Sailing with Saphir

Crossing Indian Ocean.

Tjoho we are half way after a week sailing.

The start was on the 7th October at 11.00 we left Cocos Keeling to sail 2300 NM to Mauritius. It will take us 14-16 days .

The weather prediction tells us that we will have quite rough/rolling sailing with waves up to 4m. Our scopoderm plaster is on to avoid seasickness.

The first hours we had good wind and calm sea, After passed Cocos Keeling the waves came and we started to roll. This time it was quite okay but the dipping is not fun.

Tuesday morning we hear a huge bang on the boat. What was that and where?? I saw that our stay on starboard side was leaning forward.. It was broken. This “stay” goes up to the first spreader.Out of all stays this is the less worst to break. First Edgar hoped to use our kick . That means someone “me”- has to get in to our lasarett in the cockpit. And of course it is in the box furtherest in. Sadly it was to long. Next up is dynema. Back in the lasarett in the cockpit to get the kick back in the box and also find the dynema and schakles. So with dynema, metal stick and “schackel ’ we managed to strengthen up the “stay”. And to be more safe we also put an other stick in to the loop .

Thursday was an other rainy day. With confusing wind and waves from different angel. We were not feeling comfortable to go up in deck to put out the bom out so we changed the course instead. When the sea was a bit less rolling we went up and took the bom out on starboard side and we are back on right course.

Found an other window that is leaking. Puah!!! Not as bad as the kitchen window but still making a little pool under the window….. Good that we have more of the window sealing. Hard part is to reach it since our bunk bed is filled with a sail and other things.

I am knitting and make mistakes so need to take it up a bit make it right until I see a new mistake. Hope to have the jumper done before we are in Mauritius..

Can’t get enough of sunrise and sunset

Hugs Eva

Sailing and rolling to Cocos Keeling

So finally we are of. The wind is great but the waves… they are all over and high. The sailing is good and rolling is okay and then suddenly the waves smash in to each other and we dip so we get water on the portside deck.

This time knitting is not working very well since I need to hold on with one hand. Good to have books in the ear to listen to. Our blue canopy went up to protect us from the wind and rain in our cockpit. That was a great plan since two minutes later it was raining heavily good to get some salt of the boat. Ha ha not for long since a big wave came over the boat and luckily most was stop by the canopy but some came in to the cockpit. I got a bit wet but not to bad.

I will admit that I thought after being on the sea so long I thought I had sea legs but sadly not. The first day I was fine but on the second and third I felt very tired and going in to the boat was not fun. On top of that our kitchen window started to leak a lot. After every big waves on the side we had to dry the shelf’s under the window. Something must be done to get less water in. A huge plastic bag and silver lots of silver tape helped to 80 procent but still we were getting some water on the shelf’s but not as much as before. One more thing to fix….

Almost there! After spent four nights on the sea it so nice to know that we soon will anchor. Next leg I will have my plaster on for seasickness for sure.

We are anchored at Direction island on Cocos Keeling. Here you have wave protection and bit of the wind. Home Island is where most of the inhabitants live and there is food store,hardware store, post office, pharmacy, two cafes,a museum and souvenir shop that was not open when we were there. Then there is West Island where the airport is some hotels.

First we had to check in on the island also this time easy and smooth with the police coming out to the island. Fantastic beach with lots of shelter to hangout and have BBQs

Time to look at the window. We changed the sealing and with the new sealing it was very hard to close so fingers crossed that this will be enough. The cleaning up was little more than I thought. The hole storage in the bench was also filled with water. All out and was and dry. Then the freezer got som water also so our ice cubs was very salty.

We have a few other things to fix as well. As filling hydraulic oil. Wish I had a photo of us doing this. The hydraulic tank is behind our shower. So Edgar is sitting in the shower and me on the floor in front of him holding the oil can while he is pumping in the oil with a handpump. I can tell you it was very hot. Edgar was dripping sweat on me. Ha ha ha!!

