Trade Winds currently still sits for sale in Opua, New Zealand waiting on new adventures and new owners. The price is now listed in NZD to avoid the unfavorable USD/NZD exchange rate and hopefully to attract buyers. Now it is a NZ designed and built boat for sale in NZ and listed in NZ dollars. The adventures of Koelby, Jessica, and Tomas together on the high seas will continue at a later date once the Archer and Bauer are older. In the mean time, I have jumped ship to the Borneo Princess under the US Flag as the First Officer.
Borneo Princess is a 25 meter steel catamaran with two impressive 450 Hp Caterpillar engines and 2 15 kW Caterpillar generators. The boat is 10 meters wide and has impressive internal and external space. My adventures start in Balikpapan Indonesia on the island of Borneo. The city of Balikpapan is one of the largest on Borneo with 750,000 people as of the last census. There are so many people who live under the view of the government though, I bet the real population is closer to 1M.
If you have not experienced driving in Indonesia you are in for an eye opening experience. The lines on the road are merely serving suggestions. Two lanes of traffic become three, three lanes at an intersection become five and scooters rule the roads. I surprisingly never saw and accidents with scooters while I was there. While driving through a round-a-bout keep in mind that everyone drives straight through the lanes and does not follow the circle. Now you are warned.
I am staying in an old expat suburb called Balikpapan Baru in the area of Vancouver. There are also areas called Arizona, Beverly Hills, etc. Most of the expats are slowly being driven out as the oil and gas and mining jobs all dry up and the homes are being bought by Indonesians. I have been told that because the government subsidizes the oil so heavily they also limit the size of engines in cars and scooters to the more fuel efficient models (makes sense). But, on the weekends they allow the big engine cars and bikes to be driven with special permits. So on the weekend you see the big V-8 engine European cars and the super-sport bikes on the road or being driven around the residential areas. On Friday and Saturday night the teenagers drive their scooters around the town with the mufflers off creating a horrible racket and imagining how cool they are!
The boat is up a river at a barge refit yard being worked on by a contractor up there. I will be returning next week hopefully to help the final stages of construction. I am packing up my stuff to put in storage here in Melbourne and will ship it by boat to the states when I can figure out a place to store it. I will update with pictures and journal hopefully every other day.
-Tom
Borneo Princess is a 25 meter steel catamaran with two impressive 450 Hp Caterpillar engines and 2 15 kW Caterpillar generators. The boat is 10 meters wide and has impressive internal and external space. My adventures start in Balikpapan Indonesia on the island of Borneo. The city of Balikpapan is one of the largest on Borneo with 750,000 people as of the last census. There are so many people who live under the view of the government though, I bet the real population is closer to 1M.
If you have not experienced driving in Indonesia you are in for an eye opening experience. The lines on the road are merely serving suggestions. Two lanes of traffic become three, three lanes at an intersection become five and scooters rule the roads. I surprisingly never saw and accidents with scooters while I was there. While driving through a round-a-bout keep in mind that everyone drives straight through the lanes and does not follow the circle. Now you are warned.
I am staying in an old expat suburb called Balikpapan Baru in the area of Vancouver. There are also areas called Arizona, Beverly Hills, etc. Most of the expats are slowly being driven out as the oil and gas and mining jobs all dry up and the homes are being bought by Indonesians. I have been told that because the government subsidizes the oil so heavily they also limit the size of engines in cars and scooters to the more fuel efficient models (makes sense). But, on the weekends they allow the big engine cars and bikes to be driven with special permits. So on the weekend you see the big V-8 engine European cars and the super-sport bikes on the road or being driven around the residential areas. On Friday and Saturday night the teenagers drive their scooters around the town with the mufflers off creating a horrible racket and imagining how cool they are!
The boat is up a river at a barge refit yard being worked on by a contractor up there. I will be returning next week hopefully to help the final stages of construction. I am packing up my stuff to put in storage here in Melbourne and will ship it by boat to the states when I can figure out a place to store it. I will update with pictures and journal hopefully every other day.
-Tom
