Saturday 22 November – Squall after squall

Up at first light, anchor up in the rain and we were off. Poor Rowan was so disappointed, the predictions of good winds for us were nowhere to be seen. It was a motor often over very shallow water which was nowhere to be seen on the charts, this made the water choppy and not the most pleasant motor. Rain downpours came and went all morning, it finally eased up a bit for our entry into the passage to Sorong, which is over thirty miles long. This took some navigating between markers and shallow water plus loads of local boats.

We finally made it to a split in the water, there is an anchorage up the smaller left arm which was idyllic wilderness. We had a wonderful evening listening to the birds going back and forth what was like a huge river. It is actually connected to sea, the water is brown from the rivers that enter it. It was a very peaceful night with loads of insect an frog noises serenading us to sleep. Not a soul in sight, no villages, no boats at all. The current is famous in this area for getting up to 4knots, but it felt like the anchor sunk in mud, so we were happy we were not going to budge.