slaplogs

sunday november 1^st 2009 (bali passage – day 3)

We ended up in Australia a couple of extra days waiting for parts. Against all odds we found this guy who happened to have the little electric engine that we needed for our autopilot. He was a few hundred kilometers away though (Horn Island is remote even by Australian standards). We were so excited that we got the guy to personally drive it over to the airport and put it in the pocket of one of the pilots that flies these little commuter planes back and forth to the mainland. That was all well and good but pilots being pilots it took us two days to find the guy. I spent a decade working around fly-boys though so just asked around to find out where the flight crews took on their post-flight beverages. Soon enough we had our engine, a hundred bucks for little piece of mind? Sold!

Speaking of pilots (or people who are not pilots), as expected I totally butchered that Kennedy Island story. He was in a boat not a plane. This makes a lot of sense considering he was in the Navy and not the Airforce. Maybe I had him confused with that McCain guy. Didn’t he crash about a half dozen planes or so? Kennedy did swim to that little island at some point though so at least I had that much right. There was also some kind of daring rescue involving a canoe and a secret message in a coconut or something. What do you expect? This isn’t Wikipedia.

We had a good time on Horn Island with the locals, or T.O.’s as they call themselves (traditional owners). These people are completely different from the mainland aboriginals and are really proud of their island heritage. We found them to be really happy, welcoming and chilled out islanders. We would have been much happier about our $618 quarantine charge if it went to these guys, but they assured us that it did not. They have their own pidgin, different again from Vanuatu and the Solomons. Here the girls are Sissy’s and boys are Balas, at least that what it said on the bathroom doors. It’s also the first time we’ve had a conversation about dugongs or turtles that ended in swapping recipes. Apparently that cute guy at the end of our Vanuatu video makes a mean curry, and turtles make a great stew. A bit weird when their names are usually followed by words like ‘protection’ and ‘conservation’, but these T.O.’s have been feeding their families with these creatures for centuries using totally sustainable hunting techniques. It certainly wasn’t the dugong curries that pushed these animals closer to extinction.

I seem to be developing an irrational fascination with the signs posted in other countries. There were some great ones here discouraging humbugging, grog removal and swimming with crocodiles. We still don’t know what grog is or how you go about humbugging something or someone so I can’t say if we played by those rules, but we were not troubled to obey the ‘no swimming with crocodiles’ signs. These signs have some cruel small print though. Apparently there were far more crocodiles than signs, so they couldn’t possibly post a sign everywhere that crocodiles like to hang out. They might as well have said, “Be afraid. These things could be anywhere and you are on the menu”. We didn’t do much swimming. The paranoia makes sense though, these massive crocs seemed to be snacking on people pretty regularly while we were there. Of course the newspapers there somehow tied this into global warming, but at least it wasn’t the Swine Flu’s fault for a change. We still liked the Solomon’s approach better-no signs- because we did plenty of worry-free swimming there, and here we are arms and legs still attached proving once again that ignorance really is bliss.

So I’m writing this on day three of our passage to Bali. Despite all my moaning about the Quarantine fee, we left in a good state of mind from having a functional autopilot, a working spare and tanks full of essential things like diesel and water. It was worth the stop. The islands seemed happy to get rid of us. There was seven knots of current pushing us through one of the channels. We were motoring with a paltry 1500 RPM, had no sails up and at times were doing over 10 knots. After that kick start, a solid 140 mile day belayed some of the concerns that we had about a long windless passage. Two days later and here we are with the massive Gulf of Carpentaria to our left, holding a bearing of 270 degrees, due west.

It’s the end of the season. We’ve long since missed the ideal passage time for this trip so we have no idea what to expect. The trade wind season is ending, soon to be replaced by the NW monsoon which in addition to providing headwinds and a contrary current has the added bonus of coinciding with the cyclone season. During the shoulder month, calms are the order of the day. The wind is right behind us at the moment though so we are drifting along using just the headsail to squeeze out a slow but comfortable 4 knots. It’s a 1600 mile passage so we can’t just flick the motor on to keep our average up no matter how tempting it is. The wind could die at any time and currents could reverse so I need to be a fuel miser. Even 3 knots will allow us to cover 300 miles over four days, so we just have to whittle away at the miles and hope for late trade winds with no early cyclones.

