Sailing the impossible dream | S2 Ep 25

Welcome back to Sailing NV, where this week we wake up in the 17 islands national park, in Indonesia amidst a maze of islands and rocky outcrops, all surrounded by vibrant reefs and breathtaking scenery. A dream destination for cruisers. Yet one that many believed would be off limits for an Open 66 with a nearly 5-meter draft. Yet here we are, anchored with our 3.5-meter rudder alarmingly close to the nearest reef. Who knew living on the edge could be so scenic?! Oh and just to spice things up a bit, we've got gearbox problems, resulting in no reverse gear, plus a broken fuel line. But hey, that's just a minor detail when you're surrounded by such beauty, right? So while others might say it's impossible to cruise with a draft like ours, we say: challenge accepted! Join us as we navigate this paradise and prove that sometimes, the best adventures come with a slice of chaos. Aside from our picturesque surroundings, we awoke this morning to more good tidings. Since leaving Vanuatu, we had been experiencing water mixing with our gearbox oil every time we ran the engine. The leak is either coming from the prop shaft seals despite replacing them during our refit or from the damaged thread on the drain plug, which is now glued in place. Timo re-glued this underwater a few weeks ago, and it seems that this job has fixed the issue? for now at least. Timo also took the time to re-do the job fixing the broken fuel line But whilst we might not have the funds for a new gearbox just yet, we've got plenty of other things to feel grateful about. Most of this underwater footage and plenty of other video clips are thanks to our great crew abbey and Jacob. They also made some videos about their time with us. If you're interested to see more you can check out their YouTube channel https://youtube.com/@HereEverythingsButter?si=4p2xM4N9H6GynoxU And finally we went ashore to check out the little town here. It looked like the area had recently been affected by a big flood. The locals here live a simple peaceful life As usual, we try to top up our fuel and food, whenever we stop, something that becomes more tricky the more remote we are, especially as our Italian captain is rather dependent upon his Mediterranean diet. As a new day dawned, we had a new destination in sight and so it was time to hoist our sails and head back out through the reefy maze, in daylight this time! We were continuing our journey westwards along the northern Flores coastline to another beautiful remote anchorage who's entrance also meant manoeuvring carefully between reefs on either side. Luckily this time we arrived with good daylight and excellent visibility and we sent the captain up the mast to get a really clear view of the reefy entrance. And so we woke up to a new and equally hazardous paradise. This island is just on the edge of the Komodo National Park and the fauna here was close to what you could find there, such as deer, wild pigs, snakes and scorpions. So we wore boots and carried a machete for this hike! And also underwater the nature continued to Impress us with divers alive multicoloured coral and plenty of fish. 00:00 - Intro 01:37 - Waking up close to the reef 02:11 - Gearbox issue 03:10 - Fixing fuel line 03:45 - Exploring the marine park 05:38 - Exploring the underwater world 06:53 - Going ashore 09:05 - Getting food and fuel 11:01 - Setting sail again 12:33 - Arriving at the next reefy anchorage 14:07 - Waking up in paradise 14:36 - Exploring the island 16:22 - The vibrant underwater world ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- If you enjoyed this video please consider supporting us on Patreon https://www.patreon.com/SailingNV or with a one-off donation via https://ko-fi.com/sailingnv or paypal https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/sailingnv or if you'd like to help us buy something we need, you can check out our amazon wish list https://www.amazon.com/hz/wishlist/ls/1G2NJ0EGJLKR0?ref_=wl_share THANK YOU!!!