T&T: Akama with Maurice and Louise-Ann Nunas under way again

[Georgs Kolesnikovs]

Excerpt from an email received from Maurice & Louise-Ann Nunas aboard 
Akama, a Krogen 48 Whaleback:

Well, as you may have surmised by now we are no longer in Australia. 
We left on schedule on 21 July, and are now in Kupang Indonesia, 
which is on Timor Island.  Yes. that's the island where all the 
trouble happened over East Timor separation from Indonesia a few 
years ago; but we're on the western end, which has always been safe.

The crossing was reasonably good, with moderate winds and following 
seas.  We were part of a fleet of about 110 sailboats and two race 
boats on a rally, a new experience for us.  There were two other 
power boats.  The rally started without us from north of Darwin, as 
we were still taking on fuel at the fisherman's dock, about 7 miles 
to the south.  Due to a swift current in the strait going north, we 
intercepted the fleet in about the middle of the pack.  But, we were 
then passed by nearly every sailboat, as the winds were quite strong 
once we got a bit offshore.  However, overnight the winds dropped out 
and we passed nearly all of them, despite our sedate 6 to 7 knot 
pace.  About a dozen of the sailboats started their engines that 
night and stayed ahead of us to the end, as did the two race boats. 
By the end of the rally, only about six sailboats actually sailed all 
the way, about 450 miles across the Timor Sea, although only a few 
managed to catch up to us.  We arrived in 20th place.

We still do not know for sure where we will go from here, or when. 
This is synchronistic with the locals, as everything they plan seems 
to turn to sh!t, get postponed, or not happen at all.  Some of the 
other yachties are finding this a bit hard to deal with.  Having 
lived and travelled in the area we're used to it.  In all 
probability, in a few days we'll go to Makassar (on Sulawesi Island) 
for their 400th anniversary celebration, stopping to anchor where we 
can. After that, we plan to head straight through to Bali, weather 
permitting, hoping to get there in time to meet up with our friends 
Andy and Muli from Jakarta.  From Bali we'll probably go straight to 
Kumai, on Kalimantan Island, to see the orangutan sanctuary, and then 
day-hop our way to Singapore.

http://nunas.com/