We caught this weird fish today. I’ve never seen one before so we threw it back. Shame because it was four feet long and would have easily fed us for the whole passage. I’m going to post the picture - against my better judgment because I just know that someone is going to tell us that it was some great fish that cooks itself, does the dishes afterwards and is a total delicacy that would cost a fortune in a restaurant.

I guess we’re in the shipping lanes or something. We see tons of boats every day. Tons in this case means 3 or 4 a day, but realize that it’s the most we’ve seen anywhere on passage since Panama. It keeps us on our toes and we’ve kept a religious watch cycle. Ever since that stupid Korean fishing boat nearly ran us down we’re totally paranoid. I guess that’s a good thing.

For the second time on our trip Jaime was viciously assaulted by a flying fish. If you have seen our Pacific Passage video then you will already know how traumatic this is for her. This one head butted her in the leg, an impressive accomplishment for a little gilled bugger like that. Although her removal technique still involves a pair of oven mitts and a cutting board I have to admit that Jaime is coping much better with their visits these days. This time she didn’t scream, cry or even wake me up.

monday november 2^nd 2009 (bali passage – day 4)

The winds are still light but we are happy to have any at all. They are still right behind us and we are being totally spoiled by this slow comfortable ride. Having said that we have realized that we seem to be programmed to deal with immediate and in-your-face kind of weather. This is setting up to be our slowest passage yet and its driving us crazy. We stare at the engine like a starving man would stare at a steak. You know how in the cartoons the hungry guy stares at his friend who slowly turns into a roast chicken or something? It’s like that. Just turn the key and push the button… nothing could be easier. Just do it, you know you want to. C’mon, there’s plenty of diesel.

wednesday november 4^th 2009 (bali passage – day 6)

This is killing us. What are we complaining about? I have no idea. The weather is perfect every day. Never a cloud in the sky. Beautiful warm night skies blanketed with an obscene amount of stars until a huge moon pops up and chases them all away. It lights up the night so brightly that we cast sharp shadows and need to cover the window in our cabin to sleep. I read by it. There’s this teasing flirt of a little wind right behind us. Just enough to keep us ghosting along silently, but not enough to even cause a small swell. The sun takes our batteries up to 100% every day, more than replacing what our laptop, running lights and autopilot are able to use. It really couldn’t be better. It’s been 6 straight days of the most relaxing, pleasant, safe, and serene sailing conditions we have even seen… and we hate it! This is the kind of passage that we dream about so what’s wrong?

We have been using both sails (wing and wing) just to average 100 miles a day, we haven’t even reefed once. We’ve traded progress for bliss but can’t seem to enjoy it. Seriously, this is crazy. We need somebody to smack us but there’s nobody here but us. We could smack each other I guess but it wouldn’t have the same effect.

Our goal is to reach Darwin without motoring. That will get us more than half way to Bali with all of our fuel in reserve. It’s completely arbitrary but, without any problems to deal with, it seems to be the only objective that we can focus on other than not slipping into a boredom-induced coma. I’m considering throwing myself off the boat for a little excitement.

Read, eat, sleep, repeat. Read, eat, sleep, repeat. Read, eat, sleep, repeat.

All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.

Redrum.

thursday november 5^th 2009 (bali passage – day 7)

We are now sharing a time zone with Japan. I wonder if they know that?

I reset all the clocks, Jaime’s watch that her mom gave her, my watch that’s waterproof to 200 meters and was assembled in China, the kitchen clock that Jaime threw at me once, the GPS that has a purple line that we follow around the world, and this laptop that Bill’s gang considerately loaded with a bunch of software that we don’t need. This gave me an enormous sense of well being, just like the unemployed guy on welfare who feeds the pigeons in that Blur song.

