Bali

The original plan was perfect. I fly into Bali, spend a night there, and early in the morning, we set sail for a ten day voyage to Singapore. We spend a couple of days there, and then I fly back home. One thousand nautical miles, ten days of sailing, should be easy.

Closer to the daprture, we realise that the plan is not as flawless as we thought. Currents are against us, there are plenty of FADs on the way (semi-submerged fishing pontoons in the open sea), and most importantly, the wind is not steady at all. There is a big chance we would spend those ten days motoring, and that is not fun at all. So the decision is made to sail around the Bali area instead and then fly to Singapore.

Let’s start with the fact that this trip is unique and only possible because my cruiser friends Taras and Emily reached Bali a few months ago on their own boat after crossing the Pacific Ocean. There is no charter here or anywhere close to it. In fact, only around five thousand sailing boats have reached Bali since the Second World War. This is, of course, a rough estimate, but the place is definitely not overvisited by cruisers. There are many reasons for that: lack of infrastructure, very few safe anchorages to hide from bad weather, plenty of fishing boats and nets that are absolutely invisible at night, and so on. So I am pretty stoked to be part of such a small group of people who actually sail here. Let’s go!

Day one

After a long flight, I arrive at a lovely hotel where I can get some rest and relax. The hotel is quite far from both the airport and the boat, but I am on a mission here. A friend of mine owns a couple of rooms in this hotel and I am happy to play the role of secret shopper and give some feedback on how things are going. I have never done this before. It turns out to be quite fun, instead of just staying in another hotel like I have done hundreds of times, I actually need to evaluate every important detail.

Day two

There are quite a few people I know in Bali right now. Moreover, we all sailed together just a year ago in the Caribbean, so it is really nice to meet here and have a day out together. We start with a nice lunch in Kuta. After that, we go to Sanur, closer to where the boat is moored, and have a lovely drink on the beach there. In the evening, we go to the supermarket to do provisioning. Since it is only three of us on the boat and the sailing trip is not that long, we finish in less than an hour. Time to go to the boat.

Fortuna is waiting on a mooring next to the most authentic warung imaginable. Tables and benches are literally made out of old boats. The location is cool too. It is not the classic touristy Bali with fancy restaurants and big crowds. It is the real Bali, where even Grab is not welcome, and only locals live here.

In the bay, there are hundreds of boats in all kinds of conditions, from expensive super yachts to half sunken fishing vessels. Most of the boats are local, of course, and only a few visiting sailing boats can be seen. Some of them look like they have been here for a really long time. We spend the night here since there is no real need to go anywhere at night.

Day three

I wake up before sunrise. The only benefit of jet lag is that you catch the golden hour. After a quick breakfast, we start our trip towards Lembongan. It is not far, only about twelve miles, but it takes almost five hours to get there.

A boat that normally goes 6-7 knots at 1800 rpm is barely doing 3 now, all because of marine life developed on the bottom while she is moored. Aquatic life grows very fast here and in just a few weeks, it can create a real problem. We cannot continue like this, so the first order of business is to clean her bottom. This is my responsibility since the guys basically take the boat out to sail me around. It takes me almost two hours underwater to go through the entire hull, but now Fortuna can finally perform as expected.

It is a lot of work and a good reminder that recreational diving is fun and easy, but technical diving, when you actually have to do work underwater, is hard and demanding. The rest of the evening we spent relaxing on board. We pick up a buoy about half a mile from shore, and there is not really a reason to go to land since there is nothing particularly interesting there for us.

Day four

We depart from Lembongan early in the morning. We have about fifty nautical miles to go to reach our next stop, Gili Air. The boat performs much better now, but there is still no wind, so we need to motor. Currents around here are unpredictable and change rapidly. One moment you are pushing against two knots of current that slow you down, half an hour later, another current picks you up and pushes you forward.

On the way we enjoy an awesome view of the Bali volcanoes and even cross a busy TSS with quite some traffic.

