{"id":6615,"date":"2019-10-31T21:58:50","date_gmt":"2019-10-31T21:58:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/svtoucan.com\/svtblog\/?p=6615"},"modified":"2019-10-31T22:26:45","modified_gmt":"2019-10-31T22:26:45","slug":"batanta-and-back","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/svtoucan.com\/svtblog\/?p=6615","title":{"rendered":"Batanta and Back"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s not much more we can do until the new prop arrives so we decide to head over to Batanta Island for the weekend, about 20NM north of Sorong. It\u2019ll also give us a chance to do a sea-trial of the gearboxes and new oil seals as it\u2019s unlikely we\u2019ll get enough wind for sailing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s good news and bad news. As predicted, there isn\u2019t any wind so we motor all the way.  The good news is that the port gearbox doesn\u2019t lose any oil – this is a bonus as we thought the oil leak on this one was more complex than just the front oil seal. The bad news is that the starboard gearbox still loses all its\u2019 oil in 2 hours of motoring. This is the one we were pretty confident would be fixed so it\u2019s a bit of a punch in the gut. It\u2019s also a mystery where the oil has gone as there\u2019s no oil around the gearbox or in the bilge. We can only assume it\u2019s going out the bottom of the leg, which means we\u2019ll also need to replace the bottom oil seals when we haul out.  We don\u2019t have any spares, so the next challenge will be trying to source these locally. There\u2019s no cell coverage here so not much we can do until we get back to Sorong.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
There’s a couple of pearl farms here in the bay, but it’s very quiet and peaceful<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
local kids out for a sail<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In the meantime we enjoy the serenity of Ayemi Island on the SE corner of Batanta Island.  We do a little dive on the coral bommies under the boat to play with our new Sealife camera and underwater lights. There\u2019s a lot to learn, but the initial results are promising. Can\u2019t wait to get to the dive sites in Raja Ampat to test it out some more!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
I love these guys!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
Starfish amongst hard corals<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
I think this little fellow is a Blennie<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
And another clown anemone fish<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

We head back to Sorong and anchor off Doom Island again. I hope we get a chance to explore this one day – it was the original Dutch settlement and has quite a history. We meet Jhon and his family – Jhon acts as a local \u2018agent\u2019 for yachties, organising fuel and transport as needed.  We don\u2019t need anything from him currently, but promise to come in and visit the island when we have more time.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Anchored off Doom Island – it doesn’t look very appealing from the water but apparently is quite a tourist attraction<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
This is the christian side of the island with the church on the hill – the muslim mosque is on the other side<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

For now, our mission is to find some oil seals for the bottom of the legs and ensure that all the customs paperwork for our prop is in order.  Ayu and Wick to the rescue once more – Ayu confirms the paperwork is complete and has sent it to Singapore to accompany our package, and Wick takes us to Semeru Teknik where we find some seals that might do the job. So now it\u2019s just a waiting game until the prop arrives.  We\u2019ve met a New Zealand couple, Murray and Carol, on \u201cJams\u201d and organise to meet them over at Waisai on the weekend to watch the rugby world cup quarter-finals. Now that sounds like our sort of plan!
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There\u2019s not much more we can do until the new prop arrives so we decide to head over to Batanta Island for the weekend, about 20NM north of Sorong. It\u2019ll also give us a chance to do a sea-trial of the gearboxes and new oil seals as it\u2019s unlikely we\u2019ll get enough wind for sailing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6615","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-svtoucan"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6B46t-1IH","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/svtoucan.com\/svtblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6615","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/svtoucan.com\/svtblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/svtoucan.com\/svtblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/svtoucan.com\/svtblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/svtoucan.com\/svtblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6615"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/svtoucan.com\/svtblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6615\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6632,"href":"http:\/\/svtoucan.com\/svtblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6615\/revisions\/6632"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/svtoucan.com\/svtblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6615"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/svtoucan.com\/svtblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6615"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/svtoucan.com\/svtblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6615"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}