Every morning after Jaime gets me up and I settle in for my 6AM shift I turn my head 90 degrees to the right, take in the view that’s absolutely indistinguishable from every other degree of horizon and try to imagine my 12 million time zone brethren in Tokyo getting up at the same time, eating whatever people eat for breakfast in Tokyo and getting in their hybrid cars and zipping off to plug up the roads that lead to their offices or whatever. They look like little robots to me which is not some ignorant broad stroking generalization. I just don’t have a good enough imagination to conjure up 12 million distinct faces, automobiles, hairstyles and Thursday morning office attire. Maybe I do but it would take forever and in doing so I would lose some of the enjoyment I take from this little ritual, so for now I only think of one who ends up representing them all… in my head.

Okay, I’m totally going nuts.

wednesday november 11^th 2009 (bali passage – day 13)

Day 13. Sorry about the gap but nothing has changed so there’s really not much to report. We’ve been forced to motor for 48 hours or so over the past week but that’s still far better than we expected. We managed to make Darwin with only a few hours of motoring. After more-or-less achieving that random objective we feel like this passage is in the bag. I realize that makes no sense at all but this is what you do.

We are in another new time zone now, this time we are sharing it with Hong Kong. I don’t think about them, it’s not as fun as Japan was for some reason, maybe because we’ve been there?

The Australian Coast Watch people seem to have stopped buzzing us. They flew over our boat 6 times! Every time they ask for our boat name (spelled phonetically), our port of registration, last port visited and our destination. The first 3 times we complied without a trace of cynicism, the last three times we started trying to order pizzas and daring each other to dance around on the roof naked. Once I told them that we were the very same white catamaran that was now exactly 70 miles away from the one that gave them all the same information less than 24 hours ago. You know? The only one within 500 square miles of open ocean? Another time I was having a bucket bath on the back deck when they showed up. They just kept patiently flying around in circles 100 feet above the boat while I lathered, rinsed, and repeated (think these guys are paid by the hour?). After I toweled off and found my shorts, I picked up the VHF and reeled off our boat name (spelled phonetically), our port of registration, last port visited and our destination. They thanked me and flew away.

We look forward to their visits now. Breaks up the monotony. Fortunately for us Aussies have a great sense of humor and seem okay with our abuse. I’m sure they have some interesting pictures of Slapdash up in the staff room now.

Last night we passed by this big cluster of oil rigs. I had no idea that there was a massive offshore oil operation here. They are lit up like Wal-Mart parking lots and are so bright that you can see their glow over the horizon like the sun after it sets. There are helicopters buzzing back and forth between them which create an extraterrestrial kind of effect. These little flashing lights zip through the night sky between big blobs of light that look like space ships hovering over the ocean, very trippy. They provide our nighttime entertainment before the coast watch guys take over for the day shift.

thursday november 12^th 2009 (bali passage – day 14)

We had a near miss with a big boat in the dark last night. Jaime woke me up for my 12 to 3AM shift and pointed out some running lights ahead of us. Within minutes a bright blob turned into a clearly visible red and green, another collision course.

We started hailing the vessel, which in turn ignored us like we were the Australian Coast Watch or something. We adjusted our heading to line up for a port to port pass and broadcast our intentions but they adjusted for a starboard pass so we were still on a collision course. We hailed, they ignored. The clearly visible red and green spread further apart (indicating a larger and closer ship) so we adjusted our heading 20 degrees in the opposite direction, broadcast our intentions again and once again they swung around to point right at us again. It really started to appear to us as though they were intentionally trying to run us down. We started thinking that maybe the Aussie navy was after us for being flip with their coast watch planes.

