Well, here we are back in Simeulue again! Patch is now safely home back in the land of hot showers and readily available meat and potatoes! It was great to have someone from home with us. After my last entry Patch's boards showed up and by midday we were on our way to the Banyaks, we arrived at Bangkaru at 10pm that night and after a good night's sleep the boys were off in search of a wave. Within the first hour Patch had broken the nose of his board, almost lost his surf hat and took some bark off on the reef. A quick trip back to the Makani Kai for some food and to scrub the coral out of his foot with a toothbrush and they were back out. Lucky I enjoy my own company as I was pretty sure I wasn't going to be seeing too much of the boys during Patch's stay.
Day 4 saw us deciding to move on from Bangkaru to the Bay of Plenty, after a morning surf and Patch's first experience of drinking fresh coconut juice, Jay and I went ashore in search of some croc tracks we had heard about on the beach near a creek. They weren't hard to spot! This guy must be huge, we estimated by the spread and size of the tracks that he was about 3 - 4 metres. He must be pretty shy to have lasted this long around here, if the locals had known about him he would have long ago graced someone's dinner table! Having had enough of this adventure we returned to the boat, up-anchored and headed over to the Bay.
We celebrated my birthday during Patch's stay with a party on board the Makani Kai. All the crew from the yachts in the bay were in attendance and one of the charter boat operators and his wife. It was a multi-cultural affair with the nationalities ranging from Aussie, Kiwi, Serbian, Scottish and Balinese. It was a good night but over indulgence saw me not able to do much the next day, everything was a little quiet in the anchorage. But my birthday also brought with it the swell and the boys made the most of it, surfing until they were exhausted. Snorkelling, fishing and exploring the surrounding area in the dinghy filled our days and before too long it was time to head back to Simeulue for Patch to fly home.
We have been in Simeulue now for 5 days awaiting the imminent arrival of Paul and Gemma Truman, they arrive tomorrow. The anchorage has not been comfortable, it has been fairly rolly and we are looking forward to heading off again. We have spent some time in the surf camp, joining them for one of Mama Nina's fabulous spreads and enjoying the company of the few guests they have there at the moment. We hired a motorbike yesterday and rode around for a look around the island. People were waving and calling out to us as we rode by, the scenery was beautiful, really tropical with white sand beaches and clear blue water.
Tomorrow we do the big stock up, due to the fact that we have headed back into civilisation we have lists from the other 3 yachts back in the Banyaks. By the time we're finished the Trumans should be here and we'll be on our way again...
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Comments [3]
love you loads
xxxx
Henri
Making the trip back to Simeulue from the isolation of the Banyaks we were dropped right back into the hustle and bustle of civilisation. Reluctantly we trudged back into the Harbour Master to complete the formalities and were pleasantly surprised when they took our paperwork and told us we were still covered by the last time we checked in, no money was asked for, yes! That's right I repeat no money was asked for!! That is something that is nearly unheard of in Indonesia. With the formalities out of the way we stocked up the supplies and had an early night in anticipation of our first visitor from Australia.
The next morning we were woken early by the muezzin calling everyone to prayer, it was around 4.30-5.00am, there are at least 4 mosques in the vicinity, all with loudspeakers trying their hardest to out-scream the others. At 6.30am we received the first lot of phone calls from our driver, Ranu who was wondering where we were even though we had organised to meet him at 7.00am. It was amazing to meet someone who is so efficient and Ranu has been a godsend, not only can we organise transport through him but he has a shop and cafe where we can get a meal and buy frozen chickens! You have no idea how hard it is to get meat around here, markets are no good for that sort of stuff there are so many flies hanging around that it can turn your stomach a little.
To our surprise the plane was actually earlier than we expected and it wasn't hard to spot Patch amongst all the short, dark haired locals, he towered well above everyone. He'd made it! Everything was going to plan! After hugs and hellos Patch informed us that his boards were still in KL. Ok, so not everything was going to plan. He was operating on very little sleep having spent most of the night at the airport trying to organise for the boards to at least make it into Indonesia. After several phone calls plans were changed and instead we had an extra day in Sinabang to show Patch around. We walked the streets searching for gas regulators and responding to the hundreds of 'Hello Misters!' thrown our way. We took Patch to the local markets so that he could see how we have to source food here, it was strange to try and look through someone else's eyes as they saw these markets for the first time, we have grown immune to it but I vaguely remember my shock at the state of some of the stalls.
A quiet couple of drinks on the boat and Jay and Patch took off in the inflatable for an hour or so to view Sinabang from the water, they soon made friends with some fishermen and boarded the fishing platforms for a look before coming back to the boat to enjoy dinner and a movie.
