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Crazy fishing nets and a lack of wind make for a frustrating few days. A nice friendly visit from the Indonesian coast guard gives me a nice send off from this wonderful country. I finally I pull into Thursday Island, Australia, 4 years after departing.
Enjoi!

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Closed Captions (CC):

0:15
3.30 in the morning just what you want to have, in the middle of a huge fishing net field.
0:16
There's blinking lights everywhere but you can't make head or toe of it. There's obviously
0:26
boats and ships around that are bigger lights but look at the AIS this is me let me zoom out
0:36
look at that
0:41
right in the middle of this [ __ ] show luckily it's quite calm
0:45
i'm just motor sailing we've got a little bit of wind and i'm just sort of feeling myself and
0:51
luckily it's sort of a full moon so i can actually see floats in the water but yeah
0:58
hoping i'd have to jump in the water and cut something off propeller i'm dancing my way
1:02
through them at the moment but i haven't yet slept it's been about four hours i've been stuck in here
1:08
i think i've figured it out so i'm probably going to be out of here in another couple hours
1:12
but then the sun will be up i haven't slept yet tonight the joys of sailing in indonesia
1:19
good morning people just woke up it's about seven o'clock another night of not much sleep dodging
1:26
nets but uh today woke up and uh we've got a different look a different feel different vibe
1:32
in the air i think we'll be dealing with some different stuff today check this out
1:43
school school school
1:49
school school school school school
1:56
um squall school school school yeah so not looking like very good weather today especially the one up
2:06
in front it's just a big front um big gray front doesn't look very friendly i haven't
2:14
checked the weather now since i left obviously i don't have a sat phone so it's been five days
2:18
uh it could have changed a lot the weather forecast i had initially it didn't show anything
2:25
bad it was just the same thing for eight nine days in a row but you can only really trust
2:31
weather forecast for two maximum three days i feel so this could be something nasty but i
2:36
i don't know we'll see it's sort of weird that the score is like completely around me 360
2:42
and a massive front in front of me not a good and it is cyclone season still up here another
2:48
month yet yeah we'll see how we go i'm i'm closing everything up make sure everything's a bit ship
2:53
shape just in case things get rough and uh yeah maybe we'll lose the monotony of motoring anyway
3:13
well as you can see the sky is still pretty grumpy and we're just getting our first squall
3:18
incoming now i just got the win straight on the nose obviously i think there's sort of two squalls
3:25
here this one and this one is sort of combined now to be one a bit bigger squall or maybe that's just
3:32
going to make the wind a bit weird i don't think it's going to be anything at all drastic we're
3:36
going to get a bit of 20 knots of wind and then some rain for a while but i'm guessing there's
3:41
more schools behind because the sky is so dark in that direction it can't just be these two squalls
3:47
but yeah the sea is still pretty flat and should be all good just get out of the rain and
3:55
wait for it to pass i'm in the middle of nets again at least it's still light now but crazy
4:03
i'm trying to sneak out through this little gap down in here but yeah so many nets around it's
4:10
crazy but you can't see them there's no flags or or any like lights at night even it's just
4:16
ais markers but when there's waves they sort of disappear all the time so it's so hard to find out
4:21
and they've only got a short range so you think i've got out of it now and then there's another
4:25
one right in front of you and you went the wrong way you should have gone left instead of right
4:28
or whatever such a nightmare yeah it looks like i'm gonna get controlled too there's a
4:33
australian frigate i think or maybe indonesian i don't know there's a boat coming to me
5:03
thursday island australia sir roger island australia do you want to play for
5:11
australia right now um i i cleared out of 2l on monday and i will arrive in australia tomorrow
5:21
i'm roger let you from tour that's correct yeah correct from two hours on monday cleared out
5:30
okay sailing this is indonesian petrol ship do you need help or something
5:38
no i just have to get through all these nets there's many many ais contacts thank you okay
5:44
you're welcome sir good afternoon may you arrive for your destination safely and god bless you
5:51
thank you very much nice to talk to you orca04 okay thank you you're welcome
6:00
by one sex
6:03
that was nice they were very friendly
6:06
as you heard on the radio they just wanted to have a chat and ask if i need any assistance
6:12
maybe because i see so many ais contacts around here that i go he's probably lost
6:17
but yeah uh no it's cool i think they just board probably there's hardly any boats around
6:24
nowadays because they've covered so uh probably just bored and cruising around burning some diesel
6:30
