Sunday, 29 August
The boat is still at the shipyard and I am still at the KTM Resort in Sekupang.
Work has progressed on the boat, and the two masts have been re-stepped, and the bowsprit painted and re-attached. Unfortunately, 3 of the new wires (the 2 x cap shrouds for the main, and the jumper stay for the mizzen) are between 5 and 10 cm too short and these are now back in Singapore to be made up again. They should be back here next Wednesday/Thursday whereafter we will need 2 days to attach them, re-tune the rig, pour the Spartite and seal the mainmast in the collar, and fit the mast boot and reconnect the electrics etc. We are therefore now looking to put the boat back in the water on Saturday 5 September.
Fortunately, this will not delay my departure from Nongsa as I now have to renew my Indonesian visa. This expires on 14 September, and I do not want to risk it expiring during my passage to Lombok so that I arrive at the Marina Del Ray without a valid Indonesian visa. Unfortunately, the authorities here will only process applications for visa renewals within 7 days of the visa expiry date, although because of my circumstances they have agreed to accept my application on 1 September. The renewal process however, takes 4 working days and requires an attendance in person for photographing and fingerprinting, so I will only have the ‘new’ visa on 6 or 7 September.
This will mean however, that I will only have a few days in Nongsa after leaving the shipyard in which to ready the boat for the passage to Lombok. Accordingly, I have started re-provisioning the boat now with help from the shipyard General Manager, Adrian, who kindly took me shopping. I now have all the dry stores I need, and this week I will stock up on the liquid stores ( bottled water, milk, etc).
I have also been working this week on the paper work for my eventual arrival in Darwin, and for importing my boat into Australia. Not a 5 minute exercise!
