We moved over here a couple of weeks ago, in front of Coron Town. We can now move around the Coron district with no papers, which is good. Here we have easy access to markets and even some places to eat that are open. All is going well. We?ve logged almost 70 dives since we?ve been locked down, so that is a bonus. Otherwise, it?s been fairly static. We are still waiting to hear from Malaysia on if we can get there as students since the kids are enrolled in the Penang School. Still waiting?and hoping for the best. We?ve also made a lot of friends here?so that has been great.

We have big news. We moved around the corner about 1NM from our last anchorage. :) All is still the same. Same resort, same restrictions, same people. No complaints. We?ve logged 45 dives here since we arrived, so that is fun. We did a nice dive yesterday, and found some more sea creatures we?ve never seen before, so that is all good. We plan on waiting here until Malaysia opens up for yachts. We?ll see how that goes?..

It?s about time for an update. While not much has changed with our location and situation?same place, same routine, same everything - we are looking to move over to another bay. The strict quarantine was lifted for this area three days ago?and we are considering a move. This has been a great location. Lots of diving, fun people and a great dog ashore. However, it?s probably due time for new scenery and to get rolling. The more time we spend in an area, the harder it can be to leave. We hope there will be positive changes in Malaysia later this month, as we really, really need to get rolling south. Fingers crossed??..

We moved around the corner to the front of the resort. Here we will stay for a bit while the winds are down and it is more comfortable. It?s also closer to the resort so the kids can kayak ashore to play with the dog. All is good, as we wait for three more weeks for the travel restrictions to ?hopefully? be lifted??..

All is going well here in Coron, Philippines. Nothing has changed. We are in the same spot. Doing the same thing, and overall we are just fine. We hope the restrictions will be eased so we can move around, but we won?t hear any news on that until end of the week. Certainly eager to get moving so we can get south and not beat when the winds change, but not so sure that will be a reality as we not only need Philippines to ease up restrictions, we need to have Malaysia open up to arriving yachts.

Little has changed here. The weather has been excellent every day, and the anchorage peaceful. We are eagerly waiting the middle of next month to see if the travel restrictions are lifted. In the meantime we are still diving and doing boat projects.

We are still in the same place. All is going well, and we feel fortunate to be here vs. other locations. It?s sunny every day, nice 15kts of breeze, and good diving and beaches?.so we will continue to be here for the next couple of weeks until hopefully the lockdown is lifted here in the Philippines?...

We had a good day yesterday. We found out from the locals more details on the retractions here in the Philippines. The government is restricting access to small villages and towns to only those that reside in those towns. For example, if there are two villages next door, there is a checkpoint between the villages and only people with ID cards that show they live in the village are allowed to enter/exit. In addition, one household member is designed the ?shopper?, and are given an ID card of some sort. Without the card, you cannot leave the house. If you leave the house, you can be arrested. At a minimum they are taking your picture and reporting the violation to the police. Very interesting times. While we enjoy this location, we are itching to get moving south?but will have to wait of course to see how this plays out here in the Philippines.

There?s been a HECK of a lot going on since our last update. I?ll do a better job updating our status. Currently we are in lockdown here in the Philippines. We arrived here 5 days ago from App Reef (an outstanding location, with serene beauty) to Coron, Philippines. Upon arrival we were greeted by the police that asked us what we were doing in Coron and that we needed to leave. We arrived one day before the official ?enhanced lockdown?. So, we decided it was best to leave Coron as we did not want to get ?stuck? in this town. We sailed around the corner, and eventually made it to Sangat Island Dive Resort. It is owned by an English guy, and he was very welcoming. The day before our arrival he was fully booked at 60 guest. When we arrived only two remained. All others had been evacuated. Andy told us we could stay no problem, and they had plenty of food on the island. Google the location. It?s beautiful. The bar is open every day for us and the two other guests, so we have a beer in the afternoon and stay in a ?quarantined? state for the next 30 days. All in all, we are in a great spot, good diving, hot springs about 100m behind the boat, and no one else is here?.so for now?all is great aboard Field Trip.

We?ve logged three dives yesterday here, and overall it was good diving. We?ll be leaving this afternoon for a direct run to Puerto Galera. We?ll log one more dive today before heading out around 4pm for the 90nm passage.

We?ve been on the move, and I?ve been delinquent on the updates. We are now in a bay on Romblon Island, and doing some diving. We?ll be here on the island for several more days before we head off to Puerto Galera. Diving overall has been average here in the Philippines. Some cool small critters, but the coral is poor. More updates later, but so far Indonesia is by far the best overall diving.

We are still here, diving and enjoying this area. We?ll be leaving in the morning for our next stop about 35NM to the NW. Light winds so probably a motor sail, but should be comfortable. More updates later.

We had some excellent diving the past couple of days, and have not moved to another anchorage that is also know for good diving. It is supposed to have good much diving by the pier, so we will move around the other side when the winds drop to give the pier a go for some diving. All good aboard field trip.

Michael surfed every day while we were in Siagro. We checked into the country yesterday. It was easy, and only required Customs and Immigration. No port authority, quarantine or any other officials. I was surprised it was so easy. We are not anchored at a great spot near a great dive site. We dove it twice, once this morning, and it is close to Raja Ampat in quality. Better diving than Guam, Yap, Palau, and thrilled to be back in diving country.

We had a good day getting settled here in PI, and found the food places and surfing spots. Michael, Sarah and I are going surfing this afternoon?and taking lessons?so it should be a blast. Weather is great, nice breeze and sunny skies. All is well.

We arrived to Siagaro and dropped the hook about an hour ago. All is well, and it is a beautiful day. I?ll jump in bed for some rest and then we?ll head ashore. All good aboard Field Trip and we had overall a great passage, albeit a bit slower than expected.

Well, it?s been a great sail so far. Finally, the wind has picked up significantly to 18-20kts. Good because we are now moving?but we don?t want to arrive at night so we are running with only our genoa to keep our boat speed around 5.6-6kts so we will arrive at daylight tomorrow morning. Everyone has had a great time, and in a way as usual after a long good passage, sad to be arriving as we are in a good routine aboard Field Trip. We?ll update tomorrow upon our safe arrival.

We are still having less than forecast winds?so it makes for some slow sailing. I know the winds are going to pick up?so when they do we?ll have more than enough. Until then, we are looking at an early AM Tuesday arrival to Siagro, Philippines. All is well onboard and we keep waiting for the winds to pick up?. :)

It has been a light air comfortable sail. We?ve been sailing slowly the past 36 hours, with light winds and calm seas. We just flicked on the motor about two hours ago when the winds all but died down to 5 kts out the NE. It?s not possible to really make much headway with the banging sails so we took a knee and started an engine. The winds should start to pick up soon?so it hopefully won?t be too long. Happy crew, happy wife?all is good. :)

We left yesterday around 2pm from Colonia, Yap, and are now well underway to Philippines. We?ve been having a great sail, with moderate trade winds, following seas, and happy crew. We expect to arrive Monday next week. The total passage is about 730NM, so it will be our longest passage in a while. Michael said he was sad this was his last long passage before school in the Fall. My mom is also aboard, so we have one extra crew. Watch schedule is easy with three adults, so we are enjoying the trip with extra time to read and rest.

We had a great time at the village celebration and left around 3.30pm yesterday for YAP. We sailed all night and are now about 2 hours away from the pass. It was a great sail?light winds, following seas and overall very comfortable. We will be here for several days before departing for the Philippines.

Today is the big day in the village. It is a full day of eating, dancing and playing games in celebration of their local church founder/priest. We made a couple of cakes and will be going ashore at 8am for church. It should be a lot of fun. We will probably leave this afternoon for YAP so we can arrive early in the morning on Sunday to clear in and get some things done before heading out to the Philippines.

We are still here at Ulithi and woke up to a blustery, rainy morning. We?ll take it easy today, and go ashore once this rain stops. Tomorrow is a big party, in remembrance of the founder of their church on the island, so it should be a blast. Lots of singing, dancing and food. We plan to leave either Saturday or Sunday afternoon form the 100NM trip to Yap.

We arrive to Ulithi and had a great welcoming from the local village at MogMog. All our friends were here, and the kids were on shore singing a song to Michael as we approached. It was great fun to be back with people we know. We?ll offload our stuff we brought from Guam, and get things started with fixing boats. All is well an we are thrilled to be back.

All is going much better as the sea state has settled and there are no 35kt squalls on the horizon. We are about 20NM from the entrance to the atoll, and should be arriving to the village in Ulithi by 2 or 3pm today. Everyone is doing much better and we are excited to see our friends here.

We?ve been getting more wind than forecast. It?s been blustery and the sea state rather confused?so not great for comfort aboard Field Trip. We will be arriving tomorrow around noon to Ulithi. Otherwise, all is OK?but we will be glad to get there!

We are departing in about an hour from Guam, sailing to Ulithi Atoll and then off to Yap. We expect to trip to take just over two days at 370NM. We will have following seas and winds of 18-20kts then entire trip. Should be a nice ride with good trade winds. We?ve enjoyed the American luxuries of Guam, but they come at a price?so we are glad to get going although we are leaving good friends behind. More updates as we are underway.

