Do you think they eat in Indonesia?!!

Tuesday 22nd July

It's a natural instinct to be prepared and to want have as much food as possible around for those 'just in case' situations. With cruisers, however, it's addictive and even though we promised our selves we wouldn't do Panama all over again....we have. It starts with a rumour that toilet paper and peanut butter cannot be found and then we decide that everything we like, we have to get here......and we like a lot!!

We've already made over eight trips on the bus with huge backpacks filled box milk, cereal, pasta, canned vegies and a whole lot more. People are amazed that we have room on the boat for so much and quite honestly so are we. The fun starts when we have to mark all the tops of tins with whats inside just incase labels get torn off and try and make packages smaller by removing boxes and putting in zip lock bags. It's a long and expensive process but how will do we know if in a couple of months time we're going to feel like eating baked beans on toast instead of fried rice?!

DARWIN!

Monday 21st July

Darwin is the Northern territory's only city and arriving here as our last stop in Australia has been a great experience. We've been here over two weeks now and even though there's been a constant stream of work on the boat we've still had time to explore and enjoy the endless perfect sunny days. With Backpacker bars and cafes everywhere it's been possible to get cheap meals out and Jimmy's favourite $10 pitchers of beer!

The anchorage here in Fannie Bay is huge but with 20ft tides we have to anchor a LONG way from shore. Heading to the beach in our dingy is a voyage of its own and if you time the tides wrong it's an even bigger task to drag the dingy up the beach to the high tide mark. Luckily the yacht club provides dinghy trolly's we can use which have given us a great source of entertainment when heading home in the dark after a few drinks and trying to find the water with dinghy in tow!!

Joining the Rally from Darwin to Kupang in Eastern Timor is probably one of the best decisions we've made. Even though we were pretty skeptical about travelling with over 100 other boats the organisation has made things really easy. On arriving we had to start the check out process with customs and apply for our Indonesian visa ourselves but all else is done for us and these were really easy to do. We've already had our welcome BBQ with free food and drinks and live Indonesian music which gave us a chance to get to know some of the other cruisers.

Every Thursday and Sunday night there's a huge market on mindil beach which is a short walk from the yacht club. It's a great place to buy food and crafts from all over the world and sit and watch the famous sunset while listening to the live music. July and August are the busiest times in Darwin and it's a hive of tourists and young travellers looking to have a fun time. Unfortunately we still have to finish our varnishing, cleaning, stocking etc but I'm sure we'll have time to squeeze in a few more fun things before we leave on the 26th.

Our New Cruising Log

Monday 14th July

Check out our new cruising log by clicking on the Daily Log link on the right hand side of this page. We will be emailing updates via the boats SSB radio so that we can give you more frequent info on where we are and what we're up to!!