.
The 8 ft sea becomes 10 ft and breaks with a small crest. During the flood setting East with the Trade
Wind seas things settle down and the seas drop remarkably. Since the Tides in this part of the Arrafura
Sea are diurnal, it happens twice daily. The last two days, the seas dropped
down to the 6 ft range with winds in the 15-20 kt category. The last day I reefed in the headsail to make only 4.5 kts for a daylight
entry into Saumlaki Bay. We arrived in
Saumlaki at 0830hrs on 2 Aug 2014 after 5 days of passage time with an average
of 5.7 kts for the trip.
The
Sail2Indonesia Rally, as well as others originating from Darwin, AU has backing
from the Indonesian Ministry of Tourism.
The meaning of all this came to fruition as we were invited to a formal
event and dinner sponsored by the local officials of Saumlaki and the
providence. They were very warm,
friendly and welcoming. They presented
us with a beautifully woven “ikat” scarf representing the Tanimbar Islands of
which Saumlaki is one of the main centers.
There was food, singing and dancing with all the Indonesians. It was a very touching affair. Nowhere that we have ever been sailing has a
community shown such friendliness.
Everywhere one walks in Saumlaki, the locals call out “Hello Mister” and
want to talk a little. They are
delighted if you greet them in Indonesian and try to say a few words. They love to have their photos taken!! This part of Indonesia is mostly
Christian: Catholic and Protestant. Islam is represented is the main center of
Saumlaki and one hears that hauntingly beautiful calling of the faithful to
prayer. There is nothing outstanding in
the city and it has no great beauty but most of the things a cruiser needs can
be found here: fruit, vegetables, canned goods and fresh fish. Next to Australia, it is remarkably
cheap. We used the hotel “Harapan Indah”
as a base to establish communications with our Indonesian representatives. Since it is right on the water, we were able
to use our dinghys to motor and tie up.
The hotel is ideal for just about everything. They have WiFi but we’re talking slow and
unreliable here. It took us two days to
receive email and another to get our first message out. Finally, we bought a Simm Card for our cell
phone and went to the Telecomsel office to have the internet activated on it.: still slow and unreliable at 2G. Anyway, the hotel serves drinks and Bintang
beer in pint bottles along with food. It
has a wonderful ambiance with big tables scattered throughout a tropical garden
setting. Very nice place to relax with
no pressure to buy anything.
During our
stay, there was an organized tour in which we were escorted by a police car to
a remote village called Tumbur on the Eastern side of Yamdena (name of the
island in which Saumlaki is the biggest city).
This village hadn’t seen tourists in over three years so it was an
exciting event for them. They greeted us
at the entrance to the village with singing and dancing and took our hands in a
joyous fashion to lead us to the main square of the small town. Here we were greeted, welcomed and blessed by
the village chief (kampong): Each
person was anointed with water from a coconut bowl. Then the local officials greeted us and a
lunch was served. Afterwards, there was
dancing in the square with the locals.
The end of each event that we have been at, so far, ends in dancing with
the locals. It’s a very happy and
non-formal affair. You can’t avoid the
dancing because they seek you out and you have to participate.
There was a
demonstration of “Ikat” weaving using a back loom. Essentially, it is a small loom whose power
is provided by a support going around the weaver’s back. Traditionally, all the threads are dyed using
natural sources: tree bark, flowers, roots etc.
The patterns vary but each weaver has her own style and expertise. This type of labor intensive, time consuming
work can only exist is small villages
where there are no opportunities for other work. Some of the “Ikat” weavings are elaborate and
take many months to complete. The ones
we saw in the village were simple and for sale to tourists. The Tanimbar Islands grow ebony and there
were many carvings of wooden ships that looked like the first square rigged
ships that the Portugese, Dutch and English sailed in when they first landed in
the Tannibars. In my opinion, they
weren’t very well crafted but many of the yachties were buying them.
The day
ended with the police escort back to Saumlaki with a stop at one of the
Catholic churches that has a rather unusual “stone boat” motif with a very poorly
done painting above it depicting two missionaries in a boat. One is holding a cross in front of him with
eyes so wide open in awe that you can only imagine that he is thinking “How did
I get myself in this situation?” The
inside of the church had painted glass images of Jesus and Saints with varying
degrees of artistic skill but, whoever did the angles above the alter, had none
at all. Still, it represents what is
available locally and has its own merit.
I went to a
dentist to have a tooth looked at and found out that they have no x-ray
machines in the city or at the hospital.
Additionally, I asked for a prescription for 500 mg Amoxcicillin and was
told that it is not available. The only
thing the dentist could tell me was that he filling was intact and he could see
no crack! Fortunately, we have
Amoxicillian aboard and the other yachts in our group are carrying complete
pharmacies. There are advantages sailing
with a group!
So much for
Saumlaki – a grimy port city with a rubbish disposal problem but some of the
most friendly, hospitable people we have met.
The anchorage depths here are deep and average 65 ft but the holding is
good in sand and mud. The wind blows
strongly at 20-25 kts but dies down at night.
During the last few days a S’ly swell developed and made it rolly. We’re looking forward to leaving.
Our next destination
is the island of Moa (08-08.4’ S x 128-03.9’ E) which is 230 nm to the
West. We’ll make a few anchorage stops
along the way.
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