We?ve had a very busy several weeks getting Field Trip ready to go back to Yap. We have new engines! We had them in place before Christmas so it was a heck of a present. Volvo paid for everything, including dockage fees, wood, etc for all the lifts required to remove the engines on our boat. I?m thrilled. Literally, I probably spent a grand total of $25 for some extra wood to brace the engines, and cardboard, otherwise, that was it. The invoice to Volvo was $8,500 for labor and materials, not counting the engines?so it was a $40k+ present. We will be leaving on Friday for Yap. All is well and we are getting excited to get on the sea again!

An update from Field Trip. We?ve settled into Guam rather easily. Gotten plugged into the local community, and are enjoying some comfort food from the many different options that remind us of home. Sad news is one of our good friends that sailed with us around Borneo and through Sulawesi passed away over the weekend. We are in shock. We became fast friends on the rally, and it is just terrible to hear the news. We?re waiting for Volvo to approve the costs for engine replacement. It?s expensive here?so I am expecting some pushback from the local dealer as the costs seem extremely high. We expect to have the engine replacement start this week?...

We are a day late on our update. We arrived safely to Guam. We had a great last 18 hours of beam reaching in 10-13kts of wind. It was a very good sail overall, and we made it here with 1 tack, and no close reaching. Seas were a bit rough, but very glad we took this window and are now here. Engines should arrive on Mon/Tue and we will hopefully be getting them replaced late this week or early next week. That the is plan.

We had three reefs last night to keep the boat slowed down as the rough seas made for uncomfortable ?fast? sailing. Today we pulled to all but one reef and are moving along nicely with a better sea state. Our max speed yesterday was 17.3 kts on a large swell?too fast and too uncomfortable and too ?shaky? for us. :) We won?t make a daylight arrival so our plans are to anchor in the harbor upon arrival around 9pm tonight. All is going much better as the sea state is a lot better and less confused.

Overall we?ve been having good sail. Seas are large and somewhat confused as expected from the tropical storm, but otherwise, we are making good progress. We will be arriving to Guam tomorrow.

We left around noon for Guam. It was to messy at anchor and much more comfortable sailing. All is going well. We should arrive on Saturday.

Let?s just say it is howling here. We?ve have a very bumpy night at anchor here in the lagoon. The winds have been howling during this tropical storm. We?ve seen consistent winds of mid 30?s with gusts in low 40?s. It made for a slightly stressful night making sure we don?t drag or have any equipment failures. Our secondary anchor rode broke in 40 knots. I wasn?t surprised as the one we used was smaller than our primary, but needed to use it for 100m of scope. Primary anchor has not budged, so our concern has been chafe, and making sure the bridle remains intact. Fortunately it is a new bridle I just put on several weeks ago. We?ll wait out the weather a bit more, but getting antsy to run with this wind vs. sit here on the hook getting smashed. ;)

We had a great day. The village had a small ?going away? party for us, with large baskets of food, which included fish, coconut crabs, and local tarro. They sang songs and wished us well. Of course, we?ve been delaying our departure as this storm is going a bit slower than originally thought and we will end up waiting until Thur or Fri before we leave for Guam. The winds have clocked here as well to the N, and will continue to clock around as the low passes. We also had a dive yesterday.

The winds have died down here, which makes it very nice in the lagoon. The howling 18-22kts for the past several days made the entry/exit to the beach rough and wet. Now it is much better. We plan on leaving tomorrow for a direct run to Guam. We?ve really enjoyed our time here, and will probably stop back here after the engines are replaced on our way to the Philippines.

We had some kids come up and ask us if they could play on the boat. They did not make it with the other group?so?we said sure. It turned out to be another two loads of kids, about 20 more, who played on our boat until lunch. It was fun to see them going crazy, but it was loud and we were a bit tired. We hope to catch this window mid week after the low passes to Guam. Weather models have been mixed, with another low behind this one?so we will see, but really would like to make this window work.

The chief asked us to have another movie night, so we did. It was a big rough out on the trip to shore, but worth the effort as everyone showed up again and had a lot of fun. We also had the kids over to the boat for about two hours to play in the water. It was about 25 kids onboard playing, screaming and having fun. Needless to say we were tired by the end of the day. Church today with the village and hopefully some rest.

Another fun day with the village. Sarah and kids went to the elementary school to teach, and I stayed with the guys. We put on a movie night last night for the village. We have a small projector and speakers, so we had a movie night. Sarah made lots and lots of popcorn and Elizabeth made about 80 cookies. It was a blast. Today will be more low key, maybe even some diving.

The boat is fixed, top and bottom, and we used up all the resin. We are keenly watching the weather models. GFS shows a strong depression moving this way, the other models not so much?so we are in a holding patter for sure until we get into mid week next week. Kids are going ashore with Sarah to help at the local school. All well

We had a great day yesterday with the village. I?ve been working on fiberglass boat repair and the kids after school played with the local kids. We are closely watching the weather, as a potential low may drop over the top of us next week. We want a low to pass so we can have a change in winds?but we don?t want a big one on top of us either. Otherwise, more work in the village today, and hopefully later this week or weekend some diving.

We arrived to Ulithi - Magnog island - yesterday around 2pm. It was an OK motor/sail most of the way. We received a warm welcome as we arrived. The chief had a VHF radio, and called us upon arrival. We were not sure if it was going to be a good welcome at first as we have already cleared out of the country. It was no problem. He was happy to have us and told us we could stay as long as we wanted. They are a traditional village here, like others in Micronesia. No cellular, no wifi, just SSB radio for weather and communication. Everyone wears the traditional outfits, bottoms only, men and women. We will be here waiting out the next low, to see what happens. Hopefully it will be a miss (and we don?t have to sail back to Yap), and we can ride the back up to Guam. That is our plan, we?ll keep YIT updated.

We left Yap yesterday during this small window to sail to Ulithi, about 100NM NE. We needed to get some miles under the boat and this will break up the trip to Guam. We will wait there until a window appears for the 350 mile hop. If a typhoon heads our way, we will jump back down to Yap. We expect to arrive in about 5 hours.

We had a ?Hippy Jam Session? last night aboard Field Trip. Our neighbors, self proclaimed hippies, came over toting a bunch of instruments, and we spent hours last night playing and singing aboard Field Trip. It was a blast?even though I am not musically inclined. Logged two dives yesterday, and spearfishing. Diving here is average, but we have not been to any of the ?good? sights just yet.

Yap is very low key, and that makes it nice. There is another boat here that arrived from PNG. Three POBs, all young, from Italy, France and China. They all met in NZ and started from there. We are having them over for dinner tonight. We?ll be staying here until the low passes early next week and then we will probably head over to Ulithi Atoll, and wait there for a window to Guam. We start diving today! My ears are better and we should be good to go.

We arrived to Yap with no issues, and have cleared into the country, with the exception of Immigration. We will meet them tomorrow at their offices. They are having a Dengue outbreak, mainly on the outer islands, and some areas have been quarantined, and this villages are not allowed to travel to other islands. They seem to be taking it very seriously. Three deaths of children so far...

We had a good night of sailing, and then the winds dropped to about 5kts. We?ve had the engine on ever since, as the winds are very light out of the west. Sea calm with a slight swell. Our engines are not shipping until this week, so we will stop over in Yap for several weeks to a month or so, waiting for the next weather window to Guam and enjoy Yap. We still plan on returning to Yap from Guam on our sail back to Malaysia. All is well onboard, and we expect to arrive in the afternoon.

Having a good sail today. Comfortable seas, light winds, mostly sunny skies. We expect the wind to start falling behind us soon?so that will slow us down a bit. We heard from Volvo our engines have not shipped yet?so we may stop at Yap for a month or so before heading up to Guam. More later.

This is a correction to our Lat. Thanks Lanny from Swiftsure in letting my know I screwed up the N/S component?.We?ve had a decent trip so far. Less wind than expected. We were hoping for a bit more wind, but we?ve averaged less than 10 kts most of the way. The wind has been wobbly as we near the center of the low, so hopefully it will pick up a bit. Otherwise, all is well aboard as we head NE.

We?ve had a decent trip so far. Less wind than expected. We were hoping for a bit more wind, but we?ve averaged less than 10 kts most of the way. The wind has been wobbly as we near the center of the low, so hopefully it will pick up a bit. Otherwise, all is well aboard as we head NE.

We?ve just left the pass in Palau and are heading NE to either YAP or Guam. We are waiting to hear back from Volvo if our engines are delayed?and if so, we?ll stop in Yap, otherwise we will continue on to Guam with this good weather window. Surprisingly we have only 5-7kts of wind out here. Yesterday at the same time around the corner we had 22-27kts of wind. We are in the lee, but we should be seeing more wind than this?hope it picks up! :)

We are still at Sam?s location, and will be here for another day or two?.we are seriously considering taking this weather window and heading direct to Guam. More later, but that is our plan at the moment. Very messy we weather?but winds are favorable for a NE sail?...

We had a GREAT time in Peleliu, exploring the WWII relics and sites. We left yesterday for Koror, and had a nice sail with 15kts on the beam most of the 30NM to here. We?ll be here until later this week before checking out and heading to Yap. All is well.

Yesterday was epic diving. Everyone was happy, especially Elizabeth and Sarah. They both said it was one of their best dives ever. 40+m water visibility, large manta rays swimming overhead, lots of sharks and schools of fish. We hated to leave, but the park pass was expiring and we needed to get going down to Peleliu. We are now anchored in the small harbor that was created during WWII. It?s very serene here, and we are looking forward to touring this historical island.

