August 30, 2008 - Nusa Lembongan, Bali, Indonesia

We left Gili Air bright and early for the 42 mile run to Nusa Lembongan, a small island off the east coast of Bali. Leaving Gili Air, we wound our way through a huge fleet of local fishing boats. There were literally hundreds of little (approximately 15 foot long) fishing boats, with narrow hulls and two skinny outriggers. These little trimarans were powered by large, colorful sails, which were made out of a patchwork of materials. At some point on our passage from Gili Air, which sits two miles off the coast of Lombok, to Nusa Lembongan, which lies 12 miles from Bali, we crossed the Wallace Line. Please bear with me as I wander off on a tangent here, but Wallace is one of the great unsung heroes of scientific discovery, so indulge me as give him a few props.

Charles Darwin is widely considered the father of evolutionary theory. But frankly, without plagiarizing Wallace, Darwin might never have really understood how evolution worked. Wallace, a geographer working in the East Indies, was a zealous collector of plant, insect, bird and animal specimens. He spent a lot of time ruminating about how so many varieties of species could evolve in one region. Then one night, while suffering from an attack of malaria, bathed in fever sweat, he suddenly understood how new species were created: "there suddenly flashed upon me the idea of the survival of the fittest--that the individuals removed . . . must be, on the whole, inferior to those that survived." Wallace immediately dashed off letters to the boys at the botany club back in jolly old England, telling them what he had come up with. One of Wallace's letters fell into Darwin's hands, who later acknowledged that Wallace's ideas struck him as "a bolt from the blue," and provided him with the impetus to finish writing his seminal tome, On the Origin of Species, in which Wallace's ideas of "survival of the fittest" and "struggle for existence" are sited as the keys to evolutionary theory. Eventually, some of the boys in the botany club persuaded Darwin to share the credit with Wallace. Darwin grudgingly agreed, but he continued to claim that he had the same idea as Wallace, a few days before he read Wallace's letter, but failed to write it down. Likely story.

Back to the East Indies . . . During Wallace's studies of the flora and fauna of this region, Wallace noted that there seemed to be a line of demarcation, beginning at the mouth of the 15 mile wide strait between Bali and Lombok, stretching north east through the Strait of Macassar, with Borneo on one side of the line and Sulawesi on the other side. On the east (Lombok) side of the line, Wallace found flora and fauna similar to those of Australia, such as possums and platypuses. On the west side of the line Australian plants and animals ceased to appear, and the islands were instead populated with Asian species, such as monkeys and wild cats. Wallace noted that "the contrast is nowhere so abruptly exhibited as on passing from the island of Bali to that of Lombock, where the two regions are in closest proximity. . . . The strait here is 15 miles wide, so that we may pass in two hours from one great division of the earth to another, differing as essentially in their animal life as Europe does from America." Neat stuff.

Nusa Lembongan is a daytrip destination from Bali. From 10:30 to 3:30, the bay is full of people enjoying watersports. We spent the early afternoon passing around a pair of binoculars to watch the antics, while Mata'irea got knocked around by the wake of passing speedboats. There were speedboats towing big yellow inflated bananas, with four people riding on each of them. The banana ride didn't seem complete unless the passengers got dumped in the water at least once. There were speedboats towing parasailors, weaving in and out of the anchored boats. I kept expecting one of the parachute passengers to get skewered on a mast of one of the anchored sailboats, just like those popular Indonesian dishes, chicken and beef sate. But the most mesmerizing ride of all was a red raft, on which two passengers were tied down. The speedboat towing it would get up enough speed to get the raft airborne, like a magic carpet. The speedboat had to navigate through the fleet of anchored boats, while keeping the raft facing into the wind, otherwise it could get caught by a cross breeze and start cartwheeling across the surface of the water. Similar rafts were outlawed in the States a few years ago after they were involved in fatal accidents. We didn't want to watch, but we couldn't tear our eyes away.

Having Suzy on board has been so good for us. Not only does she come up with new dishes to make out of the ship's stores, but she sees familiar (to us) sights through new eyes. It is such a pleasure to watch her experience the sheer joy of a daysail, of spotting her first frigate bird, seeing the unfamiliar constellations of the southern hemisphere sparkling in the night sky, or phosphorescence twinkling in the water. Her excitement reminds us how lucky we are to be able to live a life surrounded by such things and to appreciate them.

