Traffic from everywhere
Sun Jun 14 2026 18:25:00 GMT+0800 (Centraal-Indonesische tijd)
In the evening we heard on the radio a call for us. It was an airplane of the Australian Coast Guard. “What is you port of call, and your registration,” was the question. Peter gave the info Later that night again such a call, again from a Coast Guard plane. Now Peter asked what was the problem, what they were doing here, about 100 miles from the coast? (the territorial waters go till 12 miles from the coast). They said it was only a routine check. Which is even more worrying because one would hope these extraterritorial controls would be an exception.
The next morning. On half a mile distance we saw an old Indonesian fishermans boat. Small, about 20 meters long. We checked it on AIS, the registration system to see boats on your laptop. Then, we saw suddenly 5 other ships on the AIS, and pretty close to us. The were named: 40%, 45%, 80%, 85% and 90%. But in reality we could not see any ship around us. Small dinghies that we can’t see behind the waves? Like an attack by the Australian Navy, because we asked the wrong questions?
Then, we saw a little sail on a little mast on the water. Huh? Yes, just a sail, about half a meter high, catching full wind and it doesnot seem to move. And we saw more of these sails in a row after the first one. So no entering the ship bij Australian SEALs or other young people still doing what the boss says.
What we saw was a fishing technique which is typical for Indonesia and it works like this. They take a long net and on one side the big ship is pulling, but on the other side of the net there is a buoy attached with a sail on it. That is what we saw. And on that net were five of these little ‘buoys-with-sails’ attached. Must be a big net. Then, we saw the big fisherboat make a slow turn, till the net formed a circle. That is the beginnng of the end for the fishes. The mothership pulls in the bottom line of the net, so there is no way out anymore. Then they pull the net in. at the end, the net forms a ball with all sorts of fish.
This technique is very energy efficient. But the disadvantage is that you get all sorts of fish, and not one specific sort.
There was more traffic. This time from under water. Our bait passed a yellow fin tuna. Long story short, we just ate ceviche.
True or apparent
Mon Jun 15 2026 19:33:00 GMT+0800 (Centraal-Indonesische tijd)
the wind as it really blows, comes from a direction, let’s say: from the West. and let it be in this example 5 miles per hour
Now, if you sail, or bike, or run, to the North with 5 miles per hour, the wind appears to be from the Northwest. The wind direction averages between (true) the West and (caused by your speed) the North. You experience a North Western wind. They call this wind on your sailing ship the Apparent Wind.
Now, there is also a True Course. Next to the Magnetic Course. But Geerhard and Peter had a discussion about the course we must sail now. Peter: “In two days the wind will be East so we have to make a curve over the North a bit, to get an Apparent Wind of 160 degrees.” Geerhard: “Come on, I don’t understand shit of this, just tell me what is the course” Peter explains again, but no clue emerges in Geerhards mind. He simply replies: “then just give me your apparent course, just what counts on this boat. what is that? “
Yesterday we changed the watch time because daylight gets later since we made many miles to the West,
So in stead of midnight, Peter must wake Geerhard now at 1 o’clock. But he forgets that, calls him an hour to early, and Geerhard asks “Come on, Peter, is this true?” Peter realises his mistake and answers: “No, it’s the apparent time, what counts on this boat.”
Wow, Wahoo!
Tue Jun 16 2026 18:27:00 GMT+0800 (Centraal-Indonesische tijd)
Yesterday we did everything to get space in the fridge and to eat as much as possible, so Geerhard could throw his line out for a next fish. He did so this morning and not even 5 minutes later there was a beautiful smal tuna on deck. We ate it during lunch, could put the rest in the freezer en still there was place. So Geerard couldn;t stop to throw the line out again.
This afternoon he caught a beauty of our favourite fish, the WAhoo. 10 kilo at least. Wow. Again, we ate seviche and tonight we ate a lot of beautifully cut medaillons of the Wahoo. It was delicious. And, the rest just fits in the fridge and freezer.
But for now we are packed. Fridge, freezer and two stommics.
Wow.
Anchored near Kupang
Thu Jun 18 2026 09:44:00 GMT+0800 (Centraal-Indonesische tijd)
Around midnight we lowered anchor. The predictions were wrong but in our favor, and we arrived way earlier than we expected.
We had to deal with fishing nets in the water of a rather industrial size. That was the only worring hour.
We have one apple left, one tomato, and further still plenty. Even a bag of 5 kilo of rice! And plenty of fish still in the freezer compartment. But we will do shopping here and do the repairs and sent the broken controllers to E-Tech.
Now we are waiting for the authorities. Sometimes that takes long. In Bali 9 years ago we coud do all authorities in one day. If we do it that fast this time, that is written in the stars. But we patiently wait. We won’t die of starvation, plenty of rice.
Peter always says that you have not arrived in a country if you are not cleared in and stamped completely. Often this costs a day. One could do it in an hour, if things would have been organised with a bit of sense. But no government does. If they make procedures, they only put more requirements into it, so it only gets more complicated. That complicated that you never know what new requirement they are up to. Indonesia is one of these countries. Perhaps not as bad as New Zealand or Australia, but on the issue of bad organizing they are the extreme. They tried to solve it by making the hiring of a Clear In Agent mandatory. This only covers the quality of the organization. With an agent, it makes it even more complex. And expensive, because he counts $250, which is a lot of money down the drain.
In our case, the first group of authorities came on board the second day after we anchored. It was Health. They had big forms to fill in, and they even wanted to know the motor numbers of our electric motors. For what? How healthy is that? It took Peter some hours to find these numbers.
The Customs also came on board. We gave them coffee. Two weeks earlier we did already send them the complete digital list of medicine on board, but they didnot know that, it was another department perhaps, so they were happy to see our printed lists, and they made pictures of that with their mobile phones. Which you can also call ‘digitalized’.
Immigration was the easiest. Our agent took our passports, gave them the Crewlist, and Immigration stamped our passports before they even have seen us.
For the Customs we later had to go to the Customs office. That is about a 1 1/2 hour drive, and the Customs said simply: “to give you the Clear In document”.
So we suggested that they would give that document with the approval on board? The response was a big silence.
The Health Department took longer. There were these motor numbers not yet filled in, and a blank spot on a form is about the biggest failt one can make, no matter the sense of the numbers. Our agent could sweettalk them into the final stamps.
The Port Captain will give you a Cruising Permit on the condition that all other papers are ready. But the Port Captain was late today. After all, we arrived Wednesday night and now, Saturday morning, we are through the authorities.
Now we really can say: we are in Indonesia!