We had a blissfully quiet night, with the best sleep we’d had in a week. As the day turned out, it’s a good thing we did! But I’m ahead of myself. In the morning it was flat calm in the anchorage without a breath of wind, and barely a swell to make a roll. We brought LisM (our dinghy) onboard, ratcheted it down, tied down the kayaks, inspected the rig, and stowed everything away inside in anticipation of a potentially rough passage. At 08:30 the anchor came up clean and easy despite having to raise it in two parts; one with the nylon rode , unshackle the rode from the chain, rethread the chain onto the gypsy, then finished bringing it up with the chain on the windless. Sailor speak is so weird....the “gypsy” is the part of the electric windless that the chain travels in and out on. It gets its name from a gypsy who travels back and forth on the same path. The windless, isn’t even that...but a windlass ( because she winds up the chain?) We put up just the main, motored within feet of the start line, turned off the engine, ghosted over the line, then restarted the motor. All a very moot operation considering that we didn’t have a headsail up and we are not in the racing division, but all in good fun. We motored out into the Lombok straight and wow! Did things ever get crazy! It started with the swell. It got bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger until the boats around us were disappearing behind it as it rolled past. Then the wind ramped up to 26 knots . It was just barely usable, we were flying a double reefed main and our full staysail and just making headway. By 14:00 the wind waves were riding on top of the enormous swell making our boat feel uncomfortably like a roller coaster. Up up up we would climb the swell, the wave would break over the bow and then drop! Straight down we’d go skidding down the back side of the wave, the boat landing on her haunches. She would shudder and shake like a wet dog, we would search around and retrieve our “lost” stomachs. Thankfully we don’t get seasick, just really annoyed by the falling elevator feeling on the backside of the waves, also it was a long swell, so no danger of burying the nose coming down and pitch poling. There was always plenty of time for the boat to right herself before we began the ascent anew. This state of affairs made relaxing impossible, let alone sleep probable. Captain and I agreed, these were the biggest waves we’ve ever seen in six years of sailing. Even the straight of Gibraltar didn’t dish out monsters this big! Or the west coast of Canada by cape Scott. Thankfully our Island Packet 485 with her 30 tons and full keel took the abuse with aplomb. We carried on like this to the mouth of the Straight where the tide came hard against us, huge pools of “pudding water”, welled up all around, the giant swells dissolved into a nasty choppy confused sea bouncing off of Nusapenida, the little island south of Bali. This took 2800 rpms of engine, plus the sails to traverse, as the whirly pools tried grabbing us and spun us off course again and again. It wasn’t until 19:00 that things calmed down, the tide turned, we turned west pointing our nose towards Christmas Island, and there was enough wind and current to sail with. Finally, Lombok was behind us! I personally NEVER want to go there again. It is such a shame, because we passed miles of beautiful beaches on the Gilli isles as we were leaving today. But their anchorages are over 80 feet deep....too deep for us to have wanted to attempt taking our boat to them. Not to mention that the Sail Indonesia rally with over 40 boats was there at the same time we were, so what few anchorages there are, were extremely crowded. The Indonesian rally boats were frustrated because we were in their way, and we were frustrated because they were in our way. If there had been a decent place with enough space to secure the boats, I’m sure we would have all had a grand time together, but as it was it was sad, because it was hard on everyone. Especially the marina staff. They were the ONLY bright spot in Lombok. Such beautiful, patient, kind people! No matter what was happening, from boats dragging moorings, crashing into each other, fuel needing delivery, Taksi (we love that silly phonetic spelling) service requested, a rare part needed, the marina staff were on hand, so cheerful and helpful, making things happen to the best of their ability. I hope that they can continue to prosper in the face of such terrible geographical odds. They made the nightmare of Lombok bearable. And now we put it behind us, and focus on enjoying the journey again in our Sweet Dream.
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