We couldn't have asked for better

By Tuesday, October 20th and we were on the move!

We had hoped to leave on Monday afternoon but........well, there was still far too much to do so we worked until we dropped, got up before the sun,  finished the pins for the main, the sheets for the genny and spent almost an hour extracting the chain from the mud and the mud from the chain but by seven we were on our way.

With no wind to speak of, we motored for a couple of hours then voilá, 15 knots just ahead of the starboard beam and we were away in absolutely perfect conditions!  My but this felt great and how we'd missed it.

Reflecting on the last few months, we have to ask ourselves, "what were we doing all this time?"  It's hard to say what exactly but we were busy from dawn to dusk putting dear Calypso back together again: carpentry, plumbing, electrics, installing the new AIS, repairing damage sustained by the fishing boats, rehanging cupboard doors, hinges, locks and knobs, reinstating a myriad of deck fittings, masking off, sanding, painting, waterproofing, cleaning, gluing, moving things back on board and trying to find the space for all of it, the list goes on and on and still we're not finished.  

There's no such thing as a five-minute job on a boat.  Everything takes longer, much much longer, and everything is awkward unless you happen to be the size of a leprechaun which we, most definitely, are not.  

Paul spent a good portion of the last three days that we were at anchor scraping a year's worth of barnacles and slime off the hull.  Without that, we would have been lucky to achieve more than three knots and here we are, doing a regular seven; not too shabby.

We were given a wonderful surprise just before leaving when the staff of Yam Yam, the Thai restaurant next door, came out en masse to bid us farewell leaving us with a bag of green curry paste and a Yam Yam nautical t-shirt.  We felt so honoured.

We're currently heading for the west side of Belitung, an island which is about halfway up on our route to the Singapore Straits.  We'd visited here briefly on our previous passage this way and it works out as an ideal stopover after a double overnighter to assess if our sailing skills are still intact.  So far so good on that score.

Looking back on our time in Jepara comes with a modicum of a bitter/sweet sentiments.  Certain promises that enticed us to stay weren't met but, on the other hand, we did meet some incredibly wonderful and generous people; those memories will stay with us forever.  We are, however, happy to be back on the 'road' again and look forward to what is fast becoming the beginning of the end of a remarkable journey.

Update:  We dropped anchor in Belitung fifty-five hours after setting off and, apart from coming around the top of the island, we had brilliant winds throughout and ideal sailing conditions.   The last time we were here, this was a crowded anchorage.  Today, we are like 'the lonely little petunia in the onion patch' - all alone. The air has been so hazy since yesterday afternoon, even the sun battled to get through and we couldn't see land until we were less than half a mile out, no doubt as a result of all the slash and burn from Kalimantan.  This photo was taken at 2:00 p.m. so it should have been a nice sunny day.  Too horrific to think about.