Next was taking out the madrases from the bed and fix a wire that had moved and then grease the rudder again. Doing som food preparing, baking, clothes washing, boat cleaning etc. All the things we normally do…

We went snorkelling on the rip where you jump in and just go with the current . Lots of fishes and lovely clams. Even went to a manta ray cleaning station but sadly no manta rays. The day before people had seen them there so probably only wrong timing. There was also a few reef sharks round the boat every day so have had my share of seeing fishes.

We have had great days with our fellow sailing friends. Been to home Island where we was told the history of the Island. One funny thing is that they all have different surnames. Good that it is only around five hundred people living there. We were showen how to weave baskets out of palm leaves.

We really have enjoyed the days here in Cocos Keeling at Distinction Island, with BBQ s in the evenings on the beach. The last day we had a potluck lunch where Swade and Andrew from Arc also joined. I even had a knitting lesson to learn out the basic. Let’s see how well they have done when I see them in Mauritius for the second lesson.

Me and Lorraine picking some branches to the fire.

After six days exploring Cocos Keeling it is time to leave. Won’t mind to have a day or to just relax but we have 2300 NM ahead of us to get to Mauritius. The weather conditions are so so.. wind okay but some big waves and those are the one I really don’t like. This time the scopoderm plaster is on so no seasickness I hope.

Will see if I will do any updates on the crossing otherwise I will be back in little more than 2 weeks

Hugs Eva

Christmas Island

After a hole night sleep we are ready to get checked in in Australia again. It was very quick and smooth check in. Now we have less than 48 hours to fix things before we have leave again. Next up is filling diesel and see if we can join any tours. Filling diesel can be easy and it is in generally but when you are on a buoy it is a harder. First of all you need a few jerry cans which we don’t have on our boat but luckily our friends are happy to lend us 8 jerrycans. Then you have to get to the gas station to fill them up get them back to the boat in our dinghy fill up and then one more tour and we are done…

The tour was fully booked so no tour for us but I hade some really nice snorkling in the bay. Manage to do some grocery shopping and got us Christmas Island T-shirts. In the evening we had great a bbq with the fleet that was arranged by the Arc .

Next morning it was time for us to leave. We decided to leave after lunch to reach Cocos Keeling in daylight. Great then I had time for doing one laundry.

When we are using the washing machine or the stove we turn on our generator so our batteries won’t go empty. This time the generator didn’t want to start. With help from yellow shirts we got two mechanic to have a look. The fuel pump was broken and luckily they had to spare that we bought. The new was in and the generator was on. Edgar drives the mechanic back to land and five minutes later the generator stops. Edgar tries to start it again but it dint work. Back with the mechanic and have a look. The mechanic found out that the “reducer” from 24v-12v for the fuel pump was broken. We didn’t have that part nighter did they so they decided to run the cables directly to the battery. This means we have two switches on the fuel pump and then the generator instead of just starting the generator. Since it was very late afternoon and it would take them a few hours to fix this we had stay the night.

Kaos all is out under the sofa since the batteries are there

Next morning at 7.30 the mechanics arrives and fixes the last things. I take a walk and tries to see some of thes red crabs that there is a lot of on this island. I saw one. It is not really season for them.

The generator is working , washing mashing is on and our batteries is getting charged. They were almost empty and we like to have them filled up since we are going to sail all the way. At 13.30 we leave the bouy and hoist our Genua and head out. Crossing the start line at 14.45 on the 28th September. 520 Nm to sail

Hugs Eva

On our way to Christmas Island ut

Half the fleet are gathering at the start line and all are using engine. Not really a sailing rally but what to do when there is no wind and then when it comes it is straight in our nose.

After a few hours we are getting in to a very current area. First we have it with us and then against us and then chaos. The current is all over and the sea looks like it is boiling. We are motoring which normally is a speed of 6-7 knots know we are doing 0.9-1.5. On top of that the gps on the plotter has gone bananas… Good that it is daytime and we can see land on both sides so we know where we are going. In the middle of this chaos there was some calm areas where we saw fins that we think was shark that was eating and also saw some bigger dolphins.