A tiny bit of verbal communication would resolve this senseless confusion though, the lack of which has sent countless boats to the bottom of the ocean. At this point it was looking like we would be sharing the same fate. Gone are the days of having to signal your intentions with a horn. We have radios now, why weren’t they using theirs? We hailed, they ignored. Maybe they didn’t speak English? We could actually hear the boat now and were on the verge of panic. Finally with this big dark beast bearing down on us, they radioed us and we stated our intentions for the third time. We agreed on a Starboard pass which we had already initiated in a last ditch effort to avoid him. He immediately adjusted his course a few degrees to port and less than 60 seconds later we were passing within a couple of hundred feet of this cargo ship, in the open ocean. Insane! Our hearts were pounding.

We had both adjusted our headings to avoid collision so there was clearly someone on the bridge who knew that we were there. It was obvious that both vessels were just trying to guess what the other would do, why not just state it? When they finally did, the numb nuts spoke perfect English with an Australian accent.

Typical. 14 days of skull crushing nothingness and ten minutes later your life is flashing before your eyes.

friday november 13^th 2009 (bali passage – day 15)

Today we were passed by a butterfly. A butterfly!

The cheeky little bastard is barely capable of keeping himself airborne, with just a fraction more grace than the old footage of those guys jumping off cliffs with big wings attached to their arms, and here he is passing us! A butterfly could circumnavigate faster than we could. This is officially Slapdash’s slowest passage ever.

saturday november 14^th 2009 (bali passage – day 16)

Last night Jaime was on her time off and had at least another hour to go. For some reason though, she woke up with a start in the middle of the night. She thought that she had fallen asleep on watch and slept for two hours through her shift. I was in the cockpit on watch with the door shut so that it would be nice and quiet for her in the cabin (we were motoring) while she was sleeping. She leapt out of bed and ran for the cockpit certain that we were about to be run down by a freighter. Instead of saving the day she mashed her nose straight into the clear plexi-glass door. This all came as a bit of a surprise to me, but obviously even more of a surprise to Jaime. She stopped and looked through the window for a moment. Then slowly waking up, looked down at the door, and for the first time registered that it was in the closed position and not open as she had clearly expected. She opened the door a crack, peeked into the cockpit and coolly asked me if everything was okay. I said that it was and asked her the same. She said yes of course like nothing had happened, turned around and went back to bed. This morning I reminded her of the story and we laughed hysterically and she sportingly permitted me to tell you about it. It may sound strange but the messed up sleep cycles on passage cause this kind of thing to happen all the time, the running into the door part was new, but we both wake up dazed and confused all the time and stumble up to the cockpit, mutter something unintelligible to the person on watch before shuffling back to bed. Then we have to be reminded of the thing the next day, because more often then not we have no recollection of the occurrence. Apparently bashing into a closed door leaves an impression though because Jaime recalled the entire extraordinary event.

Somebody should undertake a cultural study of indigenous fishing boats of the world. The first thing we see whenever we are approaching a port in a foreign land are these little local boats. Hemingway-esque little old men in the sea piloting their rickety craft miles off shore. The sturdy looking multi-passenger canoes in Polynesia, the tippy looking hand-hewn dugouts in the Solomon’s with a hairs width of freeboard, the outriggers in Vanuatu with palm frond sails, and here they have these colorful trimarans; outriggers attached to the main hull with big arching insect looking arms. No fisherman seems to vary from their countries’ theme, but each countries’ theme seems so different from the next. You could probably tell where you were in the world from the style of these local hand made boats.

We left Australia doing 10 knots with 1500 RPM’s of power and no sail. We spent the last night of our passage closing in on Bali with the engine running full out, full sail and 15 knots of wind behind us making only 1.8 knots! It was a crazy night fighting these weird currents but we made our way into Benoa harbor as the sun rose behind us. It was the most pleasant, the slowest, and most monotonous passage of our trip. Despite all the whining I guess if we had to choose they would all be like that.

With that little jaunt now safely in the bag we've covered 2700 miles in less than month, an insane amount of sailing by any standard. Hard to believe but we just travelled the same amount of miles as there are from Myrtle Beach, all the way down to Panama, through the canal, and most of the way to the Galapagos - and it took 8 months for that portion of our trip!

We are at the Bali marina now with diesel to spare and very ready for some hard earned Indonesian shore leave.

sunday november 29^th 2009 (sanur, bali)

Fear mongering is one of our least favorite things and the clearance process here in Indonesia has been extensively mongered. Not surprisingly it has turned into yet another classic example of why you should take every opportunity to either slap, run away from, medically treat, publicly discredit, or ignore the people that you encounter that are suffering from F1N1 (Fear Flu). Together we can stop its relentless spread.

We started hearing hints, rumors and allegations about Indonesia’s allegedly horrible clearance process all the way back in Fiji. Easily more than a dozen different people on boats have tried to warn us off this place because of the corruption and scandal here. The words “Bali” or “Indonesia” were like triggers that fired off a 12 gauge discourse of uncorroborated second, third, and fourth hand stories. They’re like urban legends. You start hearing the same stories over again only with different boat names and always a friend of a friend or something like that.

If a person we like shows F1N1 symptoms then our tactic has been to smile, nod, change the subject and privately forgive them on the basis of assuming that they have our best interests at heart. If a person we really like and would actually enjoy seeing in the [insert name of country-being-bashed by cruisers here] starts showing signs, we administer 400 cc’s of reason, if that fails we tease them, if that fails then sadly they must be put down. In the majority of cases we don’t like the person(s) because let’s face it, fear mongerers usually just love to hear themselves speak, have a personal axe to grind, or are just plain boring. This actually makes it easier for us because then we just employ a passive ignore routine followed by an active avoid routine. It’s a good strategy because we really don’t care to see these people again and if their unsubstantiated belief that they will be robbed, beaten, pirated, tricked, eaten or swindled keeps them away from the countries that we plan to visit then who are we to change their minds?

Back to the point. If we hadn’t heard all of this crap about Indonesia I wouldn’t be writing anything right now about the clearance process for the simple reason that it was totally uninteresting. It was no more (or less) difficult than any other hot country we’ve been to. Yes, I spent a half a day suffering from heat exhaustion and dehydration while running around trying to find five different government and government associated offices. Yes, I developed carpal tunnel syndrome from filling out a hundred and ninety six thousand copies of crew lists, declarations, and other irritating papers. Yes, I was redirected back to an office that I had just left to get a different stamp or jump through some other maddening hoop at least once. Yes, it cost us some money. An ordinary fifty bucks for 2 visas and 150 bucks for our cruising permit. Well within the range or normal clearance fees. (Are we paying attention AQIS?)

If you are capable of sailing a boat to Indonesia then you are capable of clearing in without being dismembered or hoodwinked. If you want to you can even hire somebody here to do the whole thing for you while you gulp down dollar beers somewhere; an inexpensive strategy (depending on how much you can drink) that I would highly recommend. We would have done exactly that, but I wanted to personally experience the full scope of this ‘nightmare’ so that I would be in the position to publicly relate at least one persons first hand experience with the Indonesian clearance process and hopefully dispel some of the stupid rumors that are running rampant out there.

Ever kicked a hornets nest? Witnessed the resulting blind kill-or-be-killed frenzy, a chaotic frothing blood lust, manic high speed pursuits, dire and sometimes mortal consequences? That’s kind of what driving is like in Bali.

