Medana Bay

Hi everyone,
Today we had yet another challenging passage, but at last we're here at Medana Bay Marina on the NW coast of Lombok.  The marina has pens for about a dozen yachts, moorings for 20 more, and room for a further 20 to 30 to anchor.  We are anchored in 20m at 08 21.606S 116 07.710E.

Zen Again Track

Zen Again GoogleEarth Track

We departed Lawang Island at 0700 and motored in calm conditions and adverse tide (1-2knots) until noon.  A long hot morning.  In the afternoon a sea-breeze came in and gradually built to 20-25 knots, perhaps a little more.  It was of course right on the nose so we tacked all the way down the NW coast of Lombok.  Cute track to examine, but not great fun to be there!  As the wind built we tried motor-sailing, then sailing with full main and No 2 jib.  Motor-sailing gave us the best speed towards the destination.  As the wind built further we put a reef in the main, furled the jib and unfurled the staysail / storm jib.  This rig worked very well motor-sailing.  We managed to stay just ahead of Kakadu, who often seems to be in the same bit of ocean we're in!

Lenticular cloud over Lombok's Mount Rinjani

The entrance to Medana Bay is simple once through the isolated reefs off the bay.  They don't appear to be charted well, apart from on Garmin electronic charts.  The GoogleEarth images do NOT show off-lying reefs!

Our entrance to Medana Bay.
Note inner reefs shown on GoogleEarth, but outer reefs NOT shown
There's a 6m patch NW of where we turned W

We arrived at 1630, and by the time we'd anchored and cleaned up the boat it was almost sunset.  We'll wait until tomorrow to go ashore.  The marina has a hotel and restaurant, as well as the usual marina facilities - apart from pens at the moment!

Medana Bay is a major stop for Sail Indonesia.  Many of the yacht crews (ourselves included) are renewing their Indonesian Social Visas here.  Many are reprovisioning here rather than in Bali.  On the 20th there is apparently going to be a big party ashore.  The anchorage is already busy but many more yachts are still on their way.  The anchorage will be packed.

For us, getting to Lombok is a big milestone.  We have barely looked at where we go after Lombok.  We'll start looking at upcoming passages very soon.  Here are some stats on our voyage from Darwin to Lombok via Timor, Alor, Pantar, Lembata, Flores, Komodo and Sumbawa islands...

• Duration = 62 days
• Miles Logged = 1448 nm
• Progress Rate = 23nm per day
• Sea Time = 300 hours
• Average Boatspeed = 4.9 knots
• Engine Hours = 175 hours
• Engine-On Percentage = 58%
• Fuel Used = 600 litres
• Water Used = 320 litres

No wonder many call Sail Indonesia "Motor Indonesia"!  During the last two months we've run the engine for 40% of total hours accumulated in the 30 months since we bought Zen Again!