Well out of that chaos we hoist our mainsail and then we hear a klonk on the deck. We found some hard plastic things that are supposed to be on the top of the mast… during the day we found some more. New spare part is ordered and we will get it in Mauritius. This means that we probably can’t use our mainsail over the Indian ocean. Let’s see, we will get one crew from an other boat going up to the mast to have a look. Very happy for that. I am a bit frightened of heights. The next breaking was the hook on our little boom that holds the boom onto the mast.

This 620 Nm has continued being challenging with not much wind, current with and against and waves that are rolling the boat. This rolling ended up with water again in the kitchen. Time to fix new sealing strip around the window . The Blue water runner came up which took us an hour with all the booms and lines to realise that the wind dropped. We keept it up so we could use it an other time which we did but the waves made it hard to keep the wind in the sail.

One of the days we hade really nice current. It gave us between 1.5-2 kn extra speed. During this four days we have sailed maybe one third.

On Tuesday morning when we were sailing we saw a huge amount of dolphins coming towards us. They stayed and played around the bow for 10 minutes. They always give me a big smile.

Every morning and evening we have roll calls over the SSB where we tell each other how the night and day been. Rest of the time we take turns to sleep and have watch. Breakfast and dinner we have together lunch sometimes. I am knitting and listening to books , Edgar sits and thinks a lot or do a sudoko. This leg we have also taken a lot of showers.. it has been so hot not complaining but being on deck where there is some wind but full sun we are sweeting as soon as we work with the sails. Comparing with sailing back home in Sweden with full gear on I rather do this. We did have one rain shower for two minutes in the night. We did se it coming on the radar and avoided the worst part.

We can see land, it’s only 22 Nm left until we are in a buoy. To be on the buoy before the sun is down we turn on the engine. We pass the finish line at 18.44 Lombok time. Lots of motoring hours so we will need around 400l diesel. That will be tomorrows work tonight we are just happy to lay on a buoy and to get a hole night sleep in our own bed and not on the sofa in the salon.

Hugs Eva

Lombok days

Our time in Lombok went fast. We arrived on monday 16 in the morning. Checked in and had a cleaning day,.Had a tour around the Island on Tuesday with a fabulous guide where we saw the monkeys up in the forest, visit the market and the biggest Mosque on the island. Had a great lunch by the seaside.

Wednesday me and Karen ( Edgar and Chris had to work on the boats)went for a snorkling tour to the Gili Islands. Such a great day we had. Us two a guide, a snorkel guide and the boat driver. Saw some fantastic life like turtels, blue corals, nemo and amazing statues in the water .

Wednesday evening was prize giving dinner where we got 1 prize in the second group. Will be hard to achieve that when we will sail on the other legs.

Thursday we spent grocery shopping and it took almost the hole day since just going to the first took 1.1/2 hour. In the evening we had dinner at this fantastic restaurant Kokok Pletok at hotel Tugu Lombok. Sending thank you for the tip Clare.

Friday was checking out and when it was done before lunchtime we where not allowed to leave the marina area. It was okay since we were getting help cleaning the hull and stainless steel. In the evening we had a nice barbecue arranged by the restaurant with love music.

Sunrise and ready for the rally start.

Hugs Eva

We are sailing again!

After spent 6 weeks on land we were so happy to be sailing again. We have done the half to start our next half of sailing around the world. The first 4 hours we sailed but as sone as we had rounded the island north of Darwin it died. The motor went on .

We kept looking for sea snakes, turtles, dolphins, fishing vessels etc. Fishing vessels we saw some and they are not always easy to spot. Luckily we saw them all in good time to keep away from them. Happy to see some dolphins that did high jumps as well.