We moved over to Long Beach for the day/night to spend some time on the beach with the kids for Halloween. It was a fun night of costumes and trick or treat onboard. We?ll have one more dive this morning on German Wall, and then head down to Pelilieu and explore the WWII history.

We are anchored off the German Channel, and did a dive yesterday. To summarize the diving so far, we?ve been spoiled over the years. The diving here is good. The diving in other places so far is better, namely Indonesia, PNG and Solomon Islands. There are some dives we are not able to do that are known to be outstanding?like Blue Corner. We?re close to Blue Corner, but it?s a tricky current dive so we will pass on this dive for now.

This is called I believe Seven Islands. It is a nice spot with three beaches. Kids had fun playing in the afternoon. We are moving today since we want to dive and will be heading to German Channel for a couple of days. It is supposed to be great diving there.

More good diving yesterday. This is a really nice spot, and we had some good rain last night to fill up the tanks. We?ll be moving this morning to what is called seven islands, and stay there for a couple of days, diving the wall and the kids playing on the beach. All is well.

Sarah and E had a good dive yesterday in the Ulong Channel. My ears are still messed up so no diving for at least a week or two. Michael and I snorkeled the pass. It was similar to passes we?ve dived in PNG and Solomons. Nice pass, lots of fish, relatively clear water. More diving today and tomorrow here before we head south to German Channel for more diving.

We moved over to ?Cemetery Cove?, a nice place near a good snorkeling spot. We?ll be here for a night or two before moving over to our next spot. It?s been rainy and cloudy, as forecast. Nice because it is cooler, but not so nice for snorkeling and diving as the light is not great.

We had a decent night last night. It was a little rolly in here given the entrance and tide changes, but very mild, and overall OK. We will be moving today to another location and continue to explore this area. This whole area is very similar to Raja Ampat, Indonesia. There are also similarities to Fulanga, Fiji. All beautiful with similar landscape.

We finally left Sam?s Place and moved out to a nice spot as we start to explore the Rock Islands in Palau. It is beautiful here, and right behind the boat is a nice dive site and snorkeling spot.

We arrived no problems to Palau. I'm late on this entry. Officials were easy, and we cleared in about 15 minutes with all authorities. The biggest issue is price. It cost a total of $700 USD to clear, including the vessel tax, and everything else. Needless to say, very expensive to visit Palau, and it is only getting more expensive as the years click by. Next year it will cost $950 USD for us to clear...if we were to come back. That's not going to happen anytime soon. Too bad, as this place is pristine. The Discovery channel was here the past several days filming the red snapper spawing. It was supposed to be amazing...but we've not had a chance yet to jump in the water. We'll be here for about a month before heading north to Yap. All is well.

We hoved to last night to stop the boat as we were going too fast and didn't want to arrive at night to Palau. We are now sailing again and should arrive around 8am tomorrow morning. We have 130NM left to sail, so we will still need to slow down a bit, but at least we will be arriving in the morning.

IWe are still sailing, and have found the current to finally slow down and can now make better progress without the 1.5kts against us. We expect to arrive Thur AM, early. All is well.

IWe finally have the motors off, and are now sailing. It's been hit and miss with the winds, more miss than a hit. We hope to be able to arrive by Friday at the latest saiing around 3-4kts with the winds behind us most of the way. Spinnaker was up yesterday and it was decent, but still only 6-8kts of wind.

It's been motoring for the past 24 hours. Light winds, but beautiful weather. So far as expected. We'll get some building of winds soon as this low up north passes. We're tracking the low as it could form a typhoon and we are/will be in the middle of the passage to Palau with not much out here but space and lots of sea. So far no issues but we are watching closely. We expect to arrive to Palau late Thur or Friday AM sailing dependent...that is why we are motoring to get close enough to Palau so we can jump in and get shelfter if needed....

We've had an intersteing couple of days. Friends of ours have engine problems on the monohull. The blew 2 impellers, and have some seawater cooling issues...so...we are currently towing them to Tobelo, about 50NM south to a port where they can fly out for spare parts to Singapore. Needless to say, they are stressed, but all is well. We've never towed a boat before with Field Trip, and she is doing fairly well. We are delayed in our departure to Palau. More later....

We are at anchore here at Pulau Doi. It is beautiful here...no village, just fisherman and very nice clear water. We'll be here for another day or two waiting for the weather to pick up for our 500NM sail to Palau.

We are almost to this small island where we will anchor for a couple of days waiting for weather. A cracking good sail for most of the way and then wind dropped to 0-5kts so motoring now

We are finally leaving the Lembeh Strait. It?s been fantastic here...with some of the best muck diving in the world. Incredible. We are now sailing to Palau via maybe one or two stops. Depends on weather...but for now we plan to arrive next week. All is well.

We are anchored here at Manado, and it is a beautiful location. Good amenities on shore and overall calm. Only ding is the anchorage is DEEP. We are in 30m, and it drops of to 100m about 30m from our anchor. We have 110M out, and under the boat we are sitting at 40m as we swing off the shelf. The good news is the prevailing winds blow us off shore, so if we were to somehow drag (we would be drifting at sea with no issues.

We are about 8 NM from anchoring. We had a great night last night with good winds and a crisp sail. We should be anchoring in about two hours and get ready to check out this area for provisions and diving. The anchorage is steep and deep here, but should be OK for a night or two.

The sailing has been going well, even is a bit slow. It?s been beautiful weather, and we are enjoying the trip. We should arrive tomorrow at some point, depending on wind. Currently slow sailing at 2.5 - 3kts with 5-6kts of wind. All is well.

We left Maratha yesterday around noon, and so far have had a great sail. We?ve had to motor in small increments due to the wind dying out, but overall we?ve sailed most of the way so far to the NE corner of Sulawesi. We have about 280NM left, and should arrive in the AM on the 11th.

We?re still here at this atoll/island. It is beautiful here, with good diving and excellent scenery. This is a place you could easily spend a month. However, it will soon be time to move on, in the next day or two, to the next atoll about 30NM south of here.

We arrived safely yesterday morning to the atoll. It is beautiful here, and we are glad we had a great trip. We?ll probably be here for a week or maybe a bit more, as we explore this area, do some diving and then wait for a good window to head direct to Manado Sulawesi. There are about 20 boats here, most from the rally, using this as a stop enroute to their next stop. We are glad to be over with the rally...and hope they leave soon to give us some space. ;)

We just picked up anchor here at Nunikan Island Indonesia. This was our first port to clear into the country and we are now officially ?not? with the rally. We are happy to be parting ways with the rally. It was not our deal, but we needed to do it to stay safe, so no complaints from there. We have about 135NM run to a beautiful atoll that is good for diving and relaxing. We will be there in about 24hrs, give or take depending on wind.

We are anchored here in a marine park, with the rest of the boats. The diving has been OK, but not great. However, we are seeing some amazing new nudibranchs, so that is good. We will be diving Sipidan tomorrow, for a total of three dives with the local dive operation. That should be good assuming the weather holds.

We are underway with 27 other boats, to our next stop in the ?ESSZONE? as it is called up here. Lots of security. We counted a total of 5 escort boats this morning as we sailed past the small village. All good, and looking forward to safer waters.... :)

We are sailing to our first ?high risk? anchorage with the 27 other yachts. The military and police are escorting with three black gun boats and one large cutter. We will anchor for the night and depart at 0500 for the highest risk area on the NE corner of Borneo. We?ll be in tight formation and should be fine. Otherwise, all is well.

We are still in Sandakan, on the northern tip of Borneo. We'll be leaving this morning (hurray) to head up to the Kinabantangan River to hopefully see the pygmy elephants, and other jungle animals. It is about 35NM from here, so should be an easy arrival with the group. We've really enjoyed Borneo...but not so mucn the rally. Ugh. Nothing worse than 28 boats being herded around to the same anchroages, under tight 2NMx4NM sailing box. Oh well, security is necessary, so it is what it is.

We are at anchor, and have not officially started the ESCOM (military) escort around the top of Borneo. We are with 29 other yachts, and making this trip. It will take three weeks and we will have various stops along the way. I?m on the 4-6am night watch here in the anchorage. We have a coast guard vessel anchored on our SB side. There are also black military inflatables patrolling the water. So far so good. If not tune into CNN for an update. :)

We are on the move again from Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia up to Kudat Malaysia. We were in an outstanding marina for the past 5 days. Fully equipped with 2 large swimming pools, covered tennis course, full gym, golf course, billiard hall, Brunswick bowling lanes, 4 proper restaurants. It?s the nicest marina we?ve ever been too. Hard to believe it was in Borneo!!!

We are underway from Labuan, Malaysia to the small islands called Pulau Tiga. It is here that the first Survivor series was filmed, and is supposed to be beautiful...with some good diving. We should arrive around 4pm today.

We are leaving Brunei this morning and sailing over to Labuan. We hope to arrive in Labuan by lunchtime, as it?s only 20 miles. We just haven?t really clicked with Brunei. Lots of reasons, none relating to the news about Sharia over the past couple of months. Regardless, we wouldn?t recommend this stop in the future assuming you spent time in Miri, Malaysia - which is GREAT.

We?ve been getting a weird vibe here in Brunei. Not sure how to describe it, but it?s very laid back, lots of the local women are obese, and while friendly, I would not call it warm as in Indonesia or Sarawak. For being a ?wealthy? country, the roads are fairly dilapidated compared to Malaysia.

