Komodo Island!

Current Position: South 08*26'894 East 119*34'070
Anchored at Gili Lawa Laut island, North of Komodo island

Leaving Lehok grinno, in the Linta Strait between Padar island and Rinca we experienced huge currents heading from North to south, this was great when we were running with it at ten and a half knots but when we headed back north again it pretty much stopped us in our tracks! Luckily we could we had enough power in the engine to keep us moving at half a knot until the wind picked up just in time to get us out of the narrowest and strongest flow...we were like fish trying to swim up stream and getting no where very fast! Once the worst was behind us we had an enjoyable motor sail to Gili Lawa Laut island just north of the bigger Komodo Island. This has to be one of the most beautiful anchorages we've seen so far in Indonesia with water so clear we could see our anchor dug down in the sand, beautiful coral reef covered in fish and great hikes up the hills overlooking Komodo. This is a very popular spot for the big dive charter boats who spend four days here doing constant dive trips. We took Jimmy & Joern out to a huge rock about half a mile from the anchorage to do a dive, the rock is shaped like an underwater volcano and they were pleasantly surprised of the amount of fish and great visibility. We spent a relaxing night here but today we're heading about 15 miles further west to catch up with friends onboard s/v Antares and s/v Helen Kate.

MONDAY 25TH AUGUST
Anchored at Lehok Ginggo on Rinca Island
Position: South 08*42'210 East 119*39'460

Lehok Ginggo is a huge bay on the western coast of Rinca, surrounded with grass covered hills and lots of white sandy beaches, we anchored next to two small fishing boats off one of the beaches in the South East corner in about 30feet of good holding sand. The first morning we headed ashore and marched around with the machete out and our boat poles at the ready, we saw lots of wild deer, pigs and monkeys but no dragons! After meeting the fishermen, we were adopted by 'Otis', one of the young guys and he took us on extensive hikes into the bushes to continue the search. He thought the boat pole was extremely inadequate (and probably quite funny) so immediately set out to cut us proper poking/protection sticks. Apparently, you need a 6-8 foot branch with a v-fork on the end to push at the dragons necks and noses. We ended up spotting quite a few wondering around in the brush then Otis put up some small bait fish on a string in a tree and told us to head ashore around 11:00am, at 10:45 there they were marching along the beach!

SUNDAY 24TH AUGUST
Anchored at Ranger Station on Rinca Island.
Position: South 08*39'198 East 119*42'855

After a quick dash to the local market at Labuhan Bajo on Saturday morning, to stock up on some fruit and vegies, we pulled anchor and headed out to 'Rinca' one of the two main Islands in the Komodo national park. We'd heard that the ranger station on the north coast was the best place to see the monitor lizards close up so we fought the tides and arrived in the well protected anchorage around 3pm. We headed ashore and parked at the dock, full of wooden tourist boats, then wandered precariously to the ranger huts avoiding all the wild monkeys. We found the station closes at 4pm so we'd missed out on the guided tour but the bar was open and the rangers were more than happy to show us some giant dragons that hung around outside the kitchen hut. They were very serious about us not getting too close as the komodo's are extremely unpredictable and just one bite will kill you! One of the guides stood between us with a long stick forked at the end to protect us if one decided get friendly. The ranger explained that the dragons main food sources are the big water buffalo's and wild deer, they bite them then follow for a couple of days until they die of blood poisoning and then they feast! We were certainly happy at keeping our distance but when Jimmy picked up our guide and threatened to feed him to the pack the other rangers thought it was extremely funny.

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Labuhan Bajo - Gateway to Komodo!

FRIDAY 22ND AUGUST
Position: South 08*29'304 East 119*52'433

We've been here in Labuhan Bajo on the west coast of Flores for a couple of days now and are finding it hard to get used to the hustle of a big town and the constant dust that covers us wherever we walk! We're anchored right inside the port surrounded by local fishing and charter boats that use the town as a base for the Komodo area. The view from Blue Moon is great with a busy shore line scattered with loads of little houses and an array of strange looking vessels. There's one main street running parallel to the waterfront where everything takes place including dive shops, restaurants and kiosks that sell everything you could possibly need! It's still an extremely poor area and most people are living in very basic conditions but as always have time to smile and say hello. There are quite a few backpackers here so we're back to feeling like just another group of tourists. There are some great little restaurants here where a plate of Nasi Goreng (fried rice) or Mie Goreng (fried noodles) costs around 15,000 Rupia or $1.50, A large bottle of Bintang is $2 so our drink bill usually comes out much higher than the food...Where else can six people go out for dinner and drinks and pay less than $25?!

