It’s 5.30 am and the sky is just starting to lighten. Cocooned under our mozzie net I stare up at our beautifully constructed thatched roof and listen to the sounds of the island waking up. So many unfamiliar noises of the frogs, crickets, and geckos; the complicated and beautiful calls of the native birds, and the occasional ‘whomp’ as a coconut falls to the ground. And, of course, the ever-present sound of the waves lapping on the shore just metres from our door.  I confess that sleep doesn’t come easily the first few nights – when you’ve been a sailor for many years, the sound of waves on the shore that close is generally cause for alarm. It’s a big readjustment, this island life…

We’re still pinching ourselves that we’re here, and that all the planning has (mostly) come together.  To say it’s been an epic task would be something of an understatement, and we certainly couldn’t have done it without the help of many people, most notably Wick and his GM, Ayu, and the Saleo family, of course.

We arrived in Sorong after an uneventful couple of flights from Sydney and Jakarta, although both Qantas and Batik Air managed to fleece us for excess baggage, despite having paid online for an extra allowance. It seems their scales are weighted in their favour, as somehow at Jakarta our bags miraculously weighed 5 kgs more than when they left Sydney!

Once we arrived in Sorong, we got straight to work shopping for the essential items we needed.  Miraculously, all the furniture and bits and pieces we’d ordered from Jakarta and Bali had already arrived, and Wick had kindly given over his carport to store our growing pile.  He’d also found us a boat and captain to transport it all to the island.  We raced around like headless chickens for two days, buying mattresses, doors, tools, electrical cable, and plumbing parts.  In between, we had a brief catch-up with Debora, Han’s wife, who got so badly burnt last year. The good news is she’s pregnant and expecting a baby boy around December. The bad news is that her burn scars are causing complications as the baby grows, and so she needs to stay in Sorong under medical supervision until the baby arrives. We’ll miss her at the island, but we’re happy she’s getting the best possible care.

Finally, we were ready to head out to Pulau Dayan.  We needed to coordinate with the boat captain so that he got there the same day as us – he had our mattresses and gas bottles on board, and I really didn’t fancy the idea of having to build a fire or sleep on the floor- we may be going troppo, but this girl needs some creature comforts!

We got Iki to drive us to Helena Marina, where our little speedboat (now known as Toucan Kecil – little Toucan) had been stored.  The motors and steering cables had been fitted and tested, so all that remained was to hop on board and begin the adventure.  Bruce was in his element being back at the helm. 

 We loaded up all our bags and groceries, complete with a large polystyrene ‘esky’ with ice to transport our fridge and freezer goods, and off we went. The weather was perfect, the sea was flat and 3 hours later we arrived at the island to a wonderful welcome from the family – there must have been almost 20 of them on the shore to greet us. They’d done a superb job of cleaning the grounds and finishing the buildings.  They’d even filled our water tanks to capacity by jerry jugs from the nearby waterfall. What a great homecoming!

We’d passed our transport boat on the way and they seemed to be making very slow progress so I doubted they’d make it before dark.  But at 6pm they arrived, and with the help of the crew and all the family, they got it unloaded in no time.  They even made unloading the heavy beast of a watermaker seem easy.  

We piled everything into the loungeroom for the time being, got the fridge on, and had a lukewarm beer to celebrate.  Welcome to Camp Toucan!

Our first few days are now a bit of a blur.  We gradually started to make some headway with the chaos of unpacking and trying to assemble Ikea furniture.  Those Swedes have a very warped sense of humour – it took 3 of us almost half a day to get one bed assembled!

Slowly we got some essentials happening – we set up the gas stove on the verandah of the kitchen, Bruce and Hans worked on getting lights and power to the living area and our house, and we got our mozzie net up.  