We had a great time in Miri, Malaysia, and are now in Brunei. We arrived yesterday afternoon after a great trip up here from Miri. We?ll be here for maybe a week or less, before heading to Labuan, Malaysia.

We are still here at the marina, and enjoying our time getting things done. We fly out this morning and will be going to Mulu National Park, an UNESCO world heritage site for 4 days. It is in the middle of the jungle, and has some amazing caves and things to do with the kids. We return back to Field Trip on July 2nd.

We are in the Miri Marina. We arrived yesterday morning after a night on the hook near the entrance. It is a decent Marina with easy access to town via Grab. There are lots of boats here that are part of the Borneo rally, probably 25 so far. About 40 in total are going around the top with military escort. All is well and we will get on boat projects this morning....

The past 24hours we?ve been able to sail. Last night was a decent night, but we went through a large area of offshore oil platforms that were full of supply barges, over 20 in total, out pulling their loads. It was a little bit of dodging the barges last night, and the squalls. Fortunately all the action was during my 12-6am watch, so Sarah slept well. :)

We?ve had a good motor sail...but over the past 12 hours, only enough wind to barely sail with 4-7kts from directly behind...so we chose to run the engine to make some progress. Now we are sailing with 8kts at 120 AWA with our big sail up. We plan to arrive Monday morning early if all goes well. :)

This is about stopover anchorage for the next four hours as we wait until this evening before heading out for a direct sail to Miri, Malaysi. This sail is about 350NM and will take us two days.

We spent yesterday being tourists, and went to the national park to see some Orangutans, and then to a cultural village that highlighted how the local tribes of Borneo once lived in the jungle. It was very interesting and the kids had a great time.

Yesterday we explored downtown Kuching with the family and had a great time. This morning we are off to visit the Orangutans in the jungle along with a cultural village that show how the jungle ?tribes? of Borneo live and survive off the land. Kids are excited!

We arrived no issues to Kuching, Malaysia. Yesterday we checked into the country and explored the town. This is a beautiful place, tucked into the jungle do Borneo. This morning we are off to see the Orangutans, and explore the city river walk. We?ll be here for another several days as we explore the area before heading to a national park via the boat.

We are underway, on the final leg to Kuching, Malaysia. We should arrive before noon tomorrow. We have flat seas and virtually no wind. We are motoring, with the main up...but the wind is mainly behind us at the moment.

We just arrived to this spot for an overnight anchorage. We are not even sure if this island is Indonesia or Malaysia. :) We had a great sail here. It's now dead calm with sunny skies and 4:50pm. We'll be off tomorrow for another anchorage that Elizabeth wants to visit about 14NM from here. All well.

We are underway, heading towards Kuching, Malaysia. We will stop along the way, for a night or two at an outer island. We've have great wind, until now. It has slowed down, and changed direction, making it a bit harder to head ESE. We plan to arrive at the first stop later today. It will be about 170NM from Tarempa.

We arrived back to Tarempa to clear out of Indonesia for Malaysia. We will finish the process tomorrow and then leave for Kuching. All is well...sad to leave the Anambas Islands. It's beautiful here.

We are still here, and sad to say the diving is very poor in this location. It looks nice on the satellite imagery, but the coral is dead, in some cases knocked down by fisherman using explosives. Overall, not good. We plan to leave tomorrow for Tarempa to check out and then sail towards Kuching later this week.

We've moved to a new anchorage. Let's just say it is like the Swiss Family Robinsons here. We met a very nice family, at the recommendation of our friends on Il Sogno, who live here with two kids. They are a French/Dutch couple that are living as 'Hunter Gatherers". In summary, they are subsiting off the land as much as possible, don't cook any food (yes, they eat raw everyting, from pork, to chicken, to whatever they find to eat). It was a fun converstaion yesterday about their lifestyle, and we will spend more time with them over the next several days. The kids hit it off very quickly and are excited to have some new playmates.

We are now anchored at a new place, and unfortunately there are six boats here. Ugh. Most are part of the Indo rally and will be heading off today/tomororw. The diving yesterday was OK, but not great. We hope to find some more spots that will be in the 'great' category. :)

The weather has taken a dive, and we?ve had cloudy days the past two days. Yesterday was rain almost all day, while good for the water tanks, not as good for diving as we generally don?t dive if there are squalls and lightening in the area. So, we got in one dive in the morning, and then spent the rest of the day aboard, reading, working on photos and videos, etc. Today we?ll do one more dive before heading out to another spot.

We are still here at the same spot. It's a bit rolly now as the wind switched to the N with a squall. It should settle down over the next couple of hours. We also did a couple more dives, all good, and some great photos.

We had a another good day of diving and exploring the islands. We'll be here for another couple of days before we have to start moving east. Today will be more diving and some drone footage of the surrounding areas.

We found our spot. This is the best anchorage we have been in in over a year. It's beautiful, stunning coral, lots of fish, sandy bottom for anchor and outstanding scenery. We did a great dive and lots of snorkeling yesteday. The islands around us are deserted, and there is a lot of exploring to do. We'll be here for a while.... :)

We had two days of excellent diving, and are now underway to our next stop about 15nm away. The diving there is supposed to be excellent, so we will see. It?ll be hard to beat the last spot. The weather overall has been great. We had a good squall yesterday afternoon that filled our tanks. Looks like we may get another afternoon squall.

We moved over to here yesterday enroute to one of the top diving areas in this location. I dove our anchor and found some very interesting coral formations I?ve never seen before. Water was not super clear, but still a nice dive. We?ll stay here for another day, explore the outside diving and then head over to our next stop. So far we are loving the Anambas islands and the remote, beautiful cruising grounds.

We logged two dives yesterday and enjoyed the warm, clear water. The coral is pristine...but there are not a lot of fish. Hmmm...hope we find a spot that has both fish and coral. :). We?ll be moving back to the main town this afternoon to finish clearing with the port captain before we find another spot. Nice to be in a secluded anchorage!!

We arrived to the main town at 9am yesterday and was able to checking and do all but the port captain (closed until Monday). The formalities were very easy and everyone was nice. We then moved to our new spot, Turtle Island, for some solitude and diving. We were able to get in one dive yesterday afternoon and check out the anchor. The water is 31 degrees and 40m+ in visibility. More diving today.

It was a tough watch last night. Sarah said it was her most stressful ever. Lots of boat traffic, fishing boats dragging nets, squalls, etc. We had 105 AIS targets on the screen at one time. Needless to say, it was not a relaxing night. How things are much better. Sunny skies, calm seas and no boats anywhere. We?ll have to slow down to arrive in the light for tomorrow. Otherwise, all is going well.

We?ve just passed Singapore, and are now getting close to a course change for a direct run to the Anambas Islands, Indonesia. It has been very uneventful, while a lot of traffic, still all good. Our friends on another boat were struck by lightening yesterday in Singapore, and will not be making the Anambas islands with us. We expect to arrive early Saturday morning.

We are underway to Anambas Islands. We are just south of Singapore and heading across the straight. It?s early morning and VERY busy with traffics. All is well..

We just anchored. 12 hours of motorsailing and we chewed off 88NM! We were ripping today and had some good current. We?ll overnight here and then get off early in the morning for Port Dickson.

It?s been a long time since our last update. In short we were on the hard and getting our new coppercoat applied at Pangkor Marina in Malaysia. We had time with old friends, some we had not seen in years. Scotia, Perry, Gai and others were all at the marina. It was fun to catch up. Now we are on the way south to Ananbas Isalnds Indonesia. It will take a while as we have to transit the Malacca Straight, and that is tricky and can?t be done easily at night given the fishing nets, and general crap in the water.

We are checking into Malaysia, and are now in the Royal Langkawi Yacht Club. We'll be here for a day or two before moving forward to Penang. All is well...and it is hot!.

We made it to Koh Lipe Thailand. We had about 2-3 hours to spare on the port engine...so all it good. We bought overpriced diesel last night onshore ($5 USD gallon), and then had Thai food for dinner, a good nights rest and now we are motoring on to Langkawi. We expect to arrive in about 5 hours, and will top up with fuel and clear into Malaysia.

We are still motor sailing. The wind has been little at best. We found out this afternoon that our fuel levels on the SB side were lower by 80L than expected. :-) In other words, we ran out of fuel on that side. Not a huge problem, but we are fighting more current and having to motor more than expected when we left Thailand...so our fuel consumption has been a lot higher. We did not wait for wind, as the forecast was showing similar conditions for the next week, and we had to leave due to visas. So, we are cutting it close of fuel and hope to find some in Koh Lipe, a small island about 30NM from Langkawi. If not, we'll end up slowly sailing the rest of the way if we get low on fuel on the SB side. Otherwise, all is well.

We've had a good 24hrs. Unfortunately, it's been all motor, but we expected that given the forecast. The biggest challenge has been countercurrent, knocking us down a knot over the past 20 hours. Now the current has subsided, so we are back on at 5kt+ motor. We are now planning to stop at Koh Lipe, Thailand on the way to Langkawi. We will arrive tomorrow around noon, grab some good Thai food and a massage...before continuing to Langkawi in the morning. Koh Lipe is only about 40NM from Kua, our port of clearance, so this gives us a nice stop for the night before getting to Langkawi.

