Darwin to Kupang…
Well this is it! Saturday, July 21st 2007 the day of the rally start dawns bright and beautiful. Rob arrived from NZ two days beforehand and had spent the time getting to know Sunburn and Darwin. What a bonus it was to have him on board.
We decided that morning that we didn’t want to cross a tiny start line with 117 other boats all vying for top spot so at 11am when the gun went off we were sitting around in the cockpit twiddling our thumbs. At noon we decided to move off as it was a wonderful sight watching 100 odd boats sailing off into the horizon. So we upped anchor and had the special treat of dolphins
doing acrobatics as we were leaving – best sign of good luck ever. We motored for a while, waiting for wind, then the engine got hot so decided to sail…well wonders of wonders we starting passing boats! This was not a regular occurence on Sunburn – usually they were passing us! It got to a point where Rob said “maybe we should have left at the official time!” we were stonking along and it was beautiful. Watching the sunset with yachts silhouetted on the horizon was a rather photogenic moment! Off course as soon as it got dark, the wind dropped, still had a problem with the engine that wasn’t sorted until the next day so we flopped around doing about 1-2 knots for the majority of the night.
What a difference having a third watch person on board, I felt so much more rested it was great! On Day 2, Brendan and Rob decided to try and sort out why we were overheating…after several goes at sourcing the problem the answer became obvious – we had blown a belt on the
alternator! Replaced with a new one and all was tickety boo!
The trip was reasonably straight forward with either wind or no wind, flat seas or rolly seas, lots of night traffic or none! The first night out I did a small panic (shortly after Brendan managed to get to sleep of course) as our depth sounder suddenly showed 4 metres!!!! This was when we were meant to be in 100’s of metres, I screamed for Brendan (yes, really screamed!!) for him to come up sleepily and explain that our new depth sounder will do that when it is too deep for it to register. Handy bit of knowledge to remember that! Because the Australian coast was so shallow – on average 50 metres – it had never been a problem before so he didn’t mention it to me!
We finally had land on the horizon on sunrise Wednesday morning – what a cool feeling that was – our first ocean passage on Sunburn! As we got closer and closer and motored up the Selat Roti (channel) to kupang, none of us could stop grinning – and it got better..as we were about 5 miles
away from the anchorage dolphins came to welcome us…how awesome! We got there nearly exactly 4 days to the minute after we left Darwin. Then we had to wait on board for Quarantine, Immigration and Customs to come and visit. Well they never made it that day as they had a lot of boats that had arrived earlier, so at sunset we were allowed to shore to the infamous “teddy’s bar” – the cruisers hangout, which has a very interesting dinghy approach – through a surf break and onto a steep, rubbish strewn beach! Ok on the way in – not so ok on the way out after a few Bintangs (local beer)! We were finally cleared by the officials the next day – thankfully as some boats had been waiting over 24 hours so we were quite lucky. It was time to explore the mysteries and wonders of Kupang…how exciting!
Well this is it! Saturday, July 21st 2007 the day of the rally start dawns bright and beautiful. Rob arrived from NZ two days beforehand and had spent the time getting to know Sunburn and Darwin. What a bonus it was to have him on board.
We decided that morning that we didn’t want to cross a tiny start line with 117 other boats all vying for top spot so at 11am when the gun went off we were sitting around in the cockpit twiddling our thumbs. At noon we decided to move off as it was a wonderful sight watching 100 odd boats sailing off into the horizon. So we upped anchor and had the special treat of dolphins
doing acrobatics as we were leaving – best sign of good luck ever. We motored for a while, waiting for wind, then the engine got hot so decided to sail…well wonders of wonders we starting passing boats! This was not a regular occurence on Sunburn – usually they were passing us! It got to a point where Rob said “maybe we should have left at the official time!” we were stonking along and it was beautiful. Watching the sunset with yachts silhouetted on the horizon was a rather photogenic moment! Off course as soon as it got dark, the wind dropped, still had a problem with the engine that wasn’t sorted until the next day so we flopped around doing about 1-2 knots for the majority of the night.What a difference having a third watch person on board, I felt so much more rested it was great! On Day 2, Brendan and Rob decided to try and sort out why we were overheating…after several goes at sourcing the problem the answer became obvious – we had blown a belt on the
alternator! Replaced with a new one and all was tickety boo!The trip was reasonably straight forward with either wind or no wind, flat seas or rolly seas, lots of night traffic or none! The first night out I did a small panic (shortly after Brendan managed to get to sleep of course) as our depth sounder suddenly showed 4 metres!!!! This was when we were meant to be in 100’s of metres, I screamed for Brendan (yes, really screamed!!) for him to come up sleepily and explain that our new depth sounder will do that when it is too deep for it to register. Handy bit of knowledge to remember that! Because the Australian coast was so shallow – on average 50 metres – it had never been a problem before so he didn’t mention it to me!
We finally had land on the horizon on sunrise Wednesday morning – what a cool feeling that was – our first ocean passage on Sunburn! As we got closer and closer and motored up the Selat Roti (channel) to kupang, none of us could stop grinning – and it got better..as we were about 5 miles
away from the anchorage dolphins came to welcome us…how awesome! We got there nearly exactly 4 days to the minute after we left Darwin. Then we had to wait on board for Quarantine, Immigration and Customs to come and visit. Well they never made it that day as they had a lot of boats that had arrived earlier, so at sunset we were allowed to shore to the infamous “teddy’s bar” – the cruisers hangout, which has a very interesting dinghy approach – through a surf break and onto a steep, rubbish strewn beach! Ok on the way in – not so ok on the way out after a few Bintangs (local beer)! We were finally cleared by the officials the next day – thankfully as some boats had been waiting over 24 hours so we were quite lucky. It was time to explore the mysteries and wonders of Kupang…how exciting!(for more photos click here)
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