After spending a month around Darwin, waiting for our cruising permit for Indonesia while checking out the outback and arranging for crew to sail with Rolf, we were finally able to set sail again. I write we, but Boukje actually flew over to Bali and spend a week in a retreat being spoiled (being pregnant isn’t so bad). Rolf on the other hand motored Helena for 850 windless miles over the Indian Ocean. His great consolation: once on Bali he would finally be able to eat a kroket again!

Real

Mission impossible

So our first mission on the island was to find a spot where they’d sell kroketten. As a kroket is a Dutch snack and we ran in to a café called Amsterdam in Sanur, that seemed like the logical first place to go. And they did indeed have kroketten. But they were not approved by Rolf as “like the ones we have back home”. Even though we had some more run inns with kroketten, none of them turned out to be the “real thing” and Rolfs cravings have been left unsatisfied. 😦

Getting some culture

Lucky for us, it turns out that in Indonesia they also have some wonderful Indonesian food. We loved the nasi campur, gado gado and all kinds of dishes that were new to us.

As the Indonesian way of driving kind of scared us, we were happy to find a driver for a day to show us around. So next to eating we tried to get some more of the local culture by visiting some temples, seeing a dance show and of course taking pictures of the monkeys.

Sad

What we saw of the island from the car and later from sea made us kind of sad though. Most of the nature on Bali seems to have been sacrificed either for logging or for building tourist resorts. Once Bali must have possessed rainforests like we have seen on the Solomon Islands or seeing now in Malaysia, but all that’s left now is hills that looked like plucked birds with a tree here and there. The same goes for the sea around the island, we’ve seldom seen so much man-made (plastic) crap in the water as around the Indonesian islands.

At sea

But still, we also seldom have seen so many dolphins on a trip. Although we’ve seen a lot of dolphins along the way, they still makes us smile and immediately run to the foredeck. They love to play with the bow, each trying to swim next to it and playfully pushing each other away when they think it’s their turn. Sailing from Bali to the Gilli Islands we saw something new: a mother and baby dolphin, swimming in perfect unison.

Another thing we haven’t seen before are these wooden contraptions we almost ran into about 6 miles from the coast of Bali. Trying to figure out what they are and what purpose they could possibly have, we circled around one for a while, but we still don’t have an answer to that. Along the way to Singapore we ran in to other objects in the water, like double wooden poles floating around or small sticks standing up straight. Although they are a nuisance from the sailors point of view, these all seem to be in use as markers for fishing nets or crab pots.

On our way again

After Bali we spend a few days on the Gilli Islands (part of Lombok), also touristy but in a much more laidback kind of way. The place reminded Rolf of his much loved Thai islands, with dive shops everywhere and relaxed beachside bars and restaurants. A bit smaller though, we walked around Gilli Air in 1,5 hour.

We then island hopped to Semarang on Java, where Boukje took a plane to Singapore, leaving Rolf and Russell to sail the remaining 550 mile together.