Author: Loretta Henderson

Loads more Yacht race photos are available on facebook at

http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/pages/Darwin-to-Ambon-Yacht-Race/131310083572243?v=photos&ref=ts

As the dolphins jump over the bow of the boat, I stand watch with my crew member, Robert. Robert and I have been steering the boat every 4 hours for the past 6 days. The dolphins seem to realize that we are at the end of a long journey as we approach the final 2 miles of the 600 mile nautical ocean yacht race. We have seen good strong winds for the entire trip. On the second night the weather fouled for some time and Maralinga the yacht took on some crashing waves. Robert and I continued to steer into the rain storm for the next day until the weather and seas calmed to a pleasant roll. Robert is color blind and has poor night vision so tonight as we approach the finish I am the eyes and Robert is the voice reporting green and red lighted bouyies, fish traps and other mysteries that litter on the water’s surface to the rest of the crew steering our way up the harbor. The wind has silenced to a next to nothing breeze so we bob away for 12 hours as we approach the long awaited finish line and customs check in Ambon, Indonesia.

After a customs check we venture to shore and begin the second half of the Darwin to Ambon race, a week of festivities sponsored by the Indonesia government and Captain Bintang, Indonesia’s famous giant beers. Stage 2 of the race seems to require as much endurance as the ocean crossing and after another 6 long days I venture for the ferry with Pandemic The Magic Nautical Bicycle, who has been patiently waiting to get back on the road. 2 more days of recovering from stage 2 of the race while sleeping on a cardboard mat on the floor of the ferry next to Pandemic and I disembark in Manado, Sulawesi, Indonesia. Or I attempt to disembark. Indonesians do not make lines but rather crowd around and filter through any opening with sharpened elbows. Disembarking the ferry has an impending rock concert stadium stampede vibe. I place Pandemic The Magic Bicycle to my right and hold tight in the crowd as thousands of people push their way through the maze of turns and doors. At the first turn of the hallway it becomes very clear that Pandemic and I may not make it out alive in any vertical position. I can get Pandemic fully loaded on my shoulder but not with any degree of balance to stand my ground in the pushing crowd. Next thing you know Pandemic gets whisked up in the air and a man begins to should clear the way or magic bicycle coming through or something like that. I followed and all I could hear is a chorus of speda, speda, speda which the Bahasa, Indonesian word for bicycle.

After a week of listening to sailing terms being shouted at top volume such as reef the main, tacking, moron, useless etc. (ok, the last two aren’t really sailing terms but the skipper of my boat was expanding his vocabulary a wee bit), it sure feels good to be back in the peaceful school of bicycle or speda. After Pandemic The Magic Bicycle lands on the ground outside of the ferry I quickly peddle away from the chorus of speda, taxi, hotel, where you froms, and are you alones, and peddle for 44 kilometers to the city of Manado. The 44 kilometers pass quickly, probably because my sea legs have been missing peddling for over 2 weeks. I am presently in Manado, Sulawesi sweating in a 3 dollar hotel, hoping the bed doesn’t have bugs, fresh from a cold bucket bath crouched over a new map, plotting and scheming my cycling route for the K shaped island of Sulawesi, Indonesia.

A very heavy, 15 kilos (33 pounds) Queensland Coastal Python, his favorite meal is dead rabbits

Litchfield National Park is famous for its magnetic termite mounds measuring up to 4 metres

Road kill snake about 11/2 meters long, one of many on the road into the National Park

Endless litters of water are consumed as the park gate approaches in the distance. Swimming is the national park highlight. Some swimming holes are closed due to crocodiles, some our open. I ponder how accurately the crocodiles can possibly be monitored as I wet my big toe in the most refreshing water I have encountered since eating ice cubes last week.

This part of Australia is against all odds miraculously alive. Dried liked a crisp piece of wheat toast and cherry ripe with bountiful fruitful life as far as the senses will allow one to go. At the end of a long day of sun drenched peddling the spiders dangle on trees in hopeful suspense of a late evening meal.

The insects sing as I lie sticky still saturated in bug repellent with open ears in the thin protection of my little tent. My head pounds with a happy dehydrated buzz as I draw closer to a long awaited sleep. Moments before drifting off into a deep 9 hour snooze, I politely ask the universe to not give me any reason throughout the night to venture out into the darkness amongst the feral wild pigs, termites, acrobatic lizards, nocturnal snakes, huge frogs, red eyed crocodiles, flying bats, jumping kangaroos and strange dangling spiders. Oddly enough, the outback is incredibly tiresome but never sleeps.

