After our easy quarantine procedure on board (the officials loved the girls), we went to shore ASAP to get the immigration stuff done. By this time it was after 3 pm and we wanted to get it done.
On shore, we were greeted by the local “dinghy minders” who we paid each day (there were even competing groups!)
As we made our way up the beach to the footpath, about 4 young girls came over and kind of grabbed onto Ameliana's hands. She was a bit overwhelmed at the attention and tried to hide behind me. I had Elora in the Ergo carrier, and the little girls tried to get a look at her too. We all took photos and then tried to make our way politely to immigration.
The area was all decked out in sail Indonesia welcome flags, tents and banners etc, but behind that you could see the “true” Kiang: very loud Bemo buses, run down brick buildings, motorbikes everywhere, garbage, and of course smiling, friendly faces.
The Immigration and customs process was a much longer process in a very hot room set up with trestle tables and chairs around the perimeter where each department sat. so we sat down in front of the first set of officials , handed over our paperwork, smiled, waited, smiled some more, then got moved along to repeat the process about 5 times. It took over an hour and the girls were so good. More photos with the girls were taken and finally we were through! We headed over to teddy’s bar – sail Indonesia’s HQ for a well deserved large Bin tang beer and to toast our arrival.
The crew from saroca were there so ameliana and Maya had a good run around. All of the yachties began to congregate and suddenly it was dinner time. We ordered some food from the bar and Becky and meetal took off to find some food at the markets.
Finally, we were all very tired and headed out in the dinghy through a city of anchor lights.
We all relied having a full night sleep on flat water.
The next few days were summed up as while Becky and meetal went off exploring and meeting young locals, grant ( along with many yachties) spent hours trying to sort out phone credit and internet dongles- a very confusing process he discovered!
I took the girls around the local shops and markets and they tolerated the attention and he, however we usually retreated to teddy’s bar for shade, cold drinks and a safe place to run around.
The final rally dinner was a big production with local politicians, dancers, music etc. it was incredibly loud, with periodic ear-splitting feedback! I swear, the amps were for a crowd of 50,000 not 200 and the buffet took a very long time, waiting for the presentations to end. Ameliana and Maya were running on fumes by 8pm and at the end of their ropes. We shovelled as much food into them as possible and went home. It was an experience for sure!
The next day we set up a day tour with our “go to” local guy. Our crew and Alex, martin and Maya from sv saroca all piled into one car (at least having no child seats makes more room in the car lol!)Our guides took us to a cave. We had to climb down a steep path to get into it. No problem with Elora on me and in flip flops! Ameliana Was a bit freaked out by the dark, but at the bottom was a crystal clear pool. Unfortunately ameliana did not want to go in and then rant had to take her back up. Everyone else went it and I dangled Elora in cause I left my swimmers in the car. Becky and meetal and martin took the plunge and jumped off the rocks into the pool.
Next stop was a longer drive on bumpy roads through the outskirts of the city to a waterfall. It was interesting to see all the houses, schools, little shops every km or so with stands filled with government subsidised petrol in 1L water bottles out the front.
The waterfalls were beautiful, but there was so much garbage left over from monsoon season, it was a real shame. We all had a nice swim and the girls had some lunch.
Our final stop was to the big markets for some fresh fruit/veg. our guide did the translating so we didn’t do any bargaining- not that anything was expensive! It was all very overwhelming, with so many stalls, people coming up to photograph and touch the girls, fruit and veg that I had never seen before and of course the language barrier! So a shopping trip which shouldn’t take very long takes forever and is exhausting in the heat with Elora on me! I hoped that the process would get easier as we got more familiar with everything.
Finally they dropped us back at Teddy’s bar in the afternoon, and we went home to put out wares away.
I do regret not getting to the night markets for the experience and food, Becky and meetal brought home some very interesting and yummy samples one day. A lot of sweet sticky rice and a love of green and pink food dye seem to be the norm! I think I went into major sugar overload after sampling though!
We didn’t get to see it all, but we got a small taste of a bigger city and it’s VERY loud! - Poor ameliana would never survive on one of those Bemos- she hates loud noises.


