27th August 2008

On Monday we decided to come on a bit further and ended up doing a 35 mile trip and dropped anchored in Todo Bay 35 miles further west on Flores at 3.45pm. Monday would have been the hottest day we have had with it being 32 below in the cabin and even hotter outside. We were wanting to be in the water for a swim as quick as we could. Janine and Garth were held up from doing so by a family coming out in a dug out and without asking boarded their yacht. No English but proceeded to ask if they could have their bikes, outboard motor along with anything else they could lay their eyes on. Fortunately they did not come over to us. Went for a snorkel over the reef and Dave put on his dive bottle and gave the bottom of the hull a clean. We are the only two yachts in here so is nice and peaceful.

We decided to stay an extra day here as it is a nice spot and we had a quiet relaxing day yesterday and went further over for a snorkel on another bit a reef and there was some lovely coral and plenty of fish life - the best coral we have seen so far. Yesterday morning Dave went over to a guy, who was fishing, in our dinghy, and he was keen to talk some English so Dave invited him over to our boat and he joined the four of us for morning tea. He was in a fibre glass dugout with an engine which was professionally made, highly decorated with motifs and even had what looked like a spoiler on the back. Look as though they were American made and he had come 450 miles over in it from Sulawesi with a few other friends, all in their own dugouts. All the Indonesians fly the Indonesian flag on their dugouts - obviously very patriotic. Garth and Dave were very intrigued by the dug outs. He was fishing with fine stainless steel line so Dave gave him some other line and a couple of lures. He was going to start to head back to Sulawesi today. He told us that the locals here are not very nice and fortunately we have not had any of them come near us again.

Turns out the guy they thought had malaria has vertigo and the English lady has bronchitis so we are all pleased. The one guy who did have malaria had a relapse as he has had it before. It was a bit surprising as we have seen no mosquitoes and certainly had none in our boat.

Today we are heading off to Monkey Beach which is 32 miles further West 2 miles from TK Riang. In the book 101 Anchorages it says that it is devoid of monkeys but some of the yachts who have already been there have said that there are monkeys on the beach and is a nice spot but we think there will be quite a few yachts there.