Lardo's Dream: October 2013

We cruised through the Java Sea (Indian Ocean) and the South China Sea to reach our final destination in Indonesia – Nonga Point Marina – 880 miles from Bali.

Our first day of sailing was awesome – wind of 15 to 20 knots. But it didn’t take long for the wind to disappear - Sunday and Monday, we motor sailed. Fortunately the wind picked up again on Tuesday and we were able to sail in light winds for about 8 hours per day for most of the trip. We were very happy that we did not have to stop midway to fuel up! Lots of fishing boats, shipping traffic and even wrecks – good experience for our upcoming trip across the Malacca Straits to Singapore.

We crossed the equator along the way and found the ITCZ (doldrums) to be hot, hot, hot with practically no wind which found us all fighting for the shade. As we crossed the equator, we had four seasons in one day – we went from southern hemisphere winter to spring and northern hemisphere summer to autumn because we crossed during the vernal/autumnal equinox’s.

We didn’t stay long at Nongsa Point – just long enough to catch up with Lady of the Lowlands (Henk and Maria, Netherlands), meet new cruisers (Crystal Blues - Ley and Neil, Australia), and check out of Indonesia which went very smoothly at the marina. It took us about seven hours to motor about 30 miles to Raffles Marina as we dodged probably over 100 tankers in the congested Malacca Straits.