The wind finally calmed down enough so I could launch my drone.

This is probably the most remote place I’ve stopped so far on my solo voyage to 7 continents (6 now done), as least in terms of being far from other populated places. Deception Island in Antarctica is another candidate but there were cruise ships coming and going nearly every day during the week I was there so it didn’t feel so remote.

While anchored here I was reminded of what I wrote in the Epilogue of my 2015 book “Flying 7 Continents Solo”:

“There is always the appeal of a faraway place, the rarely-visited, remote, little-known mystery circumstance.  I was recently in Barrow, Alaska, where a small community college had been built catering to “outlying” villages.  Outlying? I thought Barrow was outlying. The lines of civilization, of human activity, get increasingly stretched, ultimately broken, moving beyond the last signpost, the end of the road, the hesitant smile, the final conversation. Further. Passed the last trail, the disappearing footprints, the lonely, windy mountaintop where recognition is a memory. Further still. Beyond process and reason, merging here and there, blurring yesterday and tomorrow, until finally arriving at a last thin space between the shadow and the silence.”

I probably shouldn’t be sitting under a tree with hanging coconuts.  Someone told me more people are killed each year by coconuts falling on their heads than by shark attacks. It would be really ironic to have sailed this far only to be clunked on the head by a coconut but, as Paul Gauguin once said, “Irony is only a coconut away”

I arrived here on Thursday morning, June 13, exactly 9 days after leaving Medana Bay on Lombok, a reasonably quick trip of 1200 nm.

The weather here was nice the day I arrived but soon turned cloudy, windy and rainy and has pretty much stayed that way.  Like the lagoon inside any atoll, it’s protected from the sea but with only a string of low-lying islands (motus) around the perimeter, some with palm trees, it offers essentially no shelter from the SE tradewinds or storm fronts that blow across the Indian Ocean. 

The formal Clearing In process is streamlined here because the Australian officials come to your boat after you notify them on Channel 20 (the common channel used here) that you have anchored.  The hassle comes because there is AU$10/day or AU$50/week anchoring fee which must be paid at the Shire office on Home Island, about 1.4 nm away from the anchorage at Direction Island.  You can’t officially Clear Out of Cocos without a receipt showing the fee has been paid. 1.4 nm can be a pretty long ride in dinghy across shallow waters with numerous coral heads (bommies) in the relentless 20 kt winds that blow through here.  There is a great, fairly new, inter-island ferry (air-conditioned!) but it only connects Direction Island with Home Island on Thursdays and Saturdays and the Shire office is closed on Saturdays along with everything else on Home Island except the grocery store Shamrocks. So as I write this I expect to take the Thursday ferry to Home Island to pay my fees and be on my way to Reunion Island Friday morning. Given the poor weather I would have left sooner except for having to pay the anchoring fee and get an official Outbound Clearance. Not having an Outbound Clearance from the last port can be a problem when trying to Clear In at the next port.

Direction Island itself is uninhabited but with a white sand beach and park facilities (shelters, BBQ grills, toilets, a historical trail with interpretive displays), it’s a popular day trip getaway for people on West Island where most of the local Aussie population lives. West Island also has a few small hotels and the airport.  I really can’t see a big tourist appeal to Cocos when there are so many other places to go if you want a beach holiday. Maybe that it’s remote and rare is the appeal.

On a more positive front, I submitted all the required paperwork for arrival at Reunion Island.  They responded that the documents were OK and they would have a berth for me at Titan marina when I arrived.  It will be a refreshing break to get back to a well-developed place (fresh croissants!).  I’m already creating a list of things I need to get in Reunion before moving on. I expect maybe 2 weeks there or longer depending on when a suitable weather window opens for making the passage around the southern end of Madagascar to Richards Bay in South Africa.

I managed to get the engine on Phywave started last Monday. I fixed the starter by “exercising” the solenoid (turning it on and off multiple times) and liberally lubricating it with T9 (much better than WD40). With the solenoid operating smoothly, I bolted the starter motor back in place.

However, as is sometimes the case, that was not the only problem. To minimize electrical leakage currents, my engine is equipped with a “grounding relay” that only connects the start battery negative to the engine block when the starter is engaged. If that relay doesn’t close, there won’t be any battery voltage across the starter and it won’t run. After a few tests I concluded the relay had failed. I got around that by using my battery jumper cables to bypass the relay and connect the battery negative directly to the engine block for startup. With that in place I was able to start the engine. Once the engine was running, I could remove the jumper cable; in effect, replicating the action of the relay.

While I was doing all this I also wired a switch across the terminals of the starter so if the Volvo Penta MDI control box should fail for startup (they have a reputation for failure on boat engines), I can still directly start the engine with the switch (and the jumper).

Getting the boat operational again is only one takeaway from this episode. There are also the lessons learned, that I was under-equipped with engine spare parts for this voyage. Recognizing that lesson, and acting on it, I flew to Perth, Australia, to pick up a new starter, a few more spare parts and tools I wish I’d had, like a set of metric ratchet wrenches (gear spanners). Getting the starter in out of its tight space was a pain – very little room to move a standard wrench to tighten the bolts.

I was not particularly happy with having to use jumper to start the engine so one part I picked up in Perth was a “maybe” replacement for the failed relay. The part number of that relay was not in the Volvo Penta system so I sent them a photo and they came up with a relay with the same size, shape and connection terminals as the failed one. No promises it would work but I wired in place of the old one and, amazingly, the engine started perfectly. No more need for the jumper cable and the engine is back to its normal configuration.

All this reminded me of when I was in my 20’s and used to work on my cars before they became computers on wheels. I can continue my voyage a little better equipped with spares and little more knowledgeable about my engine.

Barring any new issues, I plan to complete Exit Formalities to leave Indonesia on Monday, June 3, and head back south through the Lombok Strait at first light the next day. Once through the Strait I’ll turn west across the Indian Ocean toward Cocos (Keeling) atoll, one of the few places in the world where parentheses are an official part of the name.

As I prepare to leave, I’ve included a few more photos of life around Lombok.