Pos 1000, 22/11/19, 08 08'187"S,117 43'.961"E. Sumbawa. This is an island I had never heard of until now. It is very mountainous, seems to be sparsely populated and is very dry and scrubby. It isn't at all what you visualize when you think of Indonesia. As we've sailed eastwards from Lombok the land has become more rugged and drier. Long gone are the shores lined with coconut trees and inland rain forests. It also gives you the peculiar feeling that as you sail you are sailing into prehistory, where there are dinosaurs and weird plants and volcanoes everywhere. This is because there are volcanoes everywhere and strange stunted trees and plants and dry, rocky ground. We have yet to spy a dinosaur. Very soon though, when we finally get to the Komodo group we then hope to see a Komodo dragon in the wild, so we will have fulfilled the dinosaur bit. The landscape of Pulau Sumbawa has a distinctly volcanic look. The lower slopes come down from heights gradually sloping down until they finally reach the sea. You can just imagine the lava slowly oozing its way from the mountain top all the way to the sea and then becoming land. These kind of slopes are the rule not the exception around here. The only place i have seen bofore that looks like this is on the Big Island, Hawaii. We are currently sailing in between Sumbawa and the volcano, Satonda, which is a classic volcano with a round caldera and a lake in it. Sumbawa is also home to Mount Tambora, which erupted in 1812 killing thousands. It's explosion was estimated to be more that 100 times greater than Mt St Helens in the USA. John loves all this because he is a bit of a volcano fan. I don't trust them especially the Indonesian volcanoes which explode regularly, at least one per year.
We have had some great sailing days along this eastern island chain. The sea has been kind, less than a meter, and the wind only up to about 16 knots. The day before yesterday we hiked along at 9 knots for a few hours in such conditions. Magic, and a great performance from lazy old Shonandra. We are stopping each night, which isn't easy, because almost every shore has a coral reef. The first night out we had to move in the dark because the wind changed and left us exposed to lee reef. That was a little tense for a few moments until we escaped from there. The bottom tends to be sandy where there are reefs and not good holding like sticky mud.
Best go out and help John. He's shifting sails and course. Will keep in touch as we progress along the island chain. John and Ginni Note background in any pics.