Boom Marina to Gili Asaham, Lombok

Hello! Sorry this was slow to come, but much of the journey to Lombok, where we’re are now, wasn’t very nice at all.  I’ve gotten over much of it now with good food and company.

More about this later. :)

We left Boom Marina at 0600 morning for an anchorage with clear water for hull cleaning.

Six in the morning might sound early but the Call to Prayer started at daybreak at 0430 so we’d been up for a while. We’ve been used to a 0530 call but Indonesia has 3 time zones.

Our anchorage for the night was on the border of the 

Western and Central times and our watches couldn’t decide which we were and kept jumping forward and back.

Just outside the entrance to the marina was a big dredger. It wasn’t working when we passed and looked rather in disrepair from a distance. As we passed, we could see that it hadn’t been dredging mud or sand but the remains of rusted boats and metal structures from the seabed decorated its deck. There more were piles of recovered wreckage next on the shore near the marina entrance.

The current between the mainland and island was over 3 knots. The water swirled and eddied over changes in depth to the seabed.

The VMG is the Velocity Made Good towards your waypoint. 7.9 knots is a speed we need help to achieve. 5.8 knots is our average cruising speed and the speed with which we passage plan.

It had been quite the opposite when we arrived at Boom Marina. The current was just as strong but from the wrong direction.  It’s quite discouraging when your boat speed is 5 knots but your SOG (Speed Over Ground) is 2.

Madura Island on the left and Bali on the right.

Our anchorage for the night was lovely. It was calm and peaceful and we saw a number of large turtles. We had only one local fishing boat for company. The Indonesian fishing boats are the prettiest and often most elaborate when compared to those of Thailand and Malaysia.

In the early evening, they rolled up the tarpaulins they’d been sleeping under and motored off to fish for the night. If we’d had more time, we would have stayed another day to snorkel and swim. The water was lovely and clear and there were things to see. We hope to visit t again on our way north in November.

In the morning we headed for the Airport Anchorage, which is convenient for going around the bottom of the Bali.  We didn’t particularly like this anchorage the first time we used it on the Indonesian Rally, and we liked it even less this time. There was a lot of swell coming in, which made it rolly and hard to sleep.

South of the southern most Indonesian islands is the Indian Ocean and there’s always a chance of ocean swell. When I checked the weather later, I saw a cyclone moving along the north coast of Australia. It’s likely it was that that was sending us the swell.  If we’d gone over the top of Bali, it wouldn’t have affected us and the whole journey would have been much far more pleasant. *Note to for the return trip.

We took this route as the currents are very strong on the east Coast of Bali. Tim had it planned  so that we’d be going north when the current was strongest. It was a great idea but for some reason we had a lot more current against us than expected. It was 5 knots at times though because we were going across it we didn’t feel the full brunt; 3/4 brunt perhaps. There were moments when our VMG was negative as we were being carried away from our destination, the island of Lembongan, but we got there in the end. 

Lembongan is a popular surfing destination thanks to the swell I’ve been complaining about. The day we arrived lit looked amazing. We are anchored in 11 metres of water on a patch of white sand surrounded low rocks and probably coral. It was too deep to be sure.

Between us and the town is a reef.

This was a very different day. The dolphins hunting over the reef didn’t mind the surf and boats ferried surfers and swimmers to frolic in it as well.

About this time, we discovered another cooling system problem with the engine.  Tim had noticed that the engine temperature was higher than normal as we were approaching Bawean. Not to the over heating stage, but a little hotter than normal. We were almost to the anchorage, but stopped the engine and sailed in light winds. We used the engine to anchor and then let it cool to check the coolant level.

The water level was low, but as it’s a Ford Transit engine and tough as nails, it hadn’t got anywhere near to over heating.  