Once we were all cleared in and had Slapdash tucked away in her new little home we couldn’t get away fast enough. We emptied the fridge, shut off the propane and hit the road. Our means of transportation came delivered to the marina in the form of a 12 dollar a day brand new little mini van thing (suburban men that have surrendered their balls and succumbed to the pull of domestic necessity might drive one and try to convince their friends that it’s an SUV). The thing had all the bells and whistles like air conditioning, power this and power that but was curiously equipped with, a tape deck? This caused more distress than the left handed clutch and gear stick (our Beemer in NZ was an automatic) and we were about to participate in traffic conditions that made us wish we were in an armored personal carrier. If I gave less attention to the fact that we were stuck with a tape deck and more attention to which hand I was shifting with, then the answer to the question that Jaime and I were fervently discussing as we rolled towards our first Balinese intersection (topic of fervent discussion: “Which side of the road do they drive on in this country anyway?”) might have been more apparent. Wheel right, shifter left? Then you should be on the left side of the road dummy. Unbelievably, we went through the intersection and the answer to that question was still the center of a heated debate. It certainly appeared as though we were on the wrong side of the road but nobody was swearing, waving, flashing lights, or even so much as giving us a little courtesy toot! Traffic just flowed around us completely unfazed by our contradictory presence. We were like a rock in a stream. We wheeled our rig around and merged into the hornets nest on the other side of the road.

Later, while blatantly flouting some other driving rule, I said something like:

“I sure hope we don’t freak anybody out doing this.”

To which Jaime would reply,

“I think that if you could freak an Indonesian driver out then you would have to be trying a lot harder than this.”

How true.

Using the term ‘sensory overload’ to describe this experience after having been at sea for 16 days would be a gross understatement. We were those white knuckled, jerky, map reading, bumbling tourists that you want to annihilate… at best. At worst we were a danger to ourselves and everyone around us. In North America you grow up learning a system based on rigid traffic rules, defensive driving, and exorbitant fines. In South East Asia the system seems to depend on everyone going flat out, using every inch of road or sidewalk and doing whatever seems to make sense at the time to get where you are going and damn the consequences.

Once we caught on, the roads were our oyster. I loved it. Don’t like your position at the stoplight but have a little room in front of you? No problem, just squish into the space in front of you. The guy in front of you going too slow but there’s no room to pass? No problem, use the sidewalk. Miss your turn and need to go back a half block but are stuck on a one-way? Just use the inside lane you fool. It’s the chaos theory in full effect, but somehow it works! By the end of day 1 we were in full swing, by the end of day 2 we were jealous of the scooters. At first they seemed like suicidal maniacs, but the versatility was more than evident. Basically a scooter in Bali obeys only one law and that’s the law of self preservation. If you can do it without getting yourself killed then fill your boots! Beautiful in it’s simplicity. No wonder there seems to be a hundred million of them. First chance we get we’re trading in this glorified mini-van for a Honda Blade.

The second thing that became obvious to us is that we were not in the Pacific anymore. There is no trace of the cultural similarities that we’ve experienced for the past 18 months. There is no semblance of it in the people, art, music or language. This may sound obvious to most travelers whose journeys are segmented. Taking a flight from here to there allows you to compartmentalize your experiences. Our method has been more of a slow blend from one thing to another, and this is the first time we’ve had a complete and abrupt change from one thing to another (if you can call 16 days abrupt). Okay, Jaime just pointed out one similarity. The big smiles on people that are ready to help in any way that they can and seem genuinely happy to have you visiting their country harkens back to our days in Vanuatu.

With 10 bucks in your pocket you can do pretty much anything in Bali. Get a room because your too drunk to get home, bribe a police officer, pay a taxi to take you half way across the island, get a 1 hour massage and still have enough for a six pack, rent a surf board, feed yourself and a friend 3 square meals, rent a car for a day, or a scooter for 3. It’s crazy. I had this impression that Bali would be something like Costa Rica; pretty cool 20 years ago but kind of blown out and overpriced now. Not at all, some places may be blown out (Kuta), and believe it or not these prices are considered overpriced by Indonesian standards. But the place is cheaper than Mexico, the weather is great, the surf breaks all over the place, and the people are super friendly. How are we ever going to leave?

We spent a couple of nights each in Ubud, Sunur, and even crazy Kuta. Ubud is kind if a sleepy place great for barfy couple-type things like quiet little romantic restaurants, tons of shopping and tame family oriented tours. Kuta makes no apologies for itself. It’s a massive in-your-face retail district with all-night bars, foam parties, lady-boy hookers and a huge beach where you can buy anything from class-A drugs to a bow and arrow. Sort of like Cancun during spring break or an R-rated version of Waikiki, but instead of teeming masses of drunken 19 year old Americans showing off their Fabutan’s and trying to get laid, there are teeming masses of drunken Aussies showing off their tattoos and trying to get laid.