We've had a good 24hrs. Unfortunately, it's been all motor, but we expected that given the forecast. The biggest challenge has been countercurrent, knocking us down a knot over the past 20 hours. Now the current has subsided, so we are back on at 5kt+ motor. We are now planning to stop at Koh Lipe, Thailand on the way to Langkawi. We will arrive tomorrow around noon, grab some good Thai food and a massage...before continuing to Langkawi in the morning. Koh Lipe is only about 40NM from Kua, our port of clearance, so this gives us a nice stop for the night before getting to Langkawi.

We are finally underway from Sabang, and now heading to Langkawi. It was a wonderful 3 weeks here, and we are VERY sad to be leaving. We expect almost no wind, and will have to motor, but it is what it is, and we are now underway.

We are at anchor, arriving yesterday to Sabang around noon. We had a great checkin experience, with all the officials arriving at one time to the boat. We literally had 10 officials onboard doing the checkin process. For Indonesia, that was REALLY efficient. I was shocked. We even did a time lapse video for fun...showing all the commotion with the folks on and off Field Trip. We are just getting settled into the anchorage and are VERY happy to be back. I did my first dive in the afternoon, all is great!! :)

We've been having a smashing good sail. Using our Parasailor and 10-15kts out of the east with sunny skies and following seas. All is going well and we are actually ahead of schedule. We have spaghetti for dinner and everyone is comfortable and happy. :-)

We are on a rhumb line at the moment for Sabang. We just flicked on the engines as the wind is around 6kts out of the NNE and giving us a slow broad reach. It is calm and beautiful out here tonight. All is well.

Finally, we are leaving Thailand!!!!!. We are heading out for Sabang Indonesia, one of our favorite spots in Sumatra. We will be there for about two weeks, and then continue our sail towards Malaysia. The BIG news for Field Trip is this journey begins our sail to Guam. Yep, we are heading to Guam to get new Volvo engines installed...for free...as part of the US emissions recall. So, our plans have changed dramatically, and we are now beginning a 6,000NM round trip from SE Asia to Guam and then back.

We logged three more dives yesterday here in the Similans. One of the dives in particular was very unique and beautiful with large boulders and lots of fish. We got some good photos. We are now at the next island north - Ko Bon - and will be here until tomorrow AM, when we need to head back towards Phuket for boat projects. Bummed, as we would like to spend another week up here diving, but must get back to reality of getting items fixed while we have good vendor options in the marina. The weather by the way has been outstanding. Sunny skies every day, 0-5kts and perfect diving conditions!

For most of the last month we've been in boat project mode, with some guests aboard for a week for diving and exploring. We are now on the move, currently in the Similan Islands diving with another boat. We've been logging three dives a day up here for the past two days. The diving is only 'OK', but any diving for us is good diving. We did have one of the better dives yesterday in the area. It was very good, but still nothing compared to Indonesia or PNG or the Solomons. So far, in all of Thailand the best diving has been in Ko Haa, an island group between Langkawi and Phuket. More updates this week as we move around and explore this island chain.

We are anchored at Ko Rok, and had two good dives today. Our friends Laura and James are aboard, and we've been diving every day for the past two days. We are moving up tomorrow morning to Ko Haa, and will spend probably two days there diving, before we set sail for Ao Chalong to check into Thailand.

We are anchored at Ko Rok, and had two good dives today. Our friends Laura and James are aboard, and we've been diving every day for the past two days. We are moving up tomorrow morning to Ko Haa, and will spend probably two days there diving, before we set sail for Ao Chalong to check into Thailand.

For most of the last month we've been in boat project mode, with some guests aboard for a week for diving and exploring. We are now on the move, currently in the Similan Islands diving with another boat. We've been logging three dives a day up here for the past two days. The diving is only 'OK', but any diving for us is good diving. We did have one of the better dives yesterday in the area. It was very good, but still nothing compared to Indonesia or PNG or the Solomons. So far, in all of Thailand the best diving has been in Ko Haa, an island group between Langkawi and Phuket. More updates this week as we move around and explore this island chain.

We moved to the Royal Langkawi Yacht Club to get some more boat projects done. The new sails are on the boat, autopilot is fixed and we are working on other projects before our friends arrive Friday afternoon and we head back to Thailand.

We arrived to Langkawi this afternoon after a two day 'hop' from Phuket. It was an overall uneventful sail outside of the wind gusts we got towards Langkawi. Our autopilot parts arrived today here at the marina, so I'll be repairing the autopilot tomorrow. There are a lot of boats here for sure...and we met a nice family with two teenagers who just bought a boat and are starting their journey.

The good news is the tropical storm was a dud. We never saw wind over 16kts, and it drizzled. We could get more rain today as the storm continues to pass, and the winds turn, but it's been very very calm. We actually are hoping for some rain as we would like to fill our tanks. Maybe later today....

We moved back to Ao Chalong to get into a better position for the tropical storm. This is the first storm like this to hit this area of Thailand in over 50 years. We are in a good position assuming the storm eye stays north of us. If it moves south, we will need to move a bit to get protected from easterly winds. Here is a link to a 360 Panorama that I took this morning with our drone: https://kuula.co/post/7YvTd .

We have been in Nai Harn bay for about a week. It's a nice place, with a good beach and decent surf. The kids have been ashore almost daily surfing the waves with their body boards. The food is also good here although there are a ton of tourists this time of year so it is very busy. We've been working hard to get boat projects finished while still trying to enjoy the holidays. We will be here for another day or so before we head out to maybe Padang Beach for New Years. All is well.

We are currently anchored in Ao Chalong. It's been a VERY busy week, with lots of boat projects, time in a Marina - the first time since NZ over 2 years ago, and getting to know Thailand. We made fast friends with Erik on another Antares who lives in Phuket. He's been VERY helpful for us and made our search for vendors much easier. Our list of boat projects include: new tubes for our dinghy, new cockpit enclosures, new upholstery throughout the boat, new set of sails, some woodwork fixes, and misc items that are not working that need to be fixed. It's going to be a busy month before more guests arrive. We've enjoyed having friends aboard, and are now enjoying getting back into our normal routines with school and projects. Overall we like Thailand (a bit more expensive than expected), but overall a nice area. We still prefer Indonesia...but that may change over time. :-)

We've been exploring the Phang Na area of Thailand with our friends. It's been a busy but fun several days. We will be heading to the marina today so we can drop them off for their flights tomorrow night. All is well.

We've been exploring the Phang Na area of Thailand with our friends. It's been a busy but fun several days. We will be heading to the marina today so we can drop them off for their flights tomorrow night. All is well.

We arrived to Phuket yesterday around 3.30pm after 30 hours of hand steering. It was really no issue as we had enough crew in rotation to make it easy. We are now checking into Phuket this morning and plan on exploring as much as possible with our friends before they leave on Friday evening.

Well, we had our autopilot go on the blink. We are getting a short somewhere in the system and it is tripping out breaker. I looked at it for an hour to no avail, so will wait until we are in flat water and I can pull the unit to check it out. So, we are hand steering the last 24 hours of the sail. Good news is we have plenty of crew aboard to help, so it is going OK. We'll be arriving tomorrow late afternoon at this rate to Phuket. Winds are also a little stronger than we expected and the forecasts were a bit off from our departure so it is more of a bash now, but all is well.

We've finally checked out of Indonesia with the boat. We are back at our anchorage for another night or two before we head to Thailand. Kate's mom is finishing her open water course today, and we'll get the bottom of the boat cleaned. The weather is looking reasonably good for the trip. While not loads of wind, it is at least not a full 200NM bash..so that is good.

We left around 10am yesterday for Phuket, Thailand with 7 POB. The sail has been overall very good, with vairable winds, and mostly motoring. That is OK given the winds are normally out of the NE, and we are heading NE....so all is well aboard. We literally just had a wind shift of 180 degrees from a dead run at 12kts to 12kts on the nose. We expect to arrive to Phuket Saturday late morning if all goes well.

Good news is everyone is back in the water and ears are fine. I finished the Rescue Diver course. Probably one of the best courses I've taken in a very long time. It was rigorous and fun. I was very tired after all the scenarios and 'search and rescue' components, but glad to be finished and have it off my list. We did a half day tour around the island on rented motorbikes. It was great fun. Some are doing a night dive tonight and Kate's mom is in the middle of her open water class. Weather has been outstanding.

Kate's ear infection is still going strong. She went to the hospital yesterday and was told to take essentially the same meds she is currently taking. Hopefully it will clear up by this weekend. I finished the first of four days for Rescue Diver. It was an intense day, but a lot of fun as well. The weather has been great, sunny skies and warm weather. In the afternoon, the kids spotted a forming waterspout, but fortunately it didn't make it to the anchorage.

Elizabeth finished her Advanced Open Water certification yesterday. She was excited. Kate still has an ear infection, so hopefully after the antibiotics and meds she will be better later this week. The diving here is good, and I hate to see her miss a great opportunity. We have some friends coming to town Friday as well, so we are excited to have more arrivals. We've really enjoyed this location, and plan on coming back for a month or two next year while I get my DiveMaster certification. We hope to have our friends from Lumbaz join us for a week or two up here as well...as we know they'll love this spot and the diving. Our plans are to be here until late next week, when the winds start to change for Phuket. All is well.

