Just to keep life interesting our days on Nikoi are followed by the annual ritual that dreaded by yachties: hauling out the boat to renew the antifouling paint. The Indonesian island of Batam, opposite Singapore, has a vibrant ship maintenance industry, benefiting from Indonesian labour costs and (almost) Singapore prices. We decided to use AsianFast, the shipyard sister company of BatamFast, the speed ferry connecting Batam and Singapore. The AsianFast lift is oversized for us: Rainbow Safari is not as heavy as the ferries, but her beam is wider than most traditional monohull lifts are designed for and we could not find a better option in Singapore. So yesterday was another first for us: our home and possessions were all air lifted. Once out of the water we moved out with a truck load of things into an AirBnB apartment on the nearby golf course, and boat work could begin!

Last Wednesday August 7th Rainbow Safari slipped the lines and left the H02 berth at Raffles Marina. On board were three Yanmar engineers, their laptops plugged into the engines and running diagnostic software for our sea trial. And six of us, excited to move the boat again, and a little anxious: it felt like getting onto a bicycle again after a very long time. We passed the test, or shall I say, scraped by. The engines did overheat at full load and we are not yet entirely sure why. We also confirmed that the alternators are dead and need to be replaced, and found another engine sensor broken.

But that did not deter us! Rainbow Safari is back, can and will move! On Thursday we had a full day of more fixes, on Friday we celebrated Singapore’s National Day and 54th birthday, on Saturday we provisioned, and on Sunday morning we properly left the marina.

We headed South to clear out of Singapore, then crossed the Singapore Straits, the busiest shipping lane in the world. On this public holiday weekend Sunday it was quite calm. We waited for a break in traffic and dashed across to Batam.

Our first night back out at anchor felt great. The sunset on the water, the wind blowing over the boat. Even the Karaoke from the beach party stopped around 6 p.m. 🙂

On Monday morning we cleared into Indonesia at Nongsa Point Marina. At least we thought it would be Monday morning. It turned into an eight hour wait for the paperwork. Nongsa Point is a beautiful place, but I’m afraid we have developed a bit of a marina allergy. As soon as we had our papers at 5 we raced off, and sailed another 5 hours across to Bintan.

We anchored in the dark with a lot of shapes showing on the radar all around us. The sunrise revealed almost 50 Indonesian fishing platforms surrounding us. Thank you radar!

Three hours of tacking into the wind brought us to one of our favorite places in the world: Nikoi island. Nikoi is an exclusive but very laid back, unassuming private island beach resort with fantastic and very kid-friendly staff. We had the good fortune of spending a few holidays here before, always a special treat. We decided we deserved a few days of pampering after the hard work of the last months. This time it was special to sail here on our own boat, and as we slowly approached many memories of our past stays came back.

Tomorrow after breakfast we will leave again and continue our journey around the South of Bintan. Next week will be our first haul-out in a shipyard in Batam, another adventure no doubt, followed by a short stop in Singapore before we head East.

Ne’er hath the sound of a Diesel engine been more like sweet music to thy ears. Even the Bard would have rejoiced when our engines sprang back to life today! After almost two and a half months our chains are broken and we are free to go where the wind will carry us (and otherwise where we choose to point the Diesel). Yay!

Of course there are still some missing parts and things to be fixed, but we can finally move out of our berth in the marina again. It’s almost a bit too scary now, heading out into the unknown 🙂 It will take us another good week or so of preparations and then we will give it a gentle try.