Sophie has slipped the mooring cable at the Misool Eco Resort and has begun a 200 mile sail that will get us to the western side of Ambon Island. Currently motorsailing at 7 knots at the location of 02.15.550S 130.25.336E. We’ve spent the last 6 weeks in Raja Ampat, and it has been a highlight of our entire cruising adventure. We will miss this special place a lot.

We left the anchorage at Balbulol yesterday morning. We spent a week there and loved every minute of it. We snorkeled the coral walls for 3-5 hours every day. Jenna took 5,000 pictures with her GoPro. She even tied it to a 10 foot long string and lowered it down for coral and fish close ups. We saw tens of thousands of fish and an amazing variety of coral. We even saw what turns out to be the world’s most deadly sea snake. It’s 5 feet long, 2 inches thick and has black and white stripes on top and a white belly below. I first stumbled across her while snorkeling for lobster. She was in a little cave, and when she saw me she slowly got into a cobra pose and looked poised to strike. My fear was making me want to swim away, but my utter fascination was drawing me in closer.

I now understand snakes.

We experienced a couple of hiccups while tied to the walls in Balbulol. Our genset overheated and then stopped. It turns out we had sucked a couple of plastic bags into the raw water strainer, and this blockage caused the genset impeller to lose all 13 of its blades. When we disassembled the genset’s heat exchanger, we discovered 25 impeller blades there. Obviously the tropical ambience of the lagoon put the impeller blades into the right mood, and they multiplied as a result.

I also got a bit of a leg infection when I scraped against some coral while hunting lobster. I never actually caught any of the little suckers, because they scoot way back into their holes when you try to grab them. But my leg hurts a lot, and my daughter Sara-the-nurse-practitioner has put me on a couple of antibiotics. I’ll be fine.

The three boats left Balbulol at first light yesterday, with Sophie and Per Ardua heading 15 miles south for the Misool Eco Resort. We caught the world’s smallest mahi mahi on the way. It was only a foot and a half long, and he swam away vigorously when we released him.

The Misool Eco Resort has a good reputation with cruising boats who have visited there, but we had a terrible experience yesterday. The staff was quite friendly, and the facilities looked great. Steve snorkeled the wall and saw some huge fish. They even let us use their incredibly slow wifi for free and let the girls play on their beach.

Our problem was with their mooring lines. Sophie and Per Ardua were both moored in a little pass with a bit of a current directly in front of their pier. Per Ardua’s mooring line … dissolved and separated 3 hours after they tied on to it. Fortunately I was at the bar with Steve and Mellia watching the girls play on the beach when I noticed Per Ardua drifting close to their dinghy dock. Peter was on board, and I called him on the VHF. He came up on deck and realized the boat was simply drifting in the eddies of a passage with reefs and cliffs 20 meters away on either side of him.

They could have lost their boat.

Fortunately it was 4:00 in the afternoon and Peter quickly got his engine on and the boat under control. Sue, the resort manager, was very nice and said there was another mooring a mile away at Kalig Island, but Steve and I went over in our dinghy and could only find some wall ties. Perhaps that is what they meant. The resort’s mooring up on Yilliet Island, which our friends have used in the past, broke a month ago. The resort also had another mooring around the corner on Batbitiem Island, but that appears to be gone as well.

So Per Ardua decided on the spot that their best option was to leave for an overnight sail heading upwind for a sheltered anchorage on the west side of Misool. Since the sun was setting, they really had no other choice.

Sophie was on the mooring that their provisioning ship uses, and after Per Ardua left I dived the line as far down as I could. I couldn’t see the mooring block — we are in 25 meters of water — but the line was 1.5 inch nylon and looked new.

Nevertheless, we were in a bit of a rolly channel, and at times Sophie’s transom was only 20 meters from a cliff. Dinner last night was a quick bowl of pasta, followed by the movie Battleship (which was an excellent choice given our predicament … think board game + aliens + Rihanna with machine guns) followed by an uneasy night with the anchor alarm on.

The Misool Eco Resort seems like a nice place, but if they want cruising boats to use their moorings, they need to regularly dive them and inspect them. Most of us would be happy to pay a mooring fee.

And we won’t let the events of the last 20 hours shape our view of Raja Ampat. Best place ever. On to Ambon.

Sophie is currently tied to the cliffs in the lagoon of the island of Balbulol of the east coast of Misool in Raja Ampat, Indonesia. Per Ardua is rafted next to us, and Ocelot is tied up on the other side of Per Ardua. I think this is our best anchorage yet in Indonesia.

We spent two nights anchored near Mustika, the place where we stopped after catching the six Spanish mackerel. It was not a good anchorage, at least during the northwest monsoons here, because we were exposed to a northerly wind. There was also a current that was so strong I was swept away in an attempt to swim the 20 meters between Per Ardua and Sophie. Peter tried to rescue me in an inflatable kayak, but the current was too strong for him to pull both of us. Jenna had to drop our dinghy and zoom 300 meters to rescue me. She was a little worried. I was enjoying a swim. The highlight of our stay was Sam’s 10th birthday party on Per Ardua. He loved his multimeter and tested the resistance of every component on his family’s boat. They served up homemade pizza, and somehow a bottle of Jameson’s managed to disappear. It was a fun night in a bad anchorage.

