Benoa Harbour, Bali

It's been a long time since we've been tied up to anything solid but now we are marina bums again... We arrived in Benoa Harbour on the south east coast of Bali three days ago and picked up the last available slip in Bali Marina. This is where I first sailed into Indonesia seven years ago as crew onboard an Australian yacht so it's great to back in familiar territory. Nothing has changed in the marina, the dock is still made of concrete and falling apart, water is a rare commodity and the dock master is constantly being pulled in four different directions! However, it is a great place, the staff are friendly, the restaurant serves great food and most importantly Blue Moon is safe and sound allowing us to leave her all day to go exploring.

Kuta Beach is a ten minute taxi ride and Bali's main tourist town, this place has changed a lot in seven years and is apsolutely crazy! We've been heading in everyday and discover something new everytime, Jimmy's says it's like Asia meets Miami meets New york city...a shoppers paradise where $10 can go a long way!! We plan to do some work on the boat over the next few days and then take some inland trips up to the mountain town of Ubud to see the rice paddy fields and check out some local art work.

Nusa Lembongan.

Current Position: South 08*40'740 East 115*26'315

Nusa Lembongan is a small island in the channel between Bali and Lombok, we arrived here two days ago and picked up a mooring belonging to a fisherman - no charge. This is another touristy place with huge floating platforms covered in water slides and cafe's for the big motor cats coming out of bali to moor up to during the day. The town along the waterfront doesn't appear to be too affected by the tourists except for the scattering of restaurants and quite fancy hotels. Everything here seems to focused on water sports and the guys were very happy to find three good surf brakes in paddling distance of the boats! Jimmy rented a long board for US$7 a day and every evening and morning along with Gunnar and Jasper head out to catch the high tide break. I've been really tempted to try but all the breaks are on shallow reef so I guess I'll keep watching for now!
The island is mostly populated by Hindu's so there are beautiful temples throughout the town and flowered offerings line the ground of the streets. The people as always are extremely friendly and on the whole it's a very relaxing little spot. Tomorrow we plan to head to Benoa Harbour on the south of Bali, just 15 miles away, to try and organize getting Blue Moon into the marina for a week or two in the hope of heading in land to explore for a few days!

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Teluk Kombal and Gilli Trawangan.

Current Position at Teluk Kombal: South 08*24'327 East 116*04'388

At the moment we're happily nestled on a mooring in a calm bay called Teluk Kombal on the North West side of Lombok island-East of Bali. We spent a few days moored off the outer of three small Gili islands called Gili Trawangan where we Tossed about on a mooring ball by rolling seas and heavy currents! There was a good reason we put up with this however, our Norwegian friends Ingvil and Gunnar off of s/v Helen Kate met on this very island seven years ago. It's been a huge mile stone in their circumnavigation to have been able to return here on their own sail boat and revisit where they first set eyes on each other and ultimately fell in Love!! I've never seen either of them so excited and so putting up with a little rolling was the least we could do. The island is pretty small and took us roughly an hour and a half to walk around but there is a lot crammed in to a small space. When Ingvil and Gunnar were first here it was known as the party island but they weren't prepared for how much more touristy it's become. The main street has many Restaurants, cafes and hostels all filled with white backpacker faces and offering western style food, swimming pools and Magic Mushrooms! There is still a lot of charm here and it doesn't yet seem ruined by tourism, there are no cars or trucks just horse drawn buggies and most of the roads are made of sand. The beaches are covered in small fishing boats and as soon as you walk off the main street you step into what could be any Indonesian village.

It was a little too rough during the day for us to spend any time on the boat so we would head ashore in the morning and return late at night. Anywhere else this may cause a problem but here we were more than happy to laze around on one of the fabulous beach huts propped up on pillows listening to music and ordering whenever we got hungry or thirsty...tough life! They even had little cabanas with TV's in where we could pick out a copied DVD and watch it as we ate...this is what we do in paradise?! We were just as happy to pick out a nice cafe and sit and people watch for the afternoon, we haven't seen this many tourists for a while and they're just so elaborately funny! The island has great charm and is really chilled out, it was a fantastic re-introduction into a more touristy area before we hit Bali and I'd definitely recommend it as a stop...just maybe at a less windy time! Most other cruisers stopped at the closest island to the main land 'Gilli Air' as it offers a lot more mooring balls in a calmer spot. From what we heard it was also very beautiful with more larger resorts and a quieter atmosphere.

Now we are enjoying a nice calm anchorage on Lombok for a couple of days, there's not much right here but yesterday we hired a 'Bemo' (mini van) to explore some of the island where we saw loads of friendly monkeys up in the Jungle and visited some weaving and pottery villages. The Landscape here is a lot more tropical and humid...today we even got our first rain fall for over four months. We ran around with buckets and a scrubbing brush trying to clean the boat down with it's first fresh water shower in a long time!

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Sumbawa Island.

Current Position: South 08*28'036 East 117*22'333
Anchored off the village of 'Badas'.

After leaving Komodo island we spent a couple of days relaxing on the smaller island of Banta where we snorkeled on some beautiful reef and had beach fires at night. We then took an over night sail along the north coast of Sumbawa island, roughly 100 miles, to the village of Badas on the north west coast. The scenery has changed dramatically, from very dry, brown hills to lush green mountains and the smell of flowers that seems to linger in the air. We anchored in a deep inlet used as a small port in 40ft of water. We're probably the only boats they've seen here in a while as the locals are surprised to three yachts anchored on their doorstep and as far as cruisers are concerned we're now 'off the beaten track'.

Roughly 10 mins drive from the anchorage is the large town of Sumbawa Besar which used to be the capital of Sumbawa. On Saturday we met a local guy called 'Borex' who knew a little English and rented a 'Bemo'(mini bus) for us for the day so we could explore the area. We visited the Sultans palace which is actually a building site as it's in the process of being reconstructed from scratch and then wandered the small shops in town. Most importantly we found a great little restaurant with probably the best food we've had in Indonesia so far, we ended up returning there many times and the guys loved endless supply of cold Bintang! Sumbawa is a great area and although it's a shame that very few tourists visit the island it's also kind of nice that we haven't seen another white face the whole time we've been here!

Today we plan to start moving west again but not sure as of yet where we'll end up...We're all still trying to decide whether to go north or south of Lombok Island so I guess we'll decide underway or maybe just find a nice little sandy island to spend the night!!

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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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