The most exciting thing was when we had a special delivery to the boat from Mistral. It appeared that we did not have sea card on our plotter covering Indonesia. Good that Mistral had 2.

Can’t get enough of all these lovely sunset and sunrise so here are some more

We ended up using 101 hours motoring plus the hours from finish line to Medina Marina where we moored. It took us All in all 6 days and happy to arrived in Lombok and looking forward to meet the rest of the fleet.

The checking in went very smooth . All authorities were gathered at the marina.

Hugs

Eva

Joining World Arc 2024-2025

The World Arc boats are arriving and we get some time to get to know some of them before we start. Very nice to see Andrew and Swade back as the yellow shirts. Last time we saw them was in Galapagos. They are going to be with us all the way to St Lucia. We had a lovely week getting to know the six new boats laying in the Marina unfortunately five was in an other Marina so didn’t speak that much with them but we will get more chances. The World Arc organised a trip to see crocodiles. Finally we saw some crocodiles in the wildness.

One of many great things sailing in a rally is that dealing with authorities is easy for us. We just appear at a certain time and place with our paper and passport without having to book and fix everything by your self. Like going through a passcontrol.This time the boarder controls came down to the marina to check us out of Australia.

The night before start our sunscreens came down and we filled up water.

We were the second boat out of the lock since we needed to go and fill up diesel.

10.30 Thursday 10th we are sailing again! 920 Nm ahead of us to the next at Lombok

Hugs Eva

Darwin part 2

Writing this on the boat sailing to Lombok so less pictures this time. Maybe I will attach more when we are in Lombok so depending on when you read it you have less or the usual amount I tend to have. And for you who reads my blog when I have a reminder on instagram and facebook which I not always do, you can get a notification to your email by go in under comment and choose that you like to get updated when new blog is out.

Back in Darwin and the heat. Although it was hot in Singapore as well but there we had air conditioning. Our own on the boat is not broken but needs much more electrical power and we don’t have that cable /glove but the marina had one for us. Don’t understand why we didn’t ask for it earlier, nevertheless now we can have a good night sleep so we have some energy to do things daytime. Although it is hard in this heat. So we decided to leave the boat and go in to the outback . Where it is even hotter but dryer.

We drove for 4 hours and got to Cicadas lodge in Nitmiluk national park. A very nice place where we had our own cabin with the view straight out in the wilderness. The food was really good even tried kangaroo and crocodiles. Yes both were okay. Enjoyed the pool and at sunset the lodge served drinks and canapés.

Since Edgar is not much of a hiker and I do like to sleep in we decided to take a boat tour on the Kathrine Gorge. What a beautiful place. Would be very interesting to see how it looks when it is the rain season and the river is up to 12 meter deeper. On the sandbanks there are signs saying your are not aloud to go a shore due to the crocodiles are nesting and also sunbading. Sadly we didn’t see them but traces after them. To get between the gorges we had to walk a short walk over the rocks to take the next boat. Would have love to swim in them.

Back at Tipperary Marina where Saphir is moored, we start preparing for the next leg checking of our lists. Me and and Edgar have two different ones. Mine is focused on food, cleaning, storing, fixing roof, using sewing machine and Edgar’s is about changing filter,oils,impellers etc. Our engins mount are broken but sadly we couldn’t get new ones before we leave. We have to live with a bit vibrating noice for a while. Edgar was just glad that it was nothing worse with the engine.

I been sewing things using ours and mistrals sail. It is okay to sew in sometimes bit hard when I have many layers but my pfaff 1222 is working fine. The trickiest is to turn the item from inside to outside. I am getting better and better in that to. So in Darwin I have been very productive. I made 3 basket for keeping the lines together when we are sailing, one bag pack that I am not sure about but definitely my handbag which I will use a lot.

As I wrote sewing can be tricky some times. I helped Karen with one of the most hard things I’ve done. Getting windows on the Bimini. Sounds like an easy thing and it could have been but trouble was that we couldn’t get of the solar panels…. And in top of that it is very hot. Luckily we had an suncover to make shade over us. Best thing is to do it with a smile.

