It's about time!

This morning we actually managed to remove our dear lady Calypso from the mud and grime of Kartini Harbour and anchor her back outside the house where we've been staying.  What a thrill to see her back out there; it's been a long time coming!  And even though it was only a couple of nautical miles to get here this morning, it felt ever so good to be behind the helm again.

She's filthy.  The teak dust and other grime floating in the air of Jepara has laid a thick carpet of muck   over every square inch of her making her look as though she's been incredibly neglected.   We removed all the tyres protecting the hulls but they have left huge black grungy marks all along the formerly white paintwork despite having wrapped them well.  We need a good heavy rain to wash down the halyards and deck but there's not much we can do about the hull just yet.

This all means that we're almost on our way out of here.  There are still quite a few unfinished jobs but we'll work on those as we go along.  The important things like the engine, the navigation lights, the sails, the dinghy & outboard, the davits, the solar panels, the freezer, etc. are all back up and running.

We plan to leave here on Monday morning and cover the 320 nautical miles to West Belitung where we'll take a break for a couple of days before heading on up to Batam on the south side of the Singapore Straits, another 300-plus miles.  We have to be out of the country by the 29th so are hoping for some decent winds to help us out.

From there we must get to Pangkor in Malaysia where we plan to haul out to do the much overdue bottom paint.  Maybe, just maybe, after that we can sit back to relax a while.  It's been a very long hard slog.

Before leaving, I just have to mention that one of the saddest situations we've come across here is the rubbish.  It's everywhere, especially in the rivers and in the sea.  This is a photo of the next harbour where we had to go for check out procedures yesterday.  The plastic pollution is beyond description and sadly, I don't think any control is on the cards from the Indonesian authorities; it's in their upbringing that the water will just take it all away.  When the rainy season starts again, this and the tons upon tons of garbage up the rivers of the country, will all wash down into the sea where we'll experience rivers of plastic miles out.  I believe Indonesia is one of the worst internationally and you can see why when you look at this picture.  Sitting in Kartini Harbour, we've witnessed all the fishermen simply toss their polystyrene boxes and plastic drinking containers into the water behind their boats.  As the boats come in, they offload all the effluent, oil and rubbish into the harbour.  No wonder we both got serious staph infections when we had to put our feet into that - and they quite happily swim in it for pleasure!