Labuhan Bajo is another scheduled rally stop so we are supposed to check in with the port captain, however, Eli & Joern off s/v Silene had a really bad experience with them. After stamping their paperwork one of the officials started demanding 250,000 Rupia (roughly $27), It may not sound much but that's a fortune here especially as we're not supposed to pay anything. Apparently the guy got extremely angry and started shouting that he hated stupid Europeans, that they should go back to where they came from but now that they're here in Indonesia they have to do as they're told!!...Luckily Eli made a quick phone call to our rally representative who smoothed the way enough for them to grab the papers and get out quickly. I guess this means we won't be checking in as I don't think they're ready to see how an American would handle the situation....Jimmy admits it wouldn't be pretty!

Since we arrived We've been inundated with guys on 'Panga's' or Long boats coming up to the boat and trying to sell us souvenirs from Komodo, I have to admit we did crack under the pressure and ended up buying a couple of wooden dragon carvings. They're extremely persistent and couldn't figure out why I didn't want to buy one of their strings of not so great Komodo Pearls! So now we're just keen to get out to the islands to see some real dragons for ourselves, tomorrow we'll head over to the island of 'Rinca' which is supposed to be a better place than Komodo to see the big monitor Lizards and other wildlife in the wild...very exciting!! We've really enjoyed Labuhan Bajo and found it a great stop to re-stock on Fuel, Water and groceries.

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Gili Bodo.

Wednesday 20th August
Position: South 08*22'173 East 120*00'940

We have finally found our paradise island and are currently anchored off the white sandy beaches of Gili Bodo island. It was a little tricky arriving yesterday with not the best light to enter through the reef but once again with the help of Gunnar snorkeling around we found a nice little patch of sand in 15 feet of water. The coral here is the best we've seen in a long time and the water clarity is also very good, we can sit on the boat and look down at the reef and see all the colourful fish swimming around! The island is completely uninhabited except for the odd fisherman who comes by to check his nets and hang out in the bay now and then. The only other sign of life we've seen is wild monkeys wondering on the beach and digging for crabs or some kind of shell fish... they look so strange just taking a stroll on the sand and looking out to sea!
Last night and tonight we've been ashore along with Ingvil and Gunnar off S/V Helen Kate and Eli & Joern off S/V Silene to build a fire and cook some bread on a stick and baked potatoes in the coals. We're the only boats here so we can pretty much do what we like which means we end up staying late into the night burning just about all the pieces of drift wood on the beach! Tonight some fishermen came ashore to use our fire to cook a giant parrot fish for their dinner and some 'Chumi Chumi' (squid to us) which they had just caught and which they put whole on to a stick and cooked them very much like we do our bread. They gave us the squid, of which only Jimmy was delighted with, then took their fish and left...if only we could communicate with them I think it would have been a pretty interesting conversation!

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Lingeh Bay, Flores.

Current Position: South 08*16'687 East 120*36'110
We're finally getting into the rhythm of getting up at day break around 5am (with the help of the local mosque calling people to prayer)& making the most of the day with an early departure. This morning we had to snake our way back out of the reef and continue the sail ever West. We chose a shorter hop today of 27 miles which meant we arrived at midday with good light making it easier to see the surrounding reef. Lingey bay is well protected as we anchored behind a headland just off a small village. No sooner had we dropped the anchor (on a rocky bottom) then about 30 kids rowed out on canoes and attached themselves to Blue Moons life lines. It's obviously a very poor area as non of the children go to school and they were asking if we had any books, pens, shoes and clothes and not the traditional 'Candy' that usually appeals at this age. They were a lot of fun and we practiced our Indonesian on them and their English on us but after a while they got bored and slipped away to try their luck at one of the other yachts. We dropped the dingy and went for a quick snorkel on the reef and were quite impressed by the amount of fish and living coral that hasn't been destroyed by fishing with explosives!

