Visas finally in hand (we received them last night), we drove to Senggigi to return the rental car Tuesday morning. We had intended to drop off the car, do a little shopping and then, returning to Medana Bay weigh anchor and head out. The weather was not playing ball, however and had turned to the SE making our intended stop at Gili Air a no go because the anchorage is on the SE side.
So instead of hurrying, we took our sweet time enjoying the little seaside, touristy village of Senggigi, where good restaurants and lots of shops line the boulevard. We stopped off at the Swiss Bakery to order fresh bread and then went about browsing and shopping. We returned to Medana Bay in late afternoon to find an even smaller crowd of cruisers huddled in the little café. The stragglers, like us were either awaiting the return of their visas or for boat parts to be shipped in. They gave us news that all of the boats previous moored at Gili Air had evacuated after several had dragged their moorings and two had ended up on the reef. So we figured we would stay here one more night.
Early Wednesday morning, (the 26th) we set off for the island of Bali, and at first we enjoyed fabulous wind that pushed us at around 8 - 9 knots SOG for the first 7 or 8 hours. Then as we rounded the tip of Bali's NE side, the land blocked our wind. It literally dropped to just about nothing more than a whisper. Dodging fishing rafts that were placed every couple f hundred meters or so we wove our way as far as we dared in the diminishing light. Clearly we would not make our destination of Lovina Bay before dark so we anchored as soon as we could find a safe spot. There aren't many of those on this northern coast. We slept not a wink that night as very bad and off key Karaoke pounded the airwaves literally all night long from a beachside bar. It sounded as though they were sitting on top of us. Both of us dragged our bedraggled selves out of bed at first light to get the heck out of there. Lovina Bay was only 2 hours away.
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