Elizabeth finished her Advanced Open Water certification yesterday. She was excited. Kate still has an ear infection, so hopefully after the antibiotics and meds she will be better later this week. The diving here is good, and I hate to see her miss a great opportunity. We have some friends coming to town Friday as well, so we are excited to have more arrivals. We've really enjoyed this location, and plan on coming back for a month or two next year while I get my DiveMaster certification. We hope to have our friends from Lumbaz join us for a week or two up here as well...as we know they'll love this spot and the diving. Our plans are to be here until late next week, when the winds start to change for Phuket. All is well.

Michael and Kate finished their Open Water certificates. Michael was beaming all day. It was great. We logged three dives today, including a night dive. The fish here are dense and diverse. Some of the largest populations of fish I've seen in a very very long time. We have our Emergency First Response certifications probably tomorrow and then Rescue Diver Tuesday- Friday. It will be a busy week for sure, but we are having a blast meeting new people and exploring. Four boats arrived here in the past 24 hours. A couple of them we were diving with in Komodo earlier this year. All are heading to Langkawi or Phuket in the next week or so.

Oops. I was remiss in giving an updated on our safe arrival several days ago. We've been so immersed in our surrounding, diving and exploring that I've been skipping the updates. Michael and Kate are taking their Open Water certifications. They finish their class today. It's been great to see them both enjoy the chalenge. The water is outstanding here with clarity and fish. The reef is not great, but everything else is good, much better than our stops along the west coast of Sumatra. We found the reefs better in Mentawai (so far), but the sheer volume of fish here and variety is great. I'll be doing my Rescue Diver this week, Sarah and E will get up to Advanced, and maybe Rescue if they are up for it. We have more friends arriving Friday, so we are hoping to get our extra certifications finished before they arrive. We plan on being here until probably the second week in December before leaving given the current weather patterns. All is well!

We've been having a good overall sail/motor. We caught a nice wahoo yesterday and had that for dinner. This morning, after my watch, we got smashed with a 30kt squall. It was 12NM x 24NM in dimension and push us along at 12.1kts. I was asleep for most of the action, but Sarah was on top of it and had the Code Zero furled and we were running with a reef in the main. After the squall passed after over 2 hours of hard wind, Kate and Elizabeth saw a pod of dolphins on our bow and spent 15 mins up front, in the rain watching the dolphins play in our wake. We expect to arrive tomorrow morning. All well, and calm aboard. :)

It's been an eventful 24 hours. We arrived to a great spot for some diving. While the water initially was not that clear, I was confident it was going to be good out on the reefs. We did 2 small dives with Kate, our crew, getting her up to speed on basic diving water skills. That went great. We cleaned our gear and left some of it outside drying overnight. We woke up in the morning to find two wetsuits, all booties, dive gloves and one mask stolen off the back of the boat. I was very agitated that we forgot to turn on the security light overnight, not to mention that we had a person onboard stealing stuff out of the cockpit and off the lines. We've NEVER had any issues in Indonesia, so this was our first...and hopefully last. After checking out the reefs yesterday by dinghy, I found that they were beaten up, poor visibility and some of the least attractive reefs we've seen in Indonesia so far. So, we picked up the anchor and have been sailing since 1pm yesterday. Our plan is to go direct to Pula Weh (north tip of Sumatra) for diving, diving, diving....and to replace some of our stolen gear. A real bummer, not to mention it was my birthday. Otherwise, all is well and we are off and sailing nicely with following seas and a comfortable ride.

We are leaving at 5am to head around the corner to a small group of islands for diving. We should get there around noon or 1pm. We are sad to be leaving new friends here in Nias, but must get going as the weather is good.

The past two days have been jammed packed with exploring Nias and their ancient megalith culture. The villages are some like we've never seen before in their architecture and use of stones. We are going back today for some drone footage of a couple of the more unique villages and hopefully some stone jumping if weather permits. Our hike yesterday was 10km through all sorts of terrain to the oldest known village in Nias. It was very very interesting and challenging at times as it drizzled most of the day and the trail in places was VERY slippery. We plan on leaving Friday for the next set of islands for diving, as we have been waiting out the NW winds in this cove. A

We arrived at 6am yesterday to Nias Island. It was a slow but comfortable trip, for a total of 203NM in 48 hours. We had a very good and interesting day on Sunday after our arrival. We spent some time watching the surfers and then went ashore to fly the drone. In short, I ended up having my iPhone stolen on the beach. There were literally 50-75 kids around, and I accidentally left it near the drone bag. I went back to the boat, looked up the iPhone location using the Find my Phone feature, found it moving around the village. I went ashore, found some 'police' and told them what happened using Google Translate. There were amazed that I could see the phone moving almost in realtime on Sarah's phone. They called in other criminal police, and we were off in a police van chasing the moving dot, and making a big scene. I was not hopeful as it is very hard to find the phone amongst of bunch of kids. The police frisked some kids that were near the moving dot, and long story shot, it spooked the kid who stole it as he ditched the phone behind an outside 'toilet'. We found the location, and used the 'alarm' feature of the phone to hear it ring...and found it!!! We then took the police back to the beach, and bought them a round or two of beer as a thank you. This is primarily a protestant island, so having a beer was no issue and the were happy to have some free drink. We ended up having dinner with them last night and had a small 'dance' party with the kids. It turned out to be a blast, and memories for sure.

We are underway heading WNW to Bolo Island. We hope to arrive mid day tomorrow. The winds have been very flaky up here with 180 degree shifts and 0kts - 21kts depending on the squalls. Overall though comfortable even though we are having to motor more than we would like. The good news is we have our updated visas and are going to spend the next month or so working up towards Aceh before we leave early December for Phuket Thailand. Our goal is to find some new dive sites and explore. Kate is aboard, a friends daughter, who is in college studying marine biology. She is excited to explore the ocean with us and has been a pleasure to have aboard.

We arrived back to Padang yesterday with our guests. I flew out to KL for a visa renewal hop and our other guest arrived...so it was a big day aboard swapping out guests and getting visas renewed. We are waiting here for weather and hope to be out of here Thur or Fri heading north. Until then I am finishing up our new Orangutan video for the blog and getting caught up on internet items.

We had a very good day diving. There was a spot we tried to find last time - a seamount - but could not. I figured I may have slid the waypoint by accident on my laptop, and I did. We had the wrong waypoint last week. We found the mount and dived it. Tons of fish, and the most Nudis we have ever seen on one dive. They were everywhere. It must be the currents in the area. Of all the nudis we saw, we saw one we had never seen before and a flatworm that was new to the area. Elizabeth was not on that dive (she loves Nudis) so we will go there again I suspect today before we leave tonight. All is well.

It was a calm night last night. No rain, just clouds and minimal breeze. Today we will be heading out for a dive in about 30 min, and plan to get three dives in today so we can get our guests in the water a couple of times today.

It's been a busy couple of days. First, we moved today to our other favorite spot by the sand island. We are here with another boat - sv/ Perry and their kids. We did a nice dive this afternoon after arrival. The big news was our friend at Aloita Resort - Roc - had his 6.5m aluminum resort surf boat sink. He had just put two new Suzuki 150 engines on the boat three days ago and woke up in the morning with the boat on the bottom of the ocean in 8m of water. We spent most of the morning with our scuba gear diving and helping get the boat lifted up and put onshore. Long story short, it required dumping about two full bottles of air into the bilge to blow out the water and get the boat buoyant enough for the crew of about 15 guys on shore to pull the boat forward and slowly get is to shallow water. Finally, it was rightside up (it was upside down on the bottom) and they got the water pumped out. The engines are still being salvaged and hopefully by tomorrow they will be up an running - probably without a starter motor but we shall see. Otherwise, all is well and we will be here until Saturday night.

We've enjoyed being back here in the Mentawais. Our new friend and owner of the resort here - Roc - was happy to see us and invited us to lunch. We had drinks last night and he also invited us to go on a video shoot with the female 2017 World Champion long board surfer who is staying at his resort. The film is being shot mainly with drones, and he has a team of 3 here doing the filming. We hope we can join them but we have other sailing friends arriving today - so we don't want to bolt to another island too early. We'll see what happens. All is well and I have a small dive class to teach with our guests for some shallow water diving today.

We are now back to the Mentawais after a smooth motor all night with our new guests. It was an easy trip. We'll be here for 3-5 days exploring this area some more and waiting for friends to arrive on there boats. We expect to have 2-4 more boats arriving over the next week to this area. All friends of ours we've met while diving in Komodo, and all wanting to dive. Sad to be here without our friends on Lumbaz. It's

Well, we've been in Padang now for 24 hours. We had an excellent time with our friends and are sad to have them gone. Kids are sullen as they miss their friends..but school is now underway onboard so they will be back in their normal routine. We pick up Sarah's nephew Thursday morning and then head back to the Mentawai islands for more exploring and diving. All well onboard.

We leave in an hour from the beautiful spot to sail to Padang. We've had an outstanding week with our friends and it will be sad to see them leave. The winds will be low and variable so we'll probably have to motor most of the way. It's about 85NM, so we plan on arriving in the morning so they can catch a flight.

We had another great day here. This anchorage is excellent. We can swim to the sandy beach island or the island to our south. The diving has been the best we've seen in Sumatra, and everyone is doing great. We have on final day tomorrow before we have to sail back to Padang for s/v Lumbaz to catch their flight back to KL. The kids were on the beach all day making forts and clean up all the plastic. They are having a great time playing on the beach while the 'adults' dive... :)

We moved today after our morning dive to a spot about 20NM north. It is beautiful here, with a small 'all sand' island and lots of waves. There are a ton of surfers in this area and the waves around the corner are around 3m+. We'll explore more tomorrow diving and spend some more time on the beach. The kids are having a blast and it really does not feel like 10 POB. All is well.