SUNDAY AUGUST 17th: Anchored in Riung
Position: South 08*24'580 East 121*01'740
Had another great sail with 15 to 20 knots out of the North West and clear skies, we made great time and arrived off the town of Riung around 2pm with plenty of light to motor through the reef. We anchored comfortably in 25 ft of water with good holding and Eli and Joern picked us up to take a walk through town. Really interesting as many of the houses built on wooden stilts and a blend of Muslim and Catholic cultures, however today is Indonesia's national day and also a Sunday so everything was pretty deserted. This is a popular place for tourist to come and hire a local boat to take them out to the small islands to do some snorkeling in the national park.

SATURDAY AUGUST 16th: Anchored in Nagarujong Bay
Position: South 08*30'550 East 121*41'250
An early start this morning but luckily the wind filled in and we were able to have a great sail even breaking out the spinnaker a few times. There were a lot of fish traps to avoid along the coast, mostly old fuel cans weighed down on long lines, however, we did spot quite a few the size of small boats made out of bamboo...I'm glad were not having to do any night sails as these would have been impossible to see in the dark! From what we can tell they use them to create shade that attract the fish and then they have baited, hooked lines hanging underneath that they catch them on?!
We arrived at Nagarujong Bay around 3:30pm and found easy anchorage just off the black sand beach in 25ft of water, the only problem here is the bay is unprotected from the North and so we're suffering from a swell which is making it pretty rolly.

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Hiking Mnt. Kelimutu and the three lakes.

Position: South 08*38'065 East 122*18'511
Currently anchored off Sea World resort in Maumere, North Flores Is.

We arrived here yesterday morning & anchored in 20ft of black volcanic sand just off the beach from the Sea World resort. It's a great place to use as a base to do some in land travel as there are always other yachts around to keep an eye on the boat and the area seems pretty safe. As soon as we arrived quite a few guys rowed out in their dugout canoes to sell vegetables, Diesel & water, they're happy to barter the price on all & just as happy to stop for a quick chat to practice their English. We took a 30 minute walk into the small nearby village to find an ATM and buy a few vegetables at the market, as always everyone along the way stopped to wave & say hello...fascinated to see us pass by! Jimmy took both his air tanks into the dive shop at the resort to have them filled for roughly US$7 but found one of them had a pin hole leak & will have to be thrown away...that's going to be tough to replace!

Today however was a breath of fresh air (quite literally) as we left Blue Moon sitting peacefully at anchor and headed up into the mountains! We hired a car and driver for the day, along with Joern and Eli, through the resort costing 630 rupiah (US$70) and at 5am we met at reception with coffee in hand to start the three and half hour drive up to Mount Kelimutu. It's not the highest mountain on the island but it's famous for the three coloured lakes that are found at the top. No one can explain the exact reason for the different colours other than minerals in the rock but if you take out a bottle of the water it's as clear as any drinking water. We were lucky that there were no clouds today so we had a clear view of the bright lime green of one, brown of another and black of the third. During different times of the year they can change to pale blue, red and light brown. The locals have a belief that when someone dies their spirit enters one of these lakes; Green for the young, brown for the old and black for people who are bad. The scenery was fantastic with beautiful views over the surrounding mountains and a nice cool breeze to make the hiking a little easier...all this sailing and our legs have turned to jelly!!

On the drive back down the scenery got better and better with hillsides covered in shimmering rice paddy's and villages full of hanging Ikat weavings. We visited a traditional village and were invited to take a look inside the chiefs very elaborate wooden house. A local lady explained to us the ceremonies that take place there every year (all of which consist of slaughtering some kind of animal). The most interestingly seemed to be how the next chief of the village is decided. This pretty much consists of the present chiefs first born son being left in the rafters as a baby and if he cries in the first five minutes then he's worthy to eventually take over! If not then he is given to the shaman who takes him away and knocks his head against a banana tree, if he cries on the first try then he's worthy but if not until the third then he is considered stupid, the second son is then automatically pronounced chief without a question and the first son will have to leave the village...tough crowd huh!!

We had a great day and our driver was a lot of fun, we still can't belive he stayed awake the whole day but are very glad he did as some of those roads were a bit dodgy to say the least! Tomorrow we will be upping anchor again trying to stay ahead of the Sail Indonesia crowd with a short hop 30 miles west in hope of finding some clear water to snorkel and dive in.

