Coastal Indonesian Nights

Another constant threat, the Fish Trap.  That's a log attached to it.

The coasts of Indonesia are full of fisherman.  It seems like half of them are out at night.  There are the small net fisherman with the small blue and red flashing lights.  There are the bigger boats that are brightly lit with white light.  And, then there are the real small guys with a flashlight.  Of course, this last group doesn't want to use up valuable battery power so they will shine their light only at the last moment.  What if we're inside checking the charts.  Hopefully they would move but you never know.  We did find out that they can be seen on our Garmin Digital Radar at about 2-3 miles.  This is quite amazing since their boats are the size of a canoe, and the only metal onboard is a 5hp Honda engine directly coupled to a pipe with a propeller on it.   Good job Garmin.  We now have enough advance notice to know where to look for that flicker from a flashlight in the dark of night.

There is quite a bit of interisland barge traffic in Indonesia.  Toward Borneo, there is even more and the cargo is usually a mountain of timber about 30 ft high.  We have seen them and know the lights they display at night.  They actually seem to be one of the only type of boats out at night displaying the correct lighting.  During our first night out of Bali, after dodging fishing boats for most of the night, a tug was paralleling us to the north. We were sailing slow around 3.5 knots.  This guy kept getting closer and closer.  I know he has the right of way but don't know what his intentions are.  In most other countries, you give a call on the VHF and all works out.  In Indonesia, the VHF is a party line for all the bored fisherman.  The other problem is that they only speak Indonesian and you can't get a word in edgewise.

So we watch and watch and he gets closer and closer.  In the star lit sky, I can see the huge barge piled to the sky with wood.  There were no lights on the barge.  It looked like he would pass behind us, and I think he wanted to get to the other side of us and didn't understand why he just didn't turn and go there.  Then it looked like he wanted to pass in front of us.  No problem except the barge would pass behind us and the steel cable right through us.  I fired up both engines, floored it, and passed in front of him.  That was a very close and unnecessary call.  After all this, he loops back the way we came, back toward Bali.  So, he stalked us, just to try to kill us, couldn't, so he high tailed it away.  Just doesn't seem right but I have no other explanation.

Daytime photo of a Tug/Barge hauling timber

There does seem to be this game that quite a few boats play with us.  It's called "try to pass as close to the front of the yacht as possible".  I don't like this game.

Distance and Timing of Destinations

With good wind we can sail 150 miles conservatively in 24 hours.  50 miles can be covered in a normal daylight period and still arrive in good daylight to anchor.  The trip from Bali to Borneo is 450 miles.  The midway stop on the island of Bawean is 200 miles from Bali.  We had good hopes of making Bawean but the typical 10AM winds never appeared and instead came at 3PM.  They dropped off by 6PM so we were at a huge deficit that we could never speed up enough to gain it back. 

An option would be to stay out a second night and arrive in the morning.   But, in this situation, our arrival in Bawean would have been midnight and drifting around for another 6 hours didn't seem such a good use of time.  The next leg to Borneo from Bawean is 250 miles.  With good wind, this also is a difficult distance since it also gives us a middle of the night arrival.  We could also just drift around for 6 hours waiting for sunrise but by skipping Bawean and going straight to Borneo, the 2 half nights added together give us a full night of sailing and a morning arrival.  We also cut the trip by one day and covered the 450 miles in 3 days.

Another option available to afford a daytime arrival would be to leave in the middle of the night.  This however is only practical if the anchorage you are leaving had no hazards like coral and rocks that you could hit in the dark.   

Balinesian Cooking Class

Veggie Lady at the Singaraja Market

The Lonely Planet Guide recommends a Balinesian cooking class as one of the things to do here in Lovina.  I called the restaurant, Warung Bambu, and they were able to take us the following day.   

The Bean, Chile, Shallot, Coconuts, and Garlic Lady

They picked us up at the beach at 8AM and we went to the Singaraja Market where our instructor, Adi, explained about the food and spices that we'll be using.  Of course, we picked up a few things for ourselves.