anyway slowly sunset i'm gonna have a shower again clean up yeah no wind this is
6:38
oh it's pretty depressing just burning diesel putting ours on the engine it's all right like
6:45
it's whatever but it's just hot and miserable i'd rather be 20 knots and two meter swells
6:49
and bouncing around and holding on for dear life than doing this but it is what it is just
6:56
ah indonesia the land of awesome people beautiful places but the worst place in
7:01
the world just sailing probably life could be worse though [ __ ] there's a lot of people
7:07
out there with worse things to complain about than no wind and i have to motor
7:46
oh it feels good to have a shower after i didn't have a shower yesterday it just feels
7:51
good when you when you're not touching ground do anything else just to have a clean up even washing
7:57
your teeth cleaning your face and everything it's just uh it's sort of easy to get out of
8:02
sync with all that sort of stuff when you just the days and the nights just go by sort of
8:07
but it feels much better when you give yourself a clean up and what now can start again sort
8:14
of thing it's a good feeling especially at sunset look at this thing beautiful
8:31
i was just about to wind the line in for the night because it's going to be dark soon
8:35
this thing jumped on
8:50
beautiful look at this thing beautiful macro it's nearly too too big
9:04
i'm going to let it go i'm going to let it go
9:19
i couldn't have eaten all that i would have liked to have one or two meals of it but it would have
9:24
been five or six meals for me and i've got so much other food i have to eat before i get to australia
9:32
uh fridge is still full of bacon and sausages and
9:35
all the stuff i've got to get through otherwise they're all going to be chucked
9:37
away in australia so i might as well let that fish go back for someone else to catch on
9:42
this is definitely the best sunset so far check this out it's pretty much 360. woohoo
10:04
hey look at that thing that is amazing just the waves in the sky are just incredible
10:09
three-dimensional look at this wow some natural hallucinogenic drugs going on out here
10:18
so cool i nearly found my way out of the the nets as well so that's looking good i'm going
10:25
to head a bit south for a couple of hours and hopefully get away from them but they must be
10:30
i don't know i'm just seem to be right in the path of all of them it's terrible
10:34
last night i hardly slept today i had about
10:37
a couple of 45 minute naps so i haven't caught up from last night that's for sure so i need to um
10:44
need to sleep a bit more tonight otherwise i'll be tired tomorrow wow this wakes me up though
10:49
oh that's one thing i need to do i've left indonesia now so i can get rid of the flag
10:57
what a miserable little flag this is that's been on there a few months now
11:02
but we don't need it again for a while anyway
11:06
a sad scrap of a flag still it lasted us a little while this one actually marie made out of
11:11
this one but just out of crappy material yeah it's been a long day of motoring today just
11:17
yeah some squalls in the morning but there was no wind in those squads just a little bit of rain
11:22
and they actually just dissolved all pretty quick i thought it was going to
11:24
be a big cluster but maybe it was like a big [ __ ] and this school killed each other i
11:29
don't know but they all just disappeared real quick and it turned out to be a real nice day
11:33
sort of cloudy like not too hot so it was all right and i spent the day cleaning the boat
11:40
i've never entered australia by boat but i have heard that it's quite uh
11:44
rigorous with the bo security stuff like you don't want to find any ants or spiders
11:49
or anything like that on the boat and i've went through all our food and everything and yeah so
11:53
i lifted all the floorboards up today cleaned out all the well i don't have bilges but underneath
12:00
and uh the pantry and and yeah all the food stuff i sorted out and cleaned the
12:04
bathroom and yeah i just basically cleaned a lot of the boat i'll still do a bit more tomorrow but
12:10
that made the day pass really quick actually i you know i spent a couple of hours outside reading but
12:15
i was a bit sunburnt yesterday so it was good to be inside and it wasn't too hot
12:20
had all the fans going it was all right the day just went whizzing by and this is this
12:24
will be my last night tonight i think this is the the fifth night and tomorrow's sixth
12:29
day and i should arrive there tomorrow in the late afternoon anyway here enjoying a cold beer
12:35
i got plenty of room in the fridge because i've been eating all the food so i put beers in there
12:42
oh so good too cold beer sunset
12:48
we're barely moving i just turned the engine off honestly to have a beer and watch the sunset and
12:53
yeah talk to you guys because i haven't had this silence now for well there was a few
12:59
hours last night where i had the engine off and sailing there's been a few hours
13:04
in between you know but not really like it's been just a motor fest although i've only used
13:12
uh i've used around 100 liters so far and i've got about another 30 to use if i have to mode all day
13:19