We did do other things as well as going in to town for drink and dinner with Karen and Chris. I really need to get better searching for restaurants and bars. Karen had found a really cool gin bar called Charlie that we missed and also a great restaurant Ella that served Sri Lankan food. Extra fun to here since our daughter’s nickname is Ella.

Last but not least me and Karen went to Zen rooftop bar to watch the sunset.

Hugs Eva

8 Days in Singapore

Our Visas needs to renew so we went to Singapore for a few days. Last time we were here was 1995 when Edgar’s parents lived here. Lots have changed since then. One thing is this huge hotel Sandy bay Marina and the area around the hotel. Here we stayed our two first nights. Wow what a fantastic hotel with the coolest rooftop pool I have ever visited. Not that I have visited many rooftop pools though. The view from it is fantastic. Can’t complain about the room and the view either. Talking about the room… the toilet hmm the lid opens when you open the door and the seat is heated and it flushes by its self when you leave the room and close the lid. This time we took advantage of the hotel and its facilities.

So this Singapore trips involves two more hotel visits. We start with Four Season on Orchard boulevard next to Orchard road where we have been a lot before. This time we are not alone Matti and Sus have arrived and we spend three great days together exploring the city. We take the Big bus around the city and stopes at Little India to have a … which was really nice. First time we had that but both Matti and Sus have had it plenty of times when they been in Singapore. Raffles was also a must on the list to see again. We agreed that the Singapore sling drink has shrunk and also the peanuts. But still good taste. We visited China town. Went down to Boat quay and took a boat tour on the river down to Merlion.

Singapore have some cool buildings and the nightlights makes them even better

The building where Edgar’s parents use to live

There is one more hotel and an other new area to stay in. Last but not least although the room was very tiny but the hotel had some really nice benefits like the breakfast in the lounge and five a clock drinks with nibbles. On top of this Anna came to visit us from Kuala Lumpur. Andy had to stay home and work unfortunately. It would have been so nice to see him to. We haven’t meet since they left Riga in 2018. So happy that she could make it to meet us. Me and Anna had a great time. She had been in Singapore a few times so finds her self around very well. We walk down to Garden by the bay and strolled around there and also went up and walked up on the super trees. Fantastic view over the city and the bay. A visit to Raffels and a Singapore sling before we headed back to the hotel and the five a clock drink with nibbles. We ended up at the rooftop bar at the hotel after being out strolling around in the quays. Anna went home the next day after we done some small shopping. Good to have someone that knows where to go. I planned to relax by the pool but it was raining so had to wait for the sun that came back a bit later.

Time to say bye bye to Singapore and Pullman hotel. It has been very nice to been able to try out different hotels in different areas in the same city . I can definitely recommend it.

Back to Darwin and Saphir

Hugs Eva

Visiting “family” in Sydney

We have a six hour flight to Sydney that unfortunately ends up being eight hours due to bad weather in Sydney. First time or actually second time I am flying that we need to land and fill up fuel to reach the destination. This time we actually was hovering around for an hour before it was decided that we were going to Canberra to fill up.

We got our rental car and drove true the city out to our family in Warrierwood. We had three great days with the family and managed to see almost all of them. One of my wishes was to see the opera house up close. Have been in Sydney 3 times before and just seen the house in a distance.

After the lunch we took a walk around the house but couldn’t see much of the inside due to performances going on. Nevertheless it was nice to see it and see the tiles on the roof that are from Höganäs in Sweden. Not far from where I am brought up.

Next day me, Dianna and Hanna went for a walk out to Barrenjoey lighthouse at the end of Palm Beach while Edgar, Sue and Ray waited at the restaurant. On our way down I saw a Kokaburra. Check on that! Back at Di and James place some Kakadus came to visit and bird friend Ray gave them some treats. Meet up with Maryanne and Roger the next day for a coffee at Newport.