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Tanjung Gedong, Flores Island

TUESDAY 12TH AUGUST
Position: South 08*04'660 East 122*50'718

Yesterday we had a beautiful day sail (and some motoring) from Lembata to this anchorage at Tanjung Gedong on the Eastern side of Flores Island...roughly fourty miles. Arriving around 4pm in a well protected but extremely deep bay, we had to drop the anchor about 20 feet from the beach as the bottom slopes up rather sharply - one minute we were in 250ft the next 40. Our Norwegian friends on s/v Helen Kate and s/v Silene we're already anchored and Gunnar was nice enough to snorkel in front of the boat to find a sandy spot to drop our anchor in. The bay is extremely beautiful with a rocky beach covered in palm trees, crystal clear water and a large village in the hills.
Today we went ashore to visit the village and were shown around by a lady who spoke some English and was really excited to practice it with us. She invited us into her house for Flores Coffee (very strong and very sweet) and introduced us to her family. The village itself is very basic with small wooden houses and pigs and chickens running around everywhere. The population here are mostly Catholic with some Muslim and they were really proud of the village church. It was obvious that they rarely have any tourists, other than the odd cruiser dropping in, as we had a large number of children and adults following us where ever we went...they're so friendly!
Back on the beach a group of older guys were carving out wooden canoes and they were really happy to show us their handy work. The rest of the day we spent snorkelling and relaxing on the boat with a constant influx of visiting children in canoes moving from one boat to another to try and see what was going on in these strange crafts. This evening we went ashore to build a fire ('api' in indonsian) on the beach and cook our famous 'bread on a stick' while watching the sunset. A local guy came to join us and we gave him some bread and sausages to try, he seemed to like it but turned down Jimmy's offer of some wine as he said it might make him Crazy - very honest!!
Tomorrow we plan to head further west in search of some dive sites but not sure where yet, the weather looks good but there's been no wind so it may be a day of motoring or flying the spinaker.

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Leboleba Harbour, Kawula Island.

MONDAY 11TH AUGUST,
Position in Loboleba Harbour: South 08*22'068 East 123*24'394

We had a great sail yesterday and entered the Selat Lamakera pass at 9:30am with breathtaking views of the high Volcanic islands. Our timing was a bit off as we were supposed to catch the tide in our favour but ended up arriving on the turn so had about three knots against us for a while which was okay as it can reach up to seven. Loboleba is an enclosed natural harbour overlooked buy the active 'Ile Ape' volcano and the small city of Lewoleba. We anchored in about 40ft of water along with 15 other yachts and headed ashore to the newly constructed dinghy dock (Made out of bamboo and planks of wood) to explore town. The people here are very poor but everyone is always happy with big smiles on their faces and calls of 'Hello Misses' and 'Hello Mister' everywhere we go. There was just enough time to take a quick walk through town to take and then stop off at a restaurant for a couple of Bintang Beers and fried rice and Noodle dinner. All would have been great except another cruiser came up to tell us that Blue Moon was getting a little too friendly with another boat in the anchorage!! Jimmy and Joern sped out to move us away and luckily only minor damage occurred to the other boat and none to us.

Today we walked to the traditional market about 45 mins from town through the winding back lanes with a constant stream of motorbikes beeping their horns and waving at us. We tried our hand at haggling for fresh fruit and vegetables but I'm pretty sure we're still paying four times as much as the locals...we need a little more practice with our numbers as negotiating with a calculator seems a bit strange. In the afternoon we stopped off for another meal of fried noodles (roughly around $1.50)and then back to the boat to organize fuel and water - which are both available from the guys at the dinghy dock.

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Underway to Kawula Island.

Position at local time 10:44pm - GMT+8hrs: South 09*25'775 East 123*14'600
Course: 357*T
Speed: 4.7knots

We upped anchor and left Roti Island around 8am this morning just managing to avoid the shallow coral heads that cover the anchorage. Our destination is the town of Lembata on Kawula island which is in the main chain of islands just east of Flores. We've been able to sail most of the day with wind out of the South East around 15 to 20 knots but now it's completely died off and we're having to run the engine. S/v Helen Kate, Silene, Nabob, Street Legal and Galliano are all sailing along with us and amazingly we are holding the front of the pack. We scraped Blue Moon's hull yesterday taking off about 2 inches of weed all over so we're guessing it's helping us to go faster. We had our first whale sighting in Indonesia today as we passed a huge pod of what looked like large Pilot whales, really beautiful. Jimmy has been great and has made my birthday underway really enjoyable by putting up balloons all over the boat and baking chocolate brownies. It's amazing to think that this time last year we were on our way from Bora Bora to Suwarrow in the Cook Islands....luckily the conditions are much nicer this year!!