So we had a leak from the water cooling system.  We’d been motoring for hours through the night so it was a slow leak.  Tim investigated, couldn’t see any drips and decided, in conjunction  with our mechanic in Pangkor, that it could be the cooling tower in the heat exchanger. The engine was installed, brand new, in 2001. The cooling tower is original and as it uses salt water to cool the fresh water coils, over time there can be some corrosion and the fresh water leaks into the salt water. A new cooling tower is an eye-watering £650. Ouch. But it was ordered and Tim will bring it back from the UK in May.

As we sat at our lovely anchorage the bilge pump went off for a couple of seconds.  This isn’t generally a problem. Every time we bring up the anchor, the water runs off the chain in the anchor locker and in to the bilge. When enough accumulates, the bilge pump whirs into life and pumps it out. 

A little later it went again, so Tim had grabbed the torch and had another look around the engine and found the culprit. A copper pipe had been being rubbed by tougher pipe since the engine was reinstalled in Pangkor almost a year ago. The hole had finally got large enough to leak enough water make itself known.

So we got out our flexible epoxy, which sets in 6 hours and is fully cured in 12 even underwater, cleaned up the pipe, mixed up the epoxy and fibre-glassed the hole into oblivion. The pipe was back in place before dinner. We are quite well practiced at this now. We started the engine first thing in the morning, checked for leaks but the repair was perfect.

Happy with our repair, we headed off to our final destination, Gili Asahan, one of many islands of Lombok. ‘Gili’ is island in Indonesian.

We like a nice early start on a nice flat sea.

This was a much easier trip. The currents were a little more favourable and the shipping lanes, marked in pink, weren’t nearly as busy as the Singapore Straits. It was only 25 miles from start to finish and we were there by mid afternoon.

We’re in the same anchorage as Philip on Bruno’s Girl and he’s been showing us what there is to see and where to eat.  

A good time is being had by all.

More of Gili Asaham in the next blog.

Sunday, 22 March 2026

 Hello!

I’m writing this from the comfort of Boom Marina, Banyuwangi. It’s been a weary time getting here since the last post as we left Pulau Baku Limau. It’s taken us a week to get here - 1st passage of two night sails, 1 1/2 days in Bawean,  2nd passage of 1 night sail and finally two day sails.

Sunday 15  March 

We had some lovely sailing with the wind behind us and the current with us for much of the way to Bawean. The Java Sea, which we were traversing, was a little more crowded as we’re approaching the more populous islands.

Indonesia is an Archipelagic State with Archipelagic Waters, a term you can see used on the chart on our RayMarine chart plotter. Tim noticed this during his night watch, so I looked it up too.

‘Archipelagic states are composed of groups of islands that form a state as a single unit, the islands and the waters within the baselines as internal waters (archipelagic waters). Under this concept ("archipelagic doctrine"), an archipelago shall be regarded as a single unit, so that the waters around, between, and connecting the islands of the archipelago, irrespective of their breadth and dimensions, are subject to its exclusive sovereignty (while allowing ships from other countries to exercise the archipelagic sea lanes passage or innocent passage at their choice).’ Excerpts from Wiki Archipelagic States and Waters.

Monday, 16 March

From seeing the moon and stars and little else, we now see the glowing lights of ships in the distance. The small reddish light in the photo the port side navigation light of a vessel coming towards us. What is hard to see in the photo is that along with the red port light are 3 vertical white lights. Three vertical white lights indicate a tugboat with a barge under tow.

Happily, our chart plotter sorts all these light out for us and can be setup to automatically warning us of potentially dangerous situations. We are always checking the chart plotter day and night so we’ve never used it before.  We particularly wanted to keep an eye on the slow moving tugs, some of which were towing a barge on a 200m+ tow line. The barges aren’t particularly well lit, if they are lit at all. We like to give them a very wide berth.

Bawean was a nice rest and a very short visit with Indan and her friends. We were greeted by her friends who transported us to the meeting place on the back of their scooters. This is not my preferred mode of transport, but this is how anyone without a car travels in SE Asia. We saw no cars at all during our short  visit. We met at Kopi Kerrong. Kopi Kerrong is a ‘coffee’ shop. Kopi has long South East Asian history.

