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October 16, 2005
Selat Sunda crossed OK
Left Anyer marina this morning at first light (5am) with the intention of cranking out the crossing to Sumatra before the wind picked up from the SW. Being my first solo crossing of a selat I was quite nervous, to the point of feeling sick as I paddled away from land towards Sangiang Island, 8 Nms away.
This section to the northern tip of Sangiang went so well with the tide still in my favour that I decided to forge ahead with the second half, even though I had provisioned for an overnight on Sangiang.
The second half didn't go so well.
As soon as I rounded the northern tip at 8am the wind picked up to 4-5 and white caps with good sized breaking waves started appearing. By this time it was too late to go back though. I was thanking my lucky stars that I'd put an extra three 10L Ortlieb water-bags on board to make the kayak more stable. With a total of 80 litres for ballast she never even flinched when the big waves crashed over us. What a fantastic little boat the Solstice is.
But the main problem I encountered, or rather didn't encounter, was the change in tide to a southerly drift which, after being told by everyone at the marina that it would kick in after high tide at 6.30am, never materialized. My route planning around the north of the island depended on this. So for the remainder of the 16 mile crossing I found myself beating back into the wind and current, and it wasn't long before I realised that all my upper-body fitness from 3-weeks of non-paddling had largely disappeared and I was getting tired very quickly. All the callouses on my hands built up over months of paddling from Dili to Java had disappeared also so my fingers hurt like anything!
Soon I was too far north to keep to my original heading and now into the ferry traffic lanes connecting Java and Sumatra. Being a relatively deep and wide selat compared to some of the others we've crossed, many large cargo ships and oil tankers use it to cross from one side of the archipelago to the other. So in addition to the east-west ferry traffic, I found myself dodging north-south traffic also. All in all a very stressful 4 and a half hours of paddling to get to the other side!
But it's over. And any selat crossing one walks away from is a good one.
Leaving tomorrow morning on the bike for Lampung, Sumatra, and onto Jambi over the next 10-days to meet up with our man Kenny around the 26th.
Posted on October 16, 2005 3:10 PM