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Notification

November 2020: Shamal and her Crew have arrived safely back into Opua, Bay of Islands, New Zealand completing their circumnavigation a year ago. Due to Covid-19 and New Zealand's Boarders being closed, they will continue to spend their 2020/21 Summer exploring some of New Zealand's waters. Thanks to all of you for following our Adventures. There will be more.

28 November 2009

Bali to Kumai - Kalimantan to Nongsa Point Marina - Batam

Hello Again

Well Alec’s bout of food poisoning kept us on the boat for a couple of days not really being able to venture very far. We did do a couple of small trips ashore to the Bali Yacht Club to check the emails and to fill the jerry cans with diesel. One morning as I was sitting on the terrace of the Yacht Club having a semi real coffee, the local ‘gang’ came down for their morning wash – yes in that filthy harbour! A small girl of about five and four boys between three and four. Granddad came along to watch proceedings. After a time of splashing about and trying to drown each other it was time to see what they could find in the small fishing boats which were anchored just off the beach. Plastic bags were the order of the day this morning which had been neatly folded and stowed away under the seats. They were dragged out, taken into the water and partly filled, then the end was screwed up and it acted as a float. Once that sank they just filled another. More rubbish added to this horridly polluted harbour! This kept them occupied till Granddad had had enough and wanted them out of the water which turned into another fiasco. No way were they ready to go home. Granddad was not going in and had no power over them. They were still debating the matter with him when we left quite some time later.

09 November 2009

Lombok to Bali

Hello To You All

The run from Lombok to Bali was 60nm and was into the wind all the way, but with a strong current of up to 7Kt’s at times we made the crossing in eight hours. With wind against tide it made for some choppy seas at times. This seems to be the norm around here when sailing between the different Islands.

05 November 2009

Komodo to Lombok via The Gili Islands

A Note From Those Sea Gypsies

As I start this post we are sitting in a lovely bay just north of Senggigi on the Island of Lombok. We will leave here for Bali in a couple of days.

02 November 2009

Kupang to Komoda - Home of the Dragons

Hello Again

As I said in our last post we had to say good-bye to Brigitte in Kupang. With a heavy heart we sadly took her out to the airport for her 6.30am flight yesterday morning. She flew on Lion Air where the slogan is ‘We Make You Fly’ then Alec and I headed back to SHAMAL and as we watched her plane fly over we upped anchor and set sail for a Komodo about 250nm away where we will see the famous Komodo Dragons. Brigitte has not seen all the lovely places we are yet to visit, but we did a quick run out to an Island just 5 miles off Kupang on her last night so she could have a swim in cleaner waters.