In kupang we did a land tour with several other yachties out to see the country side a bit. We went to a place where they make sugar from the liquid in palm stems at the top of certain type of palm trees. A guy climbed up a very tall tree hand over hand with his bar feet edging on tiny notches cut in trunk and then filled a bucket with the liquid and climbed slowly back down using hands and feet only, no knees. Dangerous work I think. The liquid is boiled over open fires and eventually they get sugar. No hi-teck equipment in this operation. The tour also took us to a large market and later a place they make musical instruments and gave us a demo.
The local government payed for a dinner for everyone at the bar restaurant by the dinghy landing. It was a great dinner and then had a few speeches and some music and dancing put on by the locals. It was all fun but we think this is the last rally event we will attend until near the end. Too many yachties and boats in one place. We also did not like being feed free food when their people are so poor. This the poorest nation we have visited yet.
We left Kupang after 5 days here. It is about 120 miles across the Savu Sea to an anchorage at SW tip of Kawula. This meant an overnight sail. We sailing the first 40 miles and then the wind died and we had to motor the rest of the way. No more trade wind sailing for a while. We heard some rattling from the engine compartment early in the night. I stopped the engine and pulled the cover and could see the mount for the air cleaner had come loose and about to fall off. Five minutes with a wrench fixed problem.
The following morning we arrived at our destination and saw several rally boats here as well. We dropped anchor in 30ft at 08 30.427 123 13.665. (Anchorage #9 in 101 anchorages in Indonesia book) It was a pretty spot with a very small village off beach. We took dinghy in to check out beach and have a walk. There was a surprising amount of surf coming through channel onto the beach and with all the coral around you could only land near high tide. There was also fish nets strung all along beach making it hard to find a way through. We did not land as the tide was too far down and the surf would have just thrown dinghy over the coral. We managed even to get Internet here a bit if I sat outside.
We decided to leave next morning due to the difficulty in landing.and headed up channel to Lambata. Most people seem content to sit on there boats and do some swimming but we like to get ashore and stretch the legs.
The next anchorage was about 10 miles up channel in a large bay. We noticed the current was not with us until about 3 hours after low water. (floods north) We anchored off the town at the rally waypoints in 39ft. 08 22.175 123 24.478. We then took dinghy to a dock just West of where we anchored and trusted it would be okay there. There was several kids playing on dock and we said 'okay here?' and they said 'okay' so we went with that recommendation. We went for a long stroll around the small town and found a number of small shops and one bit bigger grocery store, but not a whole lot of choice. Dorothy found some bananas and papaya. We returned to the dinghy and all was well with it. Everyone that we saw was very friendly and greeted up with a smile or a 'hello mister'. There is good internet here with our USB modem.
We had been warned by a boat ahead of us that they had very loud music played until late. Sure enough a bit after we had gone to bed, loud music started up exactly opposite us on shore. It was good music but not when trying to sleep. It kept up until about 2pm and looked like this was a nightly thing so we decided to leave and go on to the next anchorage just past top of channel.
We managed to sail half way and then motored and the current in channel was a half knot against us when we figured it should be with us. Some boats speculated it might flood from both ends? We anchored at anchorage #10 in 101 book. Anchored in 70ft at 8 14.692 123 19.473. this is a beautiful spot to spend a couple of days which we did. A couple of locals came out in there canoes from nearby village and sold us some bananas and papayas. They are always bailing their canoes we notice, which are made of a few planks put roughly together. We burned our garbage on a nearby beach and buried remains as there is nothing else to do with it in Indonesia. Later did a couple of easy hikes from beaches up small hills. Dorothy did some snorkeling while I rested a chest cold I had picked up in Kupang.
August 6 we left this super anchorage and about 30 miles away checked out anchorage # 12 in 101 book. It is very deep right up to the beach. Another rally boat we knew was there almost on beach. There is lots of bomies and rock and we did not feel comfortable anchoring so close to a beach when it is still a somewhat exposed place. So we kept on going and anchored in a bay at very tip of peninsula in 60 ft at 8 13.689S 122 45.999E. We had to try several times to get the anchor to hold and even then it was iffy, but there was no wind so we set our drag alarm and depth sounder alarm and spent a good night here. It is very protected here and a small beach on shore where a couple of local fisherman were camped.
We left early next morning for the anchorage in front of the Sea World resort about 41 miles away. Gelting Village. It was another mostly motoring day. A Indonesian 150 ft navy patrol boat cruised close by and called up up on radio to ask us our boat name and if we were with rally. As we pulled in to find a place to anchor, 3 canoes came out to greet us selling their services . They were hanging off the boat before we even had the anchor down. We asked them to wait until we anchored, they were friendly and said no problem. We anchored in 50 ft at 8 38.149 122 18.364 beside two other yachts.
The boat boys were selling diesel delivery service, water in 5 gallon sealed jugs, laundry service and fruit delivery. That is you give them your order and they go get what you want. A 5 gallon water jug was 20,000 or about $2.00, cheap but you are paying double of what you would if you could find it yourself on shore.
They also did our laundry for us and it came back clean and folded.
We also did a tour and shared the cost with the yacht Simanderal out to the famous Kelimitu volcano. It has 3 craters each with a different color lake in it, and it was a pleasant hike up to the crater rims. Stopped at some place that does traditional icat weaving on the way back and had 30 women trying to sell poor Dorothy and Gen there goods they had woven up.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment