Indonesia 2010
Betam
October 18, 2010
We put Belitung behind us and pointed at an island called Betam. It was sitting there over 300 nautical miles to our Northwest. We picked Betam for no other reason than its proximity to Singapore. It looked like a perfectly good spot to stage ourselves, rest up a bit and plan our little hop across the Singapore Straight. This meaningful passage would also have us sailing just to the east of Linga Island where we would cross the equator for the second time. Once again we would be leaving the southern hemisphere, and although there would be the uncertainty any ocean passage carries we were certain of this; our arrival into the northern hemisphere would be less chilly, abrupt and disorienting than the last time we crossed the equatorial line (back in December on our way to Canada). Just before 9PM on October the 18th we did just that.
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The trip had been going smoothly, but the lack of wind left us behind schedule which meant a nighttime crossing. It was my watch and elaborate equator crossing plans and celebrations were abandoned in favor of a couple hasty snapshots and a briefly interrupted sleep for Jaime for obligatory offerings to Neptune. We were shellbacks now anyway, a distinction applied to those sailors that have already crossed the line, saving us the hazing rituals and rites of passage taxed upon equator crossing virgins, the Pollywogs. Toned down in this modern age, these rituals have their roots in centuries old sailing lore and Pollywogs being tarred and feathered, forced to duck the yard arm and being keel hauled were not unheard of. Neither was the occasional casualty.
As the next day passed into night we began to wonder at Neptune’s satisfaction level with our subpar efforts. After a good sail the wind had died off, and once again we set up to begin registering our progress in engine hours and fuel burned instead of miles sailed. The sun was a few degrees over the horizon while we watched and waited for the exhaust to begin purging the cooling water that the engines’ water pump is supposed to draw up from the sea. The exhaust makes a throaty hotrod sound until it’s muffled by this water, and the longer we heard this sound the higher our anxiety grew. After 20 seconds I shut the engine down to prevent damage from overheating. Although there wasn’t much wind we were bouncing around in a pretty good chop. It was entirely possible that the underwater intake had simply taken in a few gulps of air. We sloshed around for a while happy to be away from any dangerous lee shore while waiting for the engine to cool and then tried it again but with no altered result.
Wanting to take advantage of what little light we had left I began tearing into the engine compartment. First removing the cover for the impeller, this small rubber paddlewheel that draws up the water through the system as it spins. Diagnosing the problem always seems to be 99 percent of the job so I was relieved to see that one of the fins had broken off and become lodged in the line. I ignored the nagging doubt in my mind that despite all the motoring we had been doing we were still well within the impellers expected service life and pulled out the broken part. With as much precision as working in cramped quarters on a rocking boat in failing light would allow, I managed to extract the broken fin from the cooling system. The new part was installed and the cover replaced just as dusk turned to dark.
We cranked up the engine again and this time expectantly monitored the exhaust by flashlight waiting for the gushing water to signal ‘all clear’. I counted to 30 before shutting it down. Again we waited, again we tried. Still nothing. How could this be? A broken impeller leaving it’s shrapnel to clog the intake line had to have been the problem. It can be hard to move past what seems like a perfect answer to a problem in a situation like this, but no amount of rationalizing would move water through our cooling system so together we pondered fact and theory out loud in our cockpit while bobbing about somewhere in the Java sea. Our conversation was uninterrupted by the pesky sound of a diesel engine. Before doing anything else I needed to ensure that our intake wasn’t clogged. I had already checked the filter underneath the bunk in our starboard cabin. Of course it was fine which ruled out another easy dry fix. It looked like Seth was going for a little swim.
We trailed a couple of lines off the stern and checked for current. We were both surprised to see that according to the GPS we were actually moving sideways at 2 knots. This added one more complication to the mounting lists of reasons for me to stay dry, if I became separated from the now powerless boat there would be little Jaime could do other than to wave goodbye. Perhaps we should have launched the dinghy, and mounted the outboard as a precaution but this would be adding complications, time and moving parts to a scenario that I felt was manageable. I slid off the starboard side of the transom into the creepy dark water and pulled myself under the drive leg to have a look at my destination. The boat bounced up and down in the chop, waves slamming up into the bottom of the boat. The intake was on the inboard side of the starboard hull about 10 feet ahead. My perception narrowed to the sharp beam cast by my trusty submersible Pelican flashlight and my free hand clutched and grabbed at anything I could use to keep the boat from sailing away from me. There were a few inches above my head, just enough for me to suck air in through my snorkel but as the bottom of the hull rocked up and down and side to side in the slop it would push me under and without warning filling my snorkel and occasionally my lungs with sea water.
My cave diving instructor had put Jaime’s brother Bob and I through some pretty gnarly underwater drills years ago on the way to our certification, but it was nothing compared to this. The combined effect of being at sea, the disorienting visual effects of a beam of light cutting through absolute black as I scrambled to keep hold of a boat that was trying to slide away from me, hearing nothing over the sound of water crashing and frothing, and coughing seawater out through my snorkel while being bashed on the head causing repeated and forced immersions was nearly debilitating. I retreated and hung off the back of the transom to collect myself, my breath and my thoughts of what strange creatures beneath were being attracted to my beam of light. It was that last one that kept me from lingering. I let go and pulled, swam, slid my way back into the nightmarish tunnel.
Despite the discomfort a snorkeled laugh escaped that came out sounding something like ‘hoo hoo hoo’ when I finally had a look at the intake. A clam that had somehow made this his home, actually grown right into the little 1 inch pipe and opened right up completely blocking the line. It was a perfect spot, comfortable, safe, free travel, and every time we motored a steady supply of water would be flushed right through his smug little bivalve mollusk… er, asshole? I reported the news back to shore support and returned for my third trip under with a screwdriver in my freehand. With both hands now occupied clawing my way back was a little challenging, overcome by my excitement of having discovered the problem, and the bloodlust at the thought of smashing the little stowaway to bits. Which I did. Very cathartic. The little bastard made me work for it but in the end proved no match for a half crazed nearly drowning man on the verge of panic. I had the presence of mind to catch the shell before it sank though and returned to safety with a prize.
As is often the case with these events the necessity of sleep and safety postpones any kind of back patting or celebration. It would make for good beer fodder at a later date, but at the moment we were just an exhausted 2 person crew on a small boat far from land relieved that we were not considering consequences and next steps if the mission had failed. Without much said Jaime returned to her bunk to rest up for an impending watch, and I got the Slapdash underway and back on course with the help of a fully functioning diesel engine. I passed the remaining hours of my shift daydreaming about the fine necklace my trophy would make.
The next day I was fuming around about some other small mishap (did I mention that our battery bank and fridge had also packed it in?) when Jaime suggested that I hose myself off on the back deck. I’m not sure if she was being helpful or telling me off but it was a sweltering windless steaming morning so the idea sounded like a good one. The cooling effect of the fresh water was immediate and things started to seem a little better. I returned the deck shower to its receptacle and watched in shock as the sun baked piece of plastic snapped off at the stainless fitting followed by the sound that no sailor wants to hear.. plop!
The faucet head sank out of sight instantly, I was left standing there naked, wet and looking at the remaining hose spray water all over the place. I nearly lost it. Okay, I lost it. This succession of comedic tragedies was getting out of hand. I kicked, threw, swore and sulked. Jaime helpfully pointed out that all the fuss wasn’t going to help anything and that my habit of tapping the faucet head to get the calcium out had probably caused the problem in the first place. Then she went inside to leave me there ranting on about possible modern day applications for those barbaric equator crossing rituals while the untapped hose pissed our fresh water out all over the deck.
We arrived in Betam and stayed at the beautiful Nongsa point marina. It was remarkable in its affordability, vacancy, and for being the first place in Indonesia to ever ask about our papers. Let’s just say that we hadn’t officially been in Indonesia for quite some time. Yes, this is related to an earlier story about some misunderstandings we had encountered with Indonesian officials, and my resulting look of surprise at their request was due to our creative solution to those problems. In the end they weren’t willing to just look the other way indefinitely, but would allow us to stay the night. This seemed reasonable and suited us just fine. If it weren’t for the pollution we would be able to see Singapore from here, and we had only planned on one night here anyway.
The bit of Batam we saw outside of Nongsa Point was kind of a hell hole. A collection of big name multinationals had set up shop here presumably due to the location, cheap labor and easily corrupted officials. A suitable base for the ugly refineries, industrial docks, and shipyards of the petroleum industry with massive fenced complexes the size of North American neighborhoods to manufacture and store all the bits and pieces. Fat white managers were being chauffeured to and from newly built soulless high security villas in brand new company decaled SUV’s along corporately sponsored stretches of new road by skinny brown drivers. The prospect of better wages for skilled and unskilled labor has attracted all kinds of opportunists from Indonesia’s various islands. The 20 year old Indonesian driver we met was making double that of the professional machinist in Bali but the kind of distain workers have for an island that they only associate with a job they resent is highly evident. The look is industrial and the feeling is transient. Multi billion dollar projects and hastily built slums. This is a completely unfair assessment based on a quick stop, but it’s the impression we were left with.
If you have been keeping up on current events you may have noticed Batam in the news lately. This is the same small Indonesian island that caught the remains of the Rolls-Royce engine from the Qantas A380 that exploded overhead. The last we heard investigators were appealing to locals to return the bits they had pilfered to aid in their investigation. I’m happy nobody was hurt and wish the investigators all the best, but feeling some connection from having been there we hold out some hope that there’s truth to our imagined image of these turbine pieces being used to scrape fish scales or fix scooters.
Belly-tongue?
Grown men with bells on their ankles dancing themselves into a trance on hobby horses, then eating broken glass and smashing coconuts over their heads. Welcome to Belitung.
After our hot two day passage from Borneo, the clear blue water and idyllic anchorage was a welcome sight. The anchor had barely hit the seafloor before we were in the water enjoying a post passage swim. You could see that this place was going to be special. A row of huts and vendors lined a brilliantly white sandy shore. The anchorage was calm, the holding good, the water warm and clear. We were surrounded by beautiful limestone rock formations and a couple of tiny little islets. Waves and friendly greetings from crew on passing fishing boats bode well for a warm welcome ashore. We had friends in the anchorage, and it wasn’t long before they were on board with icy beer. Roger and Karli were a day ahead of us and had good news; beer was not only available, it was big cold and cheap. Diesel was reported to be clean and could be purchased right there on the beach. There was an annual event being held that had attracted most of the locals from this and neighbouring islands which gave the place a carnival like atmosphere.
We ventured ashore and found that everything was exactly as reported. Belitung is a medium sized island on the east coast of Sumatra. Daily non-stop flights from Jakarta are turning it into a local holiday destination helping to divert the local economy from tin to tourism. Apparently there are some resorts around but luckily we couldn’t see them. If our noses were a novelty in Borneo then in Belitung they made us full blown celebrities. On weekends and evenings the shore would fill up with dozens of locals who would just stand there waiting to see what the crazy bule’s would do next. Getting up to the bar meant walking through the friendly crowd and posing for an obligatory 10 or 15 photographs. One holding the baby, one with the mom, one with all of us and so on. It was all pretty entertaining and we really enjoyed it because the people were forward, friendly and openly curious about the ways of the strange boat people. Crowds of kids would line up and hang over the railing to watch us drink a beer. Everyone seemed to have time to stop and talk. The event brought out the best entrepreneurs so the food options were great. Eventually some enterprising fishermen got into the action and starting filling up their boats with camera-toting locals to get a closer look at us in our ‘natural habitat’. It wouldn’t be uncommon to be sitting out on deck and have to go running into the cockpit for towel to cover up with because a wooden klotok with 30 people on it came floating past full of people taking pictures. It was truly hilarious, and felt like we were getting what we deserved. After 3 years of poking around playing the curious visitors taking pictures of people and asking a million dumb questions, the tables had been turned. We were an exhibit.
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 14-Oct-2010 20:54, OLYMPUS IMAGING CORP. u1030SW,S1030SW , 3.5, 5.0mm, 0.005 sec, ISO 80 |
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14-Oct-2010 03:34, OLYMPUS IMAGING CORP. u1030SW,S1030SW , 3.5, 5.0mm, 0.25 sec, ISO 320 |
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10-Oct-2010 21:06, OLYMPUS IMAGING CORP. u1030SW,S1030SW , 3.5, 5.0mm, 0.025 sec, ISO 80 |
We had a chance encounter with this guy named Simon who had taken some time off from his work in Austria and signed on as crew with a friends’ boat. This put us all on the same improbable little Indonesian island on the same night. Jaime and I were walking through a beer tent and heard somebody say, ‘Slapdash?’. He introduced himself and we remembered exchanging a few emails with him. He was leaving that same night so without much time to work with we celebrated serendipity. Being the positive influences that we are we barely got him back to his boat and one could say in a condition ill suited for a long passage.
Then one day without much pomp or preamble a group of colourfully dressed men from Java began dancing to the beat of a big drum. This was pretty boring and went on for quite a while, but a crowd was beginning to gather and there were whispers among the locals of big things to come. I stuck around, Jaime left. It got a little weird when they brought these little wooden hobby horses out and started incorporating them into their dance. Little did I know that things were going to get much, much weirder.
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There was a ringleader, a lord of the dance if you will. This guy carried a bullwhip which he unwound and began cracking. The drumming picked up the tempo a little, a rhythm being beaten out by one guy, with one drumstick on one big drum. The dancers were skittish around the bullwhip and behaving like a spooked horse would, jerky and erratic. They were jumping, kicking dust up with their feet, moving around in tight circles and snapping their heads from side to side. Their faces were dripping with sweat, contorted and intense. Things had changed dramatically. A typical cultural dance that wouldn’t have been out of place on any cruise ship stop or Olympic stage had become this wild-eyed somewhat unpredictable frenzied thing unsuitable for younger viewers. There was this air of a big group standing around waiting for something horrible to happen. Suddenly the youngest dancer jerked straight like he had been tazered and flopped onto his back and started convulsing. The eyes rolled back into his head and 4 guys came rushing over from behind the drummer and carried him off. Before I could determine whether or not this was a part of the act, another one dropped with the same result. Then another. It was safe to assume that this was the desired outcome. Wondering if these guys were dead, had been rushed to the hospital or were just sitting around the corner congratulating each other on a good performance, I walked back into the tented area where the guys had been carried. Each one was laid out on the ground and being attended to by some kind of healer. They were still totally out of it but weren’t convulsing anymore, the healer guy was hovering his hands over their bodies then making these whooshing sounds as he flicked his hands outwards as if to shoe off some imaginary fly. I wasn’t made to feel unwelcome there so hung out and watched as the rest of the troop were eventually carried in one by one and attended to by the shaman.
From what I gathered the shows basic premise here was that these guys were meant to be well and truly possessed at this point, in a trance, hypnotized or whatever, and now it was time to have some fun with them. The handlers pointed them out towards the clearing that now been surrounded by a couple hundred onlookers. They were wild eyed by this point and crawling around on all fours. The lord of the dance kept them in line with the bullwhip, only this time he was actually whipping the guys, hard. Across the chest, the stomach, their backs. Then some glass was provided and they started eating it. Snapping pieces off, popping them into their mouth, chewing it with audible crunching sounds and washing it down with an unknown brownish coloured liquid from a plastic bottle. While some fought like dogs over the broken glass, others were husking coconuts with their teeth. Once husked they would use their heads to smash the coconuts open in theatrical fashion. Every so often one of the crazies would get away and run screaming into the crowd, bolt down the beach or try to climb a palm tree. Each time a group of handlers would chase them down and carefully guide him back to the circle so that they could munch on some glass or have a motorcycle driven over their chest.
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This whole thing was even more strange in that I had just bumped into it. I learned from the performers later that it’s called Kuda Lumping, or horse dance. Something to do with good and evil, acting like horses and eating glass and smashing coconuts to demonstrate their invulnerability to… well eating glass and smashing coconuts I guess.
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We suffered stoically through five terrible days of this sunshine, these beach parties and the socializing. It wasn’t glass eating but hey, close. Anyway it was just what we needed after all of Borneo’s nature and religious conservatism. I was willing to stick around and suffer a little longer but Thailand was still calling. We needed to get up to Singapore, and to do that we would need to leave beautiful Belitung.
BYOB
Even anchored on the far side of this muddy brown river from the little shacks on stilts that form the waterfront section of Kumai, we still wake up every morning to the muezzin’s call to prayer. It reminds us that Islam has a near monopoly on religion in Indonesia, and that Indonesia has the largest population of Muslims on earth, over 220 million. Kumai’s Muslims seems to be pretty a keen bunch, my observation based on the exuberance of these early morning prayer calls and the alarming reality that it’s impossible to buy a beer here.
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Borneo is huge, the world’s third largest island. There’s an almost incomprehensible array of flora, fauna, fur and feathers here. Over 380 species of birds, 222 species of mammals, 2,000 species of orchids, and more than 3,000 species of trees. So far. They keep finding more all the time, in 2006 over an 18 month period 52 new animal and plant species were discovered here. This also happens to be one of only two places left on the planet where you can find an orangutan scratching around in the wild. The place to see these red headed relatives is Tanjung Puting National Park, and it just so happens that we’re anchored right on it’s watery doorstep. Tanjung Puting is on a peninsula that juts out into the Java Sea. The peninsula is low lying and therefore swampy. We would need to charter a boat to take us into the park through the winding labyrinth of cataracts and waterways that lead off of the main river into the jungle.
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The first choice presented was the popular ‘klotok’ option. These are the African Queen looking wooden boats named for the sound that their one cylinder Chinese diesel engine makes. You can have a cook, a pilot and a guide. They are unhurried and colonial, the food is reputedly quite good and it’s not hard to imagine a certain romance that slowly chugging up the windy river surrounded by jungle would stir up.
We rented a 12 foot speed boat.
The klotok’s require a 2-3 day commitment of time, are quite a bit more expensive and since we’ve logged thousands of miles comfortably trundling along in a houseboat of sorts, the whole thing just seemed way to…well, slow. The thought of going flat out and rocketing through turns in this little speed boat, seeing all the hot spots and being back on our boat in time for dinner (for a quarter of the price) was a no brainer. We haggled for a while and agreed on a great price for a boat, driver, and guide. The guide (Jeni) and driver (a name that sounded something like Chocolate Chip) would be around at 7AM to pick us up right off the Slapdash.
This left us some time to explore Kumai and the neighbouring city, Pangkalan Bun, which is only a 30 minute bone jarring bemo ride away. Kumai is a dirty, hot, one street town with a charming frontier feel to it. Every person you walked past had a loud and cheery greeting for you, usually ‘hello mistar’, an all purpose salutation here and in no way gender specific. Mistar Jaime found this particularly funny. There was the hustle and bustle typical for most small Indonesian towns. Women were busy tending shops, sweeping homes, juggling children or weaving palm fronds into Borneo’s version of pre-fab housing. Many had this white chalky powder smeared all over their faces which looked like some kind of ceremonial makeup. It was far more practical than ceremonial though, it’s made from rice flour and used as sun screen. The men were working on one of the many docks loading or unloading wooden traders from Java, cooking up a storm behind a street stall, or hustling potential punters for cab rides and jungle excursions. In Pangkalan Bun we were ‘invited’ (literally dragged) into a one room school house and plopped down in front of a pack of loud, curious and stupidly cute little Indo brats. There was no furniture in the room save the teachers desk in the corner. We were hopelessly outnumbered. The 20 or so kids ranged in ages from 10 to 15 and held us hostage for an hour or so asking us questions like ‘what do you eat’, and ‘do you have a playstation?’ while politely trying to avoid staring at our impossibly long Bule noses. At the end of the session the kids went nuts and were all hounding Jaime for her picture, email address and autograph. I was feeling a little left out until this cute little Muslim girl tugged on my hand and shyly asked if I would mind having my picture taken with her. Another daring little brat who was either overcome with curiosity or dared by his friends came up and randomly pinched my nose.
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The next morning Jaime packed up a couple halal salami sandwiches and our funny little speedboat puttered up to the stern at exactly 7AM. We blasted past a few slow moving klotok’s and 10 minutes later were off the main river and snaking our way through the little tributaries into the heart of the jungle. The river was a flat glassy brown path between shocking green walls of foliage. The sky was bright blue, the air was thick with humidity and damp vegetation. Jeni pointed at the tree tops off to the left and we caught a quick glimpse of a red ball of fur swinging around on a tree top, our first orang-utan encounter. We were surprised by the activity on the river. Boats carrying miners, villagers, and concerned looking Germans equipped with thousand dollar cameras, walking poles and serious looking mountaineering boots all shared our waterway. It was rush hour on the Sungai Sekonyer. We passed unknown trails leading off into the bush, canoes tied to a tree for no discernable reason. There were tiny villages on stilts with docks and boardwalks providing their access to this little highway. Our first stop was at a place like this, Chocolate Chip nosed us up to the river bank and held onto an overhanging tree branch while Jeni jumped off the bow and into the mud, scrambling up to a small hut to pay our park fee.
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This gave us an opportunity to check out some of the other people that had made their way into the jungle this day, and yet again we felt ill equipped. Jaime and I have a way of showing up for things like jungles and volcanoes with a level of preparedness that seldom exceeds a water bottle and flip flops. We usually end up watching these people later fussing away through packs full of superfluous shrapnel and are more than happy to be free of the gizmos, ointments, and gear but there’s always this stage early in the day like this that you look around at the expedition-ready keeners and can’t help but wonder if they know something that you don’t. Our first foray into the trees pretty much put that to rest. 10 feet off the boat and we were past our knees in water for 100 yards. I had already abandoned my flip flops in the boat choosing to mimic the barefooted guide, and Jaime carried hers in her hand. The Germans were a tangled mess of walking poles, gators and technical fabric, one hopping up and down on one foot while trying to pull his sock off the other. Others scurried back to their boats to reorganize gear, swap packs for dry bags and boots for Tevas or whatever. We breezed past and ended up next to this little floating house. I guess it was actually on stilts or something but the water here is tidal and at the moment it was covering their floor. A woman was scrubbing away at some laundry out the back door, and a man dove out of his front door to have a bath. This was water world. There was a canoe floating off their porch which they agreed to let us use to transit the next section of the washed out trail. The diving bather came over and gave us a good shove and the three of us slid off between the trees in our little canoe.
When we rounded a bend 2 years ago and bumped into our first giant tortoise in the Galapagos we had this kind of ‘wow, so they’re real’ kind of moment. You know what? Orang-utans are real too. Not only that, they really do eat bananas and swing around on vines. We waited in a clearing while our guide set the mood by making these theatrical whooping cough noises which is apparently Orang-utan for ‘show time guys, come get your banana’ because we didn’t wait long. They make a pretty dramatic entrance too; swaying trees and broken limbs and branches crashing down from the canopy to the jungle floor. A half dozen arrived and began feeding right in front of us. Mostly the women and children, and a couple of juvenile males. Jeni really loved his job, he had spent his whole life in the jungle and grew up with these orang-utans. He knew them all by name, their families and relations. His color commentary really added to the whole experience as he went into detail about their politics, personalities and group dynamics. Jeni predicted Big John’s arrival too. Big John was the dominant male on the scene that day, and after a fashionable amount of time had passed he decided to make his entrance. More crashing. Bigger branches rained down from the canopy. Every one of the orang-utans immediately faded away and sat quietly amongst the trees surrounding the clearing. This jungle belonged to John now and he knew it. Maybe it’s just a trick because of their human-like appearance, but these social behaviours seemed easy to translate. John’s lazy confidence and bored expressions came across like arrogance. You could see the other orang-utans through the trees silently watching his every move as he strutted around picking away at only the best food, taking a bite here and there, tossing scraps away that the others would later come and clean up. Nobody moves, nobody gets hurt. He took his time either enjoying being at the center of attention, making it clear that he would do whatever he wanted at his own pace unless someone was willing to challenge him. It was hard not to be impressed though, with a 7 foot span and something like 25 times the strength of a human he could literally tear your arms off. He definitely didn’t come across as cuddly, but he wasn’t aggressive either. Just this quiet kind of mutual understanding that as long as you recognized who was in charge there would be no problems. Like being in the water with a shark.
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We visited another one of these stations further up the river and hiked into Camp Leakey. This somewhat famous station founded by Dr. Galdikas has been in the business of researching, rescuing and rehabilitating orang-utans since 1971. Most people would recognize that old Nat Geo cover shot of a baby standing in a small bath basin with a little orang-utan hanging off it’s back. That was taken here and the story was about this place. The highlight of our day was meeting Sooswi and Pen. These two orang-utans like to clown around near one of the docks and we hung out there with them for a couple of hours. We had them all to ourselves and they seemed to enjoy the company. Pen was really affectionate and had a little nap using my leg for a pillow. He put his arm around Jaime and posed for a picture. Sooswi was moody and mischievous which made her a lot of fun. She stole my hat, kept trying to pick fights and wrestle, spent a half hour flicking around this giant green cricket just for fun, and waited for a huge rainstorm to kick up before forcing Pen out from underneath the shelter…just for fun. He pouted up in a tree while holding a handful of tree branches over his head as an umbrella. The whole time these roguish little Macaw monkeys scampered around trying to steal anything they could get their hands on, and leaping out of tree branches into the river swimming for cooking scraps tossed over by the boatmen.
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While waiting for an Orang feeding, I met a Dayak named Omar. During the Japanese occupation the Dayaks played a role in guerilla warfare against the occupying forces, apparently temporarily reviving headhunting towards the end of the war. Omar had his first wife at the age of 12 and was now on his third. He was leathery, gristled and smoked his clove cigarette through a pipe made from a tiny deer antler. He was pretty quiet for the most part but you could see that he observed things pretty closely through sharp bright eyes. Omar had a toothache so we offered him a free ride into Kumai in our little speedboat so that he could see a dentist. Jeni had to do all of the translating for us since Omar didn’t speak a word of English, but it was obvious that this old pipe smoker commanded a lot of respect amongst the various guides and villagers milling about the research station. Omar disappeared for a minute and came back with a 3 foot pipe he had carved himself from some local wood. He wanted me to try it, he wanted me to keep it. I refused but Omar just grabbed his little canvas rucksack, jumped in our boat, and shivered most of the way back to Kumai wedged in the back with us. I wondered what he thought about all these Bules in their boats invading his jungle on their quests for gold, timber, palm oil and snapshots of great apes.
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For all of its natural wonders and exotic charm the dirty water filled with snakes and crocodiles prevented us from being able to dive off the back of our boat. And no beer? It was time to go, we’re shallow like that. I spent another day meddling around with boat stuff in preparation and then we set sail for a place known to us only by name and proximity, Belitung.
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Borneo bound
In the wee dark pre-dawn hours of Monday October 4th the unmistakable metallic ‘clank clank clank’ sound of anchor chain bouncing over a bowsprit roller and falling into a locker reverberated through Lovina’s formerly quiet anchorage.
This may sound like an awful intrusion and to the uninitiated it certainly would be. Nobody would argue that free from all context it is a noise every bit as harsh as banging pots and pans together, you might then find it surprising to hear that no sailor takes offense to it regardless of the hour. If so you would find it even more surprising to hear it described as being soothing or even romantic, but depending on the circumstances either label (and many more) would fit quite well.
This ancient and ubiquitous clatter is heard frequently in safe waters all around the world today. It’s a very special sound because its rattle can be understood by every race, nationality and creed, there is no barrier to its meaning amongst those familiar with the sea. It can stir your blood and fuel your imagination, if heard through the fog of sleep it will change the course of your dreams. It can cause envy, and just as easily comfort. The latter when heard on a wet and squally morning. You will pull an extra wrap of blanket as you roll over and bury your head a bit deeper in the pillow thankful that it’s not you up on the rolling deck squinting your eyes against stinging rain. It will lift your spirits or depress them as you watch friends sail away on a course diverging from your own. It’s the sound of a ship and crew that have completed their preparations and are leaving your safe harbour for ports, lands and seas unknown. This day there was something unmistakeably different about the sound; it was our own.
Well offshore now, dawn made a dramatic entrance with a spectacular sunrise. Grandiose celestial sights like this one are always difficult to capture, almost with a purpose. You can never recreate the scale, and the kaleidoscope of colors that overwhelm the most sophisticated lenses in the world except for the two hardwired to our each of our brains by ocular nerve. It’s like natures’ way of saying, ‘too bad you can’t own this, you can only earn this’. You are allowed to take little samples away to show your friends, but only just enough to bait them outdoors to see for themselves, never enough to ruin the surprise. That being said, Jaime did an exceptional job of bottling up a bit of this morning’s show while the magnificence of it all drew me into contemplation of deep and meaningful things like what to have for breakfast. It will never be the same but hopefully it’s enough to illustrate the point.
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Borneo is the third largest island in the world. Three countries share her land; Indonesia, Malaysia, and tiny little Brunei. Nearly three quarters of Borneo belong to Indonesia, who refer to their portion as Kalimantan. You will find the South China Sea to her northwest, the Sulu Sea to the northeast, the Celebes Sea to the east, and the Java Sea to the south. It is this southerly sea that will provide access to our chosen landfall on the central south coast of Kalimantan, the Kumai river. This river should lead us inland where we will find a port town with the same name built along the bank of the river. If you are looking for us on a map or atlas you may have better luck searching for Pangkalanbun which is a larger town, the only one on our chart which is located approximately 17 kilometers northwest of Kumai.
Our passage was 390 miles for which we budgeted 3 and a half days. With the exception of a lack of wind, we anticipated that the passage itself would be straightforward. As always there were some notable exceptions. First of all the heat. This may sound obvious considering our location, but I’m convinced that there may be no place hotter than on a boat in the tropics with no discernible wind. Note the word discernible, there actually was a bit of wind, it was coming from Bali as well and apparently heading for Borneo with us. It was a light 5 knots that matched our boat speed and course exactly. This did nothing for us other than eliminate with stunning accuracy any semblance of a breeze we might have otherwise attained from our forward motion. In these conditions a naked flame does not flicker. There aren’t many places to hide when you are a speck floating on a vast sea, and the rays refracting up off the smooth shiny hide of this Java Sea only served to add another dimension to our suffering. To combat heatstroke and madness I trailed a polypropylene line (they float) off the back of the boat and dove off the bow, swimming along beside the boat for as long as possible. It would inevitably leave me behind. At this point I duck over and grab the line using it to pull myself back up onto the boat. Good exercise, and a good adrenaline rush. First from diving off the bow of a boat underway in the deep blue sea, then from the testicle shrinking sensation of looking up at the unsympathetic hull of your own boat as it slides past you. A few of these laps seem to clear up the malaise and mid sea melancholy.
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The Indonesian island of Java for which the sea is named lay to our southwest. Over 100 million people call Java home and that’s just one of the islands that surround us. There’s also Sumatra, Malaysia, Singapore, Kalimantan, Sulawesi and so on. This population density is tied to obstacle density. These obstacles are the second notable exception. Debris, shipping and fishing keep us alert. We’ve passed full sized logs, sickening amounts of plastic, fast moving military gun boats, slow moving creatively colored local fishing boats, and cargo carriers of every size material flag and description. There wasn’t a moment during our 390 miles at sea that our horizon was free of traffic, and at times we could count up to 20 boats sharing our little piece of water visible to the naked eye. During the moonless night watch we busily identified the course, heading and intentions of these ships with the (usually rare) diversions and course changes occurring several times a night.
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These weren’t the only things that made our night watches interesting. Jaime woke me up before my shift early one morning, which in itself is not unusual. What was unusual is that there was no impending crisis following the wake-up call. No collision course, nothing broken and no weather threatening to do bad things to us. Far from being a relief this makes me angry. Sleep is the most precious commodity on passage and interruptions are not taken lightly. It was a short moment before her actions were justified. The phosphorescence was thick here and the cloud cover and lack of moon made this a particularly inky black night, perfect conditions to make every splish or splash light up like an otherworldly bright green flame. Our prop wash and wake for example were lit up so brightly that they cast a shimmering green glow into the cockpit. Beautiful but not unusual, this was not the attraction. She pointed off into the water beside our port hull and my eyes widened as this phosphorescence gave up the location and trajectory of a group of dolphins otherwise invisible. They were like drunken torpedoes tracing erratic green lines back and forth below the surface of the water. Rocketing straight towards the hull and then veering off into another direction only to tangle up and corkscrew around with another green tailed submarine comet. This carried the same effect as at an air show when the jets leave a trail of smoke behind revealing the speed and intricacy of their acrobatic manoeuvrings. It was our most memorable and unique dolphin encounter, and we didn’t see a single dolphin.
The weather pretty well played the roles it was cast for this bit of the world; every role. Kind of like when Eddy Murphy plays 6 different obese characters in that movie. They all eat buckets of fried chicken and fart a lot, fascinating piece of cinematic artistry for sure but back to the point. We had squalls, lightening, sun, wind, were becalmed and when that got old the heavens opened up and ironically threatened to drown us in fresh water. Invisible during the day, every night revealed the horror of our surroundings; a curtain of lightening that sometimes wrapped our entire 360 degrees of horizon. I hate the stuff. Beyond the rational fear of trolling along through an electrical storm in a cabin attached to a lightening rod, it carries this supernatural kind of apocalyptic quality generally associated with angry gods from ancient Greece or the old testament. It’s a well known phenomenon here. Insurance underwriters have clauses in their contracts to save them from paying out to boats that have carelessly been struck by lightening in this part of the world. Every guide, pilot and passage planner references it’s frequency and ferocity. I can tell that I’m really going to enjoy these next few passages. We narrowly escaped the biggest baddest looking thunderstorm of the passage, just catching the fringe was enough to send us scurrying around prepping the cabin though. Buckets of rain, blinding flashes and deafening claps nipped at our heels as I pressed the throttle all the way forward trying to avert the worst of it. In the end it only winged us and we were relieved not to have been caught up in its hateful looking black belly, and we weren’t the only ones. A bedraggled looking little swallow was racing in front of the storm as well. It may have been my imagination but he looked pretty relieved to see us. After a couple of low passes he dropped his landing gear and came skidding down on deck. We were happy to take the little refugee with us out of harms way, a sentiment he must have sensed because he decided to follow us right inside and seemed most comfortable right in the middle of the table on the copy of Theroux’s Dark Star Safari I had been reading before all of the action. If you have been following the accounts of this journey for some time you will have already correctly presumed that Jaime became immediately attached and began making nests and preparing food and water for the little fellow. My attention was needed outside in the hurling wind and rain while inside the smug beast sat contentedly in a nest made from my t-shirt looking down his beak at me while Jaime fussed over him under the warm glow of the cozy dry cabin. He had hit the jackpot so it was no surprise that he decided to spend the night. Every time I would open the door to come inside to dry off or warm up he would ruffle his feathers up and bury his beak a little further under his wing after warbling off a few angry bird sounds which we both interpreted to mean ‘close the damned door you fool’. He was clearly exhausted so we forgave his disposition. Once he was feeling better he chirped happily and hopped around exploring the cabin even landing on our hands occasionally for a visit. The next morning brought us close to Borneo and at about eight in the morning he decided to brave the rain and made a break for it.
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We slowed our approach the night before so as to time our arrival with daylight. We had no way of knowing that this would be a big mistake. We were 9 miles from our approach way-point and 18 from the shelter of the river mouth when shortly before sunrise the weather turned on us. It kicked up to 20 knots right in our teeth. Combined with the now shallow water on the shelf we were passing over and the tidal effect catching us in the middle of a classic wind vs. current clash, and you have all of the ingredients for an incredibly unpleasant morning. We searched the chart fruitlessly for shelter or an alternate route. Our options were to keep bashing into this terrible vertical chop or abort the whole plan, turn 180 degrees and go somewhere else. We put the decision off because to turn away at this point would be most disappointing, but a couple hours of teeth rattling pounding conditions that seemed to get worse not better had us on the verge. We were averaging two knots, which was as fast as we could safely go without worrying about bashing things to bits. We decided to set ourselves an ultimatum, if things did not improve by the time we made our first way-point (now 5 miles away) we would turn and go all the way to Belitung, which was our next planned stop after Borneo. Fortunately things began to gradually improve and we weren’t forced into taking this rash action. We made the mouth by noon and soon found ourselves steaming up the flat muddy brown water of the Kumai river.
We won this last battle and with it the war. With that last test the shores of Borneo seemed to deem us worthy and provided us with shelter on both sides. On queue the sun came out and our usual feeling of accomplishment after making landfall was bolstered with the excitement of this exotic new destination. Not only had we successfully sailed to Borneo, we were now motoring miles inland along one of her rivers. I cracked a beer and enjoyed the gentle ride while daydreaming about the things to come.
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My screw is loose
How does a two hour job take five days? Oh please, allow me to elaborate…
Day one
Discover and diagnose – Upon deciding to depart on a 3 day passage to an island with an exotic sounding name you discover an oil slick behind your boat. You eliminate the possible causes. How far is the gulf of Mexico from here? Nope, not BP this time. Following the spill to the source you find your boat. There’s only 5 oil reservoirs on our boat; the engine, the transmission, the hydraulic lift pump, the drive leg and the storage locker filled with reserves for each. I check the drive leg first, not because I’m good at this but because I’m lazy and it’s just hanging off the back of the boat there so all I have to do is turn my head 90 degrees to the left. It’s oily. Having narrowed the origin down to one piece of equipment it doesn’t take long to find the leaky bit. Prognosis? Split CV baffle. Elapsed time; 3 minutes.
Consider the implications – Utter expletives and stem the flow. Ask rhetorical questions like ‘why me?’ and ‘what’s next?’ Return to the cabin and find your partner still preparing to get underway. Explain that getting ready to get underway can now wait a little bit. Try to make contact with the friends’ boat that you had made specific plans with that had left a few hours ahead of you and will fully expect to see you at the next anchorage. Make coffee. Dig up all associated manuals and information. Elapsed time; 60 minutes.
Formulate a plan – It’s a well known fact that formulating a plan is a task best not started on an empty stomach. Remove yourself from the situation. Launch dinghy, go to shore, drag dinghy up the beach past the high water line. Walk to warung and order Nasi Goreng. Console yourself with the notion that the time you are spending now to think things through will save you hours in the long run. Elapsed time; 2 hours.
Discovery – Back on the boat you root through your spares and tools to find out if you have all of the things that you pondered up during the ‘formulate a plan’ portion of the day. You do not. It’s time to decide if you should start the job anyway or just accept the fact that this is going to take longer than you anticipated and start planning for a pre-task parts and tools mission. Elapsed time; 60 minutes.
Pre-task parts and tools mission – Take to the dinghy, swallow your pride and start getting to know your neighbors. You are in luck, there’s some kind of cruising rally in the neighborhood and the normally sleepy anchorage is full of boats. Putter around to each of them asking for necessary parts and tools. Come back to boat with more free advice than you know what to do with but none of the things you need. Realize that a wild goose chase into the nearest town that you were desperately hoping to avoid is now inevitable. Also realize that it is now far too late in the day to arrange transportation to get to the shops (that you aren’t sure are there anyway) before they close. Elapsed time; 90 minutes.
Day two
Wake up and stare at the drive leg for a while. Measure things. Fill your pockets with samples. Make a list of things you will need with the comedic notion that it’s possible to collect all necessary items on your first attempt. Go to shore again and walk around looking for somebody who isn’t trying to sell you a sarong, banana, or give you a massage. Qualifications for the successful candidate are strict; must have transportation, must understand enough English to get you to a hardware store and not a brothel. Find a guy named Komang that you have met before, you have been in his car, you have managed to carry on a conversation with him, he did not take you to a brothel, he is available and at your disposal for the day… thank bloody Barong. Negotiate a price tag. Elapsed time; 90 minutes
Drive to Singharaja with Komang. Display the contents of your ziplock bag and draw pictures for no less than 6 different proprietors in pursuit of a tap and die set, easy out bolt removers and a few stainless steel bolts. Come back to Lovina Beach empty handed. Elapsed time; 4.5 hours.
Discover that sitting on the bow of your dinghy tied off to your boat will allow you a closer look at the job at hand with marginally less contortions and back strain than hanging upside down off the back of the transom with your ankles locked around the dodger poles. Find working conditions much more bearable in the late afternoon now that temperatures have finally plummeted to the low 30’s. Also discover that lack of food and water combined with a day exposed to temperatures previously in the high 30’s leads to excessive irritability. Have this pointed out to you in no uncertain terms by your partner. Attempt to kill each other. Elapsed time; 60 minutes.
Day three
While still trying to complete the very first step in the long and possibly complicated job ahead of you, make things even worse with a series of hasty decisions leading to circumstances requiring more tools that you do not have. Improvise and enjoy a small win, a win which is quickly soured by the realization that you haven’t accomplished anything other than to have lowered your definition of ‘a win’ to a rung previously reserved for children and the mentally unfortunate. And then to a rung reserved for children of the mentally unfortunate. Elapsed time; 2 hours.
Go to Singaranjen, or whatever the hell the stupid place is called, in search of more specialty tools. Return with a hacksaw, a pair of needle nosed pliars, and a tap and die set. Elapsed time; 3 hours.
Stand under a tree and wonder if you have ever seen it rain this hard before. Watch puddles turn into ponds and roads turn into rivers. Elapsed time; 1 hour.
Buckle down and tear apart the drive leg. Fasten a line from the drive leg to the boat because you have no idea how much it weighs and don’t fancy watching it sink to the bottom of the anchorage. Remove baffle clamp and pull drive leg back taking care to catch the floating blah blah in the yaddah yaddah. Moved by the 3 days of pleasure and zen you lovingly exchange glances with your partner and try to stab them in the eye with a screwdriver. Drop screwdriver and watch it sink to the bottom of the anchorage. With all four hands occupied with saving irreplaceable bits and pieces from following the screwdriver, wonder in wide amazement at the hundreds of anchovy sized fished that chose this particular moment to initiate some kind of bizarre suicide mission to sabotage your operation. Helpless to defend yourself sustain repeated blows to the face, neck, hands and back from tiny fishes that are now wriggling around on the deck, the dinghy and your shirt. Pause to discuss how patently absurd this situation is and whether or not anyone would even believe it. This lightens the mood and you stop attempting to blind each other, which turns out to be a moot point since the sun has now completely set and you struggle to finish the job in the pitch black anyways. You don’t finish the job. Clean the gear oil and dead fish off of your face, neck, hands and back and drink heavily. Elapsed time; 4 hours
Day four
Awaken to the boat rocking violently in the heavy swell invading your exposed anchorage from a distant storm. Spend two hours working yourself into depraved madness while trying to fill the mortar holes left behind from your screw extraction with some very sticky and toxic shit while both dinghy and ship buck like wild broncos. Elapsed time; 2 hours
Clean up sticky and toxic shit; 1 hour
Find that the distant storm is no longer distant. Watch in horror as the wind picks up and threatens to deposit your helpless boat onto the lee shore behind you. Find it completely impossible to do any work in these conditions and let out as much anchor chain as possible to prevent wind and swell from potentially turning your CV replacement into a hull replacement. Bite nails and check anchor every 5 minutes as your stomach ties itself in knots. Elapsed time 4 hours.
The day is lost but the wind dies down allowing you to make your way safely to shore in order to drown your sorrows. Find many locals on the beach to meet you that have borne witness to your dilemma. Take much comfort in their sympathies and remember that the world isn’t such a bad place after all. Elapsed time; 3 hours.
Day five
Wake up full of piss and vinegar determined to put an end to the saga. Position yourself on dinghy bow and prepare to drill and tap yesterdays sticky and toxic shit which has now set up as hard as steel. Feel good about your chances. Stop feeling good when a moment later you notice a small hand written note on your step. It is from the neighbors, they want the tools back that you just now finally have the opportunity to use, and will be leaving as soon as you return them. Return tools. Elapsed time; 1 hour.
Think about going into town to purchase necessary tools. Call your friend Komang for a ride into town. Abandon idea when you are informed by Komang that it is Sunday and nothing is open. Stare longingly at the water surrounding your boat and wonder how hard it would be to drown yourself. Elapsed time; 30 minutes.
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Break out the duct tape and fashion your own tools to replace the ones you have reluctantly returned. This stupid idea inevitably threatens to destroy the previous 4 days of preparation. You are past caring and vow to settle down in Bali if something goes wrong. Continue trying to thread your new hole with a 5/16th’s tap taped to the end of a screwdriver. Get lucky. Elapsed time; 45 minutes.
Bash your chin on the drive leg when a big wave rolls through and lifts the dinghy bow you are seated on up 18 inches in the air before depositing your face on the aluminum housing on the way back down. Amuse the neighbors by having a full blown temper tantrum that would put any 5 year old red headed step child to shame while still bobbing up and down uncontrollably on the bow of your dinghy. Look for something to hit. Elapsed time; 1 minute.
Retreat. Sit underneath a fan and sulk your way through a cup of coffee. Elapsed time; 30 minutes.
Return to the scene and begin your first of 73 attempts to line up the drive leg with the housing so that you can reinsert the thrust pins. Try many creative methods the next 72 times before finally declaring victory… only to find out that the slots bored out of the pins designed to seat the grub screws are not lined up correctly. Rescind victory declaration and laugh maniacally because you are full-on bat shit crazy by this point. Elapsed time; 1 hour.
Back pins out enough to align slots correctly. Goop up grub screws with enough anti corrosive gel to fill a swimming pool. For some reason you take a small level of satisfaction from doing this. Insert grub screws. Laugh maniacally again and wave to the neighbors. Wonder what’s so funny and realize that your balls are hanging out of the sarong that’s now hiked up to your waist for some reason. Elapsed time; 30 minutes.
Tighten down the hose clamps that hold your new CV bellows in place. Tighten everything, grease everything, top up drive leg oil and check for leaks. Find none. Mission accomplished. Let’s get the fuck out of Bali.
Elapsed time; 4.5 days.
Screwed
The sails, the engine, the saving, the work, the wins, the losses, the miles traveled, the people met, the plans we’ve made. A cumulative total of our efforts and exertions to date all come down to this; a two centimeter screw.
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Before today this screw had not been worthy of consideration. Now, like a one hit wonder, it has surfaced from obscurity and annoyingly thrust its way into our lives. Attempts at extricating this stubborn piece of metal has cost us anxiety, time, money, sweat, and morale. It’s the last nail in a coffin, a camel-back-breaking piece of straw, it’s the grub screw in our lift pin.
The engine generates power. The propeller turns it into thrust. In between those two things are some gears that make it all possible. These gears are lubricated with oil. A flexible rubber baffle contains this oil, or used to. Ours split. We have a long history with this rubber baffle, check out our story from Myrtle Beach in October of 2007 to see what happened the first time we tangled with it. We learned from our experience and bought a spare, so when preparing to set sail for Borneo this setback was disappointing but not devastating. With the right tools and spares it’s entirely possible to change the baffle even in our less than optimal circumstances; floating in an exposed bay 200 meters from shore on a remote coastline in Southeast Asia. The technical manual reads:
“The above can be carried out either ashore or afloat the latter of course with more difficulty.”
Of course. The theory behind the procedure are simple enough. Drain the oil below the level of the baffle. Remove the lift pins and bolts anchoring the hydraulic tilt cylinder which allows you to separate the drive leg from the transmission. Loosen hose clamps that hold the baffle in place. Slide the old one out, the new one in, reverse the sequence, top up the oil , go to Borneo and tickle an orang-utan.
As with all things an oversimplified technical description has very little relation with reality. Step one just pull out these little grub screws that lock the thrust pins in place… and that’s as far as I got. Two days later and I’m still on step one. A quick description of this problem to supplement the understated manual; the housing is made from aluminum, the grub screw from stainless steel. Two different metals, a tropical climate and salt water have basically fused them together completely. Add to that a partially stripped head and you have a Krueger sized nightmare on your hands.
Easy out screw removers, heat, hammers, penetrating solvents, cutting agents, all of the kings horses and all of the kings drills and their bits have failed me. The last resort was to just drill the sucker out and tap a new hole for a bigger replacement bolt. I really didn’t want to go down that road but circumstances left me with little choice. Of course the drill bit just floats up off the hard stainless screw and into the soft aluminum. To do this properly would require the whole housing to be removed, a big vice, and a precision bit of drilling from a proper press. Some joker bobbing around on a dinghy trying to gain purchase on a constantly moving target with a little cordless hand drill has a snowballs chance in Bali. The circumstances are laughable, the lack of progress and widening gap between us and Borneo are not.
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I could elaborate on the cost and immense difficulty involved in obtaining some of these items. I could go on about the burns and bloodied knuckles. I may even get a laugh out of you by describing the ridiculous affair of perching myself on the bow of our dinghy tied off with a short line to a transom that’s bouncing around in a moderate swell just to access my work area, but it’s 11PM. I’ve been in the tropical sun all day rubbing aluminum shavings and PB blaster into my eyes while trying to mop sweat off my face to better see the job I was mangling and would rather just go to sleep.
Despite the considerable efforts mentioned there’s still enough of one of these bloody bastards of a screw left in the housing to prevent any chance of removing the pin. To complicate things further the area on the housing that the screw calls home is narrow enough to cause concern about the size of hole that I bore out. Too big and I risk weakening a very critical piece of our propulsion system. Our next thousand miles or so takes us up through the horse latitudes and the ITCZ (Inter Tropical Convergence Zone) which all just means that we can expect to be using our engine a lot, thereby requiring it to be in excellent condition. Tomorrow morning I’m off to try and find some kind of little grinding bit that will allow me to finish extricating what remains of my nemesis without destroying the housing. We are finding ourselves witness to the twilight of another season here so failing that it will have to be a bubble gum and shoestring patch job followed by a Hail Mary passage up to Singapore where we can eventually get into a marina and do the job properly. To be continued…
Butterflies and itchy feet
September 29, 2010 (Lovina Beach, Bali)
Back in Benoa Jaime called me to the window. “Seth, come and take a look at this” she said. There was a sea snake making an unambiguous line for our boat, coming right at us. We watched as he swam directly up to the hull and instead of going around or under started squirming around to feel out a suitable spot to board our little ship. I took action and grabbed the boat hook to give him a flick. He landed about 12 feet away but wasn’t the least bit deterred. He began making way straight back to the boat the moment he hit the water. Another flick with the boathook, this time a little further. Same result. This guys dogged persistence was get a little creepy. He was seemingly obsessed with boarding the Slapdash and was carrying out the mission with a religious fervor and singular focus. The third time I really let him have it. He flew through the air and landed downstream at least 30 feet. Once again he did his serpentine best to make the boat, but this time the tide and distance was a little much to overcome so he didn’t quite make it. He disappeared somewhere in the vicinity of our dinghy which was tied off and bobbing around 10 feet behind the boat. After taking a good look around to make sure he wasn’t hiding out on the dinghy and then waiting a few minutes for him to surface he was presumed lost at sea. We declared victory and returned to the cabin to carry on with our day.
Hours later we had finished up all of our projects for the day and prepared to make a trip to shore for dinner. We seem to get an intense squall every night which lasts about 45 minutes. A substantial amount of rain falls during this short timeframe, accordingly bailing out the dinghy has become a daily ritual for me. So far this day was no different, but it soon would be. I jumped into the dinghy with my bucket and began scooping water out. Five minutes later I was scraping away at the last little puddle in the bottom. The water in Benoa is scummy and disgusting so I’ve been in the habit of raising the outboard drive leg up and out of the water to keep the prop clean. Lowering it is a simple matter of pulling the top of the engine forward a little to take the weight off the catch, then pull a little lever and drop the engine down into position. There’s a small hand hold on the top of the engine to aid this process. My right hand was jammed into this very spot to carry out the operation, but my attention was on the other hand. I was fiddling away with the catch which was giving me a bit of trouble this day. If I wasn’t so distracted I may have felt something squishy and squirming beneath the fingers on my right hand a moment sooner. Squirming has not been typical behavior for the handhold on the top of our dinghy engine, so when the sensation registered naturally I jerked my hand back and made some kind of guttural sound that didn’t even register as a scream. A wave of shock and terror instantly followed this reflexive action when my eyes registered a snake following the swinging arc of my hand out of the engine and through the air! It had been wound up in my fingers and now for the fourth time today I had sent this same snake flying. His trajectory put him inches from my face giving us a moment to look each other in the eye before to my utter horror it came down and landed in the dinghy on top of my foot. I started screaming and doing this insane highland dance. It was like a cage match. We were sharing the same tiny little dinghy floating 10 feet behind the Slapdash with no way out for either of us. I would either have to face the horror of leaping into the dirty stinking water of Benoa harbor or the horror of this crazy snake which was now quite pissed off and flipping around the dinghy floor trying to attack my feet. I was thrust into this terrifying predicament in mere seconds, so any hope of rational action was instantly passed over on my way straight into a blind frothing panic. While screaming and swearing a blue streak at the top of my lungs for Jaime to pull the dinghy in I had somehow managed to leap up onto the side without overturning it. My highland dance had now turned into a spastic break dance in a grave attempt to keep all four limbs airborne at the same time. This was for good reason; the snake was actually leaping up and striking at whatever body part that touched the dinghy. It’s the closest I’ve ever come to levitation. With the copious amounts of adrenaline now pumping through my veins Jaime appeared to be moving agonizingly slow. She seemed to be considering whether to pull the dinghy in so that I could jump out to safety or to cut the line and get me and my attacker as far away from her as possible. In the end love prevailed over common sense and she began to pull me and the furious snake towards the boat. Once we were within 5 feet I jumped for it and scrambled up the steps nearly running Jaime over in the process. The snake was actually trying to find a way out of the dinghy to follow me. With a moment to catch my breath I did the first rational thing since the incident began and started looking for bite marks. In my state you could have cut my arm off and I wouldn’t have felt a thing so I really had no idea if he had bitten me or not. My only wound was an old one, a monkey bite from the day before so unless the monkey had rabies it looked like I was in the clear. The next order of business was to deal with the serpent now unhappily trapped in our dinghy. Back to the boathook. As much as I wanted to I couldn’t bring myself to kill this guy. On some level you had to admire the tenacity. He was still raging though and in this state it took a while to get him pinned and flicked, but when I finally did he didn’t make any attempt to return. Maybe leaving me with a permanent phobia of outboard engine handholds was the goal all along, or maybe he was just tired of being misunderstood and persecuted. Either way we didn’t see the evil little bastard again.
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We’ve been keeping ourselves busy with boat projects balanced off with frequent shore leaves. This seems about right because we are both anxious to get out of this dirty harbor but some hidden nervousness or reluctance to leave fuels the procrastination. Don’t get me wrong, there have been plenty of legitimate demands on our time and we have been taking our preparations seriously, but we’re rusty. Trading in a place you love for discomfort and uncertainty takes some time to get your head around; we have itchy feet and butterflies. We just need to knock off a passage and we’re sure it will all come rushing back to us like riding a bike. The problem is that every time we come close, something seems to happen to delay us a little longer. Two examples; I had a little dust up with immigration and found myself without a passport. It’s a good story but you will have to ask us to elaborate in person, the details are not going to find their way onto the internet. We are still in Indonesia so I’m not going to pull the lions tail while sleeping in the same den. Eventually I reclaimed the passport which in the end cost little more than our patience, and once again we were on the doorstep of departure. Then we woke up one morning without word or warning to find ourselves completely penned in. The local authority had commenced with some kind of dredging operation in the harbor. A 1000 meter steel pipe ran from the dredger to the shore suspended by big steel barrels every 10 meters which kept it floating on the surface. We were on the wrong side of this pipe. Just getting to shore in the dinghy meant charging the pipe flat out and then pulling up the outboard at the last second so we could skip over top without knocking the engine off the back. We got pretty good at it and in truth found it kind of fun, that was all well and good for the dinghy but how would we ever get Slapdash out? At low tide we did some recon work and found a 100 meter stretch of pipe that ran along a sandbar between the barrels. It was the highest point in the harbor and completely exposed at low tide, but it was the only section of the pipe that wouldn’t float with the tide at high water. We waited for the right tide and inched the boat carefully along the sandbank with only 3 feet of water beneath our hulls. We managed to just skim over the top of the pipe with only inches to spare. We found a good spot to anchor on the other side satisfied with the knowledge that we would now be able to depart at our leisure.
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Lovina beach was reported to be a nice place, it was also in the general direction we needed to go. It would require an overnight passage and still leave us within striking distance of civilization if something went wrong. We had some friends there too and that settled it. We timed our departure with the tide because the currents between Lombok and Bali are significant so a little care and attention are required. Other than dozens of unlit floating rafts and fishing boats causing a little stress, the 23 hours it took us to get here were pleasant, gentle and uneventful. It allowed us to identify a few things to fix before taking on the more significant stretches of water ahead of us and when we arrived here yesterday at 11:00AM our friends Roger and Karli were on hand to meet us. They have been here for over a week, fairly chastising us for our less than efficient departure. We were meant to meet up with them in the Gili’s and didn’t make it. Then we were going to meet them here but almost missed them again. They kindly delayed their departure by a day in order to get us rightly and truly pissed on their boat specialty; Monday Margaritas. It was an interesting night which somehow involved nude anchor chain climbing competitions, mystery pasta, and no recollection whatsoever of the return trip to our boat.
The next day in a display of fine sportsmanship Roger came over and gave me a hand with a couple of ugly boat chores which included one of my personal favorites; centerboard line replacement. It’s my third or fourth crack at this job over the years and I’m no better at it then I was the first time. Jaime gave Karli a hand seeking out Lovina’s various spa offerings, and at the end of the day we all met up for dinner and made plans to head to Kalimantan which is Indonesians claimed land on Borneo. Our Lonely Planet guide says this:
“Borneo has several spots for seeing orang-utans, but the best place in Kalimantan – possibly on earth – is Tanjung Puting National Park… The best way to appreciate Tanjung Puting is staying aboard a klotok. These 8m wooden boats offer basic comfort for up to four adults and a put-putting motor straight out of African Queen. Sleep on deck, mattresses under mosquito nets, jungle sounds your lullaby and morning alarm.”
Tanjung Putting is 370 miles northwest from our current location. It sounds interesting enough, and coupled with the facts that Roger and Karli are already on their way there, and that it will take a sizeable chunk out of our passage time up to Singapore make it a suitable next destination. We are making our final preparations now so that we will have everything ready to leave at an ungodly hour tomorrow morning. Cheerio and Borneo ho!
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Update: our drive leg baffle is spewing oil at an alarming rate. The good news is that we have a spare. Bad news? Of course there is. We are at anchor on the north coast of Bali, this will make the job, um… interesting?
Back to the old new
September 6, 2010 (Bali, Indonesia)
Before Jaime arrived I had this suffocating feeling of needing to do everything, but everything needed doing before I could do anything. You know?
I left the boat this morning with remnants of yesterdays AIS (a handy device that provides information you can use to avoid collisions) install still scattered about in a nasty mess. Tools lying around, panels still off the walls, clothes and groceries stacked up in a holding pattern waiting for some place to live. I spent 6 hours succumbing to various shore based demands typical of a ship preparing to get underway. On days like these it’s also characteristic to return later than expected, dehydrated, a little sun burnt and generally frazzled. When it was time for me to leave this morning, Jaime decided to stay on the boat. We are on a mooring a couple hundred yards from the dock so this decision literally left her marooned until I returned. When I finally did it was like going through a time warp, like I had I climbed back onto the boat finally restored to the condition we left her in 8 long months ago. Proud, fresh, orderly, and looking ready for a passage; ship shape. I accomplished a lot today on shore, but it was only the on-board transition that allowed me feel good about it all. Instead of wallowing around too tired to do anything about the depressing mess left behind, we were able to relax and enjoy accounts of each others successes and a resulting sense of well being. Demonstration of a kick ass team back on task.