Each evening hundreds of bats fly over head

Darwin, Australia is a town perched high in the northern territory of Australia and home to many sailors.Sail boats freckle the harbor, rise and retreat from marina docks, bop on moorings and float in the distance on anchors.A floating world of broken dreams, dreams realized and dreams waiting to happen.Pandemic the Magic nautical bicycle patiently stands watch on deck as Maralinga, a 55 foot yacht motor sails from one side of the Darwin Harbor to the other in search of the boat yard.

In the salty northern Australian waters, a collage of boats floats by. My favorite yacht resembles a pirate ship, the kind of boat I hope to not encounter on my sailing voyage to Indonesia. According to many, most of the pirates in the Indonesia waters have relocated to the east coast of Africa in search of other criminally acquired treasures.

Open crocodile traps litter the harbor’s rocky shores waiting to capture the latest cheeky salt water crocodile.Jelly fish glow beneath the surface with a tantalizing don’t touch me stare of their luminous poisonous eyes.Back in Alaska, while camping amongst bears, wolves and moose, thoughts of nature and the frailty of being human occupies an earned space in every wilderness women’s mind.However, here in the ocean, the predators are of a different breed, equally humbling, another beautiful example of natures balancing act between mankind and species.

The most inquisitive of the species I met a few days later in a toilet at the boat yard. A tree frog had taken up residence in the toilet. Splashing with a cool just found the best pond ever moon sized perma grin, he batted his eye lashes at me and sent me a clear croaky message to go find another place for my yellow splash. So I did and reasoned that even in the toilet we can all live in harmony and went outside to pee with the trees.

After having slept on anchor in the harbor on the way to the boat yard and prior to the meeting of the toilet frog we maneuvered the 55 foot yacht to the dry yard for a barnacle scraping and a good thick coat of paint. Maralinga the 55 foot concrete yacht has a dirty bottom and similar to a child in need of new pants, Maralinga slowly waddles through the salty harbor to the changing table for some TLC. Two days of scrapping and applying anti-foul paint later Maralinga returns refreshed in her clean pants to her floating home restrained to a dock in the marina where she anxiously awaits like the rest of us for the starting bell of the race/rally to Indonesia waters.

Celestial The Navigator has come a couple of thousand cycle miles or so to try out her sea legs!

A special thanks to the Williams family for putting one of my posters in their shop window and for being so much fun to hang out with!

THE HOE DOWN

I am camped under a cliff on the warm shores of the sea in Darwin, Australia; the moon is almost full and even at night the tropical heat radiates off of the ocean blue green salty sea. I awaken with a sudden stinging startling surprise; call the police I shout out into the balmy moonlit glow of the interior of my little tent, a glowing luminescence so intense it is like sleeping inside a florescent bulb. “Call the police they are trying to take me alive”, I shout.

My legs are bleeding, my back is taffy sticky from sweat, my chest is thumping. Like a fireman who has just emerged from the flames I look down and see blood. Little droplets speckle my legs from toe to thigh. What has happened I think to myself? I search around for my headlight to investigate. I brush the sleep boogers from my eyes and as the glow of the headlight brightens the tent I see tiny squirmy black dots, sand flies, they are everywhere. And like cowboys at a hoe down, they are throwing back the pints of blood with a furious thirst and parched for more.

I light some tobacco, not to smoke it but to fill the tent with smoke in order to cloud their vision and their little minds. “Sand flies blinded by smoke and leave town…news at eleven” I can see the headlines now! Or perhaps the headline could read “Hundreds of sand flies found intoxicated on the outskirts of town playing miniature violins and searching for a new location for the annual sand fly hoe down”. Yeah, that would look good on the front page of Sunday’s newspaper.

After the invasion of sand flies and way past last call at the sand fly hoe down, I reoccupy my tent and I lie there trying not to itch my already bleeding legs and smile. I smile while thinking about what a wonderful little town I have found in Darwin, Australia. Indonesia is only 600 nautical miles away, across the ocean I am camped on. After having met half the population of Darwin and littering cyclist looking for a crew position on a sailing yacht heading for Indonesia posters all over town, I smile with a knowing hopefulness that someone will either tell someone who will tell someone who will tell someone or else someone will see a cyclist looking for…poster. Therefore, me, Pandemic the Magic Nautical Bicycle and turtle Celestial The Navigator will be sailing across the beautiful blue green ocean and be able to be on our way soon enough.

Notice the swollen eyes…shortly after the bug parade marched on my face!

Incognito…notice the mark on my lower lip shortly after I extracted my bicycle peddle from my droopy swollen lower lip!

