Today’s big event occurred this afternoon. The Sail Indonesia Rally had their big meeting where they shared all kinds of information with us. Unfortunately, their mantra was: “What I tell you today will change tomorrow.” We are learning that in the Indonesian culture, time and commitments don’t have the same emphasis as in the western world. This rally is in its 12th year and this year’s rally has had a full year to plan things out and get organized. However, the events that are “scheduled” at each of the rally’s stops are still up in the air. Even at our first stop, which is Kupang at the west end of the island of Timor, the events and activities are still not confirmed. We leave for Kupang on Saturday and are hoping to arrive on Tuesday. We are told this state of uncertainty is the “charm” of Indonesia.

We love to visit new places, meet new people and learn about and experience new cultures. This is the primary reason we are cruising. We have been to Indonesia once before but we stayed at a ritzy resort in Bali and just conducted day trips to explore that island. We fell in love with the Balinese. They were very kind, gracious, and generous. We have been told that this is typical of most of the people in Indonesia. However, you have to “go with the flow” and adapt to their way of thinking and doing things if you are to truly enjoy your time there. We are now in the process to adjusting to their way of thinking by realizing that we really will not know what to expect until we get there.

We have just three days left to finish our various boat project and provisioning efforts. I feel we are in pretty good shape and should be ready to go when Saturday rolls around. As we have said before, this is really our first formal rally and the concept of having to leave at a set day and time is an adjustment for us. They have a formal start, which is at 1100 on Saturday. There is a starting line, they will shoot a gun to indicate the start and they are offering prizes worth a total of $1,000 for the first one across, the best dressed crew and one other category. Of course, none of that is of interest to us since we are cruisers, not racers. I told Mary Margaret that we will raise our sails and then weigh anchor at 1100 just to give the others in the rally time to clear out. This way we will not be caught in the may lay of 110 boats all trying to win that prize to be the first one across the starting line. I can see us being the last ones across! However, since Leu Cat is a pretty fast boat, we expect to pass most of the boats on the passage over to Timor. Fortunately, the weather forecast is encouraging and we might even have some wind for our crossing to Timor. It is about 450 nm away so we are thinking that it will take us three days to get there.