Kupang to Liang meah anchorage on Kawela Island
I was glad to finally leave kupang and be on our way. We were delayed a day because we discovered on Fri Aug 3 in the late afternoon that we had a substantial leak in the dinghy. Grant had just finished doing 2 trips of filling up all the water drums. The local guys who we had been paying all week to watch the dinghy , get fuel , do laundry etc, had increased their water prices, so grant decided to get it himself. They weren't impressed and grant said when they were carrying the dinghy in, they just dropped it in the rocks. However, it also could have been the wear and tear of an old dinghy- it is
A well used "tinny ". Anyway, I went off with the girls to have a drink on our friends boat, while grant stayed back to try to patch the leak. Becky and Meetal hitched a ride to shore with another yachtie to have one last night out and to see if they could source an aluminium welder. They were successful finding peanut butter so anything was possible! The next morning, SV Scholarship, Saroca and many other boats left. I woke up feeling less than 100 % in the belly. Thankfully it didn't amount to more than mild diarrhoea.
We had heard that a couple of boats had suffered from a gastro bug on the way from Darwin, so we hoped it was just that and not the drinking water we just bought! Meetal thought he had found someone who could hook us up with a welder, but in true indo fashion, he knew someone, who knew someone who MAY be able to weld aluminium. We
Decided not to bother and just had a low key day. Elora seemed to be getting some diarrhoea too so I wanted to take it easy.
We left in Sunday and sailed overnight to Kawela Island. Unfortunate grant got my bug that morning, but was feeling a bit better by the evening. Then poor Becky started to feel awful around 6pm, and it wasn’t sea sickness feeling. She was on watch until 10 pm and was NOT feeling well at all. I offered to finish her watch as I was awake anyway, but she was a trooper and hung in there. I just stayed with her just in case. Luckily, she was starting to feel better after a good sleep.
Our boat buddies, Scholarship and Saroca were anchored there too when we arrived. We were really looking forward to a swim. We pulled in the early afternoon. We did see a little bit of rubbish in the current moving with
The tide, but when it cleared us all jumped in. Meetal accepted the task of giving the hull a bit of a scrub. He got a bit freaked out because all of a sudden he was surrounded by hundreds of small translucent jelly fish. He hopes out and we scooped up a bucket to get a closer look and we discovered quite an array of interesting sea life! Grant put up the tarp and the hammock and while poor grant was toiling in the engine room, the rest of us enjoyed a stunning
Sunset. The next day we made an attempt to get to shore but there were seaweed farms and reef blocking any beach entrance. We just swam and played at home. Becky and Meetal took the dinghy to the village later in the afternoon and ended up having a great time playing
with about 40 kids!
Anatuka
We decided to leave the following day for a day sail to an anchorage on Solar Island, called Anatuka. We arrived at midday (I think), the only boat there, surrounded by mountainous islands across the strait, and a lovely little beach with local fishing canoes anchored on it. We all decided to head to shore after lunch to explore and possibly see where the village was (it looked to be a good size). Meetal and Becky swam to shore and we took the dinghy. We walked up the beach and had a good look and one of the carved out canoes- amazing the work that goes into carving out a single log! Then grant stayed with ameliana while she played in the water and Becky and I did some beach combing, it was the first place I had seen sand dollars since one beach on the Queensland coast (I forget where!) when I was pregnant. We ended up collecting quite a few intact ones and some good shells and beach glass. When it was time to go, Becky and meetal decided to stay and walk up and find the village, while we went home to get the girls ready for dinner. Once again, they arrived home with tales of welcoming villagers, drinking fresh coconut milk AND they tried the local spirits- which are supposed to be very potent and potentially hallucinogenic! But they were fine.
The sunset wasn’t as perfect as at the previous anchorage, but we couldn’t complain.

Gedong Island and Gedong Point

We decided to leave the next day trailing SV Saroca. They had said that they was a very cool place called Gedong island, which was a tiny island surrounded by awesome reef which they had anchored at the previous night. We decided to give it a try. We timed our trip through the straits past Larantuka so well, that we decided not to stop there- it had been a planned rally stopover, but it didn’t look like we were going to be making Many of those stops. We were lucky enough to see a large whale in the distance while we were sailing through the straits. We didn’t know what type it was and we kept losing site of it, but then it appeared about 100m off out starboard side and it defiantly was big. That night we discovered it was a Sperm whale- the type that a small village on Alor are still permitted to hunt using bamboo hand spears! Yikes
When we came out of the straits, we turned in to the wind so we decided to start the motor and grant and meetal were taking down the spinnaker. I was in the galley with Elora on me when the engine suddenly stopped by itself. I ran in to the cockpit and heard grant swearing vehemenently on the forward deck and the spinnaker was in its sock. Becky and Meetal were standing there stunned. Meetal had accidentally let the spinnaker sheet off the winch and the rope went flying into the water and wrapped around the propeller and stalled the engine-not good AT ALL!
