Wednesday 9 August 2023

We are never alone at sea

 Standing on deck and glancing over the sea you will miss most things. You have to focus on sections of the sea at a time. Using the techniques taught for watch observation you get the hang of watching and seeing unusual activity below the water surface. Place your eyes on the horizon and then gradually bring your vision closer to you, together with a very slow sweeping motion. Using the clock hands as your guide. (Bow being 12 o’clock) sweep the ocean between 10 and 12 o’clock and then repeat 8 to 10 o’clock, repeating until you have completed the clock face. Look for unusual splashes, the glint of fast moving creature in the side of a wave.

It is not unusual to sea a flock of birds diving into the sea chasing a shoal of fish. Very often you will find dolphins, mackerel and tuna in there hunting the shoal of fish at the same time. 



It is very difficult to focus your eyes on objects in the sky. Whilst you are on a rollercoaster. The trick here is to do the same technique as searching the sea for dangers, but instead of going in one smooth motion from looking close to far away go a little distance away and look up, nothing there, look down and move your focus a little further away, look up, so on and so forth.



The easiest to spot are the flying fish. Once you reach the tropical waters these beautiful winged luminescent fish can literally fly from all directions. We find ourselves taking bets on how far they fly, or coaxing them to fly further. Their unfortunate demise is at night where their night vision must be as limited as ours as many end up on the deck perished by morning.


Before sunset you normally find seabirds like the blue footed or brown Booby birds come circling the boat. They come to find a roost for the night. Sleeping anywhere they can find out of the wind and at dawn they return to their day of feasting from the sea. We have had the same boobies, return night after night, hitchhiking along the journey.



When it’s dark and you have little or no vision you can often hear cetaceans as they blow air out of their blow holes. Believe me it can make you jump when a hump back whale blows right beside you as you are sailing along peacefully under sail at night. On hearing it you might be able to see it either with the naked or helped by a search light. If you can’t see and you can’t hear it, you may smell cetaceans. They eat fish and their breath is very smelly and if you happen to be down wind of a school of dolphins in the dark it is possible you will smell them. 



But the most magical time on a night watch is when a pod of Dolphins arrive they must know you are alone as they tend to surf in the waves beside the boat instead of their usual place on the bow. Dolphins literally ‘glow' in the dark as they glide through bioluminescent waves. This is something that we would love to film for you all to see but unfortunately it doesn’t show up in the lens. It’s one of those special moments I guess you need to experience for yourself.




We hope we bring to you some of the amazing sights that we see on our amazing adventures sailing the sea. If you want to see it all in moving pictures check out our YouTube channel. There are a heap of episodes that have, dolphins, whales, turtles, seabirds and more.


Cheers R&K 


#dreamtimesail #sailing #sailinglife #offgrid #sailingcouple #sailinglifestyle #seacreatures #dolphins #boobiebird #nomad #freedom #livinglife





Thank you to all who support us through watching our videos, reading our blogs or who step up and support us though Patreon and Ko-Fi. You inspire us everyday to be creative 🙌

You can help us out and support our creative work for FREE. 
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If you would like to make a donation towards our creative work, you can by heading over to Ko-Fi they take no fees so the support goes directly into helping us buy and upgrade equipment 


Do you want more? 
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Wednesday 2 August 2023

When sailing off-the-beaten-track, you can expect a few surprises!

We’ve been trying to decide exactly what it is that we love most about sailing in remote parts of the world. Is it the rugged natural beauty? Is it the unknown? Is it the challenge to discover new horizons? Is it the authentic people that we meet? Is it the challenge of dealing with boat problems in the middle of nowhere? How about all of the above!

We’ve been in Indonesia now for a few weeks now. (YouTube land time) 


The Island chain known as Maluku Group


Well before we arrived in this beautiful country, we had already decided to forge our own route. This off-the-beaten-track part of Indonesia is both epic and Isolated. With very few large settlements and even fewer tourists, and we cannot wait to dive head first into the most wild part of this ancient country. 






