Moving Along Through Indo
12 February 2013 | Gili Aer
Picked up a mooring here at 1830 yesterday evening after passing through the reef entrance in low light. Never a relaxing exercise for yours truly but we had been in here before in 2011 when we were heading north to Thailand.
We are here after stopping at Bali “Marina” primarliy for “solar” (diesel) and provisions before continuing north and east to the east of Sulawesi. Bali is madness. It is great to be out of there and a beautiful Gili Aer. We have yet to go ashore but have our tender launched and are looking forward to our meal at Warung Sasak.
We departed Cubadak Island, West Sumatra on 26 January. Since then we have made some miles. We passed through the Sunda Strait after anchoring for a night of rest off the rim of what remains of Krakatoa’s crater. The baby volcano was rumbling and spewing ash just a few miles to our west. Pumice floated all around our hull.
It was nice to be out of the Indian Ocean swell and off the lee coats of Sumatra.
From the Sunda Strait we sailed east through the Java sea north of Java to the Karimunjawa Islands. A “Marine Sanctuary” with some very beautiful reefs, which are startlingly devoid of much fish life. More evidence of the relentless pressure placed on the fishery in Indonesia. After cruising extensively through Indonesia now for the second time, I am amazed that any fish survive the onslaught. While anchored at Kandui in the Mentawi off West Sumatra we were awakened by concussions against the hull caused by homemade depth charges being used by fisherman to harvest the reefs. Fortunately we were not diving or snorkeling at the times that this was happening. This bombing certainly made us just a little gun shy of doing any underwater exploration of the beautiful reefs in this area.
During our transit of the Java sea should any fish fin near the surface it is immediately surrounded by never ending nets that are released by an armada of fishing boats that suddenly appear out of nowhere. What will these islanders eat when all the fish are gone? This cannot be too far off in the future.
The officials and their corrupt ways require the ultimate of patience. With their reams of paperwork, forms and questions they look for any opportunity to extort some form of payment.
Time to move on. We are more than half way through our circuitous voyage to the Philippines. East Sulawesi is next.