A Bit Of A Shock

Hello again Boatbloggers® and welcome to this action packed edition of The Boatblog®

We left you and Joe in glorious Lombok, and headed past Bawean and on towards Borneo. It was just as we appoached the south west coast and were heading up the river to the anchorage at Kumai that disaster struck. A massive electrical storm came across. We know that Ju has sometimes been accused of exaggerating a little to improve a story, a monstrous slander which he strenuously denies, so this time we will let the pictures do the talking.

Ok, so maybe that wasn’t our actual storm, but it was very like the one we had. Besides, we were too busy putting all the phones and iPads into the microwave to be able to take photos. And you can’t take a photo when your phone’s in the oven. (For those landlubbers amongst our readers, a microwave acts as a Faraday Cage and protects things from being zapped by lightning. Here at The Boatblog® we seek to educate as well as entertain.)

It is unfortunate that the good ship Domini is too big to get in a microwave. After a couple of near misses, a particularly loud and spiteful fork hit the top of our mast. Ju felt it go through him which was a bit of a shock (boom boom!). He’s absolutely fine though his hair’s a bit more frizzy. And even now if mosquitoes land on him they get zapped. But unfortunately all the electronics on the boat went out. We lost our chart plotter, the autopilot, the depth sounder, the radio – everything electric. And the rain was so heavy we couldn’t even see the end of the boat. We had to start sailing in the way they used to before electronic navigation made it all so easy. With a compass, charts and actually hand steering the boat. 

It had come to that.

Eventually the storm passed and we made our way along the river to the anchorage – where we were very glad to see our friends from the rally who really er…rallied round. (You’re going to have to do better than this – Ed)

What a way to spend your 28th wedding anniversary!

But at this point there was not much to be done, so we thought we’ve come all this way to see the legendary Borneo orang-utan’s and we’re not going to let a little thing like a storm stop us.

So we booked a berth on a luxury river cruise that plied deep into the  Borneo jungle.

Further and further up the river we went, beyond the traditional village outposts.

It was all very remote, but all very pleasant.

(His hair is frizzy – Ed)

Deeper and deeper into the virgin forest, as yet untouched by the hand of civilisation.

Till eventually we arrived at the secret place which is the habitat of the Borneo orang-utan, known only to a few hundred tourist boats.

But the orang-utan’s put on a good show.

There were literally hundreds of them (is that him exaggerating again? – Ed)

There was quite a lot of mating action going on as well, but we can’t include those photos because of orang-utan privacy issues – and we would lose our PG rating.

There were plenty of carnivorous plants which we had previously thought only existed in Kew Gardens. Here we have the pitcher plant and the flytrap.

Which are good things, because the spiders are pretty scary.

But we couldn’t stay up the river too much longer. We had to get back to Domini to assess the damage and see what could be done to get us going again. The cruise boat would take too long to get us back to the anchorage, so we hired a speedboat.

This was FAST! It was like being James Bond zooming along the tiny river, dodging crocodiles and dead trees. But being seasoned sailors we took it all in our stride.

And after just a couple of hours we were back on board Domini, where we were just inundated with help from the other yachties on the rally. They came with spare equipment, expertise, friendship – and even lunch. They spent hours getting a rudimentary chart plotter working, swapped batteries, loaned us navigation lights, a depth sounder, got the engines working. The list goes on.

Till eventually we had a boat that was seaworthy enough to sail the 600 nautical miles to Singapore, where it was decided we should put in for repairs.

So we set off, with Muskoka and Anima shadowing us – just in case. We still had no autopilot so it was alternating 2 hour watches at the helm, 24 hours a day.

There were a few island stops on the way to break up the journey, but the batteries weren’t charging so were in a race against time before they gave up the ghost completely. And then we wouldn’t have even been able to anchor and Domini would go completely dark.

And we still had to dodge the fishing boats.

But at least there was a full moon so it didn’t matter so much that none of them had lights.

It was at Belitung that we met up again with Memo and Captain Bob offered to lend us his crew, Mark for the rest of the voyage. This was a blessing because it meant that now there were three of us helming, so we could do two hours on, four hours off which after the two hours on, two hours off we’d got used to, felt almost humane. 

And eventually, just over two weeks after the lightning strike, we pulled into Raffles Marina in Singapore.

(His hair’s still frizzy – Ed)

Now the work can begin.

Ju & Lyn

PS That was a tricky passage, and we couldn’t have done it without our friends who all came to help. This was what we wrote at the time to our Indonesia Rally WhatsApp group…

“Armed with just an iPad, dozens of work-arounds, a little bit of luck and lots of wonderful friends, Domini has finally made it to Batam. 

We couldn’t have done it without you. 

Thank you – Manuel for everything – you’ve done too much to be able to describe in a WhatsApp message. Muskoka, not only for Scott’s electrical genius but for shadowing us with Kat (way too quickly!) to Belitung. Wild Thing for giving us access to their mobile chandlery (you have more stuff than Bunnings) for the alternator, VHF, starter motor and AIS and of course Russell for fitting it. Colin on Splashdown for getting the engine going against all the odds, Sabbatical for the nav lights, Serenity for the box of bits, Seahorse for the plotter, Mannervai for the depth sounder, Marathon Lady for the world’s heaviest battery – hope you’re going a bit faster now Russell – Fizili for lunch, Brian, Alison and Jeff for turning up straight away and trying to get us started, Andy on Somerset for the electronics advice, Simon on Rihanna for the support, everyone in Kumai and everyone in Belitung. Tony and Shelley for their Beyond Outrageous help from afar, Ross on Akushnet for his Singapore research and of course Bob and Janet on Memo for allowing us to steal their fabulous crew. 

And what can we say about Mark? You are amazing. Thank you for helping to hand steer and for being such a great person to have on board. 

And thank you for all the messages of support. Even Peter on Sabu who when he heard how much stuff wasn’t working any more just said, “Welcome to my world!” 🤣 

And Vickie for reminding us that Captain Cook did the same voyage with far less equipment than we have. Which would have been more reassuring if he hadn’t died on the way round. 

It brings a lump to my throat when I think of how many of you have offered your time, your expertise and your precious spares for no other reason than a desire to help. 

Terima Kasih Indo Rally

Ju & Lyn

Artist’s Impression