Sanur falls somewhere in between the two and we really felt at home there. It’s not a big snore like Ubud where highlights include looking at rice paddies, buying a painted egg and retiring to your cozy little room (what’s the big deal with rice paddies anyway?) and it’s nothing like the full frontal assault you experience in Kuta, which was kind of like drinking from a fire hose. We have a beach, a small surf scene, a ton of restaurants and a few good bars. You can find something going on at midnight, but still have a quiet room off a side road to retreat to when you feel like it. If for some reason we are overcome with the urge to get absolutely obliterated and dance in foam until the sun comes up then Kuta is only a half hour away.

We’ve upgraded to a scooter. Honda Blade. Jaime is delighted. Now I can get an AJ Hackett-level adrenaline load for like 3 bucks a day. Sidewalks are my friend, parking issues are a thing of the past. We’ve been told multiple times that the way to deal with police here is to try and outrun them. Apparently they are really lazy and probably won’t even follow you, so if you make it easy by pulling over and revealing that you are a well fed juicy tourist you will be hassled for imaginary fines and the local take on this is that you kind of deserve it. Better to try and get away and if they catch you just pay them the same ‘fines’ you would have been charged with in the first place. All the expats here carry a 50,000 rupiah note in a pocket outside of their wallet for just that purpose (didn’t I tell you that this was a great place?). So I’ve got my 50,000 Rupiah note and have been trying hard to provoke a pursuit but so far no luck. Don’t worry though, if I manage to outrun a cop using nothing but our Honda Blades 108 cc’s of neck snapping power you will never hear the end of it.

Jaime just got back with two containers of food, a liter of water and a Bintang. Cost? Four bucks and that includes the smoothie she had while waiting for the food.

Somewhere between Ubud and Kuta we had a big fight about nothing much really. Our post-game analysis chalked it up to the residual effects of living in POW close quarters for the past two months and scarcely leaving the boat finally bubbling up in a heat induced rage. End result? She went to the zoo and harassed a bunch of cuddly looking animals and I took my frustrations out on the Blade. We reconnoitered a little later and made up.

Today I invented a new scooter game which even Jaime won’t play. It’s called “keep up with a local”. Basically I pick out a random Balinese scooter pilot and try to tail them. The first couple of times I eventually lost my nerve and had to bail out, but eventually I started getting pretty good and even passed a couple of them which is funny because they don’t seem to like getting passed by a bule (boo-lay). It’s been good practice for my upcoming police chase but still no luck on that front. At one point we zipped past a family of six on a scooter. No exaggeration. I actually pulled over and waited for them so that I could verify.

“1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and yep! There she is… 6!” There was a lady driving, three kids of various ages behind her, and two in front. Admirable.

The stone and wood carvers here put the Pacific islanders to shame. We will have to try and get some photos, which won’t be difficult because they are everywhere. What will be difficult is capturing the complexity and overall themes. Some pieces are made from a big tree root that’s been dug up and carved into a bunch of different scenes using the natural shape of the wood, others are simple pieces formed out of petrified wood which have been polished up to bring out all of the grains and colors. They even make furniture out of the stuff - end tables, stools, bookshelves and that sort of thing. We saw a bathroom sink cut from petrified rock, all rough on the outside and polished smooth on the inside.

I knew that the swastika was a Buddhist or Hindu religious symbol first but it’s still weird to see it around without being associated with Nazi skin heads or some hate fuelled redneck loser trying to look tough. On our street there is a Swastika Restaurant, a Swastika hotel, and a Swastika corner store. We’re not in Kansas anymore.

