The wind remained light for the trip around the scorpion’s tail. The first supposed anchorage was at Tanjung Gedong, right at the northernmost extent of the tail. It proved to be substandard and so it was on to Teluk Hading at the very tip of the tail. One yacht went in there and dragged around, also commenting that there was not much room. As the day began to ebb away we became increasingly apprehensive about finding a spot for the night. It was a relief to arrive at possibility number 3, which was “just right”. The fairly open bay at the village of Waimalung (08 25.353S,122 35.328’E) was very comfortable, with good holding and plenty of swing room. It is not far from Babi Island. Several yacht crews went ashore to visit and were mobbed by the usual crowds of kids all shouting “mister”. We gave some of them self-adhesive heart stickers, other baubles and trinkets. However, there was little to hold our jaded western attention for long. A nine mile trip to another anchorage on the southern shore of Dambilah island, next to mighty Pulau Besar (about 900m high), was made and we anchored in 12m with poor holding inside a fringing reef system. (08 28.621’S, 122 28.631’E). A channel about 75 metres wide was easily negotiated with good light. Generally, the Navionics Gold chart of this region is completely unreliable and bears little resemblance to reality. There is virtually no useable information for this coast and the chart can be more or less ignored. The list price for this chart when purchased in Micro SD card format for a chart plotter is over $600 and is a complete rip-off. Increasingly we are downloading Google Earth images of planned anchorages to allow for accurate plotting of courses around coral reefs. This and the Mark 1 Eyeball. Our trip to Dambilah took us past a village built on a sandspit which must have been wiped out in the 1992 tsunami which also devastated large areas of the Flores coastline. One crew visited the village found that the beachfront doubled as a sewerage system and graveyard. Vast plumes of plastic rubbish streamed out into the sea from the village. This is perhaps one of the worst aspects of Indonesia: rubbish. It is just everywhere and cannot be ignored. Streets, canals, rivers, gorges, national parks, beaches, domestic front yards, markets, and just about every bit of water are all heavily polluted by garbage. The plastic load being introduced into the Flores and Java seas must be beyond measure. The environmental catastrophe is evidenced by the decimation of fish stocks and virtually complete absence of bird life. Burning off the rubbish on land is a universal phenomenon, causing toxic smoke to drift out to sea. Diomedea receives a nightly deposit of soot and ash. There is no structured waste management to be seen anywhere. I tremble to think what the island of Java must be like with its 140 million people. It looks to be no bigger than Tasmania or perhaps Victoria. After Dambilah it was only a hop, step, and a jump to Maumere, the largest town on Flores island. (08 37.982’S, 122 18.573’E) The island’s name comes from the Portuguese in the 16th century and refers to flowers of course. Not on land though, more likely pretty coral heads underwater. We anchored off the Seaworld Resort some 15km east of the town. This proved a good choice. Generally the ports are disgustingly dirty. The resort had a volcanic black sand beach, reasonable swimming, a nice sunset bar, a good restaurant, boat boys bringing all manner of commodities, and an efficient limo service. The resort is reportedly run by German missionaries. There are no water slides or performing sea mammals. There is a small swimming pool full of an alarming green liquid. The crew of Diomedea availed themselves of the chauffeured hire car for the run into town. A SIM card top up, a visit to the Roxy supermarket, and finally shopping in the produce market were the items on the agenda. The produce market was vile. Back to the boat for a shower, the water was brown running off our bodies. Being suckers for punishment, we opted for the trip to the Kelimutu National Park the next day. The park is noteable for its three coloured volcanic lakes in the summit craters. The lakes change colours on a monthly basis. For our visit we had a stunning tourquoise, deep red, and muddy green. We theorised about the origins of the colours with the favourite hypothesis being varying sulphation of minerals extruded from the magma chambers. It was a pleasant cool temperature at the high altitude but this did little to negate the arduous nature of the 6 hours of driving required for the round trip. If you look on a map of Flores, you will see Kelimutu not far north of the town of Ende on the south coast. You will also see the exceedingly winding road from Maumere on the north coast. Our car driver commented that if one were to drive from Maumere to the town of Labuan Bajo on the western end of Flores, it would require 24 hours of driving spread over 5 days. The distance by sea is only 300km. However, we did see all sorts of interesting things: churches bulging with worshippers, pillion passengers doing saltos off motor bikes, cows slaughtered by the roadside, cloves drying in the middle of this highway, buses with crowds surfing the roof tops, buses with goats surfing the roof tops, no fear motor cyclists on the wrong side around blind hairpins, monkeys on chains, and so forth. Our party collapsed into the sunset bar in time for bottles of Bintang beer.