I've missed a couple of days doing the update. We arrived no issues to the Mentawai islands around 9am on Sunday. We were in the water diving at 11am, and logged a couple of dives after arrival with our friends from Lumbaz. We have a total of 10 POB and it has been great. The diving is not spectacular, but any dive is a good dive, so everyone is having fun. All 10 are divers, so we are rotating and are trying to make three, 4 person dives a day. It's all about schedules with early dive at 7am, 10am and 2pm. :) This place is beautiful and the surf resort we are anchored next to has been very very nice. We'll be here another day or so before moving up to the next island in the Mentawai for some more exploring before sailing back Padang on Friday night.

Yesterday was the wettest day we've had since leaving New Zealand over two years ago. It rained and rained and we got soaked going to Immigration for our visa renewals. The good news is the outlook is now better and we leave late PM for the Mentawai islands for diving. I can't wait to get back in the water and dive with friends. We will be there for about a week before sailing back here to swap out guests and pick up Sarah's cousin...for more diving.

We've enjoyed being in one spot for a bit. We've been on the move the past two weeks covering 1,100NM, so we are taking a break and getting some things done on the boat like fixing water catching system (lots of rain here), sorting out visas, and getting provisions and fuel. While not a great spot regarding anchorage, it's got 4G data and it is a low traffic area so overall it's nice. We leave Saturday evening with our friends from s/v Lumbaz to head offshore for diving and water activities.

We had a good motor/sail into the harbor yesterday afternoon. We are now getting ourselves familiar with Padang as we prepare for our friends and get ready for some diving. The weather has been a lot more rainy than we are used to, but this is how things are at this latitude. We were spoiled with clear sunny skies for over a month, no rain and lots of solar for the batteries. We will be going to Immigration this afternoon for visa renewals and begin to plan our next journey.

We had to motor overnight as the winds dropped and we got slammed with lots of squalls. We are now sailing again and should be arriving later today to Padang. It is wet, wet, wet outside, but otherwise all is wel.

It's been a good sail. Almost all a dead run, wing on wing. We hit our first squall in over a month, with some decent rain to wash the boat. We decided to make a run straight for Padang vs. stopping along the way so we can get some items sorted and visa renewals underway in Padang. We expect to arrive tomorrow afternoon.

So far the sailing has been very good. Following seas and an almost dead run. We are sailing wing on wing and hope the wind continues for at least another 24 hours as we sail farther north towards Padang, Sumatra. We plan exploring some of the outer islands before working our way to Padang by Thursday for visa renwals and picking up some friends. All is well.

WOW. What a day we had. We spent a total of 14 hours exploring the jungle, seeing the tigers, and learning all about their natural habitat. We had one of our best days we ever had, and our best day in Indonesia so far. It was just great. First class service, proper 'safari' jeeps with seats on the roof, excellent guides, great food and lots and lots of exploring. We even had horseback riding to look for tigers and rare monkeys. It was just great. Regardless, we now have to leave to continue our journey north to Padang. We'll make 1-2 stops along the way looking for good diving spots before our friends from KL join us next weekend. We plan on a week of diving with them and then Sarah's cousin arrives for 10 days to Padang for more exploring and diving. All well aboard FT other than we had to leave this beautiful national park.... :)

We arrived last night around 7pm to the national park. We were greeted after a lot of flashing lights ashore by a park ranger and some guys in a boat. Very nice chaps, but insistent I go ashore to meet with the manager. So, by now it was 8pm and I went ashore. The security guard was carrying a baseball bat. I found out while walking to the station that the bat was to keep animal 'away' if they came too close. This place was crawling with wildlife as we walked to the ranger station. We sorted out the details of this place, finding out it is a no anchoring marine reserve as well as a land based reserve. So, for a fee of $60USD we get to use the large park mooring. We signed up for the jungle trekking for today, including the tiger rehabilitation station. All told, it should be a good day today,but was not inexpensive... :)

We are slowly sailing past the volcano, which is currently erupting. We decided to check online for any warning before anchoring at the base of the volcano for a close up experience and diving. Unfortunately, it is a tad bit too active for us, rated yesterday a 4/5 on volcanic activity....with warnings not to be closer than 1km to the crater....so...we are being prudent, dont' want a ton of ash on the boat or sails...and are going to sail off to Sumatra. I am very bummed as I really wanted to dive the new reefs around the edge of the volcano. We dove the reefs in Banda Island and they were really amazing....UGH!!!

We had to update you YIT account to post. We were offshore and just now got some land based cellular internet. We are having a great sail, and all is well onboard. The winds have died so we are now motoring, but the crew is happy. We will be arriving to Kracatau this morning for some diving before we push off towards Sumatra. We plan on stopping to a reserve that rehabilitates the Sumatra Tiger...should be interesting.

All has been going well. We were averaging 8 kts until about 5 hours ago when the wind dropped out. We are now motoring.

Well it's been flat out aboard Field Trip. We spent three days up the river with the Orangutans - which was amazing. Upon returning our friends aboard s/v Perry had arrived from the other side of Borneo. We had not seen them in almost 4 months. We spent a day and a half getting caught up before we left them and began our sail yesterday to Kracatau - the volcano between Java and Sumatra. We've been having a cracking sail, good winds and generally OK seas given or speed so all is good. We will arrive early AM on the 3rd or late PM tomorrow. We will probably have to slow down if the wind does not so we don't arrive in the dark. All is well.

We dropped the hook here last night around 4am to wait until light before heading farther up the bay and into the river. There was a LOT of barge traffic last night so we decided to wait until morning and give me a couple of hours of sleep before beginning again. We will pull up the anchor in about 30 minutes and complete the last 20NM of travel from here up the river to Kumai.

The winds have finally picked up nicely and we are moving along towards Borneo. We should be arriving tomorrow morning. We are zipping along wing on wing and are having a nice comfortable sail. All well onboard except we have caught NO fish.... :(

It's been a good but slow 30 hours since we left. The winds have been from behind and very light ranging from 6kts to 12kts. The good news is the seas are following and comfortable. It looks like we will be arriving later than expected due to the slower sailing and in some cases head current. Otherwise, all is gong well and we are excited about the jungle in Borneo.

I've been several days delinquent on updates. Sorry, I had to fly to Kuala Lumpur for visas and got lost in boat projects. We leave tomorrow for Borneo to meet up with friends and see the Orangutans. Speaking of friends, there are now 22 yachts anchored here in Lovina. Most of them part of the Indonesia Rally. We were able to meet up with some sailing friends we sailed with since the Caribbean over 5 years ago. They just got here from Australia. The last time we saw them was in New Zealand over two years ago. In addition Erie Spirit are in the area as we talked on the radio as the were passing by. Its busy busy busy here in Indonesia...and we'll be glad to get 'out' of here to a quieter anchorage tomorrow (no offense to the rally folks, but just not our style.... :) ). More updates as we sail.

We arrived yesterday to Lovina, Bali. The stretch of water between Lombok and Bali was nasty with large confused seas and 20-25kts of wind agains the current. We took water over the bow multiple times and had it smash into the cockpit as well. We are glad we arrived, and are now licking our wounds from some gear chaffe issues on our furling line. Nothing major, just need to repair. All is well and this is a nice town with several other boats at anchor.

We've had an overall decent passage so far. The seas at the moment are sloppy and beamy, but we are making nice progress. We should be arriving tomorrow AM to Lovina, Bali. All is well.

We finally had to leave our favorite spot in the Komodos. It was sad to leave as we could have spent weeks in the location diving...but we must push on. We are underway for Lovina, Bali and plan to arrive Saturday. All is well and the seas comfortable.

We are still here enjoying this anchorage. The morning dive was the best dive we've had on the other side of the lagoon. We went over with 5 other divers and a total of three dinghys so it was nice to be so far away from the boat and be with other divers. We will be here for today, our last day before we sail out early tomorrow morning back to Bali. Ugh. This is our favorite spot in all of Komodo and we could spend weeks here exploring but unfortunately I have to get cracking on our visa renewals and we must start heading west to meet friends in Borneo.

The boats keep on arriving. Yesterday we had 4 Indoensian dive boats arrive here full of divers. It's been full on with diving for sure. We had three great dives and have enjoyed getting caught up with our old friends from five years ago. We plan on being here for another couple of days before we sail to Bali for my flight to Kuala Lumpur. One more thing we noticed last night was the volcano on the adjacent island was dripping red lava at night down the side. It had not done that before, and was beautiful watching the fingers of glowing lava dribble down the side to the sea.

Let's just say we are SHOCKED at all the yachts we've seen. In fact, we are in a remote area, or so we thought, just outside Komodo park and there are SIX yachts anchored around us. All of them divers, so the word must be out that this is a great location for diving. It's been fun meeting new people, but we do like the serenity of our last visit when it was just us. One of the yachts we actually know, and met them 5 years ago in the Caribbean. They are just now getting here, so it was fun to see tem again and have them over for drinks last night. The spear fishing has been crazy good. One of the yachts shot three dogtooth tuna and one wahoo....so we're going out today for some spear fishing!! :)

FINALLY, we are back and going on Field Trip. We spent 2.5 months back in the USA to see family and friends. I had not been back in 3 years, so it was great to see everyone. We just finished a two day sail from Lombok back to Gili Banta near Komodo for some diving. We loved this spot several months ago, and are happy to be back. We did our first dive today after arrival and water is relatively warm at 27C. All good aboard Field Trip and we are happy to be back on the water!!!

