Concluding the Sailing trip from Thailand to Indonesia

The night air was cool and the sky had been dark for two hours as the boat, Helena, approached the Padang, Indonesia harbor. The smell of wet cement and cinnamon sugar hung in off-shore wind. The city lights, the first I’d seen in five weeks, were abrasive and disconcerting compared to the island tranquility I’d experienced during the sailing trip from Thailand.

We dropped anchor after 18 hours of motoring, and tired from waking at 4:30 a.m. to start the passage, reflecting on the month and half experience and surveying my options for the next chapter of my adventure, I sunk into a seated position on deck. My final leg of Kevin’s surfing safari 2010 had come to an end.

I fell asleep by 9:30 p.m. reflecting on the trip.

Joining Kevin on his yearly surfing trip through the Mentawise islands off the coast of western Sumatra, Indonesia was the right decision. We didn’t get to do much sailing because the winds weren’t favorable, so we motored most of the time, and after hours of fishing we never caught an edible fish (we snagged a barracuda and a guppy and had to throw both back), but I learned a lot about the yachting lifestyle: sleeping with a pillow wedge so you don’t roll off the bed, cooking on a stove that rocks, living in limited space surrounded by an ocean, swimming around unspoiled islands, walking with villagers along white beaches without a resort in sight, watching professional surfers catch world-renowned waves and feeling intimately connected with nature.

My life was heavily dictated my mother nature’s moods. High winds and heavy rains meant I would be bellow deck reading or collecting water above deck for drinking and laundry. Sun and surf meant we were motoring to where the waves were breaking and I would get to swim in the sea, walk along the beach, and paddle around on a surf board. Sun with no wind and no surf was a hot day spent anchored near a bunch of mangrove trees and sitting under the limited shade of the sail awning.

During the trip I did a lot of reading, thinking and planning for what I would do next….