tomorrow and tonight which is looking like because there's no no wind so i'd be about 130 liters
13:25
i will have used by the time i get there to do 750 miles it's not too bad this engine just sips
13:33
along it's about 1.5 liters at um at a 2200 or something which is five and a half knots so it's
13:41
pretty good and and you know i had the sales i've been motorcycling the whole time so not so bad
14:11
all right guys dinner time if you can see this
14:15
that's some pasta it's got eggplants tomatoes dried tomatoes sausages bacon onion garlic some
14:23
rosemary some chili it's very good and i made enough for tomorrow so i'm stoked about that
14:31
still motoring as you can hear i'm yelling at the camera but it's pretty noisy in here
14:36
it's about 8 30 i'll start going to sleep soon i'll do my 30 40 50 60 minute
14:43
sleeps depending on what's going on is it light about 10 miles up in front of me i
14:48
don't know what it is yet there's nothing on ais but uh probably be a fishing boat
14:52
have to be careful of the nets wow i've just witnessed a pretty incredible sunrise
14:59
i just woke up well i've been waking up every hour through the night and it's been pretty calm
15:04
pretty calm but the last couple of hours it just glassed off and man what an incredible sunrise
15:12
i threw up the drone you'll see the shots i'll put the shots up now they're probably some
15:16
of the nicest drone shots i've i've i've ever got i mean obviously there was just enough uh
15:23
when to fly the head sail but obviously i was motoring as well i'm not going to lie to you here
15:27
but it made it look better with the head sail up for sure but the colours and how glassy it
15:32
was in the reflection and the the ripples behind the boat and well the batteries run out way too
15:38
fast on the drone i was i could have flown well i timed it perfect for the light and everything
15:45
like now now it's obviously not as good as it was with the light it's still beautiful but um
15:49
yeah oh incredible incredible anything that could have been better was if in the foreground or the
15:56
background some whales or dolphins had jumped out or something a unicorn had flown past i don't
16:01
know unicorns flight the ones with wings pegasus i don't know anyway one of those sorts of things you
16:06
know but i mean that would have been overkill who needs that that's just who needs a flying freaking
16:12
unicorn through a sunrise wow and that was my last night at sea i mean on this trip i've still got
16:19
1500 miles to go after i clear in thursday island hey birdie
16:35
how's this say sunrise straight in front of me full moon sunset right behind me what an
16:42
incredible incredible day so happy to be alive guys this is just unbelievable so beautiful today
17:26
oh we're getting pretty close now i was just downstairs watching some videos and
17:31
came up and i can see land land ho
17:37
that's there's the island group there's a bunch of funny name island there's friday
17:41
island there's goods island there's horn island there's a bunch of islands in there
17:46
but that's that stuff and then there's a bunch of islands out this way as well
17:50
and yeah papua new guinea is up in the clouds there yeah another four or five hours and
17:55
we'll be in there time to put up a australian flag and i'll need to put up a q flag as well
18:14
let's make sure it's up the right way for about three months we were flying the indonesian flag
18:18
upside down until one of the customs guys got angry at us not a big flag guy i must say probably
18:24
said that before i'm not a big flag guy not very nationalistic i have two passports i've traveled
18:29
all my life and lived many different places i love everywhere i don't give a [ __ ] about oh yeah
18:35
we belong to this country i don't give a i only fly flags because they really
18:39
get upset if you don't but as soon as i finish this custom stuff i'll probably take it down again
18:45
i do love australia new zealand switzerland but i love many many countries that's the thing
18:50
and i'm not just biased for one and think you know i want to represent that one and
18:54
everyone else should take heed i don't really care it's also time to change the chip in the
19:02
plotter i need the australian card in now because i'm nearly out of range you can see the line here
19:08
the line this is australia well technically we're in australian waters now too but i guess it's just
19:27
hold on out
19:32
new one in
19:37
yeah there you go now you can see australia
19:48
yeah lots of detail there and this is where we're going up here anchor in here somewhere
20:02
all right i made it here we go
20:08
time to throw the anchor down
20:24
we're 11 meters of water it's next to horn island well this over here
20:29
is horn island apparently the prevailing winds come from the south east here so
20:34
this is uh protected over there you probably can't see but that's um first island and all the port
20:41
and harbor authority and all that sort of stuff's over
20:44
there know what that means dingy in the water that means i'm allowed to go to shore
20:53
i uh cleared in it was the easiest thing in the world it's like two groups of people
21:01
