Photo: Sand Cay at Krokol.
Thursday we walked several kilometers to a large, local market, which was crowded with closely packed stalls selling everything from clothing, vegetables and fish. The smells were overpowering at times, but everyone had a happy, smiley face and haggling over price brought squeals of laughter from the stall owners, it is amazing what you can achieve with sign language and showing of local bank notes. Back at the boats, we had sundowners on Dol in the evening and talked about our next few anchorages.
Friday morning we upped anchor at 06:30 and motored the 65 nm to Balurin Harbour, Kawula Island. Balurin was like a mini Kalabahi, fishing village with the children alongside calling “Hello Mr., Hello Mrs.” before the anchor had hit the bottom. The entrance to Balurin was through two reefs with the depths in the channel at 60m with 5m or less just metres away. We spent a quiet night and left the following morning, motoring 12nm to Teluk; spectacular, clear blue water beneath a smoking volcano, just beautiful. We had our first real swim since arriving in Indonesia, however the following morning the wind came up and we bailed, sailing most of the 17nm to NE Andunara Island. The anchorage was behind a reef and sand cay, with two smoking volcanoes, one either side, very picturesque. It is not often you drop your anchor in 20m of water and then snorkel over it, to see the anchor buried in the sand. The reef, although not extensive was crystal clear, with plenty of clown fish guarding their sea anemones. We stayed 5 nights enjoying sundowners on the sand cay with the backdrop of the smoking volcanoes each evening, preceded by a yoga ‘class’; even Brian joined in. Whilst in the anchorage we changed the Yankee (front sail) and put the larger and lighter genoa on, due to the prevalence of light winds.
It was finally time to make a move, so at 06:30 on Friday 17th August we upped anchor and headed further west along the island chain. Our planned stop turned out to be too deep so a quick radio conversation between the yachts identified an alternative anchorage and we dropped anchor in Telak Hading at 15:00. Again we anchored in a depth of 20 mtrs, nowhere around here seems to offer shallow anchoring. A swim, snorkel and sundowners ashore finished the day, however the night turned out to be only tolerable, with the boat ‘hobby horsing’ making it unpleasant for sleeping, Gail slept in the cockpit and Brian in the saloon. First light saw us up anchor and with wind with us for the first hour we sailed, then the wind died and we motored the rest of the way to Palau Besar, anchoring off the village in between reefs with clear blue water. The snorkeling was disappointing with most of the reef dead or dying, probably due to the local fishing method of bombing the fish with homemade bombs. We stayed a couple of days, enjoying the peace and tranquility, the locals from the fishing village were friendly and happy, but not persistent, they came to talk and smile, we did exchange a few gifts.
Monday we left with ‘Blue Heeler’, ‘Recluse’ and ‘Comedie’, (Claes and Laila, a Swedish boat) and motored 14nm to Wodong, which according to what we had read, offered diving options and a good Indonesian restaurant. We had finally found a shallow anchorage, as we dropped the anchor in 8m of water on a sandy bottom. We spent 2 days at Wodong, the meal at the backpacker resort was every bit as good as Lonely Planet suggested, Brian and Wayne went for a dive on a local ship wreck, unfortunately due to gear failure and murky water, they never found the wreck but suspected they did actually snorkel over it, Anne, Steve and Ali took a local bus, ‘bemo’, into a nearby village.
After 2 nights in Wodong, we motor sailed 13nm to Waiara, anchoring off the Sea World resort. The following day, Thursday, with Anne and Steve ‘Recluse’ we met Menggus, our driver for the trip to Kelimutu, the volcano with the 3 different coloured lakes. It was a 3 hour drive along mountain roads, passing small villages and rice fields, there was plenty to see and talk about. As we have come to expect in Indonesia, there were hundreds of motor cycles on the road, some with 4 – 5 people of all ages on board, we commented on the lack of small cars, we only saw one, utes and trucks were used to transport livestock, we saw 3 horses in the back tray of a ute, and 5 horses inside an open sided truck. At Kelimutu, Menggus parked the car and we walked the last kilometer to the 3 lakes, one a bright, vivid blue, one a pale, almost green colour and one what we would term a normal colour for a deep lake. Apparently the lakes change colour depending on the climate and minerals present, without much notice. As we walked up to the summit to look down on the lakes, there were monkeys playing and feeding on the side of the track, the air was crisp and clear and there was very little in the way of vegetation. We stopped for lunch at Paga beach on the way back, finally arriving back at the boats at 16:00, having stopped at the supermarket on the way.
Friday was a more civilized start time of 09:00, when Menggus met us and we went to a local market for fresh fruit and vegetables and then onto Watublapi, a village which does Ikat, the local weaving. Again with Steve and Anne, we were greeted and welcomed by Daniel who spoke very good English. We were then presented with a small plant, woven dish containing beetle juice and tobacco, the local custom for welcoming friends. Daniel explained they would not be insulted if we did not smoke or want to try the beetle juice, which they demonstrated how it is chewed. Steve was brave enough to try. Daniel then explained the weaving process from the picking of the cotton, separating the cotton from the seeds, spinning it into thread, making the template pattern for the cloth, the dying of the thread and weaving. As he was talking the local ladies were demonstrating the skills on the various pieces of handmade equipment. It made us appreciate the time and effort it takes to make the pieces of cloth we had seen, Daniel also explained and showed us the difference between the handmade cloth and the cloth made from imported or factory yarns. We enjoyed a couple of hours at the village, the people were again very friendly and we were made to feel very welcome.
We will leave here tomorrow for our next destination with good memories of Waiara.