We did a little fruit and veg shopping to top up our stores. Back at Kopi Kerrong we were treated to a local Photo Booth experience. lol. I don’t know what else to call it! 

This was the result, though it took us a while to get up to speed with the performance aspect of the experience. 

They really are a nation of young people who experience life via their phones. Maybe everywhere is these days. We are currently in Boom Marina, Banyuwangi. It’s just after Ramadan, it’s a holiday and the marina is a ‘destination’ for taking selfies or friends taking photos of each other. Pose, snap, review, pose again and repeat. We are obviously very old. ;D

We didn’t stay long as during Ramadan they start late and as sailors we finish early. And we like to get back to the boat in daylight, particularly if it’s an unfamiliar anchorage.  

We did see food being set out to be given to the poor from Mosque as we whizzed back to the dock and our dinghy. It would have been nice to be able to walk back to see what there was to see, but it really was too far and we’d bought, among other things, a watermelon at the fruit and veg stall.

We headed off the next day at about noon to arrive in daylight at our next anchorage.

Hmmm…. I wonder where that squall is going?

That one didn’t come anywhere near us, but we can also use the radar on our chart plotter to see approaching weather.

The squalls show as green, pink and red.  Red is approaching, pink is when you are under it and green shows areas that won’t affect you or have passed over you already.

The squalls that did catch us up during the night were pretty much windless, one or twice there were periods of pounding vertical rain, and there were a few squalls that had the most active lightning and thunder we have ever experienced. We were in the company of a number of ships, all going the same direction we were. With all those great lumps of metal around us, we were pretty sure that they were more attractive targets. There were some ‘flashbangs’ that made us jump and from one of these, the static it generated made a our wind generator panel perk up, and we think it shorted the light on the on/off button on our electric kettle. In retrospect, I should have used the gas kettle instead, but we’re getting used to not seeing the little blue light.

This was the first weather of this kind we’d run across in a very long time. The last time was crossing the Inter Tropical Convergence Zone south of the equator and just west of the Galápagos Islands. We didn’t like that much either.

Though when we arrived at the anchorage, the deck still felt silky under foot it was so clean and salt free. 

This anchorage was notable for a number of things.  

In the approach to the tip of the island patches of water was a vivid green with gold particles floating through it - mostly likely and algae bloom said the internet. 

After dinner, Tim threw the food scraps over the side the water seemed to boil with green bioluminescence in the dark.  Many a handful of porridge oats was tossed into the water hoping to catch it in a photo but no luck there.

It was the last day of Ramadan and there was much celebration from the island across from us.

This is just a taster. 

We went to sleep and woke the next day to the same sights and sounds celebrating Hari Raya Aidilfitri, the end of Ramadan. 

We arrived at Boom Marina, Banyuwangi yesterday. We anchored the day before in a small bay, with a man fishing on the shore and huge fish jumping all around us. Motoring, no wind, to the Banyuwangi we passed one of the small trimaran fishing boat. As we motored away from him, fish started jumping near us. The trimaran is a fast design and he turned his boat around and zoomed straight over the patch where the fish were last seen, then dashed over to the next and the next. 

Someone who knows about these things once said to us, ‘It’s not called catching, you know. It’s called fishing.’

Today hasbeen a busy day. Laundry at daybreak, fruit and veg market by 10.00, lunch and rest then long walk to a ‘shopping mall’ where we hoped to buy a Tupperware for Tim to safely carry the fragile wind speed indicator from the top of the mast - swinging arrow for direction and 4 cups spinning for wind speed - to England. No luck with the Tupperware. Tim is quite sure the wind instrument is not the problem, but RayMarine is insisting. *grumbles*

No time for photos except for this unusually patterned cat. :)

The curbs are SO high and it felt like they got higher and higher as the day went on.

