This was only the second rally stop we attended in our 3 months in Indonesia. We had not seen another rally boat or any other boat for that matter since we left Bali apart from Raku who we were travelling with, so it was very weird to find ourselves in an anchorage with 60 other boats. From what we had heard when we were in Bali, the anchorages specified for the rally left a lot to be desired. At Bali they all anchored at a place called Lovina Beach where it was rocking and rolling around worse than it had in Kupang. On our way to Belitung we had managed to contact some friends of ours on a boat called Galiano, they had arrived at the anchorage and said that it was quite rolly. We had left The 1,000 Isles early that morning and the prospect of anchoring in a rolly anchorage after pulling an all-nighter was not one we looked forward to. During the night we stuck to the outside of the shipping lanes so as to avoid ships, but this is Indonesia and the ships don't necessarily stick to the shipping lanes as I found out on my shift when a huge passenger ship lit up like a Christmas Tree was headed straight for us. It was strange as we were travelling in quite shallow water. I woke Jay and we tried to contact them via VHF to which they did not respond, finally we could see where they were intending to go and quickly altered our course to get out of their way. As soon as we had passed them they responded to our initial radio call. We have a feeling they had to wake the only person on the boat who had a decent grasp of English and get him to the radio, too bad if they had already smashed us to bits. After this episode we decided to look into getting AIS (Automatic Identification System) when we get to Singapore. That way we will have a ship name, their position, course and speed. That would help a lot but at least we have radar, a lot of boats haven't got that and I have found it invaluable on my night shifts.

On our arrival at Belitung the sailing gods must have been smiling down on us, the anchorage was flat as a tack and there was no sign of the roll that everyone had been talking up. Belitung itself surprised us, we were expecting a dirty city much like Kupang but it was one of the prettiest places we have seen in Indonesia. The landscape was different from anything else that we had seen in Indonesia. As we had (luckily) avoided all the rally festivities, as soon as we got the anchor down we headed into shore to check out of the country, we knew it wouldn't be long until the customs officials left the area and we still remembered the experience in Kupang trying to clear into the country, this could take us hours. 15 minutes later we were cleared out of the country! The officials from each department were friendly, helpful and had a very good grasp of English. Everyone knew what everyone else was supposed to be doing and the efficiency blew us away! Were we still in Indonesia? They even post dated the leave date so we could spend some time exploring Belitung.

We went for a nice feed of freshly caught Cumi Cumi (Calamari) washed down with a Bintang before heading back to the boat to get organised for a book swap and drinks on the beach of one of the tiny Islands surrounding the anchorage. It was nice to catch up with some of the boats we had met while travelling up the coast of Australia. There were mixed views on the rally, some loved it, some would never do another rally again (I think we're in the latter). There were reports of rally rage, people fighting at the buffet table, polisi having to separate men rolling around on the ground punching each other and a certain child whose naughtiness had caused more than its fair share of conflict and could do with a hard smack to its bum! We were lucky to have missed all of this and instead we have been able to spend time with lovely people who hopefully we will maintain contact with in the years to come.

We took advantage of the calm waters and ventured out to a lighthouse to have a snorkel around, there we found quite a few small colourful fish (not many big ones, judging by the fishing boats in the area I think they have all been taken) and some coral which didn't display the damaging effects of dynamite fishing. It was beautiful. I could have floated around there all day! We then headed into shore to go for a walk around the remains of a large resort. We had been told that the developer had some sort of argument with the government and that work on the resort came to an abrupt halt. It looked like it was going to be a nice resort and someone had told us you could see black monkeys in there, we didn't see any of course but it was a nice walk anyway. We went down to the beach and watched some young boys dragging nets behind them as they swam, using old water bottles as floats. While we were watching they caught an eel and proceeded to throw it around and at each other until it was dead. The local fisherman watching them spoke to Jay about their boats and fishing for Cumi Cumi.

We didn't head into the town as we already had the supplies we needed and had topped up on vegetables at a stand which had been set up to service the rally. It was nice to relax and recover from our night hops before heading off again.