Underway by 6:30, following our entry track to navigate past reefs and out of the fjord-like Damar Bay. Only saw one lone fisher setting nets on our way out of the fjord.
Never-ending beaches and mountains as we sail along the north coast of Flores.
Challenge #1: By mid morning we were quite a way off the coast when a fisher started waving his arms and yelling as we came into the vicinity of his boat. As we drew nearer, we realised that he had an enormous net - at least 0.5 nm long stretched between his boat and another boat - not even visible at this point in the distance. Rick threw the engine into neutral, gybed the headsail and headed back the way we came. We went around the net, but had to go some distance out of our way.
Challenge #2: As we motored in to the anchorage, we went behind a squid boat to avoid its anchor rope, only to discover that it had a subsurface stern anchor rope that was attached to a grid of ropes along the shore. Rick again slammed into neutral and dropped the anchor to avoid dragging the squid boat and a maze of ropes onto the shore. A lad from the squid boat paddled over and he and Rick jumped in the water and stood on the stern rope, which was under Merakai between the keel and the rudder stock. Rick managed to loop one of our mooring lines under the stern rope and I hauled it up to the surface and held it there until we cleared it, while Rick pulled up the anchor and slowly motored forward. Somewhat shaken, we motored around the front of the squid boat and anchored some distance away.
The offending squid boat and buoys marking a grid of ropes
The squid boat lad paddled over and we all had drinks and bikkies.
Then Raj, an entrepreneur in the making, and 2 companions paddled over looking for books - Rick showing them they can write their own stories with the pens and notepads we gave them. Not sure they're convinced!
Lovely sunset to end a long day!