Darwin To Bitung , Part 3.

Sail Bunaken.

Bunaken is an Island off the north coast of Sulawesi, the jewel of the Bunaken National park. The area is apparently famous world wide among divers. I read somewhere that when divers die they come to Bunaken to dive amongst beautiful coral for eternity.

Sail Bunaken 2009 was an inaugural event for Indonesia, a "Maritime event of this century". The main aims of the event were to give a positive impression to the international community that Indonesia is a safe place for foreign tourists, to promote investment in marine industries, to promote a clean marine environment and to show the region that Indonesia is a naval power. The Minister of Marine and Fisheries along with many other high ranking officials also benefited from the high profile they got from the event at a huge cost to the country. Hopefully some good will come from the day long conference held on the cleaning up the marine environment. We are now 200 miles away from Manado in the middle of the Celebes Sea with plastic and paper floating past us spoiling the beautiful blue sea.

As part of Sail Bunaken we yachts were generously hosted, given gifts including a beautiful coffee table book of photos of North Sulawesi. The carrot to get us to Bitung was that our Rally entry fee would be refunded, for us that was indeed a bonus as we were coming this way anyway but only 40 out of the 130 yachts decided to come. For most the money was not the attraction, the main event of taking part in an event with tall ships and naval ships from around the world, including the USS George Washington was the big draw card. There was a series of three races for the yachts, Ambon to Bitung, Bitung harbour race and a race around to Manado to then take part in the Fleet review/ Sail past in the bay in front of Manado city. We just "raced " the Ambon section. We decided to forgo the other races. Instead we spent a couple of days in a beautiful anchorage at Petimati away from Bitung to give Sarah a taste of Indonesia that was different from the towns and harbours we seemed to have been in while she was with us. We returned to Bitung to get the bus over to Manado to watch the fleet review from land. Several other yachties had decided the land view would be better so we shared (another) free bus over to Manado and conned our way onto a second story of an partly built building to have a fantastic view of the proceedings along with a group of nuns and some very well dressed locals. I think the colour of our skin helped not the way we were dressed!!

Our binoculars got shared around to get a closer look at the ships and yachts lined up along the islands in the distance. Manado is a very deep bay, no binoculars were needed when the ships came across the bay staying less than half a mile from the rock wall in front of the city. Just at the right moment the American contingent loomed up out of the misty rain to head the Fleet review. We had been told that the International naval fleet would be anchored not far from us at Bitung. We were all a bit skeptical that the Americans and others would be there. As we suspected most ships swooped in from out at sea through the misty rain, which stopped just in time for them to do their thing, before disappearing over the horizon again. But wow what a show.

The aircraft carrier USS George Washington was escorted by 4 US frigates (I think), 2 in front and 2 behind. They led the procession of over 30 Naval vessels from Indonesia and other countries of the Asian Pacific area. The thousands of Indonesians crammed onto every vantage point across the bay erupted in cheers as the first jet catapulted off the huge decks of the George Washington. 3 jets one after the other catapulted off the decks to fly over Manado Bay putting on an aero display for the President who may or may not have been there. The crowd didn't care about the President they just loved the show and so did we.

The Ships following had all their sailors out on deck saluting in perfect unison the President and the people of North Sulawesi. We managed to pick out the NZ ship, after a bit of discussion " that was the one at Waitangi this year wasn't it?" "umm, not sure, give me the binocs and see what the flag is" . "Where is the flag?" "there, see that little pathetic square up on top, I think that's NZ" Mr Key please splash out and give the navy some bigger flags, lets be proud of our navy, even if it is a bit small. Oh and Mr Key while you are at it some extra black paint to spruce up the Kiwi on the funnel would be an excellent idea. The faded kiwi on the side of the ship was really the only thing that confirmed that it was a NZ ship, the Canterbury we think, couldn't see the name. If they had asked we could have leant them our NZ flag , I am sure it is bigger than the one they were flying. No mistaking the other nations with their large flags.

The large ships passed by, then came smaller customs, police craft, the tall ships, fisher men and then the yachts. By the time the yachts came past the sun was setting giving a spectacular backdrop to the white sails. The George Washington and its escorts were just a blip on the horizon, their 3 jets gave one last fly past and that was the end of a amazing afternoon. The aim of the show was to show Indonesian naval power off to its neighbours, but I think the day belonged to the Americans . The USS George Washington and its escort ships said to the nations gathered there don't forget we are in the neighborhood too and our toys are bigger than yours!

The show was over, Sarah left for NZ the next day, the rally centre at Bitung was looking a bit bedraggled, yachties began making plans to go south again and we headed for Petimati again for some R& R before the jump across the Celebes sea to Borneo.