Adi, Niki, and Booker at Wok (pun intended)

Veggies needing to be chopped

We went to the restaurant and were given a list of meals that we could choose from.  When we arrived in Kupang, we were such novices.  What were all these strange names of things.  But now, we are not new to Indonesian food and know what we like.  From the list we chose:

Vegetable Spring Rolls (Lumpia Sayur)

Tofu stuffed with Vegetables (Tahu Isi)

Balinese Vegetable Curry (Kare Sayur)

Vegetables in Peanut Sauce (Gado-Gado)

Vegetables with Grated Coconut and Balinese Spices (Uraban)

Fried Noodles with Vegetables (Mie Goreng Sayur)

Mashing the ingredients to make Curry Paste (Bumbu)

 

Spring Rolls ready to get cooked

Peanut Sauce Curry with veggies (Gado-Gado)

Curry Paste almost ready

We were given a folder with the ingredient list for each dish.  We washed up, put on our hats and aprons and headed for the kitchen.  Niki was the chef helping us with the cooking.  She showed us how to chop the different vegetables and then we chopped piles of carrots, cabbage, beans, leeks, shallots, celery, chilis, garlic, pineapple, onions, tomatos, and cucumber.  All the cooking was done in coconut oil in a wok over propane.   

Making Coconut Milk from scratch

We made the Bumbu (Curry Paste) from scratch.  Actually, everything was made from scratch and made to order.  After we made all our dishes, we got to eat them in the restaurant and had plenty left over to take back to the boat.

Way too much food to eat

Rice in a banana leaf

The restaurant, Warung Bambu, is owned by a German lady, Beate Dotterweich.  This is the first place in Indonesia that we have seen that is doing recycling and composting.  The trash problem in Indonesia is huge and there is way too much plastic floating in the sea.  We would recommend the Warung Bambu for lunch or dinner even if you don't take the cooking class.

Our class folder

Spring Rolls (above) and Stuffed Tofu (below)

Our Instructor, Adi

http://warung-bambu.mahanara.com/

Lovina Beach, Bali Island, Indonesia

The Lovina Beach beach

Denpasar is the main city on the island of Bali.  This is where the town never sleeps and is a non-stop party.  This is not the kind of place that we like to visit.   

The Rally has a scheduled stop at Lovina Beach on the northwest coast but not for another two weeks.  Lovina is described as 'the place to go to get away from the crowds'.  So that's where we'll go.

Many Hindu statues here

Even the rice field workers are happy to see us

The 'Dolphin' at Lovina Beach

The intermediate anchorage between Lombok and Lovina is a town called Amed.  We arrived there at 1 PM and it turned out to be an unusable anchorage in anything except calm winds and no swell.  We have yet to see those conditions in Indonesia.  There are no other possible anchorages until Lovina, 45 miles away.  That would mean a night arrival to an unfamiliar place with coral reef.  We don't do that.  Period.  So we now had 17 hours to go 45 miles and we were not going to get much sleep watching out for fish traps and unlit boats.  At least we wouldn't hit them very hard going only 2.5 knots.

We arrived at sunrise, tired, and already there was a massive fleet of spider boats heading out to sea.  Some with

The Spider Fleet

nets, some with tourists.  One sailboat was in the anchorage but looked to be abandoned.  We dropped anchor in 20 feet of water on a nice sand bottom in front of a black sand beach.  This is a great anchorage.  The coral reef blocks the easterly swell.  The beach is 50 meters away.  The town is cute and has a backpacker feel to it.  Then, we slept.  The rest of the day was spent onboard catching up on maintenance and catching up with the blog.

Bali is 85% Hindu.  That means there won't be too much noise from the Muslim prayer callers.  Thank you Vishnu

The security factor is very good in Indonesia, in general.  Good thing because there's nowhere close to lock the dinghy.

Lombok

Main Street, Gili Air

Our first night was spent on the resort island of Gili Air along with LUNA BLU.  The town has sand streets, horse cart transportation, tourists, and everything else necessary to support the tourist industry.  hotels, restaurants, ATM's, boat transportation, ferries, etc.  It was nice to be back in civilization.  The ATM was also much needed.

