Once again our “sail” today was mostly motoring. However, once we motored through a narrow pass that put us into the Komodo National Park, we hit head winds of up to 21 knots. As we eased our way south, the winds put us at closed hauled so up when the head sail. It gave us a 2 knot boast so we eased back the engine and motored sailed the rest of the way into the harbor near Lalabuhan Bajo. A number of rally boats were sitting in the anchor field including our friends on S/V Infini.

Once we dropped anchor (8 31.05'S:119 51.92'S, in 20 feet of water) a ponga came over to introduce themselves. The leader was Marlin, who spoke good English. His ponga was one of the water taxis that for 70000 Rp would take you into town and back. He would also bring fuel to your boat for 8000 Rp a liter. This is a bit expensive but still well less than anything we had paid in Australia.

We made arraignments for Marlin to take us into town so we could use the ATM, go to the supermarket and then eat an early dinner. He volunteered to go with us to translate for us. Getting into and out of his ponga was a bit tricky since the ponga was long and narrow. Thus, it tilted if you were not walking or sitting dead center. However, we did fine and in about 15 minutes were trying up to the quay in town.

Along the way we passed a number of what I called tall ships. They are multi-masted ships that are simply beautiful. As it turns out, they are ships that cater to the tourists who flock here to go diving and see the Komodo dragons. I will post a few of their pictures so you can see what they look like. Our friends Portia and Steve, who will be sailing with us for a few weeks in about a month from now, will be flying in to this town to go on a diving trip so we believe they may end up on one of these ships.

Once in town, Marlin guided us to a bemo, which we had all to ourselves. The bemo ferried us first to the BNI ATM, then a supermarket and finally an open air market at the outskirts of town. We spent about an hour or so doing this and the total charge with the use of the bemo was only 30000 Rp (about $3 US).

At the supermarket Mary Margaret was able to get a few bags of brown sugar for baking and a number of fruits and vegetables. It even had Delicious apples in a cooler, which shocked us. These were the first apples we had seen in Indonesia. I picked out about 15 apples.

The open air market was great and Mary Margaret picked up some more fruits and vegetables. We also found wheat flour, which was one of our big items that we were looked for. Our course it was locally ground and just chucked full of bugs. When we returned to Leu Cat, Mary Margaret microwaved the flour to kill the bugs and then carefully shifted the flour and removed the dead little critters. Yuck!!! But such is life in a third world country.

After shopping, Marlin took us to a nice restaurant. They had a very extensive menu and we order soup and a main course. Unfortunately, Mary Margaret’s pumpkin cream soup was too spicy for her palate so we offered it to Marlin. The soup was very tasty, just a bit spicy. The Indonesian’s love their spices and it is difficult at times to find a local dish at is not too spicy hot.

After dinner we returned to Leu Cat and we were soon greeted by Mike and Sue of Infini. They came racing over to tell us all about their great Komodo Dragon tour that they had just returned from. They said it was the very best tour they have ever been on. Not only did they see lots of dragons but also saw one digging her nest in the dirt in preparation of laying her eggs. Their guide was German and spoke wonderful English. The tour also took to them a great reef to do some diving on and provided all kinds of drinks and great food throughout the day. The cost was very reasonable and they encouraged us to take the same tour. We are excited about it and will call the guide to see what that possibility is.

We have great Internet here so tomorrow we will be Skyping our kids. Our daughter Heather is visiting our other daughter Christina and meeting her new nephew, Isaac.