We arrive at Gili Air not too late and still have enough time to visit the dive shop we are interested in and explore the island a bit. The place is really cool. First of all it is tiny, you can walk across the island in about twenty five minutes. There are no cars here. People use electric scooters, bicycles and horses for transportation.

The streets are cute and mostly clean. We stop at a good coffee place in the centre of the island, walk along the shore for a bit and do some micro provisioning in a very local supermarket.

Day five

We start the morning with a short dive from the boat to finish cleaning the hull. Now it is really, really clean. After that, we go ashore to the dive shop for some fun diving. I do not have my underwater camera housing with me so unfortunately, there are no photos to share. The dive is nice but nothing spectacular, so we decide to skip the second dive and have a good lunch instead, walk around the island and get a massage.

In the evening, we head to the opposite side of the island to enjoy the sunset and this turns out to be a great decision. Besides the gorgeous sunset, we catch an amazing fire show while drinking great cocktails.

On the way back we find our dinghy not exactly in the condition we want to see it in and long story short we end up paddling back to the boat. It is not far from shore and the weather is calm, but it still takes us at least thirty minutes to get back. The rest of the evening we spend fixing the dinghy engine and eventually manage to make it run again.

Day six

Today we sail to Gili Gede. On the way we do some household chores and just relax. As we approach the island we get caught in a huge rainstorm. It is actually a very nice thing. The boat gets washed and cooled down at the same time and it is nice to have a break from the heat. The rain lasts only about forty-five minutes and then the sun comes out again. 

As we approach the island we face a small navigational challenge. There is a huge pearl farm between us and the island. After a bit of manoeuvring the skipper finds a wide gap between the buoys that leads us straight through the farm.

When we arrive at Gili Gede we realise we do not really like it. Nothing interesting on shore, and local buoys look very sketchy, so we change course and go to Gili Asahan instead. It is only about an hour away and the decision turns out to be absolutely right. The place is magical. The bay is protected from all sides, there are plenty of well maintained buoys, friendly staff and the island itself looks gorgeous. We count about seven other sailing boats and one of them has been here for seven years already. Traditional boats move slowly around the island and the whole place looks stunning in the sunset light. Definitely the right choice to stay here.

Day seven

We go ashore for breakfast in one of the few restaurants. It is delicious, plenty and really inexpensive, less than thirty euros for the three of us. After that, we take a walk along the beach, where we meet tiny adorable goats living right on the shore.

Next stop is the dive shop where we take care of the paperwork, fit the gear and arrange pick up from the boat next day. For lunch we go back to the same restaurant. There is absolutely no reason to cook on board when such a nice place is right there. The evening we spend on the boat enjoying an insanely beautiful sunset. Tonight I sleep outside, it is much cooler and the stars look amazing. There is practically no light pollution here.

Day eight

The dive boat picks us up and takes us to two surprisingly good dive sites. One has fantastic underwater topography and the other is a very fun fast drift dive. After the dives we are droped off at the boat where we relax, eat and chill. 

In the evening, we go ashore again for dinner and a couple of beers, and the highlight of the evening, for me personally, is building a big bonfire on the beach. This is something I really miss in Europe, and I try not to miss any opportunity to do so when I can.

Day nine

Our trip is short this time so we depart early for Lembongan where we plan to stay overnight. We arrive faster than expected and still have plenty of time to prepare the boat for the next couple of weeks at the mooring. But there is a problem. The place where we are staying is choppy, the boat is rocking around, and even a simple task suddenly becomes complicated and tricky. We still have enough time to reach our final destination at Bali and finish all the chores there instead.

Day ten

Most of the preparations are already done and only a few small tasks remain. Divers arrive to do some underwater work and what I see is quite surprising. Two guys arrive with a dinghy carrying an air compressor, a long hose and a 220-volt generator. They hook everything up and one of them goes diving using air from the compressor powered by the running generator. If it works, it is not stupid, but I definitely did not expect to see something like this.

After this rather creative underwater operation is done, we say goodbye to Fortuna and head ashore. We still have a few days left to explore Bali and then visit amazing Singapore, but that part has nothing to do with sailing so it does not belong in this log.