Gili Air waterfront

Our home for a week

The Medana Bay Marina Pontoon

Medana Bay Marina is 5 miles away on the mainland of Lombok.  They are the ship agents for the Rally and handle the extension of our Visas.  It takes 7 days and the extension is for 30 days so you really only gain 23 extra days.  It would have been real tough to clear out within our original 2 month Visa time limit.

A small gas station.  Bensin is gasoline, Solar is diesel. 

The marina has two steel piers with a steel crosswalk between them.  Tortuguita was originally supposed to be on the inner section but the winds prevented that from happening safely so we tied up on the end for a day.  We got the Visas started, filled up with diesel, and washed everything with fresh water.  

The moorings were filling up so we grabbed one before they were gone.  There was alot of complaining about boats rolling at night on the moorings but Tortuguita is so stable, we thought we were on land.

Saki, our go to guy, at the MBM Restaurant (Our US Flag)

The marina restaurant is excellent and the prices even better.  Our meals cost around $1.50 US.  The priciest thing was the 24 ounce beers at $3.00.  Every night was a social gathering with tables pushed together for 15 or more people.

The usual dinner crowd.

Lombok is around 90% Muslim and there was no shortage of prayer callers on the loudspeakers from the handful of mosques in audible range.  Personally, I don't mind them except for the 4:30 AM rant that goes on for half an hour.  We're trying to sleep, dude.  Keep it short and turn down the volume.

I spent a few days helping Gert and Ingrid on LAZY LADY with their diesel generator.  It was flooded from am exhaust leak.  We got the diesel running and the generator checked out but in the end it was too far gone to fix any further in Lombok.  They will have better luck in Singapore where parts are more available.

Mama needs a drink

We hired a van, with LUNA BLU and DANA FELICIA, and took a day trip to Sangigi.  A coastal touristy town.  It was nice to see the sights as most tourists do and we had two nice meals at the Taman Restaurant.  Met a guy, Muhammed, at the Art Market who ended up finding us a traditional Indonesian brass gong like we saw in Alor.  Booker has been wanting one ever since and now she has one.

Fairly gently 'wild' animal

Our trip to the Mataram, the Capital City of Lombok to get photographed and fingerprinted for the visa extension was real fun.  We stopped in the mountains at the 'Monkey Forest'.  There were hundreds of these little things running around.  We fed them whole peanuts and almost all were very polite and probably thankful for the snack.  We went to a nice mall, had lunch, and did some provisioning at a 'real' supermarket.  Our passports came back the next day but we just couldn't pull ourselves away from the marina and our friends so we stayed an extra day.  We head out for Bali in the morning.

 

The Mataram Immigration Office

Labuhan Bajo, Komodo, and Sumbaya

The anchorage from the Sylvia Resort

Labuhan Bajo (LBJ) is the gateway to Komodo.  The National Park has Komodo Dragons on Rinca and Komodo Islands.  The sea life and water clarity is much better than other places because of the protected status of the area and the revenue generated by tourism.

 

We picked up a mooring ball in Waecicu Bay in front of the Sylvia Resort.

Labuhan Bajo Waterfront

Rinca Island Ranger Station Dock

The main street in LBJ is one way but runs in a loop.  This make it very simple to hail a bemo or cab.  They all go the same way.  We had been running on only one engine for the past week due to a water leak in the sea water cooling pump.  The bearings are metric and no other towns since Alor had the slightest possibility for these kinds of things.  There are no real industrial stores and the places that had bearings were mostly car and scooter parts and repair places.  Our Indonesian language skills did not include the art of bearing buying so I brought along an old one to use as an example.  We walked almost the entire loop of LBJ and finally got them at, go figure, a scooter store.  Most places had bearings but not the correct size.  So that was a great success and the next day was spent rebuilding the pump and snorkeling the reef around the anchorage.

