2nd October & 4th October - Java to Karimunjawa to Belitung

Wednesday 2^nd October

So where are we??

Yes!  Back on2XS!  Oh joy…home…

Did we go on this overloaded little boat??

with our new German BFF Marco?

Well no…. We hung about, crouching pathetically on the bamboo deck for a few hours while the engine when brrm brrm brrm chugga chugga chugga…nothing…nothing…nothing…

I got off the boat and found a toilet on a huge idle ferry nearby, with the aid of kindly Marco…

I was terrified to be on this boat for six hours, with a dozen men and NO toilet facilities.  And then I got terrified to be stuck sitting on a wobbly little cardboard thingy on deck, for six hours – oh no, achey breaky back…so I got off and strolled up and down the concrete wharf for a while.

brrm brrm brrm chugga chugga chugga…nothing…nothing…nothing…

Pete had been busy on his phones for a while and suddenly he galvanised into action – aha!  We had plane tickets! 

PLANE

No not $25, which  it would have been on dodgy overloaded boat… More like $550… And first a car, to drive from Jepara to Semrang…

I was very happy….just quietly…

We drove nicely (thank you Michael aka Roy) the three or so hours from one big city to the other, and then we were on this nice little plane, and back on our dear little island, with 2XS sitting quietly on its mooring, guarded by kindly Jan, from SV Avanta.

Oh joy to be home!

On the way we told Michael aka Roy that we had stayed in a mosquito infested hotel.  Oh yes, he said, that must have been the Segoro. It is famous for its mosquitos.  The dreaded nyamook!!

Jan picked us up from the wharf and then we went out for dinner…  Kind Captain Pete shouted us all this very delicious meal, approx. $2 each… I had mie goreng, seafood - yummo!

Tomorrow SV Avanata and SV 2Xs are up and away, at 6am, heading for Belitung.  Not sure when next we will be in range but…we will be!  Eventually!

Friday 4^th October

2 degrees south

108 degrees east

Pete says we are more or less 40 degrees north and 40 degrees west of Tasmania!!

We have just arrived at Belitung, where there are cheery flags out to greet the fleet.  I think there are six rally boats here, including 2XS and Avanta.  Maybe more will come and our little city-on-the-sea will re-form in yet another beautiful place.  The beach is full of cheery little local sailing boats, all the colours of the rainbow, as Zoe would say…

We left at 5am yesterday morning and got here at 1.45 this afternoon.  All went well.  Yes there were dozens of fishing boats, even way out to sea, 150 nautical miles from land, but they weren’t playing dodgem cars with us so we were quite happy to see them shining brightly on the horizon.  The other good thing was…I wasn’t sick, even though my magic scopatch fell off quite early in the piece, never to be seen again…