The mozzies are a bit of a pain at dawn and dusk, but nothing a few mozzie coils and repellant can’t fix.  The greatest (literal) pain currently is our physical state.  Bruce had a melanoma removed on his foot just before we left Oz and needed a skin graft, but unfortunately it looks as though the skin graft hasn’t taken. Until it heals he can’t get in the water (the definition of torture in a place like this), and trying to keep it free from sand and dirt is a major hassle.  And apart from my dud knee which is still giving me some trouble, I couldn’t understand why my feet were so sore until I realised that walking around barefoot on the sand had burnt the bottom of my soles. Ouch!  So we’ve been hobbling around like geriatrics for the last few days.  It’s an adjustment, this island life…

But for all that, we’re loving it here.  The views are sensational, and eventually we’ll have time to relax and enjoy it properly.

There are still several pressing tasks ahead of us – the priority is getting the shower and toilets plumbed in, but unfortunately the guys in Sorong gave us the wrong fittings for the water pump – we can’t just pop out to Bunnings to get what we need, so until our next trip back to Sorong it’s bucket jobs for the ablutions, by torchlight.  And then there’s the beast of the watermaker to tame.  And I think that’s going to be a much, much bigger challenge than we realised.

It’s been a crazy, stressful and busy couple of weeks. But, for now, we’re just going to enjoy the fabulous sunsets from our beautiful lounge at the end of each busy day and give thanks to the universe for this amazing place. It’s a wonderful adjustment, this island life.

After a very welcome week’s R & R with the family, it was time to knuckle down and get Toucan ready for sale.  Eight years ago in Annapolis, USA, it took us almost 5 months to refit her for long-distance cruising.  This time, it took 2 whole months working every day to get her spruced up and ready to go again.  It wasn’t that we’d neglected her by any means – it was just astonishing how much ‘stuff’ we’d accumulated living on board for 8 years!

Continue reading “The End of an Era”

Spoiler alert: Despite the deafening silence on the blog for the past few months, we made it back to Australia in one piece! It’s just been a very, very, busy few months…. 

Continue reading “The Hard Yards”

See you later Dayan Island and Indonesia – we’re off to Australia! The last few days we’ve been very busy prepping Toucan and getting all our ducks in a row for our clearance out of the country, which in Sorong is a tortuous full-day process. 

Continue reading “Sampai Jumpa Nanti, Indonesia”

What a month it’s been. We’ve had the pedal to the metal trying to get as much finished as possible before we head home in a couple of weeks. The last few weeks have thrown up some major challenges, and at times it seemed that just when we needed a concerted effort from our builders, the work slowed to a snail’s pace. It’s been a bit like trying to compete in the F1 with a horse and cart.

Continue reading “Pedal to the Metal”

Just when we think we have more than enough on our plate, the powers-that-be decide to throw in a couple more doozies…

The first comes in an uninvited and sneaky visit from Covid, just when we were congratulating ourselves on evading it for the past two years. As we leave Sorong to head back to Pulau Dayan, I have the teeniest sore throat and headache. No worries, we’re double-vaxxed and Omicron is supposed to be milder anyway, so I’ll just spend a few days isolating on the boat until I feel better.

As it turns out, the wind and swell from the NW makes the anchorage very uncomfortable so we can’t get off the boat anyway.  We move around the corner to get some protection, still fully laden with all our supplies from Sorong.  Meanwhile, my minor sore throat has turned into a raging beast armed with a million sharp razorblades, and I have enough congestion to drown a small country. I’ve had many sore throats over the years, but this is off the scale. Swallowing becomes excruciating and the best I can do is small sips of water every now and again.  I start antibiotics, thinking it’s strep throat, but they have no effect. Even though I don’t have a fever or breathing difficulties, after two days of not eating, hardly drinking, and no improvement whatsoever, it’s time to get more help.  Bruce (who thankfully only has some mild congestion) summons the building gang and they arrive in three boats to unload all the heavy stuff off Toucan.  What we struggled to load on, they effortlessly carry off almost in one hand!

