The Picton Castle has had a nice long visit in Bali. Plenty good stories to tell. Some crew coming and going. Lots of nasi goreng, mei goreng, no shortage of Bintang and Bali Kopi, even cat-poo-chino. Lots of beautiful carvings, ebony boxes, batik sarongs and more. But now it was time to sail onward to the west.
Early morning before dawn we could hear big thunder and see lightning off in the distance followed by true tropical downpours. As dawn eased on to the scene we could see small double out-riggers fishing in the calm waters near the reef at the mouth of the harbour. Towering cloudscapes made for dramatic backdrops.
All hands were to be back aboard at 0800 after their last run ashore. We hauled back the big admiralty anchor we had been spinning around all this time. I was sure it was fouled and thought it best to clear it and cat it in the harbour with the other anchor down. Amazingly enough, it was not fouled. But good to get it catted without the ship lurching about. The waters of Serangan are a pretty fertile soup and we actually got barnacles on the skiff and the anchor chain at the waterline on the short time we were here.
Then on to finish stowing the ship for sea and waiting for Immigration to show up onboard to check us all out to make sure we were all leaving. And waiting for Made Alon and family to come down and say goodbye. Made gave so many good tours and helped us in so many ways. Made and his family have been friends of the ship for 20 years. A small send-off was in order.
In the end, Immigration trusted us and our good agents to see that we were all leaving with the ship and decided no need to visit the ship. Made Gerip, also a friend of the ship, and his helper agents saw us off at the small dock at Serangan. Then Made Alon and Wayan and Gita showed up for a small send-off. Then out to Picton Castle at anchor to heave up and head to sea steering southwest to find some useful winds. It looks to me like we would need to motor a couple days or so to find the tradewinds out here. But nothing wrong with motoring a bit to get us back into a sea routine.
We will miss Bali. But Bali isn’t going anywhere and I am sure many of us will return some day.
So, on a hot tropical day with little wind, our Picton Castle set off westward bound across the broad Indian Ocean.