Birthday’s and friends

Jerry celebrated his 58th birthday at a restaurant in Sanur with friends from Australia - Steve & Cheryl, Phil & Chris and long time friend Graham (Harmony) who drove down from Lovina to join us. It was a great night sat at a table on the beach eating a delicious seafood platter, much drinking and then the delicious birthday rum fruit cake made onboard Basanti by our chief cake baker Phil! Unfortunately the photographs I took did not turn out well apart from this one of Jerry with Cheryl & Steve

Once the birthday was over it was time to leave Serangan behind and sail up the coast and around the top of Bali to Lovina. We thought we would stop off at Candi Dasa overnight but when we checked out the anchorage we were not happy with it so we sailed on.

We had a great sail that night with the headsail poled out and a reef in the mainsail and a nice breeze to take us along. We had been told to look out for FADS, fish attraction devices. Small bamboo platforms with s few palm tree fronds on top. We saw a couple, well we think they were FADS with flashing red lights and assumed they would all be lit. As dawn broke and we saw just how many were scattered around us we realised that maybe they are not all lit and so we were lucky that night that we did not hit any!
We arrived off the anchorage at Lovina just as the sun came up and were amazed to see 30 plus local boats full of tourists coming out of Lovina and heading out to sea. We learnt later that they go out early morning to see the dolphins that apparently are there but we did not see. I am beginning to think we must sail with our eyes closed! It cost Rp50,000 ($5) so I suppose if you don’t see the dolphins its worth $5 just to experience a local boat and watch the beautiful sunrise.

Abdul came alongside in his canoe and asked if we were friends of Graham from Australia and then he guided us into the anchorage. It is their way of “claiming” you for your stay and they will then visit everyday to see if their is anything you need. Diesel, water, beer, car etc. Once you are “claimed” by one of locals all the others leave you alone and you have a fairly peaceful stay. Abdul was very helpful to us while we were there.

At Lovina we met up with Graham on HARMONY 888  and he had breakfast cooking for us as we dropped anchor. What a special treat that was after a 24 hr sail. We spent our time in Lovina catching up with Graham and enjoying happy hours and dinners with him. One day he hired a car and us, Chris and Phil had a day out driving to some inland spots. At first I thought it was madness not to hire a driver too but Graham did a great job of driving and not once did I feel at all nervous.
We visited the hot springs at  Melanting.
 
The Git Git Waterfalls and the lakes at Puncak
 
It was a lovely day out through some very pretty villages and country side. We found a great place for lunch where we tasted Luwak coffee. This is the bean that is eaten by the Luwak animal who poops it out! It is then cleaned, dried, roasted and makes the most delicious, smooth coffee.
 
         
Lovina is a tourist town but not crowded and with some very nice restaurants. Laundry here was only 50c per kilo, washed & ironed! The old port of Singaraja is about 15 mins drive away and that has a huge supermarket for supplies.
We left Lovina this morning and I am sitting in the cockpit typing this blog. We are sailing along at a comfortable 5.5knots in a very calm sea. It is very pleasant and  so different from that  WA coast. I am so glad we persevered to get here. Our next stop will be somewhere along the NW coast of Bali, we will look at an anchorage in a couple of hours or so and find somewhere suitable for the night. Then tomorrow we leave Bali behind and head over to Java and onto Kalimantan.