Bali (Asia)
Cruising Log of Bali
Contributed By: Penny Mui
In late August I took a 4-day crewed charter cruise on the 47 foot sailing trimaran Shangri La based in Benoa Harbor on the almost legendary "Island of the Gods", Bali (Indonesia). The trip began with a minor disaster: my flight was late and I missed the departure from the Marina, and since I had my hand-held HVF with me I could contact the skipper right from the airport, which is next to the harbor, to cancel or postpone my booking.
But Skipper Reinhold, a retired cargo ship captain from Hamburg, Germany, who is married to a Balinese, had already made better arrangements for me. He had a driver waiting for me at the airport and had booked a room in a beachside hotel and a speedboat to meet me there, right on the sand, at first light to take me to Lombogan Island, about 20 nm offshore, where the Shangri La had anchored for the night. No extra charge!
As arranged the local "Kaptan" of the hired speedboat knocked at my door at 0600. On the beach he personally carried me and my duffel bag on his broad shoulders though knee-deep surf to the boat and we sped off into the sunrise, on a local, wooden 30' outrigger canoe with three (3!) 40-hp Yamaha outboards roaring at the transom.
As soon as the launch met the yacht in the anchorage of Lambogan Island, we sailed off to the next island in the archipelago, Penida. The biggest surprise for me was the weather. Even though we were just eight degrees south of the equator, it was only about 80 degrees F (~27 C), same as the water temp, and a nice breeze was filling the sails. As I lay under an awning on a foam mattress on the spacious deck of the 15m Norm Cross tri I dozed off, jet lag overcoming me.
When I woke up we were just sailing into a huge, almost circular bay (probably an old volcanic crater?) on Penida to spend the afternoon and the night. Ours was the only yacht in about 100 square miles of pristine bay! We anchored with 100 m of chain in about 30 m of water just about 50 m offshore. This bay must have had some very steep walls.
The other guests (a couple from Perth, Australia, who operate an offshore fishing business there. Talk about a busman's holiday!) went scuba diving and fishing off the dinghy, but I was content just to sip iced green tea an nibbling on fresh tropical fruit while taking in the spectacular scenery and observing the local fishermen sailing their swift and stable outrigger canoes with lateen sails. I appreciated their dedication to the art of sailing: most of them had outboard motors, but did not use them!
Reinhold's lovely wife Daisy, a MBA who speaks fluent English and German, made grilled pork and chicken with fired potatoes for the carnivores on board and delicious Gadu-Gadu (spiced deep-fried tofu with greens and rice) for me, the lone vegetarian.
Just as if special-ordered a pink, full moon rose over the bay as we sat down to dinner in teak chairs on the deck, served by Daisy and a local boat boy.
After a swim and a luke warm solar shower I turned in, while the others sipped wine and traded sailing and fishing yarns under the stars. Sleeping accommodations for me were in one of the two double bunks in the rear cabin, with an en-suite head. There were two more double bunks in the tri's wings and one V-berth in the bow.
Next morning we had an unhurried Anglo-European style breakfast while skipper and boat-boy handled the somewhat tedious task of raising the 100 meters of chain and the 35-pound Bruce anchor. Even with the help of the 3-ton power winch it was a two-man job.
By the time they had that accomplished, a nice breeze had come up and we had a good reach of about 12 kn to the next island, Lombok, where we found, believe it or not, "Gilligans's Island", actually spelled Gilli-Yan, a tiny key off the main Island, popular with divers and surfers. The anchoring situation was very similar as at our last stop: steep walls, rocky and coral bottom. An antique wooden schooner under French flag anchored next to us a few hours later and actually dinghied a line to a tree onshore to add to the holding power of the big hook they had dropped just 50m offshore.
In the morning we set motored out of this anchorage early for the long tack back to Bali proper. Reinhold had replaced the inboard Perkins under the cockpit with a 36 hp Yanmar diesel outboard, which ran quietly and smoothly in a well at the stern of the big tri, while the old prop free-wheeled to make 12 volt electric power from a dynamo hooked to it now. Neat. (Back home in San Diego I checked with Yanmar in Japan, and they told me there's a six-months waiting list for the new motor, and no deliveries are scheduled for USA. So get yours in Canada or Singapore. Price is about US$15,000.-)
We passed the palm lined coast of several islands, where the locals live in thatched huts, cabins and houses, and many resort hotels blend in with similar architecture, but none taller than the tallest tree. A passage between two islands was like a cruise on the Rhine river or down the Grand Canyon: two steep rocky walls less than a mile apart, with a swift current and a good tail wind pushing us along.
On the other side we could stop the engine and under sail only, trolled a fishing line with a simple plastic lure, and very soon we had lots of excitement as the anglers fought and hauled in a beautiful iridescent Dorado and a Spanish Mackerel, both over 20 pounds. We crossed back to Benoa Harbor reaching in 20-knot winds at about 14 knots, with the big Agong volcano looming ahead of us and the smaller islands we had visited dotting the horizon behind us. The channel was a bit choppy, but nobody got seasick, thanks to the smooth ride of the trimaran, and plenty of ginger ale and ginger tea, the natural prophylactic against the malaise. I also wore Sea-Bands on my wrists, which really had worked well on that choppy speedboat ride across the same channel a few days earlier.
Benoa harbor is nothing much to write home about, since this is a no-frills commercial port, but a fancy, yet small marina is available there for those needing docks with the usual yachtie amenities. Reinhold prefers to keep Shangri La on a mooring in the basin, and has his own landing dock for the dinghies and the small flotilla of other boats he operates.
There are only about three other sailing cruise operators out of Bali, none of them bare-boat, but the Shangri La is the only trimaran, and the only with totally flexible schedules. Their website is at bali-cruise.com and if you enter "Bali" in any search engine you'll find the others listed there.
I stayed another two weeks on Bali, one of them in Reinhold and Daisie's luxurious rental villa on a mountainside, and the rest in a clean and spacious air conditioned, marble-floored and teak-furnished room in the Ananda Hotel, a small, inexpensive (US$15/night) beach inn in Sanur, far away from the party-animal crowd and the local gigolos in the better known Kuta area.
The cost for my single bunk on Shangri La was $550.- full board, and the whole trip cost me under US$2000.- with flights booked though http://www.skyauction.com and accommodations found locally. Bali has plenty of inexpensive hotels and bungalows, lots of them for under US$25/night/double. No reservations needed anytime. Other prices are at about the same level as in Thailand and Malaysia, i.e. e cheap! I particularly enjoyed the US$10 herbal oil massages and body scrubs at the local spas and salons. Another $5 bought me a hairstyling and manicure/pedicure session at the same place (Kukuruyuk Salon, across from the Bali Radisson, Sanur Beach)!
The Balinese people are nice, friendly and welcoming, albeit appearing a bit jaded by the constant presence of tourists from all over the world. A handsome ethnic mix of SE Asian, Chinese, Indian and Euro, they are about 90% Hindu, the rest Muslim, Christian and Buddhist.