Passage to Indonesia — Part 1 Late Season, Open Water

I began this passage from Australia to Indonesia with more trepidation than usual. That alone should have been a clue.

There were reasons, of course. There always are. We were leaving Australia fully inside cyclone season, which officially runs from November 1 to April 30. By late December, we weren’t at the tail end or even the shoulder, we were squarely in it. Late enough that people paused when we mentioned our plans. Late enough that the weather patterns had shifted from helpful to unfriendly. Winds that had once been behind us were now firmly in our face. Currents, too, would be working against us. On paper, it was not the right time to make this passage.

Naturally, I responded by upgrading my weather app.

PredictWind wasn’t new to me, but now I had the professional version. This meant access to currents, predicted roll of the boat, and far more detailed weather information, fog, lightning, and other things I hadn’t previously worried as much about. PredictWind, it turns out, is sometimes  good at predicting weather. It is  very good at causing anxiety.

Each day leading up to departure, I checked the forecasts. This did not help. One day there was no wind at all. The next, wind directly on the bow. Lightning icons bloomed across the screen multiple times a day. Fog warnings appeared. The phrase “wind against current” showed up more than once, which is shorthand for an uncomfortable, slamming ride. The more information I had, the less settled I felt.

I started writing before we left, hoping to capture the moment honestly. Would it be as bad as I feared? Better? Worse? Maybe this would all be useful later, something to learn from. Or maybe I just needed to stop checking the app.

The morning we were set to leave, two new warnings appeared: fog and wind against current. Right on time, I reminded myself that I am perfectly capable of creating anxiety on my own. I don’t really need help from PredictWind.

The calendar wasn’t helping. Cyclone season advancing. Winds shifting. And our Australian visas, now uncomfortably close to expiring. Before we could leave, we still needed fuel.

We called on Friday and were told someone would call us back Saturday. Saturday arrived with a large squall. Fueling would have been impossible anyway, but no call came. We tried again early Monday and were told the earliest appointment was Tuesday morning. Tuesday brought another call: the only truck driver had been medivac-ed the night before. Fuel would now be Wednesday afternoon, when their other driver could be called back from vacation.

By then, everything felt compressed. The weather window. The season. The visas. Each delay turned the decision into a narrowing corridor.

Wednesday finally arrived, and with it, fuel. Not long after, lines were cast off. Australia slipped astern, quietly and without ceremony.

The currents coming out of Thursday Island were unexpectedly in our favor. So much so that we were making 9.2 knots, well above our usual maximum of six or seven. It felt like a small kindness, a brief easing, just enough to let my shoulders drop.

That evening, the western horizon began to glow. Not the soft fade of sunset, but something stranger. Dozens of points of light spread across the darkness, clustered and unmoving. Only one boat showed up clearly on AIS, the YONG-A. We guessed it was a fishing fleet, likely Chinese. There were more than fifty boats in that one area alone, with other groups waiting farther west.

I watched the lights for a long time, aware that what we could see was only part of the story. The boat moved steadily on. The water slid past the hull. Night settled in.

And with it came the realization that from here on out, much of what mattered most would be the things we *couldn’t* see at all.

Next is Part 2, where the unseen starts getting uncomfortably close.