Balbulol is simply spectacular. 02.01.494 S. 130.40.429E. We are in a small cove surrounded by cliffs that run 30 to 100 meters high. It’s totally protected here with no swell and little wind. The water beneath us is 35 meters deep, hence the need to run lines fore and aft to attach to the cliffs. A coral reef clings to the cliffs as they run straight down underwater. Actually, they don’t run straight down, they run inward creating caves and coral overhangs. There is great diversity of coral and many large fish. I saw this grouper-like thing that was 4 feet long and must have weighed hundreds of pounds. I also saw a shark, but she was on the small side.

We will spend up to a week here. Leo finally finished up his oral report last night and has completed 4th grade. We are spending 4-5 hours a day in the water. We have plenty of fresh produce, fish, beer, and cheese. We are listening to classic 70s rock, including Foghat, Boston, and Heart. Nothing is broken, and the boat is clean.

After I write this, I think I will go back in for another swim. Then maybe a nap. Then I might go for another snorkel.

Things are pretty good right now.

Sophie celebrated the New Year with a bunch of WHAMS! today, catching SIX Spanish mackerel (and keeping four) during our 45 mile motorsail southwest from the western tip of Papua to an anchorage on the east coast of Misool (01.53.503S, 130.26.986E).

As I’ve mentioned recently on this blog, I’ve been worried about reports that there are no more fish between here and Thailand, with the exception of potentially catching a Spanish mackerel around Misool. But not today, baby. We had 3 lines in the water: a 3 inch squid on the pole, a rapalo on a 30 meter meat line, and a big marlin squid on a 10 meter meat line.

The rapalo KILLED it today, catching four fish in an hour. We have never caught fish with that lure before, and I had even been thinking about getting rid of it. But no more.

The carnage started when our guest Steve Schufreider pointed back at the rapalo and said “I think we have a fish.” I didn’t even bother to look up and said “No, that’s just the diving movement of the lure,” (knowing full well that the rapalo simply doesn’t catch fish.) I’m quite smart, you know.

Steve then said “Well, what’s that thing splashing on the surface?”

It was a 14 pound Spanish mackerel on the rapalo. We got it on board, bled it with the rope Melissa gave us, cut it up and then vacuum sealed it into 5 freezer meals plus lunch. Just as I was about to start cooking the fish for lunch, Steve said “I think we have another one.” It as on the rapalo again, and just as I started pulling it in the reel on the pole started to go wizzzzzz. Two fish at the same time! The first Sophie Double Takedown of 2015! We got both fish on board, and just as we had finished bleeding these two fellows (now using both ends of the rope Melissa gave us), there was ANOTHER fish that hit the rapalo.

Four Spanish mackerel in 30 minutes, ranging from 6 to 14 pounds.

I took the three new fish, cut them up, vacuum sealed them, and added 9 more meals to the freezer. Spanish mackerel is delicious, and we are looking forward to sharing it with our friends when we reach Bali next month.

But I was pretty tired after landing and processing four fish. I had also disassembled and fixed a toilet earlier this morning. I am not complaining at all. I actually like this adventure we are on.

But when Steve said “I think we have another fish on the rapalo”, quite frankly I had no interest in landing it. But this gal was a JUMPER. She lept out of the air multiple times, so I got her within 10 feet of the boat and yelled for Jenna to get the camera. I was hoping she would jump one more time. She did, we didn’t get the photo, and she spat the hook. But I am calling it a landed fish because I had the leader in my hand.

At this point I didn’t want to deal with any more fish. 15 meals in the freezer is a good day, and we were approaching our anchorage and needed to clean the boat. So I reeled in the the line on the pole and put away the meat line that was trolling the rapalo. I was too tired to deal with the big marlin lure and figured I’d deal with that at the anchorage. Besides, a Spanish mackerel would never hit a lure that big.

Wrong.

Steve said “Jamie, I think there’s a lot of splashing coming from that last lure. I think we might have another fish.” I didn’t even bother to look up and said “No, that’s just the splash coming from the concave head of the lure,” (knowing full well that a smallish Spanish mackerel would never hit a big marlin lure we were using as a teaser.) I’m still quite smart, you know.

Wrong.

It was a four pound Spanish mackerel that had attacked a lure half its size. I pulled him in and let him go, because he was too small and we had caught enough fish for one day. I put away the last meat line and we headed towards the anchorage. No more fishing for the day!

But then we started to pass multiple bait balls with diving tuna beneath them and attacking birds on top of them. After passing the fourth ball in 10 minutes, I turned to Steve and said “let’s put a line back in.” (I have self-control issues you know, but at least I am aware of them.)

We trolled around and through another 8 bait balls but had no luck. We then made it to our anchorage, dropped a hook, and waited for Per Ardua. They track us closely on AIS when we are underway together, and they now know that when Sophie starts doing Crazy Ivans it’s because we are fishing.

The anchors on both boats are now down in a calm spot surrounded by coral. There are craggy jungle-covered limestone mountains covering 180 degrees of our horizon. We’ll be making pizza tonight on Per Ardua to celebrate their son Sam’s 10th birthday. He doesn’t know it yet, but we are giving him our backup multimeter as his birthday gift. He is really into learning about marine electronics, and we all know that this gift will make him very happy.

Fish. Tropics. Calm Anchorage. Sharing with Friends. 2015 is getting off to a pretty good start.