We’re off again tomorrow and in another 4 day sails or so we should be at our final destination, Lombok, where we will not go anywhere for a couple of weeks at least. :)

You can find Banda Neira Part 2 blog, back dated to July 2024 when we were actually there, 

here…

https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/3513452737709988400/4544735950255994334?hl=en

X

Nancy and Tim

www.yachtlarus.com

Banda Neira PT three

 There is a concrete path from the bay, where we anchored with Bruno’s Girl, that wends its way through 

Indonesian Red Plant Authority

 Red Plant Authority

Monday, 16 March 2026

 Good morning!

We’re going along really well. Not very fast during the night, but between the nice light wind and the favourable current we’re making 6 knots on average. The passage is 310 miles and we’ve covered 150 so far. I’d call that halfway. 

We had to motor a for a couple hours in the night when our speed dropped below 4 knots.   We could have just bobbed slowly along but we have to make sure we arrive at Bawaen in daylight. The closer you get to your destination the less time there is available make up the miles.

Right now we should arrive between 9 in the morning and 2 in the afternoon tomorrow, but we keep an eye on it.

Squid boats at night. They are mostly anchored far apart so we just navigate past them.

On the right hand screen, you can see we are trundling along in shipping lanes. Thanks to AIS (Automatic Information System) we can see them on the chart plotter long before we have a visual (eye balls) on them and they can see us.

We are also using Dangerous Target Alerts. An alarm sounds, an alert comes on the screen and the target flashes red if there is vessel that may or may or not be or become a danger. It is wonderfully over cautious so there is no chance of anyone being surprised. It does look closer in real life but it is very obvious it will pass behind us by about 5 miles.

You can just see the ship triggering the alert in the distance out our the port side window. 

At night we can also see the navigation lights of vessels around out - red and green port and starboard lights and a white light means you are looking at a vessels stern. An extra white light indicates a boat over a certain length, which I will refer to as ‘big’.

You also night see 3 vertical lights which indicate a vessel tug boat towing a barge.  The barge may or may not be lit so we always give them a wide berth.

That’s all for now!

Nancy and Tim

Sunday, 15 March, 2025

 Hello!

We’re on the move and going really well at the moment. 

The wind is from behind so the mainsail is out on the starboard side and the gib is poled out on the other side. We will be downwind sailing for the foreseeable future. 

We’re coming into a period of lighter winds and are expecting a wide variety of boat speeds. At this time of year the current is going our way, which is a help.

Yesterday was a day sail from Belitung to a sandbank near the island of a Geosite Pulau Baku Limau due to its uniqueness and cultural significance.  

The chart is dark as I took this photo before 6 in the morning before we left so I could start the new route.  This chart is on my iPad and isn’t the one the boat uses for navigation. It’s a different program with some different views and options.

Pulau Buku Limau is one of the group of islands and sandbanks that make up the area where we anchored. I have tried to find more information on it and Google Maps and TripAdviser had the best photos.  This a search for photos - https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffip&q=buku+limau+island&ia=web which had some good results.

The people squeezed onto this tiny island fishing for fish during the day and squid at night.

A typical fishing boat heading out in the morning after our arrival. They are very friendly and we get many waves, shouts and thumbs ups.

A typical squid boat heading out before dark; again very friendly. They made sure to pass close to us.  As night fell, we could see boats scattered across the horizon by their bright lights that lure the squid to the surface.

Pulau Baku Limau would have been wonderful place to visit and we will try to stop here on our way back up to Malaysia later in the year.

This is today’s route to Bawaen ( Ba Wee Ann) which is an island we visited on the rally up from Australia 2 years ago.

This leg looks short, but we will be two nights at sea. Winds are expected to be light but we’ll keep our fingers crossed.

Lots of love

Nancy 

Monday, 10 March 2026. Trying to post emails here. Testing 123

 Good Morning!

Oh, I slept well last night. :) The pizza I made for dinner might have helped as well.  :D

Yesterday we arrived in Belitung.

We went like a train for most of the passage, with over a knot of current and very favourable winds.  We are not used to doing over 7 knots in such good conditions.