Then it’s a long (8-hour) trip back to Sorong to get some medical help.  By the time we arrive it’s early evening, and Iki is there to take our lines and drive us to the hospital.  It’s deserted in the emergency department, but surprisingly we get very little assistance. No-one examines my throat or suggests a Covid test.  They agree I probably need inpatient treatment but say they have no beds available, so I’m sent away with more of the same antibiotics that aren’t working.  The second hospital we try is much better – I’m instantly whisked away for a RAT test, which comes back positive.  Unfortunately, they don’t have an isolation ward so they can’t treat me as an inpatient either, but at least they give me a pharmacy-load of medications that might actually help – a course of antivirals, dexamethasone to reduce the inflammation, and mega doses of vitamins C and D.  Just how I’m supposed to swallow them all is anyone’s guess.  But somehow, desperation wins, and I get them all down (13 in the first dose. 13!!) and by the next morning I’m feeling slightly better.  Bruce has developed a headache and more congestion, so we decide to wait a few more days to make sure he doesn’t get worse.  Four days later and we’re pretty sure we’re over the worst of it so off we go back to the island.

We’re excited to see what progress has been made in the almost two weeks we’ve been away.  But when we step ashore, I have to confess we feel a little deflated.  Not much seems to have happened, except that the floor is done in our house and two of the roofs on the other buildings have been finished. 

 It seems our beach is also a magnet for trash – yet again, it’s awash with thongs, toothbrushes, cigarette lighters, and plastic bottles as far as the eye can see.  Dear God – is this how we’re going to spend our time here – picking up trash?

Hans explains that the weather’s been bad for much of the time we’ve been away, so they haven’t been able to do as much work as they wanted. And it’s true –  there’s a typhoon to the north of us, bringing down massive amounts of rain and unusually windy conditions.  Because we’re so close to the equator, we’re used to the frequent squalls that come through, but they’re usually short-lived. This is different. By Sunday, the wind has picked up to 30 kts from the NW and our normally calm anchorage has breaking waves. The rain is torrential and non-stop.  We manage to pick a bit of a lull to pull up the anchor and move around the corner, where we get a small amount of protection from the wind and waves.  But it’s harrowing to see breaking waves in the channel between the islands, and the huge surf pounding the shore where Hans and his family live in their houses over the water.  

We can’t see them from where we are, but when it finally calms down after almost 3 days, we discover that they’ve sustained quite a lot of damage to their houses – one has been swept away completely, together with the jetty, and the other is leaning at an alarming angle.  

Where our houses are located, opposite to Hans’s family, we have slightly more protection and luckily we’ve sustained no damage.  But the tide and waves have been so huge that the high tide mark is way inland, behind our buildings!

We’re glad that the houses are raised, but we decide that the unfinished lounge/dining area will need to have the floor raised further.  It might have been a once-in-a-century storm for this area, but we don’t want to take any chances. And sadly, with climate change, we just might be seeing a lot more extreme weather in the years to come.  We later hear that about 40 houses got swept away on the waterfront at Sorong.  Frankly, I’m surprised it wasn’t more, as the shoreline is packed with so many shanty timber homes built over the water. It’s not an easy life here for many people.

We’re acutely aware of time slipping away from us, so we ask Hans and Fenchay to put a halt to building the shower/toilet block and give Philipus a hand with the workshop and kitchen area.  Without this being finished, we can’t install the batteries for the solar panels, and we desperately need somewhere we can store our equipment securely when we leave.  We’ll leave our dive equipment and compressor here, plus most of our tools, so we need it at lock-up stage within the next month.  Can we make it?

We’ve also commissioned Renol, Hans’s older brother, to build a panga-style runabout for us that will get us to and from Sorong when we come back, plus will be our dive boat when we’re here.  He reckons it will take about a month to construct, and then we have to put two 40HP outboards on and get the wiring and gear cables sorted. Again, will we make it in time??? The clock is ticking….