Not just a big gecko

We took the dinghy out exploring and went ashore on a sandy beach not more that 100 meters from Tortuguita.  I brought my machette and one of the coconuts our trading a few days past.  It was a green one and the meat has a gelatinous consistency unlike the mature brown coconuts we mostly see in stores.  I made a scoop from a piece of the husk and ate most of the meat.  A while later, we were back on Tortuguita and, sure enough, there were monkeys on the beach and the left over coconut was the prize to be had.  Over time, about 10 were there fighting over it and someone actually took it away.  Unfortunately 100 meters is a little far to get a decent photo of a monkey the size of a cat but it was still one of those 'Indonesian Moments'.

Warming up in the sun

We stayed another day then sailed with LUNA BLU to the Loh Buyah, Ranger Station on Rinca Island.   We made the morning 'LONG TREK' with Ranger Markus and Paul and Lillian.  We saw quite a few dragons and, as expected, learned quite a bit about these giant monitor lizards. 

Dragon Food

Dragon Land

I guess I shouldn't sneak up on it

On The Move

Here are the highlights:

1.  They have 60 types of deadly bacteria in their saliva.

2.  They hide by the sides of the trails and ambush  their prey.

3.  They bite their prey on a leg or somewhere else easy to grab.

4.  Their teeth are small but the saliva does the work and starts to infect the animal.

5.  They follow the bitten animal around for a day until it can't go any more because of the infection.

6.  They use their strong muscles and sharp claws to rip the prey apart.

7.  They hunt alone but eat as a group. 

The Papaya Ladies in Potopaddu

We left Rinca and headed to Gili Lawa Laut Island but were not able to anchor because of the coral and diverted to Montjo Bay on Komodo Island.  This was a nice quiet anchorage in front of a sandy beach where wild pigs (ie: dragon food) were rooting around at low tide.

Main Street, Potopaddu

Moonrise over Moyo Island

Our next stop was a long day to Wera Bay on the island of Sumbawa.  There were quite a few large wooden boats being built right on the beach under thatch roof sheds.  Apparently this is a fairly wealthy town and the canoe kids were the most obnoxious we have encountered so far.  I guess there are spoiled brats in every culture.

The next town was Kilo and, according to the cruising guide, was supposed to be poor with lots of begging kids.  The town was for sure poor.  People were living on the beach under blue tarps.  But, the kids were polite and once we let them know that we would trade with them or buy fruits and vegetables, things went real well.  Parents were even on the beach sending their kids out in canoes with fruit to sell to us.

Veggie Kids

Our next anchorage was Kananga.  This was a nice clean town and no canoe kids.  We went to town in the morning to see about buying more data for the SIM card since my entire unused balance was taken away after the 30 day expiration.  Telkomsel has the lousiest support of any tech company ever.  There is no way to recharge your card online or even make an account.  Their links don't work and there is just no information about what plans are available or what you're buying.  Don't believe me, check it out at www.telkomsel.com.  Anyway, success with getting 2 GB added to my SIM card.

Hard Working Net Fisherman

2 miles from Kananga is Satonde Island.  This is a volcano island with a saltwater lake in the calders.  We went there on the way to our next stop on Moyo Island but the moorings were taken and there was no way to anchor without destroying the coral.  The anchorage at Moyo Island by the Russian's Resort was very deep but well protected.  We anchored in 50 feet of water along with ALUA and LUNA BLU.

The Potopaddu Anchorage with Alua and Luna Blu

Just another Indonesian Volcano

 The next anchorage was a beautiful small protected bay called Potopaddu.  This place by far was the best anchorage that we have found so far in Indonesia.  It's the kind of place that you could spend weeks.  Too bad we are trying to keep at the front of the rally pack so we can get a marina berth in Lombok.  So we spent an extra day there anyway.

At Anchor with Fishing Boats

The Alas Strait separates Sumbawa from Lombok.  The winds in alot of places are blocked by the high mountains but winds funnel through the straits between the islands.  The same happens with the current.  We had a spirited run to Lombok hitting 9+ knots in 20 knot winds.  We anchored at Gili Lawang inside the coral reef in fine mangrove sand and silt and hiked the trails on the tall grass looking for a beach which we never found.  



We've made it to Lombok.