After all the preparations, here comes the actual sailing to Indonesian waters. The sky was blue and clear, and the sun was smiling broadly at us.
It took about 2 hours including the time to clear Singapore immigration clearance at Sisters' Islands to reach Nongsa Point Marina. The entrance to the marina is narrow and the water will be extremely shallow if you wander off the designated point of entry. However the entry channel is not very well defined. We almost got grounded but luckily I managed to veer to safety after my sounder read 1.8m water depth, which raised my heart beat a fair bit.
The marina staffs were very helpful and friendly. They were already standby at the marina when we arrived. In fact they almost activated their rescue craft to prevent our boat from venturing further towards the shallow waters when they saw us from afar.
They told us that we were very lucky that we did not get grounded when we sailed through the wrong channel. In case you intend on sailing over, approach using the port side channel when facing the marina. Please do not rely on the sea charts as they do not show the exact water depth at that area.
We would be staying here for the night. Chalets on a small hill facing the sea. My ideal type of chill out.
After docking our boat, we proceed to clear the Indonesian port and custom clearance which took a very long time. We had our lunch at the marina restaurant while we waited two hours for the clearance to be done.
After checking into our apartment beside a hilly road, we sailed out for some fishing.
Dark clouds suddenly loomed above us. We could hear static buzzing sound on the boat and all our hairs were standing and dancing while we were fishing.
We used live prawns as bait but there was no bite. The rain was not helping in improving our morale but we did entertained ourselves with our witch hairstyle.
Since there was not much fishing action and the weather was bad, we decided to go back to the marina and have a dip in the pool instead.
The following morning, we strolled through a walkway by the beach to a nearby 250m long jetty and found ourselves in the middle of a fishing competition. We paid for two rods to take part in the competition and hoped that we had more luck on shore.
There was quite a big turnout for the fishing competition. The participants had to draw lots to determine which particular spot was designated for each contestant to fish. Some of the spots were believed to be luckier than others.
We cut the left over prawns from yesterday to use as bait.
However the best bait is always live bait that can be caught from the spot. So we tried very hard to catch some live bait fish.
We thought our chances were high with the live herring but the biggest fish that was caught during the competition was this size.
The herring would be a bit too big a bait for this. We left the competition 10 minutes before it ended to have our lunch and prepare for our way home.
When we were about to leave, I got a very pleasant surprise. I saw a very familiar face on board one of the mega yachts in the marina. He is my mentor in both fishing and sailing. He is Captain John Hendricks.
I could still remember the days when we went fishing for days out at South China Sea. He would reserve the best bait for me so that I had a higher chance than other anglers on board. He would teach me how to look for fishing spots, and position the boat for most effective fishing. He was also the only person on board Artemis 1 to assist me when I captained the boat for the first time.
At the age of 82, he is very healthy and fit. He is able to take care of and navigate a mega yacht all by himself. Even diving down into the water to clean the hull is an easy task to him.
This was the most memorable experience for this whole Indonesian expedition, to have met a long time friend who had helped and guided me for so many years.