August 29, 2008 - Gili Air, Lombok, Nusa Tenggara, Indonesia

After our day trip to Gili T yesterday, it was time to get back in the water. Suzy, Sten, and I spent the morning doing a drift snorkel down the eastern shore of Gili Air. After our long, slow drift down the coast, we arrived at the beach in front of the Zipp Bar just in time to join a few other cruisers for lunch. Ever hopeful of making a sale, and seeing many potential customers, the beach hawkers surrounded our table, trying to get us interested in their pearls, fabrics or carvings. We weren't buying, but some of the other cruisers did their part to support the local economy.
The folks on one of the other cruising boats in the harbor has done several dives in the past four days and come back raving about them. They described the shallow dive off of the northeast tip of Gili Air as one of the best dives they've ever done. The sales pitch was "you won't see big fish, but you will see all sorts of little alien creatures that you won't see anywhere else." Easy and interesting sounded like a good combination to us, beginner divers that we are, so Sten and I signed up to do the dive with Dream Divers on our last afternoon at Gili Air.
The dive was great. We had our own divemaster, who patiently spent the first few minutes of the dive helping me equalize my buoyancy so that I could hover just over the ocean floor. We needed to stay close to him so that we could see all the curious little creatures he pointed out. We saw stonefish, lionfish, little translucent shrimp, big manta shrimp, a pair of leaf fish, a three foot long sea cucumber that looked just like the people-movers at Washington Dulles airport, a tiny worm whose back would unfurl like a lotus blossom when the divemaster touched it, and a school of fish standing on their heads. It was a great dive to do with a divemaster - he knew just where to go to find each of these bizarre little creatures.

Sten, caught in a blizzard of fish

We returned from the dive to discover that Suzy had straightened up the boat in anticipation of our hosting happy hour. The two couples who came over both brought appetizers with them. Having someone else clean and other people cook - it was the easiest party we've ever thrown.

August 28, 2008 - Gili Air, Lombok, Nusa Tenggara, Indonesia

Finally, some rain.

We spent yesterday snorkeling around Gili Air and enjoying lunch ashore. Suzy is making a valiant effort at overcoming her jetlag (the time difference is 12 hours), but for now, quiet nights aboard make more sense than evenings ashore.

Today we headed back over to Gili T in the dinghy. The visitors to Gili T are mostly young singletons, and it has a reputation as a party spot. Gili Air is more laid back than Gili T, and most of the visitors (other than the daytrippers) are couples, families, and divers. It has a larger population of locals than Gili T, only a small percentage of which work in tourism. Gili T is much more developed than Gili Air. There are loads of places to stay and eat. The main street is lined with shops and cafes, several of which advertised magic mushroom omlettes. We were more interested in the spa, with its sign for $10 foot massages and $14 full body massages. Sold!

When Suzy was planning her trip to Bali, she met a massage therapist who visits Indonesia every year with her surfer husband. When Suzy asked the therapist if she ever got massages in Bali, she said no, dismissing the local style as "all just relaxation and nice smells." She would probably change her tune after getting worked over by the ladies who rubbed us down on Gili T. They pushed and prodded and popped our joints until we were both grimacing in pain. These little Balinese ladies used so much pressure, it was, as Suzy observed, like being worked over by a linebacker. We're both still interested in checking out the spas in Bali, but we'll be sure to request the "relaxation and nice smells" menu options.

August 26, 2008 - Gili Air, Lombok, Nusa Tenggara, Indonesia

A few days before Suzy, Sten's mom, was to arrive, we started trying to figure out how to get her from Gili T, where her ferry would land, to Gili Air, where we were anchored. There isn't a good anchorage in Gili T, so bringing Mata'irea over wouldn't work. Mornings here are calm, but once the afternoon winds pick up, the waters around these islands get very choppy. So we were hesitant about bringing her back in our dingy, a 10 foot RIB. We didn't want to get her and all of her luggage (filled with goodies for us) soaked. There is a local boat that hops between the islands on a regular schedule, but we thought that making Suzy hang out on Gili T for four hours after several long flights and a bouncy ferry ride would be cruel and unusual. So we went to the dock at Gili Air to see about chartering one of the local boats.

