An Island painted in Rainbow Colours
24 September 2017 | Bawean
Mel
We arrived in Bawean Island in the afternoon. Althea and Jaga 2 were already anchored there as well. We asked Larry if there is the opportunity to restock with Diesel, but there wasn’t. However, every one of us was tired, so we stayed on the Boat and went to bed early. The next day we went ashore. We beached the Dinghy and went to the street to look around. There was a little Toko shop. Women were sitting with their children at the front and started giggling when they spotted us. Grant asked the shop lady if there is a taxi somewhere around. But there were no taxis on the Island. Suddenly a man appeared out of nowhere. He actually came out of the blue house opposite the shop. His English was decent and tried to help us out, by calling his friend with a car to take us around the Island. A young man in his twenties arrived on a Moped. We were chatting. From small-talk, the conversation suddenly changed to business. His name was Hassan, and he is the guy with the car. The question was: how much for how long. Grant negotiated him down to 10 AUD an hour for four hours. Hassan left on his Moped and came back with a red little car and a boombox as big as the booth. He gave Grant the car keys and jumped on the passenger seat next to him. Grant drove us around this stunning Island and stopped at a Beach Café after Hassan pointed it out. There was a kind of Adventure Park with a bicycle that you could ride over a wire from one tree to another, a Flying Fox and other things. At the moment, the Park attractions where closed for the Monsoon Storms. The Island had amazing beaches and bays. The villages were colourful and the people happy. The Island is 100% Muslim, but not the kind of Muslims we know from the middle eastern side of the World. We took Hassan for Lunch at a Restaurant, where you had to sit on the floor to eat. That was a novelty. We circumnavigated the Island in four hours. At the end, we gave Hassan 50 Bucks, 40 as said and 10 as a Tip. He was very pleasant to be with. We arrived at the Beach with our Dinghy and Larry and the lot just arrived. They were going for Dinner and asked us to join, but we had planned to leave anchorage to make our way to Karimun Jawa. At 3.30 p.m. we were heading out of the bay with an amazing Memory of Bawean in our Minds.