so be a security agriculture that we're just looking to make sure i don't have any bugs and
21:05
and weird animals on the boat and then uh border force which is australian border force which is
21:11
customs and uh immigration all to combined and uh they didn't even come on the boat
21:17
they just stood on the dock next to me looked at my passport i'd already done all the pre
21:22
you know i've given all my documents before leaving too out and yeah 20 minutes later it
21:28
was done didn't get a stamp in the passport nothing just easiest easiest clearing
21:35
ever indonesia took me a whole day and i had to go to four different offices and get each one
21:40
to stamp a thousand different documents here it's just like boom not a single stamp it's all online
21:48
it's easiest so yeah now i can go to sure but now it started raining there's a squall over there
21:56
all out here so i'm going to wait for that to calm down a bit it shouldn't take long i'm anchored in
22:02
a new spot right now too so it's good to sit here the current's quite strong it's good to sit here
22:08
for a while and make sure the anchors dug right in because there's a few boats all around me i
22:11
don't want to drag the new guy in the anchorage that drags and hits somebody that'd be awesome
22:16
anyway so yeah i can go into land and get a sim card so i can go online and check the weather
22:22
and get some money out i don't have any australian money i can go and have dinner in the restaurant
22:27
there if i want i can go and have a beer in the bar can buy some fresh fruit and everything's
22:33
going to be 10 times more expensive because obviously we're in australia but also double the
22:38
fact that we're up here and ti and everything has to be flown up here probably but anyway whatever
22:44
it's going to be awesome and i'm so stoked that i could just clear into australia that easily
22:49
like that no one was wearing masks i wasn't allowed to film unfortunately i
22:53
asked but wasn't able to uh yeah i guess they're all worried about their privacy
22:58
and stuff which is you know whatever but trying to fill in the blanks now and uh
23:03
yeah it was like the calmest thing ever they didn't really give a [ __ ] they asked for my uh
23:10
yeah if i was feeling healthy and blah blah blah and apparently online it says when you're clear
23:15
under australia you have to do within 24 hours you have to do a pcr test but they never asked
23:19
me to do that or said that i should do that or mention anything about that so i'm not going to
23:24
bother with that and uh yeah i guess i'm good to go yeah they didn't say anything else so
23:30
they said you're right you can come in have a beer tonight you can head off whenever you want so yeah
23:35
you're free you're in australia so i guess that's a big welcome to australia they were the nicest
23:40
friendliest people they haven't seen any boats in nearly two years now so they were just like
23:45
welcome to ti welcome to australia and i'm like thanks i'm stoked to be here
23:50
oh one more thing they told me i could take my um q flag down obviously so i better do that
24:01
and pack it away until the next foreign country the luxury of a floating pontoon haven't had that
24:07
for quite a long time we're back in the land of plenty i think after indonesia nice walkway
24:16
yeah it's a bit of a grumpy looking day i'm anchored about a mile by not quite that way
24:21
but a bit of a rough dingy ride a little bit wet going home but this is just a squall i think
24:27
so it'll probably pass look at this welcome to thursday island
24:37
so i'm going to go for a bit of a walk around yeah as i as i see it's not really the best
24:42
day for that but i don't think it'll last very long and in german well no in swiss german they
24:48
say orega machine reagan machine that means uh rain makes you beautiful i probably need about
24:56
seven million gallons of rain then but you've got to start somewhere it's a weird sensation
25:02
for me to be back here or not back here i've never been here but back in the country
25:08
that's different than indonesia i guess everyone's just got lots here
25:12
every you know everything's everyone's driving four-wheel drive trucks and you know there's
25:18
not a scooter in sight and there's no one like walking around look there's a cockatoo hey cocky
25:30
yeah as i was saying it's uh definitely a land of plenty you know
25:35
there's a lot of um indigenous people up here but everyone's got these fancy about tinny boats with
25:42
massive engines on it and they're flying along at 40 knots everywhere like don't seem to care about
25:47
fuel usage even though wow 2.49 australian for a liter of diesel just to put that in
25:56
in contrast in indonesia it was a dollar so yeah 249 that's probably about 160 170 euro
26:06
180 us something like that quite expensive so yeah motoring the boat in indonesia was a lot
26:15
less painful than it will be here so definitely be waiting for weather windows in australia
26:19
that's crazy gonna fill up four jerry cans you got 200 bucks wow
26:26
so yeah this youtube money is not going very far likely subscribe and go buy some merch i'll need
26:34
everything i can get no in all seriousness it is what it is and we'll blame putin i guess