Our wind instruments aren’t working but the red ribbon tell-tails on the shrouds do.

Tell-tails and shipping lanes before arriving in Indonesia.

The last quarter of the passage we had a side swell and light winds which means the sails slap around, are noisy and make the boat jerk every once in a while.  Tim can sleep in any thing pretty much, but I’m a precious flower and sometimes can’t. Luckily, I need much less sleep than Tim and my Spidy senses keep me awake and alert. lol.

We clear into Customs and Immigration today, although the process was started yesterday. Part of this was taking photos of all the ‘working’ areas of the boat - engine, tools, food storage, galley and main living area, which we emailed them as requested. We hope that this means we won’t have to dinghy officials out to the boat. I expect the officials are hoping that too. Our dinghy works well for us, but it’s a different type than most, is on the small size and takes a little getting used to.

Tim went ashore yesterday and handed over the paperwork he’s been working on for weeks (lots of technical details)and filled out more with the agent on the beach. At 10.00 today a driver will meet us to take us to Customs and Immigration and that will probably take all day despite the fact that we are the only yacht here.

The local people are desperate to earn money and are so helpful and eager.  We hadn’t been planning on topping up the diesel but will as our guy ashore has some. I rather hope he’s aware that the cost of diesel is likely to go up and he charges us accordingly. We’ll get our laundry done as well and eat in the restaurants as often as possible.

We were here on the rally last year and it’s a lovely place with welcoming people. We hope to be able to join this year’s Indonesia Rally when our paths cross later in the year.

Belitung is a pretty place and though the restaurant on the island is closed for the season, swimming around the wonderful rocks is free.

Lots of love,

Nancy and Tim

East Coast Thailand, Phang Bay - Part 1

 Dec 3 to 5

After saying goodbye to Colin, Thant Zin and his family back in Chalong Bay, Into the Blue and Larus headed North toward the islands in Thailand made famous by films like ‘The Man With The Golden Gun’ and ‘The Beach’.

Our first stop was Klong Son Beach, which was an interesting anchorage in part to just how far the tide goes out at low water. 

In case you’ve forgotten our dinghy has wheels which helps in these situations. I wore long trousers because these idyllic sandy beaches are often lousy with sand flies.

The Klong Son Beach Bar had no electricity yet still managed to serve nice good value meals and cold beer.  And there was wonderful breeze and no sand flies. 

We were so impressed with the quantity and price of the meals, that we had dinner there on both ournights in the anchorage.

Zoe took some fun selfies in the dinghy on the way back.

Our dinghy can be a little splashy and wet with four people, so I’m so protective of my very absorbent backpack.

Bill had the best seat in house, which is a common thread when he is confronted with a dinghy (or kayak) on the small side.

On the second night, those of us who had shrimp/prawns the first night were a little surprised when the owner enthused that the shrimp today were fresh! It did make us wonder just how old yesterday’s were.

As we’d had no problem with sand flies the night before, all of us were in shorts and none of us had brought insect repellent. We hadn’t counted on there being no wind however and Zoe and I got savaged. 

Sand flies are sneaky. They are tiny and you don’t notice itches starting until it’s far too late and no amount of oral or cream antihistamine helps much. The bites last for weeks and itch like the devil if touched, knocked or just because they felt like it.

I hadn’t paid much attention to the sign as we don’t often pay for tour having boats of our own, but we we’re definitely following the tourist trail as Hong Island and James Bond Island were our next stops.

Unfortunately , I am all out of time for today as I need to make a little effort for going out for our Christmas lunch. There will be a Part 2 in the very near future.

We wish you all a Happy Holiday and very Merry Christmas and as a belated gift to you all is Banda Neira Part 1 from the Indonesia Rally, 2024.

Banda Neira, Part 1

Lots of love and best wishes,

Nancy and Tim

This is why you take a tour, for the gloriously cheesy photos your guide will take through a heart he carved in a leaf with his thumb nail. X