Bartering -- Yachty style (Route research for Indonesia and Raja Ampat)!

Us sailors are SO easy -- If you need help with a project, or advice and guidance, all it takes is the offer of good food!  In our case, we turned to Indonesia and Raja Ampat veterans, Phil and Leslie from the yacht Carina.  We had them over last night and plied them with yellow-fin tuna fritters followed by grilled tuna on a bed of linquine a la parma rosa.  In exchange for this fare, we received a treasure trove of absolutely invaluable information!  The meal must have been great because the next morning Phil dropped by with a USB stick packed with cruising guides, Google Earth "chartlets" to use with our primary navigation system OpenCPN, as well as a fresh kefir culture to replace the one we managed to kill off when we were in SpainWonderful people!

A ‘Segue’ to the SPICE ISLANDS!

***PAYING CREW WELCOME!!!!!  This is going to be EPIC!  Surfing, Diving, Exploration, Cruising, Sailing — several ACTION PACKED MONTHS PLANNED! ***

Read on for details!

The stars are FINALLY in alignment for an Indonesian Adventure!  We’ve planned twice now to head to pristine Raja Ampat and many other amazing sites in Indo — but for various reasons these trips have fallen through.  “Segue” is now in PERFECT shape — she’s been fully prepped for luxury charter, and we did two trial runs with good friends of our from Russia and the yacht performed FLAWLESSLEY.  Now it’s OUR turn to play and Indo HERE WE COME!!!!!!!

The fabled Spice Islands of Indonesia

We’ve been pushing hard to build an amazing charter business in Palau with Sam and Martul Scott.  There are MANY challenges to starting a tourism related operation here in this stunning country as the law AND the constitution provides protection for future Palaun generations by restricting the ownership of any businesses in this sector to Palaun citizens.  We are working through these requirements but expect that it will be several more months before we can legally operate here.

So, as summer draws nearer and tourism slows we’ve decided to head out for some new adventures and take a break from the charter world!

We plan on departing Palau on May 5th, 2016 and are heading directly for the port of Sorong in Indonesia.  From there we intend to extensively explore the fabled SPICE ISLANDS.  There is an IMMEDIATE opportunity to build sea miles on this passage as well as stop at a couple of absolutely incredible small atolls along the way — Helen Reef and Palau Reni and Kanobe.

Helen Reef, near Southwest Islands, Palay

Palau Reni, Indonesia

From these atolls, we will check into and do formalities in the port of Sorong — an easy 600 nautical mile (NM) or so trip in total. Sorong is the closest Port of Entry in Indo, and right in the heart of the famed Raja Ampat Nature Reserve and home of diving that’s rumoured to be the BEST IN THE WORLD (‘though, after diving here in Palau, we’ll hold off on making this proclamation until we see for ourselves!).

We plan to spend around a month or two in this general area — exploring and diving our hearts out.  From there, we’ll head to East Timor (Timor Leste) via Ambon for a visa run then head towards the jungles of Southern Borneo.  We will be travelling in the footsteps of the ancient spice trade route using the SW Monsoon to easily move from East to West.

Come join us on our 'Segue' to the Spice Islands' (and beyond!)