Wednesday 12 March 2014

Towards Bali Morning Day 10

Hi everyone,
We have been motoring all night in very calm conditions. Right now we are at 08 35.5S 115 27.2E, heading 230 at 4.5 knots. There is a light SW wind blowing at less than 5 knots, lots of cloud around and there's light rain falling. We have 18nm to go to Benoa. I'm checking the shaft seal every few hours and no leaks so far.

Yesterday evening we took the decision to press on through the "minefield" of fish traps. There was a good moon so visibility wasn't bad. We switched back to 2 hour watches from the three hours we've been using since Day 2. That worked out well. It was actually very pleasant watching the north shore of Bali pass by. We motored through a large fleet of fishing boats off the coast, many of them with powerful lights running despite being quite small wooden trimarans.

As we entered the Lombok Strait (between Bali and Lombok) the 1/2 knot of tide with us gradually increased to 3 knots. Very nice. Then we passed a tide line and abruptly the tide turned against us. For a while we had 3 knots against us, but over a couple of hours it reduced and is now in our favour again. Lucky timing so far, but we're not there yet!

The next blog will hopefully be from Bali Internatinoal Marina!

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