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The last time that the boat looked this good was the day I picked Jaime up from the airport. She had just arrived in Denpasar after a 34 hour marathon. After leaving Vancouver she racked up an unfeeling 14 hours of layover time in Shanghai and Singapore before finally making it to Bali. I had hired a driver in anticipation of both heavy luggage and an appropriate reluctance on her part to jump on the back of my scooter straight away. We came back to the marina and spent a good couple of hours just catching up over lunch which allowed Jaime some time to adjust and decompress. I wooed her with my newly acquired Indonesian language skills and we both laughed at how absurd the whole situation suddenly seemed. When we could put it off no longer we drug her bags down the dock and loaded them into the dinghy. During the moment it took to marvel at how small it seemed after all this time I inwardly sighed relief when the engine kicked over on the second pull; thus saving a long and uncivilized row across the busy harbor. Awaiting Jaime’s arrival on board were clean sheets, polished surfaces, and a big ass display of Bali’s finest flowers on the table. It was fun watching her get acquainted with Slapdash again. Poking around at forgotten knick-knacks, cupboards and clothing the same way I did. Like walking through a house you grew up in or tentatively approaching an old pet you haven’t seen in a long time wondering if it would remember you. We were home but it wasn’t quite home yet, we would all have to get used to each other again. That would come with time.
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There was plenty of work left to do and we immediately got on with avoiding it. Helping us in this regard was a steady succession of new boats arriving into Bali from Australia. Old friends and new, not a single day left us without company or reason for distraction. I had reserved a room at our old haunt in Sanur and once we were there one day carried on to the next. We soon lost track of time and days of the week. We burned through our reservation, extended it a couple of times and then booked another room. We visited all of our favorite locals at all of our favorite local establishments including our buddy PJ for a couple of new permanent souvenirs. Nothing had changed, we were still completely enamored with the place.
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Practical matters forced themselves upon us in the form of visa issues. We’ve become more familiar with the way things work here though so weren’t too worried about it. A conversation here and a phone call there. I’ll guard my language a little to protect the guilty and just say that in Indonesia anything is possible. We’re still here right?
A story I don’t mind elaborating on has to do with the corrupt cops. They get a lot of abuse and criticism from locals and expats alike, but I totally support their light-fingered ways. It’s a good system and I’m a fan. Here’s why; I had recently embarked on a quick little scoot from one place to the next. I was surprised by a police roadblock and as such found myself standing in front of Bali’s well armed finest without license, registration or helmet. I considered making a break for it when three of them asked me to follow them down a side street leaving a fourth behind to wheel my scooter away. It was the middle of the afternoon though, there were plenty of people and when I saw a proper looking receiving station set up beside a squad car I quickly put aside any concern of being beaten to death on the spot. However, thoughts of prison or a long and expensive afternoon remained front of mind. One of the cops retrieved an official looking list detailing the infractions I had racked up and their corresponding penalties. He did a very good job of holding his poker face and was well into his second million rupiah before I realized that this was a negotiation. It was the amount of time he was taking that gave him away. If no option would be presented at the end of the charade then what were the theatrics for? He had worked the total up close to three million rupiah before finally showing his cards by suggesting that I could just pay on the spot to avoid getting acquainted with the Indonesian judicial system. I said that he was crazy and pretended to know better. He called my bluff and began filling out papers attached to carbon copies. I offered him 2 bucks, he asked for 20. It was too much but they had me dead to rights with all three of these infractions. On the other hand putting me before the courts wouldn’t benefit them financially at all and only create more work so I just handed him ten bucks like we had both already agreed to it. He was game so we shook hands and he sent me on my way… still without license, helmet or registration. For the rest of the day they just kept smiling and waiving me through each time I passed the roadblock.
Another time with Jaime on the back this time we pulled over to a stop only 50 feet in front of a roadblock. In plain and obvious view we discussed our options. Jaime put 5 bucks in a separate pocket so that we could claim that it was our only cash on hand if it came to that. In the end we decided that we would rather spend the 5 bucks on beer. Their roadblock was positioned strategically though, on a one way street with meridians on both sides. To the untrained eye it looked as though we had no choice but to proceed. There was one option though, we wheeled the bike around and just swam upstream. We took it slow and kept to the side of the road. Nobody batted an eye. After a Bintang we went back and the roadblock was gone, we carried on to Sanur. Try that one at home.
It’s been a very busy several days making up for our delinquency. There will be a couple more like them yet, but our goal is to set off on a sea trial this week in the general direction of our next destination (Thailand). If successful, we’ll just keep on going. There plenty of islands around so our first will be up to a little rock called Trewangen off the Northwest coast of Lombock. It’s only 50 and a bit miles from here so it should be a good opportunity to make sure everything (including us) still works. If not we shoot back to Bali for repairs or parts and if so we carry on to another island somewhere along the way. We’ll be in Thailand before Christmas, but besides that our plans are characteristically loose. There’s rumored to be plenty of internet connections there so between that and the new twitter feed (have you signed up yet?) I’ll be able to keep you updated on the result of our inaugural phase two voyage.
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Sunburns and road rash don’t mix
August 10, 2010 (bali)
I’m bleeding. Sweat stings the open wounds before running uncomfortably down the back to my ass.
I’m in a home stay right now run by a lady who has a voice somewhere between Mini Mouse and Yoda, with looks of the latter. I haven’t had the chance to decide if she’s really as creepy as that description sounds, or really sweet and endearing. I’m optimistic though because if anyone could pull that off a thousand year old Balinese Yoda-Mouse lady can.
One good thing about travelling alone is having no regard for anyone else’s standards and no shame of your own. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying Jaime is a princess or anything. What I am getting to in a very roundabout way is that this room is an unparalleled shithole. I love it. Only one power outlet though so I have to choose between using the fan and the laptop. So in the interests of getting the fan back on and stemming the flow of steady perspiration I’m going to use various excerpts of my recent emails home to Jaime, friends and family to bring you up to speed. A bit raw but the ‘behind the scenes’ feel may compensate. First some disclaimers:
- Grammar has been changed to protect the sloppy
- Context has been added where necessary
- I’ve chopped paragraphs from various emails in order to lay them out sequentially
- Bits that are none of your business have been removed in order to remain none of your business
We’ll begin in Hong Kong, I sent this update while hoping to make a connection to Denpasar. The rest should pretty much just flow from there. Just read, you’ll figure it out:
My flight left Van at 2:45AM, and 14 hours later we landed here at 6AM local time, 4PM at home yesterday (??). I feel pretty good though and the flight seemed to go by pretty quickly so I must have managed to do some sleeping.
My flight leaves in 2 hours, I hope to be on it. Had the last seat out of Vancouver, skin of my teeth. No gloating opportunities now, I was in a middle seat economy so no champagne or fancy Cathay salt shakers this time. This flight is oversold too, so as expected I had to collect luggage clear customs and immigration so that I could enter HKG to list for the next flight. If it’s a go there will be another mad sprint through security and to the gate.
Take note; they didn’t like the one way ticket to Indonesia thing at all. Bring a copy of the registration and CAIT and even a letter if you have time. Was likely just an overzealous agent but it will slow your heart rate to have the stuff, and smooth the process just in case you run into the same thing. A tad nervous about Indo customs now because all I have is that expired copy of our old CAIT on the laptop.
Nothing much has changed here except for the fact that the airport is a whole hell of a lot more busy this time of day, and there’s free wifi now. Fourth time through HKG but the first at sunrise!
Sending and email to Cor now for updated CAIT, and shutting down the laptop because I have 17 mins remaining and no HK adapter.
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And then from Bali…
Made it! With a bidness class upgrade baby! Last seat again, but this time the Chivas Regal flowed like water.
Arrived yesterday at the same time as several hundred people off multiple flights. That tiny hot box of a customs and immigration room was crammed with steaming bodies of weary travelers and as it turns out, the setting for a very a suitable welcome back to Bali:
1. Having forgotten to exchange any currency I found myself unable to make the $25 USD payment for visa upon arrival. Cash machine? Nope. Problem? Nope. Just leave your passport at the desk and walk out the door! Right past customs and immigration into the general population – carrying both of my bags! Find an ATM, get cash walk back in and buy your visa, all on the honor system. No official batted an eye. In Canada you get shot for having your toe over the yellow line or using a cell phone. Welcome back to Bali.
2. Back in the terminal all these arrivals left me faced with one big crushing line (no queues) that was averaging between 2-2.5 hours in a hot sweaty disorganized cluster with crying babies and worn out passengers waiting to clear customs. After 22 hours of traveling this was dampening my spirits. A resourceful and intuitive Balinese airport employee named Wayan saw the opportunity to provide a more fitting welcome. A little chat and 10 bucks later I was being escorted right through the frenzy and straight through customs like some kind of foreign dignitary. Wyan propped me up me up in a little air conditioned office, offered me a cold glass of water and told to relax. I sipped on my water in perfect comfort. He collected my bags while my visa and passport (with the 100,000 Rupiah note folded inside) were stamped. 10 minutes later I was standing on the curb negotiating taxi fare.
I found a hotel, walked to a little Warang, bought two Bintangs and some take out. Sat on my porch, ate and passed out for 18 hours. It’s now 10AM the next day (Monday I think?). I am sitting in an internet place on the same block as my shitty hotel (musty smell, cold shower, no shower curtain… you know? Perfect). I just had breakfast and a Balanese coffee for 1000 rupiah, and am on my way back to the hotel to collect my bags and go to the marina.
Second first impressions…
Hurry up and get here. Strangers smile at you. It still smells like a mix of burning tires, cloves and incense. It’s noisy, hot, and there’s no such thing as a parking ticket. I woke up and read my book for an hour before getting out of bed. Last night my cabby got lost and turned off the meter without being asked. Then when trying to provide me with (about 50 cents) change realized that he had lost his wallet. He was sweating profusely while he tore the car apart and felt so ashamed about the whole thing that he totally refused to accept payment. The hotel lady put out tiny baskets with flowers, a clove cigarette, incense and a ritz cracker for her favorite deity.
It’s a country full of hustlers with hearts of gold.
