By the Light of the Silvery Moon......

04° 45.70' S

115° 48.95' E

We spent a couple of days at a peaceful anchorage outside the village of Kaluku where we had a wander around (3 mosques in the space of half a kilometre) and some local fare to eat.  But it was time to head back westwards across the Java Sea.  We left the coast of Sulawesi behind for a three day journey to the first of a series of three tiny islands all about a hundred nautical miles apart.  Southeast winds were predicted which would be fabulous - with those we could actually sail as we needed to head southwest.  Yup, you guessed it, they turned southwest instead and then died altogether so, for the first day and a half, we tried every sail configuration then just gave up and motored.  

However, sometimes things DO come right and halfway through the second day, the winds backed to southeast and we were on a roll.  Fifteen to eighteen knots, perfect!  The only stickler was that we would be arriving at the first island after dark on the third night so we reduced all sails, dropping the staysail entirely with zero affect; we were still hurdling along at seven knots albeit more comfortably.  Our great advantage was having a full moon that night with relatively clear skies so we decided to take a chance and attempt to anchor in the moonlight at Pualu Matasiri.  

In this part of the world, all our charts are hopelessly inaccurate and our navigation aids showed us coming in on the west side of the island, climb across a mountain ridge and anchor on the east side when, in reality, we nudged our way in by eye and safely anchored in eight metres on the west side as planned. We'd arrived by 8:30 p.m. so managed a great night's sleep before Saol Eile who only arrived 13 hours later.   

When we awoke in the morning, we found that we couldn't have gone in even one more boat length before hitting a reef and there was a huge wreck of a barge right beside us which wouldn't normally inspire a lot of confidence but where we were proved to be a perfect spot.  Whew!

There but for the grace of God go I.......

Our arrival was obviously a bit of a curiosity for the locals as several canoes full of young chaps paddled their way out to have a closer look along with every returning fishing boat.  I doubt they'd seen much in the way of visiting yachts in the past.

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