Last night we heard from our friends on 'Nabob' who got an SMS message from their family in Sweden that there was a large earthquake on the island of Sumbawa which is just East of Flores island and very close to here.... we were extremely worried about after shocks and the chance of a tsunami but luckily we felt nothing....scary feeling being so isolated. We plan to visit the island on our way through and hope there wasn't too much damage done.

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Kupan City & Roti Island, West Timor

Current Position at Pulau Bibi Bay on Roti island: South 10*27'133 East 123*21'930
Position for last week in Kupang Harbour: South 10*09'661 East 123*34'207

We've been in Western Timor for a week now and we still haven't acclimatized to the huge cultural differences between here and Australia. Arriving in Kupang we'd timed a little wrong and had to stay out overnight to wait for day light to enter the anchorage and we were very glad we did. With over 100 yachts already there finding a spot less than 60ft deep was pretty tough....luckily we have over 300ft of chain and had no problems. The check in process was something different but once the quarantine officers had been out to the boat we were able to head ashore to Teddy's bar to explore and start all the other necessary procedures. Getting customs to come out to the boat was the tough one and then being impounded for a couple of days until things could be ironed out in Jakarta. On the whole we are really glad we joined the rally as trying to do all this on our own would have been impossible.

The rally organizers had a lot to deal with as many of the older cruisers are extremely impatient and obviously haven't had to deal with third world check-in's before, for us it was business as usual and we knew just to be patient and all would come right! Kupang is a great city and everyone came together to welcome us with festivals and dinners with the Mayor and Governors. The free day tour into the mountains was the absolute highlight, we visited the Village of 'Soe' where the Indigenous Dawan people live in traditional, beehive - like 'lopo' huts. This tribe were once head hunters and we were treated to a performance of their warrior dance. They also laid out there weaving's and carvings for us to buy and we couldn't resist a couple of wooden Beetle nut powder boxes. The second village we visited is called 'Boti', way up in the mountains and here we were given a welcome by the Raja and his people who gave us woven 'Ikat' scarfs that they weave in the village. They also treated us to a traditional lunch and to view the hair cutting ceremony which takes place once in a persons life and then their hair is never cut again. It involves slaughtering a pig and using the blood to paint the child's head then shaving off the hair with a knife... Luckily I couldn't quite see the pig slaughtering part!!

As for provisioning in Kupang pretty much everything is available, at the moment the exchange rate is roughly Rp 8,300 to Aus $1. A bottle of Bintang beer is somewhere around RP 20,000 and a meal of Naasi Goreng (fried rice) can be found for Rp 6,000. There are ATM machines all over town and by jumping on the number 6 Bemo (mini van bus) for Rp 2,000 you can ride out to the 'Mall' where they have a supermarket stocked with western food or the Indonesian equivalent. Pretty much all but red meat and fresh milk can be found there. Toilet roll is available but in very limited quantities and at quite expensive prices...they just don't use it here!! We also found it a lot of fun to visit the huge local markets to buy fresh vegetable and fruit or even to just soak in the atmosphere and practice our Indonesian with the enthusiastic locals!

Leaving Kupang was hard as we'd made many friends in our short stay and the Dinghy Boys who carry our huge dinghy up the beach for a small fee will be sorely missed. However we upped anchor two days ago and had an extremely wet sail 20nm south to 'Palau Bibi Roti' anchorage on the northern tip Of Roti island. It's a very good anchorage but a good look out has to be kept to avoid the coral heads and Bommies. Yesterday we went ashore to visit the village and had a wonderful welcome from the locals who took us to get fresh coconuts from the trees and introduce us to their families. The children followed us wherever we went and always had big smiles on their faces especially when Jimmy chased after them... they couldn't get enough. They pick and dry seaweed here and from what we could work out it is then sent on to America to sell in health food shops or something along those lines! Afterwards we went back to the Norwegian yacht 'Blue Marlin' where I was treated to a surprise birthday party (2 days early as we may all go separate ways from here) and some really wonderful gifts including a woven 'Ikat' blanket and hand made butterfly's!!...a wonderful night and Thank you to everyone.

Tomorrow we have decided to head north to Flores Island which is about 100 nautical miles to do some diving and visit the famous three lake volcano. This may change by the end of the day however as some other friends are heading south to the famous surf brake at 'nembrala Roti' which is also a very tempting idea!!...Watch this space.

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