We are at anchor in Kupang. We dropped anchor at 1530 on Wednesday 30 July, 74.5 hours after leaving Darwin. A very good time considering the wind or lack thereof. We motored for the first 42 hours then had a magic sail using our reacher, incl overnight.
We cleared Quarantine on Wednesday afternoon. Q had quite a few teams available and the yachts with the Q guys on board made contact with other yachts flying the Q flag so the Q guys could be delivered promptly from yacht to yacht.
Unfortunately Customs did not play the same game. We had to put our name down on a list on the local Customs boat which is moored inshore, then Customs will call up each yacht on the VHF for the Customs officers to be collected by the yacht's dinghy and then returned to the Customs boat after the visit. Customs isn't working through the list in the order of the names so that some boats in for 24+ hours still hadn't been cleared whilst other later arrivals were, causing some grumping on the VHF. To compound matters Customs are issuing "Impound Notices" to be stuck to the cleared boats because of some incomplete documentation - either because (version 1) Sail Indonesia did not get the "sponsor letters" for the boats due to some alleged inter-Indonesian department politicking or (version 2) Indonesian Customs are wanting to enforce the requirement for an import bond on visiting yachts but the Sail Indonesia exemption from this has not yet been put in place. These impound notices mean that boats are not free to leave the anchorage even though the paperwork has been done. Some cruisers are extremely grumpy, whilst others just shrug and get on with being here. Since writing this we have all been advised that the situation has been resolved and provided each
boat completes one more bit of paper and pays 50,000 Rps (about AU$6) then Customs will come out to remove the Impound Notice.
To really make life fun for the 120 + yachts in the anchorage, on Thursday the wind got up, blowing over 20 knots for several hours, fortunately in daylight. The wind was not that strong but the tide enhanced chop really got things boiling. Yachts started dragging all over the anchorage, including one tangling its anchor chain with another, and yachts starting to drag out into the bay. Many owners had gone ashore and teams from other yachts had to frantically conduct rescue forays. The Customs Vessel also dragged onto a couple of yachts and then departed the scene to the relief of the yachts from an anchorage point of view but from a Customs inspection point of view that meant no more inspections for the rest of the day.
We had our own issue. We were not dragging but decided to re-anchor as we were a little close to another yacht. After only pulling up a short amount of chain it came to a complete halt due, we concluded, to the chain being caught on something below. We couldn't budge it. With the wind picking up we also could
not lay out any more chain due to our proximity to the other yacht. The wind forced us back on the tight chain and the pressure on the snubber (the nylon line clipped onto the chain and tied back to the boat to take the strain off the windlass) was huge. Fortunately the other yacht was kind enough to move although that was not easy in the strong winds and our position vis a vis their anchor chain so we had a bit of a scramble as they squeezed past our bow. However we were then able to let out more chain which quietened us down.
We will try to raise the anchor and if not successful will see if one of the divers in the fleet can go down the 20m and take a look at the situation.
Friday saw some more winds, with some more dragging. The tide was also very low and the combination of the wind and the low tide made getting ashore a challenge with some dinghies being swamped by waves on approach to the beach. The prospect of this put quite a few crews off going shore which was a shame as it meant that the Governors Welcome Dinner and cultural displays in evening was not as well attended as it deserved to be as the Indonesians had gone to a lot of trouble.
We went ashore at about 1915. On the way we got tangled in a floating anchor line that had been laid from the yacht "Pure Chance" which had put on a good display of dragging earlier in the day. A dark rope in dark water on a dark night is not exactly visible. Having extracated ourselves from this we diverted to "Keshi" to pick up Leanne, having assured her husband that we would get her safely to shore. We thought we had the waves right but looking over our shoulder we saw a huge breaking wave coming right at us. It caught us just as the bow of the dinghy touched the beach and before the dinghy boys could grab the dinghy and haul it out of the water. Result - dinghy swamped, all persons very wet. Undaunted we batted on and had a good evening.
Today Saturday is delivering winds gusting 25-28 knots and a couple of boats have dragged. Peter is going ashore to watch the Bledisloe 2 rugby match this afternoon which hopefully will be on the big screen.
The town is bustling, there is a mega party area on the foreshore every night, well attended by the locals. The streets are full of motor scooters and bemos (small taxi van/buses) all whizzing around, flashing coloured lights and sounding their horns. Walking in the streets is an exercise in watching where one puts one's feet due to the holes, rubble, disappearing pavements etc plus looking at head height due to low slung wires. It is very interesting but,not surprisingly, slightly chaotic. It is disappointing to see the huge amount of
rubbish just thrown into drains, rivers and the sea. Cruisers who take their rubbish ashore are horrified to see it tipped up on the beach, gone through and then the reject rubbish left to blow or washed away out to sea.
Signing off,
Saturday 2 August 2008.