When the ants go marching in, when the ants go marching in…….the music resonates with a rhythmic buzz as the stomp of their six saintly buggy feet echoes through the brisk air as Pandemic the magic bicycle awakes for another day of riding in the mountains. I grimace my face that could serve as a great purposeful attraction at the local circus side show. I now resemble a circus mongoloid rolling freak show push peddling great mighty legs in search of drinkable water in the Southern Alps Mountains. In fact, the only things functioning with any degree of beauty this morning are my legs and my sunglasses, the perfect disguise for the swollen mess of my newly found mongoloid face and obese eye lids. Can eye lids gain weight from too much cheese and cycling? Can Down syndrome be acquired overnight? I ponder as I peddle wearing sunglasses incognito uphill towards the glacier region of New Zealand. I have been feeling guilty for several days because after having lost my bottle of environmentally friendly white gas I have been burning petrol in my camp stove.

It has been pretty cold at night so I have been cooking in the vestibule of the tent and the fumes have gotten a bit intense like sleeping on the engine of a tractor under repair. If the environment had a karmic army it would have to be made up of acrobatic bugs that have been sent to me while I sleep to perform circus acts on my face as retribution for destroying yet another ozone layer. The environmentally friendly karmic bug parade has pillaged my face while I slept out in the cold while sniffing an old tractor engine. My thighs continue to ponder the additional weight of my obese eye lids cheek bones and lips as I push peddle over rolling hills north up the west coast.

My face feels very strange like it belongs in the museum of mongoloid bug art.I wish I had a picture of myself or a mirror so I can look at myself and see the creative work of the karmic bug parade that has spend the night marching over the ridges and plateaus that encompass my eye lids, cheeks bones and lips.Peddling up these hills is a challenge but nothing compared to the hard work it must have been for the troop of acrobatic circus bugs to perform on the hilly surface of my face.

As the bicycle skids to halt I suddenly realize that I had gotten my bicycle peddle stuck in my swollen droopy lower lip.When the dust settles and after spending 15 minutes extracting my bicycle peddle from my lip I realize that I COULD see myself.I dig my camera out of the saddle bag and snap a few pictures of myself to take a better look at the chosen facial path of the karmic bug parade.

Bugger! There is definitely something wrong with my face. I throw on my sunglasses and peddle on for the day, buzzing with happiness to be incognito and disappointed there isn’t a circus freak show hiring mongoloid cyclists at the top of one of these hills. The nice thing about travelling the world is people don’t know what you are supposed to look like so you can pretty much look as nutty or buggy as you want and people assume that perhaps you have just been dealt a poor hand of cards for this lifetime, cards which include obese eyelids and outrageously chubby lips. Three more days of peddling a few extra kilos of obese eye lids up and down rolling hills and a glacier and a shop appear in the distant mountainous hills. I replenish my stove with environmentally friendly white gas with the hope of gaining back some karmic environmental points. My eyelids shed the extra pounds and return to their slender size and I am grateful the karmic acrobatic bug parade has finally received different marching orders and left this beautiful glaciated town to join another cyclist’s circus freak show.

This evening I am sitting in my wet frosty tent crossed legged inside my sleeping bag with my bike light torch in my mouth. My rained soaked figureless gloves are challenged to keep my fingers warm enough to type. I am also typing this really fast because my computer battery is frozen and about to grind to a quick frozen halt. It has been drizzling with rain daily and freezing up at night since Invercargill at the bottom of the south Island of New Zealand. Each morning my frosty tent and super warm sleeping bag beckons me to dream another dream.

Today I cycled along a dirt road that dead ends on the water on the south side of Queenstown. Mountains have been hugging me all day as I scribble Pandemic round and round down the dirt path. Listening to music has become my crutch and my cycling rhythm has become more of a dance. A dance that will no doubt eventually lead me into crashing into a ditch but for now with a captive listening audience of many cows and sheep, I sing and dance on, happy to be finally heading north to warmer climates before the onset of a rainy cold winter.

This is the New Zealand I had imagined. A spectacular mountainous backdrop highlighted by rivers, the picturesque perfect location for my opera debut. The road was washed out today in two places. The first river crossing Pandemic and I rolled and splashed through the trickling brook in a rhythmic tango while singing to my new tunes. The second river crossing was beckoning to take me and Pavarotti the musical magic bicycle for a cold wet last dance. Therefore I removed my dancing shoes and pushed Pavarotti the musical magic bicycle through the water, the current peculated with a crisp sopranos’ harmonic good morning. This road has quickly become one of my all time favorites. I did not see anyone for about 70 kilometers and at the end of the Congo line I found a restored early 1900’s steamer boat to transport me across the Lakes into Queenstown. The snow is accumulating up high on the mountains and every other person I have met in Queenstown is waiting to go skiing. It is time to Macarena my way to the north western side of the Southern Alps mountain range before Pavarotti the musical magic bicycle and I bellow ourselves into a ditch while peddling and singing in an ice storm.