We arrived safely to Lombok after a quick stop at Gili Air. We are on a mooring at the 'marina' - and will be leaving to Kuala Lumpur in two days. There are 12 other yachts here on moorings, and all is well.

Our first 24hrs of sailing have been generally OK. We've had a number of patches of no wind so we've had to motor more than we would like. The biggest pain has been opposing current of 1.5-2kts. We knew this was in the forecast, but still painful to be hammering into that much current on the nose. The skies are sunny and the seas are calm so the crew is very happy. We plan to arrive Monday morning or possibly Sunday evening if we get more wind later today.

This has been one of our favorite anchorages in the Flores Islands. Clear water, sandy bottom, and beautiful diving. We're anchored in 8m of water, and have really enjoyed the snorkeling and diving over the past couple of days. We're doing one more dive early this morning before we pull up the anchor and sail to Lombok. It will be a 245NM sail. In light winds we expect this to take 2.5-3 days. The weather here continue to be excellent with sunny days and clear skies. it's hot, but the water keeps us cool.

We are underway heading out of Komodo National Park. It's sad to leave Komodo as we've really enjoyed the beauty and serenity. Our first stop is a small island just outside the park that has some excellent diving. We'll do some more diving there over the next couple of days before we head out for Lombok later this week. All is well aboard.

We've had a very eventful several days. In short we are in our favorite spot so far in Komodo. The diving in this area is outstanding, and the water is warm! We frankly got tired of the cold (23C) water with poor visibility in central and southern Komodo. It was just 'OK' diving and in our opinion not worth the full wetsuit, hoodie and still freezing cold. The diving up here is warm (29C) and the water is crystal clear...and the fish life is excellent. We did two dives yesterday and three today. We've extended our stay another day at this anchorage to dive our favorite spot one more time before we move to another area. All is well aboard.

We logged two dives early in the morning yesterday so we could make the tide change and sail up to the next stop for more diving and exploring ashore. We did a 6am hike this morning to the top of the 'mountain' and had beautiful views as the sun rose over the bay. I was able to even fly the drone for a bit for some photos. It's beautiful here....but BUSY with tons of boats delivering tourists. We'll dive three sisters divesite this afternoon. All well.

We were told by the park rangers that this island we are anchored next to is 'dangerous' as the Komodo Dragons will swim after your boat. So far we've not see a Komodo yet down here, only a monkey onshore. Evidently some operators used to feed the Komodos down here, and the sound of a boat engine prompts them to swim offshore towards the boat. Regardless, we had a great dive this morning at Cannibal Rock, and plan on another dive this afternoon after lunch. All well aboard. THANKS P&H for your info as well about Komodo! :)

We arrived safely to Komodo yesterday morning around 6am. We averaged 77NM/day on the slow but very comfortable trip. No complaints from crew as everyone enjoyed the calm sailing. We are anchored in a nice place, and is very reminiscent of a dryer version of the Bay of Islands...at least from this anchorage. We did a dive yesterday afternoon and will do some more diving today before moving to Rinca to check in with the Rangers and do a Komodo Dragon walk. All well.

We're still 'sailing', but very slowly as we have 1-1.5kts against us in light winds. However, we are only 40NM from Komodo, so going slow at this point is fine as we don't want to arrive at night. The kids have been researching Komodo, and are now scrared to go ashore. No because of the dragons, but because of the 3 species of deadly snakes that live there, including the Javan Spitting Cobra. :) We'll work through the trepidation I'm sure, but funny to hear the kids reading aloud about how dangerous the animals are on the islands of Komodo.

It's been a slow but comfortable 24 hours. We caught a barracuda at 6am, and let him go...otherwise no more fish just yet. It's another beautiful day with lots of sunshine and calm seas.

We've had a very good 24 hours. Slow sailing, but comfortable and beautiful weather. We caught a 1.2m wahoo this morning to top off a good night watch. Kids were very happy to see fresh fish as well. We still plan on a direct route to Komodo, but....if we still have decent winds the rest of the week we may stop at a remote atoll for some snorkeling and diving in the middle of the Flores sea...so we'll see how things progress.

We decided to leave this morning for a direct sail to Komodo as the winds are good (8-10kts) for this 2.5-3 day passage. We did a nice dive yesterday before leaving this morning. The coral was pristine and there were lots of fish...but it wasn't anything better than we've seen in other ares of PNG and eastern Indonesia.

We arrived yesterday around 9.30am after a comfortable passage. This is a nice location, but we decided to move about 25NM farther SW to an atoll that is secluded and has good diving, so we'll be anchors up in about 30min for that short trip. There are about 40 students from Essex University UK here studying marine biology for two weeks. The local dive shop is crammed as well, another reason for us to move to another spot since we'll be diving sans guide.

We are currently making slow but comfortable progress. We have about 1.5kts of favorable current that is keeping us going nicely even in very light winds. We expect to arrive in about 30-36 hours at this rate with about 110NM left on our sail.

We've had an uneventful calm sail/motor after leaving Ambon yesterday morning. Last night was about 50% sailing, on the beam so it made for a fast sail while we had wind. The winds have died down as forecasted, so we are now motoring.

We leave in about two hours for Wakatobe. We're doing some last minute provisioning, and will be underway by about 10am. We expect this light sail to take 3 days, maybe a bit more, and should have calm seas with light winds. We're looking forward to our next destination.

We're still here! We had a good Easter with a bunch of expats here in Ambon. It was fun meeting other people living here in Ambon, some have been here for 30years, and understand the culture, issues, etc. that has occurred over the years. We're learning a lot about Indonesia, and have been enjoying our time here. We'll be leaving tomorrow(ish) and heading for a three day passage to Wakatobe Marine Park. It's only 280NM, but the winds are very light (or will be later this week) so we expect a slow sail/motor most of the way. Sad to leave good friends here behind but very excited about the new locations we have to visit. All well onboard!

The kids have made fast friends with this other family. We are going to explore more of the island with the family today and go to a hot springs. The diving is still good, and we plan on moving around the corner Monday for some diving on the outside. We'll leave Tuesday heading for Wakatobe National Park - about 300NM from here SW.

We've been doing more diving while here and it continues to be very good. The dive we did yesterday was not 'great' as it was on a seamount and there was about 2kts of current so we could not stop much and search for the small critters. We've had very good weather, but still westerlies...so we continue to wait for the winds to die down. We also met a very nice American family with four kids that have lived in Ambon for 7 years. We'll be spending more time with them while we are here in Ambon.

Sarah and Elizabeth logged three dives yesterday with Dive in Ambon dive shop. All three were muck diving, and they saw some great things, including the mimick octopus (use google to check this guy out). While they were diving, I was in immigration working on visa renewals. Fortunately it went well, and had no issues. I'll be going back today to pick up the visas. So far we really like Ambon, and in particular this dive shop in the north bay. It's owned by an English guy and an Australian gal who are very nice and helpful. The bonus is there is a pool here at the resort so the kids are happy!

We arrived to Ambon yesterday around 4.30pm after a great trip from Banda. We really miss Banda, as it was a great place to stay with good diving and crystal clear water. However, we had to move on due to weather and get farther west. We'll work on visa renewals this well along with some provisioning before we head out to our next stop.

We left Banda this morning and are sailing to Ambon. We have very calm seas, with light winds, but are making decent progress. We plan on arrving tomorrow late in the day at this rate, but all is well and we are happy we're not having to bash into 20kts to get our visa's renewed.

We arrived this morning at 6.30am to Banda. It was a generally good motor/sail despite making very slow progress as we had 1-1.5kts of current against us most of the way along with the wind so it was a slow slog, but surprising comfortable and we made a lot of westward progress. We'll be here for about a week before taking the next weather window to Ambon for passort visa renewals and then a 600nm journey to Komodo. All well aboard.

We decided to head out straight to the Banda islands as the winds are still low and it will be a beat later this week as the winds pick up...so we are off for a 24hr motor/sail to Banda. It should be just fine and at least now it is very comfortable as we head farther west.

We took an opportunity in the weather to leave last night in calm winds (5-7kts NW) and head NW from Tual working our way towards Banda and Ambon. It was a slow but comfortable motor all night to get here to our first stop on the way. We will be here for a couple of days and when the winds subside again we'll work our way NW and then SW in a very large tack covering 750NM. We have 7 weeks left in Indonesia before we have to fly out for visa renewals. All is well and we are looking forward to exploring this area.

We had a good sail Saturday/Sunday back to Tual. We are now at anchor and heading ashore to renew our visas this morning before we wait for weather to sail towards the Banda islands and then towards Ambon and Komodo. The clock is ticking for us as we have 60 days before we fly to Kuala Lumpur to visit our friends on Lumbaz and then renew our visas for Indonesia. It's hard to believe we have been here almost six months (two unofficially as we worked our way to Sorong). There is so much to see in Indonesia and the country is so vast that it would take years to get a good sampling of the different areas. So far Triton Bay is our overall favorite location.