This weeks episode we are met by machete wielding men and youth when we anchor at Pulau Kur. 



But our visit was anything but scary. All machetes were put down and we realised they all had been at work harvesting nutmeg using the machetes to cut down this precious commodity that many of the Maluku islands here are famous for.


Russell taking in the scent of the Nutmeg

Nutmeg roasting on the ground sheets

Maluku is one of the oldest provinces in Indonesia’s history. Maluku name itself is taken from the word al-Mulk, which means Land of the Kings. Maluku Islands, known for its abundant natural wealth, especially spices, which was then targeted by many countries such as the Dutch and Portuguese colonizers. Back in the days, the famed ‘Moluccas’ was a place where a great wealth grew on the trees – quite literally.  Mace, nutmeg and cloves were found nowhere else in the world, which reinforced the Dutch colonial power. 


Today the islanders live a subsistence lifestyle, growing what they can to eat themselves and exporting their spices through Ambon, the spice capital of the world.


We were given a grand tour of the village led by a jangle of laughing children eager to communicate with us. Very little english was spoken, so we started a game. We would point to the “chicken” and say “in Australia Chicken”, they caught on pretty quick and they would say “in Indonesia Ayam”. So this is how our tour of the village proceeded.





They showed us everything so very proud to have visitors to their island. We had noticed that the soccer ball that the boys were playing with on the field was in a terrible state. We in very broken Indonesian asked for a few of the boys to stay on the beach, we quickly dashed back to the boat to grab a soccer ball we had onboard to present to the village. It was thumbs up and many “thank you” shouted as we returned to Our Dreamtime.




We hauled anchor in the morning to do another short hop to a different island in the archipelago. 




Things didn’t go so well as planned.


Our intended anchorages A,B,C&D didn’t go to plan as we hit some unexpected bad weather, so we set sail overnight to anchorage E. But that’s all part of what we seek in sailing off-the-beaten-track. 



After finding safe harbour following a long and hard sail trying to locate protection from the heavy weather that wasn’t predicted, our first thoughts were “what now!” when we received a message that the captain was to report to the police station.



Our very calm anchorage at Inglas



We been conditioned to expect the worst when we are summonsed by authorities. We have also heard horror stories of how some local officials can treat you in Indonesia which is not unlike what is said about our own countries authorities. 





The police we met were true ambassadors of their country and showed us how respect and courtesy to others go a long way in building human relationships. They were very interested in Our Dreamtime so Rob invited them back to the boat to have a tour. Sharing juice and some snacks, much laughter was had by all by using Google translate. The Quarantine Officer even called his son who is studying at university to help with the translation. We said our goodbyes but not before a time was set for the following day for them to take us on tour of the village of Inglas and nearby town of Bula. 


The next day was full of surprises our own police escort took us to see some amazing local places and a lunch at a local Wurung.






Our visit to both villages from the outside could of looked ominous. However our whole experience was in total reverse. “Karma works both ways” is an excellent motto to remember as we continue to have very positive experiences on our travels.


We hope you enjoy this weeks episode Cheers R&K  


http://tinyurl.com/DreamtimeSailEp86




















Thank you to all who support us through watching our videos, reading our blogs or who step up and support us though Patreon and Ko-Fi. You inspire us everyday to be creative 🙌

You can help us out and support our creative work for FREE. 
By watching, 👍, 🔔, Subscribing, Commenting and best of all Sharing this video or blog with your friends 

If you would like to make a donation towards our creative work, you can by heading over to Ko-Fi they take no fees so the support goes directly into helping us buy and upgrade equipment 


Do you want more? 
Patreon gives you that … you get behind the scenes updates, 
Patreon only photos and posts, you can watch our 
episodes ad free and before they go public … you get it first!


Another way of support is through buying from our store.
Checkout the range of books we have available