I thought taxis and rental vehicles were cheap. Today I hopped in a beemo for a quick ride (a tiny little mini van geared up to carry 9 passengers – or 15 depending on demand) and couldn’t find notes small enough for the fare. I used my smallest note and refused the change which meant that I paid about 500% of the asking price, or 12 cents.

We’ve taken this past week away from the boat, website and emails to scrutinize our finances and plan out the next move. Not surprisingly we could live out the rest of our savings here in Bali for 2 years like a King and a Queen, but our plan has us heading for the Mediterranean to the land of the Euro. Instead of multiplying our dollar by 8895 to exchange it into local currency like we do here in Bali we will dividing it by 1.58 and coming out with something like .62 cents to the dollar. Not so good. With that in mind we looked at a bunch of different options like trying to obtain sponsorship and spending what we have left on lottery tickets. The least appealing of all was to cheap skate our way through the rest of the trip. We might pull it off, but what’s the point? We would rather sell the boat then do that because we just couldn’t justify sailing around the world and not doing the things we wanted to do. Besides who wants to read about us sitting around on our boat eating noodles every day?

The net result? We’ve decided to take 6 months off and… (queue the scary music)… get jobs!

This comes as big of a surprise to us as anyone else, and not for lack of planning. We started the trip with enough to go around the world and then some, and while we’ve been more-or-less sticking to plan it would seem that even us vagrant miscreants are not immune to the effects of the recession… what is this world coming to? The well has nearly run dry. It will take about 18 months to cover the miles that sit between Bali and North America, and our expenditures have been averaging roughly $2000 per month. So, we need to make 36 grand to finish the trip. It wasn’t what we were expecting but reality is a currency we are comfortable with, so it wasn’t a very difficult decision once we had thought it all through. It’s just another part of the journey, an extension that will allow for a more enjoyable overall experience.

The decision was easy, but what about the logistics? The rough plan at this point is to leave the boat here. We can leave it somewhere safe and secure for peanuts. In Bali we can afford to have someone periodically clean the boat, watch over it and even maintain the systems while we are away. As for us, we’ll go wherever the money is. The most obvious choice would be Calgary where there are no guarantees but at least we could mooch off of friends (fair warning to all those in this category) and beg our former employers for work.

Vancouver would be great but the cost of living is way higher and everyone lives in shoeboxes so accommodation there would be harder to come by. Big pluses for Vancouver would be public transit, a better climate, and better restaurants, but we’ve got a limited amount of time to make as much money as we can so we probably won’t be eating out much anyway.

I’ve cast a few lines and right now the leading contenders have us living in an abandoned farmhouse and working in a chicken processing plant in Wynyard Saskatchewan, or living in an unfinished basement in Calgary while trying to convince WestJet that we still have some skills worthy of lavish compensation.

Here’s your opportunity to change everything. Consider the Slapdash a fully interactive website now where you the reader can change our future. If you have enjoyed reading about our misadventures and want to see more, then just put us to work somewhere warm and shower us in money! We’ll do whatever it takes, just save us from the fate outlined by this half crazed (but loveable) reader who emailed us with this golden opportunity in Wynyard Saskatchewan:

"Wynyard Sask is about a half an hour from Saskatoon. You'll be happy to know there is a Lilydale chicken plant there! I thought this might be a dream of yours to sling chicken wings for a living. My grandma's house is empty on the farm so possibly some four legged roomates. But really how much space do mice take up?!"

We are available from January to June 2010 and need to take away 36 grand (after expenses) to complete this trip. Inquiries can be sent to Seth and Jaime at slapus@theslapdash.com.

* Requested information such as skills and experience will be provided to serious inquiries only while asinine offers and inquiries can expect to be ridiculed on this asinine website. This is a limited time (but totally serious) offer. Some conditions may apply. Act now, supplies are limited and will not last. Operators are standing by.

So there you have it. Yes it’s a big change but one of our favorite things about this trip has been not knowing what’s just over the horizon, and this is no different. We have to act fast so will post the result here on Friday December the 4^th.