We came to a stop and I grabbed grant a dive mask so he could dive under and see if he could get the rope off. I also put a rope off the stern in case grant got away from the boat because we were bobbing in the middle, not very close to land. He couldn’t do it, more so because he was freaking out and the adrenaline was pumping. So we quickly got out the Hooker dive machine and set it up. Grant dived down and easily got the rope off by spinning the prop the opposite way. He could have done it without the dive machine if he hadn’t been so panicked! At least we know we can get the dive machine out fast in an emergency!
After all the excitement we made our way toward Gedong Island. It looked idyllic: a beautiful little island surrounded by reef under clear blue green water and unfortunately incredible depths over 50 metres. We actually lowered the dinghy in, and put the outboard on so that grant could take our “manual” depth sounder closer to the reef to see how close we could go. It looked like it was still 30+metres and we didn’t know what the bottom was, coral, sand, mud…but likely coral. We spent an hour tying different spots to anchor before giving up. It wasn’t worth the risk.
We decided to motor around the corner of Gedong point into a little bay. So far we have discovered that the charts and program charts we have aren’t very accurate up to 800meters out AND the anchorages are very deep and shoal rapidly near shore and have reefs usually as well! It makes things very difficult and they certainly didn’t mention it at the rally briefings or in their literature. There was a cat and a monohull anchored at Gedong Point and a little village on the saddle down from the headland. We tried to raise the 2 boats on the VHF but no luck. We anchored in 27 m of water but were very nervous. Grant slept in cockpit because he was worried he’d sleep through the anchor alarm if we dragged. It was a very pretty bay though, super clear water. We had an amusing encounter with a local who approached in a canoe. Becky and Meetal were on deck with Becky trying to communicate. Initially she thought he wanted a pair of goggles because he had an old pair on his head and kept pointing to them, but then we weren’t sure. I brought out the phrase book and established that we didn’t understand each other. I finally brought out an old pair and jut gave it to him. He took them happily and left… so that was what he was after. They use them to free dive for fish and shells etc. The next 2 days we had kids coming out asking for stuff, we gave them pencils and books but no candy (not like we had any anyway!) The next day grant stayed on board as the wind had shifted and we were on a lee shore and the rest of us went onshore in the dinghy. The beach was all larger stones and chunks of coral. A couple of locals watched us get out and organised. We asked them where the village was and we walked up together with a local family with 2 little girls. It was very hot and Ameliana got whiny so Meetal and Becky took turns carrying her; finally we get to the village- a terrific view over the bay- we walked past the school and that’s when we began collecting kids! We wandered up the road that kept climbing, with kids following and laughing- we took photos- they were very interested in our girls but kept their distance at 1st, likely out of shyness. We were saying ‘hallo’ to everyone we met and 1 lady directed us to the kiosk, where w were directed to sit and they all stood around and watched us. 1 of the women had a bit of English. I now know what the locals are interested in 1st and I have now memorised the girls ages and that Elora is a girl, and that thank you is ’terimah kasih’. We also smiled a lot- seriously; my face was aching after a couple of hours just from smiling constantly. We left to take girls back for their lunch and we slowly made our way down the hill with a crowd of followers for part of the way. That afternoon I really wanted to take some clothes and toys to them, but S.V. Miss Behaving and Utopia II came in- other ‘kid boats’. We had drinks with them and talked about our trips so far: the very deep and sometimes difficult anchorages, the useless charts (Google earth was the go as long as you had reception), how the people at Larantuka were expecting the Rally to stop there, but apparently had not been told that the stop had been cancelled! And of course the fickle winds (but we expected that).
In the morning all headed out. Once again, the anchorages that we had chosen were not suitable. SV Utopia II and Miss Behaving motor faster than us, so they were acting as the scouts. We thought that we were going to have to make a run for Maumere, but Utopia II found an entrance on Google earth into a lagoon. The 3 boats, including Relapse went in, we trailed everyone. It was very nerve wracking going in between the reefs, so close to shore. Meetal and Becky were at the bow as spotters in case- SV Relapse had hoisted one of their kids up the mast in a bosuns chair as a lookout! It was quite pretty and I had a quick swim over to the reef, but it was quite rollie and Becky and meetal were a bit green that night.
The next morning we all headed off to Maumere and after a couple of tries, and some radio advice from SV Saroca, we finally dropped the pick in late morning.