July 31, 2012 Arrival at Kupang and We Now Have a Working Freezer

Selamat! (Hello!) from Kupang, Indonesia. We arrived yesterday at 2 PM (Darwin time), after sailing most of the way, however we did motor a lot in the final 24 hours; Frank reckons we motored 20 hours of the 77-hour trip from Tipperary Waters Marina. Not bad based on what others in years before us experienced.

First off - the freezer. We still do not know what caused it to go on the blink. It had suddenly cut off during our first 24 hours. A pattern developed wherein it would shut off about every 1.5 hours, we would shut down the main power to it for 15 - 30 minutes and then it would restart. We tried fanning the compressor, troubleshooting using our Frigoboat book's guide, covering it in blankets to keep the cool in, etc. Eventually the cycle became shorter as the freezer would shut off every 50 minutes. Frank continued to worry and tinker while I prayed. Seriously. He started to complain that I had put too much in the freezer, we should take stuff out, we should defrost it (done the day before we left), and on and on. For some strange reason, he was more upset than I was, after all I am the drama queen among the two of us. I was resigned that it was only food, albeit a lot of expensive food, it would not cause us harm AND the boat is operating fine which to me is more important. Eventually he commented that the fridge, which sits beside the freezer, is frozen up along the element in the back. I said I would remove everything and defrost the fridge. Meanwhile, he took apart the connections on the freezer's control switch. While defrosting the fridge I found that the drain was clogged and so we used a hand pump that looks like a giant syringe to sort of suck and blow (no deviant comments, please) into the drain hole of the until it unclogged. We are not sure which of any of these efforts had the right affect but miraculously the freezer came on and has stayed on for nearly 24 hours. Maybe it was none of our efforts and just good old fashioned prayer that worked. We may never know but, knock on wood and fingers crossed, we are good so far and items are re-freezing.

The passage and arrival...
Sighting land was a thrill after nothing but big seas and whitecaps for 3 days. We arrived at the anchorage to find that many, many boats were already here. We discovered later that evening that several of those had jumped the queue and departed Darwin much earlier than the official start time and that some even left on Friday. Isn't it amusing the efforts some will make to try to be first in?

We anchored just behind "Renegade", called in on Ch 77 to report our arrival to Sail Indonesia and to get on the list to be checked in. "Renegade" warned us that they had been waiting since 11:00 AM (it was now 2:30), so sit back have a beer, read a book, get comfy. Meanwhile yachts, whom I will not name here, began nagging at Sam (our contact) to get them checked in. Some were downright obnoxious saying they'd been waiting over an hour which by that time had already been 3 1/2 hours for us. Others were even more rude and tried to jump the queue. What is WRONG with people? The officials arrived on Destiny by around 4:30 (Kupang time)and were so friendly. They were 5 young men who got very excited over two things: that we have a photocopier and that we have a boat stamp. They stamped the absolute heck out of everything, then before leaving they all whipped out cameras and smart phones asking for pictures with us. So cute!

Sam who is our Rally host came on the radio informing us that there is a dinner at 5 PM to which we are all invited. I will blog about that next time.

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