This morning has been the long wait for a phone call to confirm that the boards have been put onto a plane bound for Simeulue. That call arrived about 5 minutes ago and Patch's frown has been turned upside down at the thought of finally heading off to the waves. Ian and Michelle have kindly (or not so kindly) been sending us updates via text on how good the waves are back in the Banyaks! Patch is almost visibly shaking with excitement and the boys are off to wait at the airport for the arrival of the elusive boards. Within a couple of hours or so we should be on our way, stay tuned for the next instalment...
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xxxx
Henri
Well, it's the 10th of June, Jay's birthday and we are travelling yet again. Not exactly the way we had hoped to spend the 43rd anniversary of Jay's birth, especially setting off at the ridiculous hour of 2am but the need to get out of Sibolga was strong. We will celebrate Jay's birthday in a day or so in the seclusion and splendour of the Bay of Plenty and rumours of a big swell soon to hit the area make this journey all the more appealing.
We left Afulu on the 6th of June and stopped on the way at Teluk Siaba where we planned to get a good nights sleep before an early start to tackle the 86 miles we had to cover to get to Sibolga. Were it not for the fact that we had to get our visa's renewed we would have decided to avoid Sibolga all together. Teluk Siaba was a little bay dotted with seaweed rafts and a couple of fishing platforms, it wasn't long after we anchored that the local fishermen approached to have a chat. We found out that we were the first yachts that had ever anchored in there, the boys hung around on Raku and then came to the beach with us to continue the chat. There was a haphazard wooden jetty coming out into the bay that the local boats tied up to and beyond that was their village. We could see the smoke rising from behind the trees which generally tells you there is a village nearby, we were invited to go visit them but our time schedule meant that we had to keep moving to Sibolga. Sleep that night was interrupted by eager locals passing behind the boats with their music as loud as they could make it in the hopes that we would come out for a chat, ignoring them they eventually went away.
We were up at 4am the next morning and made it to Sibolga by 5.30pm, just in time to get the anchor down and watch a magnificent sunset. People were lined up along the shoreline enjoying the cool time of the day and floating around in the water in rubber tyres. The sound of the muezzin calling the faithful to prayer floated across the water to us. We had dinner and had just relaxed on the couch to watch a movie, grateful for the fact that the locals had decided to leave us alone for the moment when we heard a hello being shouted from the back of the boat, we weren't going to get off so easy! A local fisherman wanted to come on board to talk, the Indonesian people don't seem to have any concept of time or privacy and after a bit of back and forth banter we finally managed to convince him that we had had a big day and that we were going to sleep. Under normal circumstances we would have chatted for a while but after a big day and lack of sleep it is very hard to try and converse in broken Indonesian, the brain simply refuses to work! Due to a lack of English speaking tourists to the area, English is not as widely spoken, the result is that our Bahasa is getting better but it also means conversations are slow as each person tries to work out what the other person is trying to say!
The next morning we up anchored and moved to another area where we were to meet Peter, a visa agent who was going to help us get through maze of paperwork and officials to organise our visas. It still took several hours of sitting in the immigration office. Once we were fingerprinted, photographed and paid in full, we were free to explore Sibolga. We treated ourselves to a meal at the oddly named CFC fast food restaurant. We asked what the CFC stood for and were told Kentucky Fried Chicken but Kentucky was spelt with a C in this case, I don't know how the Colonel would feel about that! Along with the regular burgers, fried chicken and fries were things like Mie Goreng (Fried Noodles), chicken wrapped in Pandanus leaves and fried rice as well as strange drink combinations such as orange juice with a scoop of vanilla ice cream or the one Ian was brave enough to try, Avocado juice with a scoop of chocolate ice cream!
Our transport around town alternated between motorised becaks, motorbikes with a closed in side car, just big enough to squeeze two people into uncomfortably and something similar to a rickshaw which was much more comfortable but slower due to the reliance on pedal power. It was nice just to ride around the streets having a look but we didn't really do a lot of sightseeing. We were determined to get stocked up and out of there as soon as possible. It was hot, busy and the water was full of rubbish, dead fish and bloated up dead water rats. The smell that wafted to our boat from shore was disgusting and on more than one occasion the smell was so bad that it woke us up at night. Not to mention that the sewage goes straight into the harbour but the locals were still swimming in it, the sound of childrens laughter could be heard as they bomb dived into the filth.
Due to the lack of white tourists in the area we were told that many of the local children had not seen white people (orang putih) in the flesh so when we were in the Supermarket a gaggle of schoolgirls followed me around touching my backpack and the back of my head and giggling. It was bizarre! Most people would come up and chat but others would just walk up, stand inches away from your face and just stare for 10 minutes. It was becoming tiring and when we finally left Sibolga the relief at not feeling like the prize exhibit in a zoo was great. But we did enjoy some good meals out, one at an Indo restaurant and the other at a Chinese restaurant called Taipan. There are a number of Chinese in Sibolga.
It's always interesting to see new places but we were glad to say goodbye to Sibolga and head back into the wilderness again.
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Warm regards from Melbourne,
H