Long day. Been to the marina and hooked up with all the old homies. Some talk of ___ and his cause of death. Stories range from alcohol poisoning from a bad bootlegged batch of Johnny Walker to a heart attack so who knows. Met up with Cor and the boat is in fine shape. Not the sentimental type, but I have to admit rounding the corner and seeing our proud little Slapdash bobbing happily about her mooring made my chest knot up like when you see an old friend. She’s a good kid and misses you very much. She seemed a little caught off guard, but was relieved to see that it was just me – she wanted the chance to spruce up a little before queen arrived.
Arranged for a bug bomb (precaution). Going to Sanur to wait out the fumes. Left bags at the boat and hired a bike for an even better deal than last time (yes, apparently that’s possible).
And from Sanur…
So, had a bit of a scrape on the way here (about 1 km before the turnoff). Nothing to worry about. All the vitals (laptop, camera, my bottle of duty free tequila) are in one piece and seem to be functioning fine. I’m a bit cut and bruised but not broken (toes don’t count). Two locals on the other bike, they are fine too. They swerved over suddenly for a late left turn and I t-boned them. We all had our body parts and the bikes were mostly functional so scrammed before the cops came.
I went to Little Pond first of course but they were full up, our little friend was still there though. She took pity on me and cleaned me up a bit with alcohol, cotton swabs and antiseptic before letting me go to find another place to stay. Hardest part about the whole thing was the 4 stops I had to make afterwards at various home stays looking for vacancy while still bloody and jacked up. I am at Mango now, only place with room (even Swastika was booked up). Are there holidays in Oz or something?? Decent room but for 25 bucks hardly a deal. Wasn’t really in the mood to argue at this point. Suppose I’m lucky anyone gave me a room as I must have been quite the sight.
And after another good session on the boat…
Bringing you up to speed:
- Melted myself out on boat work for a bit. Good excuse for a break.
- There’s a big festival on the beach. Today is the last day so I’m going to wander over and see how it is. Found a cheap decent room on the other end of town.
- Remember that bar Angels? The cute girls all ask ‘where Jimmy?’ in a kind of sad sing song voice.
- The hookah bar people are gone and a dutch couple (almost as many of them here as Aussies here now) have turned it into some chain that’s always packed.
- PJ and the boys are still awesome. There’s a tattoo comp in Kuta on the 21st. PJ will be there so we’ll have to go and support him. He’s got some cool new shirts and is busy as hell. Should I book now? His buddy John from Mango on the beach is still there and still thinks you’re crazy. Williams lake boys are coming out this month so maybe we will see them.
- Hooked on live indo cover bands. They are so good but screw up the words all the time which make them really endearing… “put another dime in the juice box baby”
- Boat work continues to go well but I feel like I need to blow off some steam and drink a thousand Bintangs or something. Tonight seems like a good night for it with the festival, live local bands and Bob’s 40th to celebrate remotely.
Wish you were here. Big noisy chaotic and completely random parade going down the road for the past hour. Went to my scooter and there was a “For Rent” sign pinned on the back, ha! Love this place.
So now I’m back on the boat loosing battles every day to mould and decay. The toxic combination of tropic climate and salt water will never cease to amaze. One job repeatedly turns into four. I start something and need a part or a product so go looking only to find a whole new set of surprises. Then I get carried away and forget what I was doing there in the first place. Soon the heat starts making you punch drunk. Today I spent 5 frustrating minutes walking around in a daze trying to figure out where I had left a rag soaked in vinegar. Like that should be hard to find on a 34 foot boat? When I finally did, I stood there with it in my hand with no idea what I needed it for so just started wiping down the cupboard that it was sitting on. The boat is a tough place to stay right now. On a mooring, 200 meters from the dock. Benoa is a super nasty harbor so swimming is out of the question. The dinghy and outboard need some serious love so I’ve been poaching rides to and from. Without a dinghy there’s no way to do all the million little things, like fill the water tanks. I don’t have the freedom of just going to shore when I feel need to eat or whatever. I’ve either arranged something in advance or wait for someone to come by. Haven’t bothered getting any food because there’s nowhere clean to put it and no propane to run the fridge or stove anyway. I dined on past date ravioli from the can tonight. I’ll go to bed salty and damp and wake up greasy.
At the end of the day feeling defeated and unaccomplished the sun went down. The breeze picked up and I washed a moldy cup to fix a little Pastis and water. I sat outside in my mostly clean cockpit, popped in a CD that I haven’t heard in 7 months and stared up at the stars. All of this hot and bothered business just sort of faded away after that. A friend in a little red boat named Salsa just rocked in. We literally haven’t seen this guy since we dropped him off after passing through the Panama Canal 2 years ago. What are the odds? These circumstances oblige a smile. It’s all coming back to me. Yes, things are getting back to old new normal.
Oh, and just in case you wanted to see a couple of my best scabs (not for the squeamish).
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Bringing geeky back
tuesday august 3rd 2010 (bali, indonesia)
Greetings from Bali, and welcome back.
We are excited to kick off phase two of our slapdash plan to sail around the world; Bali and beyond. First things first. You may have noticed a few changes around here so allow me to introduce you to the all new theslapdash.com.
This all started a couple of months ago. I was still in the ranks of the gainfully employed -5 months through a 7 month sentence- when I started rubbing elbows with some geeks (and I mean that strictly in the professional sense). These are the good guys and gals holding down the 4th floor that keep all things virtual humming along at WestJet. I have a history with some that spans over a decade, while others have just recently become new friends. They are a generally likable, over caffeinated and refreshingly twisted lot and the consensus among the ones that were aware of our site (damn the rest) was that while we scored high in the content category it was time to bring our basement project into the new era of website development and functionality. The dear little website we baked up 3 years ago on a whim to keep the friends and family back home apprised of our shenanigans and tom foolery had become something much bigger. It’s ankles were showing, time for a new pair of pants.
With that we were ushered through the rabbit hole and into the realm of SEO’s, social media, data migration, html and a bunch of other scary shit by a team of guys that can probably see the matrix. This was all very new, mostly confusing and in its best moments even interesting to us. Don’t worry, we’re not quite ready to swear into their fraternity with our right hands on a Dilbert digest quite yet (not that they would have us). While it is fun to watch masters at any craft, I would take a strong gale 500 miles from land any day before going through that process again.
We did have the right level of involvement to stay engaged and come away with a working knowledge of some of these things, for that and the results you see so far we owe an enormous debt of gratitude in particular to Shannon, Maria, Wayne, Greg and probably a few others who will now be pissed off that they weren’t mentioned. Now some fruits of our combined labor:
- We’ve linked in the social media junkies and now have Slapdash pages on Facebook, Youtube and Twitter:
http://www.facebook.com/theslapdash
http://twitter.com/theslapdash
http://www.youtube.com/theslapdash
I still think you facebookers are a bunch of dweebs and proudly maintain that I do not have a personal account. Ha! (unless you count using Jaime’s account to do the occasional bit of creeping around). Links from the homepage are imminent. Non dweebs, you may not know about this article put together by the beautiful and talented reporter Tara Ursulescu. Okay, I facebooked her. Check it out:
http://www.calgarybeacon.com/2010/07/take-a-chance-misbehave-screw-up-live-life-slapdash/
- We’ve ordered up a satellite phone. Combined with the Twitter feed in the right hand column of the homepage this will allow us to update you on whale and pirate attacks, and attack pirate whales, and whales attacking pirates – all while on passage. I’m personally really excited about this part, so guess I am a dweeb after all. Pirates beware. I just hope that the naval coalition of the willing currently patrolling the Gulf of Aden (pirate alley) are monitoring Twitter.
- You will notice that our pictures have received an upgrade too. Not only do they look a lot better they also have a funky new display. Use your arrow keys or little buttons on the screen to toggle back and forth. Thank Shannon.
- You will find a little section called ‘comments from shore support’ or something to that effect on the lower left side of the home page. A few people back home will have the keys to this feature which will allow them to keep you posted on Slapdash related news when we are off somewhere messing about.
- Speaking of comments, you can now post yours publicly at the bottom of each and every post. Seriously. It’s even there at the bottom of this one, go look. Try it out, be gentle. Ha! Just kidding, do your worst. We can handle it.
- Every time you refresh the home page or open up the site a new batch of photos from the archive appear on the homepage for your viewing enjoyment. Neat-o.
- You should soon find a fully interactive map on the homepage. If all goes well it will show you our route, where we are, allow you to zoom in and out and scroll around. As an added bonus you should be able to link to our posts from each location indicated on the map. I’m most excited about the possibility of marking these locations with tiny little Slapdash skull and crossbones… one can only hope.
- Okay, I was on the functionality team so have a tendency to run on in that regard, but you have to admit it’s all rolled up in a damned sexy package. That logo? Seriously. Sex appeal was of course Jaime and Maria’s department. They were like a bow and arrow, Danger Mouse and Penfold, Bill Gates and Paul Allen… if they were hot, had boobs, and one was Mexican graphic designer. Yeah, just like ‘em.
I should mention that the Maria and Shannon mentioned are the same Maria and Shannon from Endeavor Arts on the ‘friends and sponsors’ page, check them out. So other than a forthcoming paypal link for any impulse philanthropists out there, email subscription service, the usual sharing options and an RSS feed that pretty much sums it up. Ironically, I still don’t know how to work on the thing while off line, which if memory serves me correctly was one of the first things that got us started down this long road. So it’s still technically a work in progress, but already a vast bloody improvement over the old site wouldn’t you say?
Ready for the best part? It’s all yours. Consider it our welcome home gift. There are still a couple of rather large oceans, probably a dozen seas, a vast amount of miles, many hazards and their corresponding tales to go so get comfortable. Peruse the stories, pictures and videos. Share an article here and there and since we don’t have to do all the talking anymore stop skulking about and comment on the logs. Drop us a line, and check back often for new whiz bang features, remembering to provide a mannerly level of both the ooh’s and the ahh’s.
While we’re at it, thanks for coming out. While in exile we had the opportunity to finally meet a lot of the people in person that had been following our journey. We really enjoyed that bit, and must say that it has been our remarkable pleasure having you along for the ride. We can honestly say that this trip wouldn’t be the same without you, and we’re both looking forward to your company and support for the next couple of years. Okay enough of that, onward. Jaime get out here and lets beat the shit out of this circumnavigation.
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