E84 – PULAU ROTA TO JEPARA BEACH
We stepped off from Pulau Rota at the SE tip of the island of Belitung on a 200nm passage towards Karimanjawa just off the north coast of Java.
I found a little breeze fairly quickly which I wasn’t expecting and started out with a nice sail but what I really needed was as much east as possible in the breeze to allow us to lay a more SE course.
Feeling lucky, I trolled our lure just to see if there was anything left alive in the Java Sea. We’d found very little in all of Western Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand but I wanted to see where the boundary might be for the pelagic fishing I’m so used to in Australia. This produced a solid hookup, but whatever it was, soon spat the lure!
We settled in to our first night at sea on this passage, unable to lay the course we wanted to but as long as we were making progress under sail, I’m happy. The wind dropped out in the first part of the evening, slowing our progress but returned later in the night and Starlight did what she does best…7kts making a passage.
Unable to lay the course for Karimanjawa, we laid a course for a bay that promised protection and some sleep after the long 200nm passage to Java only to find on arrival (and closer inspection of my charts) that the area was a restricted area and it appeared private vessels weren’t allowed access. I guess it’s due to the sensitivity of the Gas/Oil facilities there…either way, it meant we couldn’t stop and rest and we’d have to punch another 100nm+ upwind Jepara, so we settled in for another day and night at sea…
By morning the wind had dropped away to nothing and we were back to motoring, but the prop blade was not feathering correctly still and when I wanted to use the engine, I often had to dive under the boat and free the prop blade so it could spin balanced. This time we were 30nm offshore and had great water clarity, I was thankful for that !
Ultimately, the passage became a 3 day, 3 night passage to get to Jepara where I knew we could get a rest, fuel and some sympathy from the beautifully run local resort there.