Bahari, who runs the island hopping service in solid looking wooden boats, with outboards for speed and outriggers for stability, was very enthusiastic about renting us a boat. He took us down the beach to show us his "other boat." It was a short and narrow wooden sailing outrigger. It was immediately apparent that our dinghy was more seaworthy than the outrigger. Bahari enthusiastically suggested that we could put our outboard on the outrigger. I turned to Sten and gave him the "ixnay on the engine exchangnay" expression. So in the end we headed over to Gili T in our dinghy.

While Sten waited for the ferry to come in, I found an internet cafe and uploaded our pictures from Savu and Komodo National Park [scroll down to see them]. The ferry was late arriving. Then it came in, but Suzy wasn't on it. Sten, who was getting a bit concerned, asked the crew if they knew where she was. They assured him that there was a second ferry coming soon. When it arrived, Sten was relieved to see that Suzy was aboard. We loaded up the dinghy and headed back to Gili Air. We went slowly and only got a little wet. After having Christmas in August, complete with York Peppermint Patties, the Sunday New York Times (Heaven!) and a new magnet for the watermaker, we headed ashore to one of our favorite restaurants on the beach, Gili Air Santay, for a late lunch.

Welcome aboard!

Our friend JoAnn sent us a link to an article on sail-world.com about the rally. It is similar to the NT News article, but has the added bonus of a lovely picture of Mata'irea sailing in Dominica last year.
Google Analytics tells us that we've got a lot of new readers as a result of the articles about the impoundment of the the Sail Indonesia yachts in Kupang. Welcome everyone.

August 25, 2008 - Gili Air, Lombok, Nusa Tenggara, Indonesia

We haven't had any rain for two months now - not since the downpours of our last few days in Vanuatu. The salt spray from our 16 day run to Darwin acted as an attractant, to which the soot from Australia's controlled burns and the dust from Eastern Indonesia's arid climate stuck like glue. Our white decks, lines, and canvas were all brown. Our lines were so stiff with salt that they would bend, rather than wrap around the winches. So it was time to clean house.

We've spent the past five days in a frenzy of boat cleaning. We polished stainless until we couldn't find a fingerprint between the two of us. We scrubbed decks and canvas until we couldn't stand up straight. Just when it would get to be too much, and we'd start to wonder why we gave up our desk jobs to become a scullery maid and a janitor, we'd head ashore for some cheap and tasty food and drink.

"Gili" is Indonesian for small island. "Air" means water, which is kind of a funny name for a place devoid of fresh water during the dry season. Due to the lack of local water, all the restaurants here make ice and cook with bottled water. So, we've been indulging in salads, veggie curries, and gado gado, a local dish of blanched veg, covered with peanut sauce and served with a soft boiled egg, and fried tofu or tempeh (which is like tofu, but the soybeans are less processed. We could easily become vegetarians here - which is saying something for two dyed in the wool carnivores like us - the vegetarian dishes are just that tasty. To wash down all these virtuous veggies, we've been slurping down blended fruit juice drinks. We keep thinking that they'd be really good with a splash of rum, but that might cut down on our after lunch productivity.

The bars and restaurants on Gili Air line the east coast of the island. Mixed among the tables are platforms covered with pillows, where patrons can lay back and relax, sipping a smoothie while they wait for lunch. Since most kitchens here only have one cook, it is best to make oneself comfortable. Our first lunch ashore took 3 hours. We quickly found a place that could get us in and out in under an hour - Tami's, right next to the harbor. Today it was full of sunburned day-trippers from Gili T (one of the other two Gilis off the northwest coast of Lombok), so we went hunting for a local joint. We were thrilled to find a spot that could dish us up two plates of chicken fried rice (nasi goreng) for a grand total of $2.40, a quarter of our typical lunch tab.

The bars serve all the western spirits to tourists, but the locals drink palm wine and rice wine. We went to Tami's, our lunch spot, for dinner last night. The joint was empty, other than us. So the guys (all these places are staffed with young, cool cat guys with funky sunglasses and a penchant for strumming the guitar) poured us some of their local brew. We both preferred the rice wine. The palm wine tasted too much like proofing yeast for our palates. The rice wine tasted similar enough to sake to knock back a few glasses. The more powerful local spirit is arak, which a stronger version of rice wine. It is a bit rough around the edges, but makes a servicable version of a capahrinia - the Arakpahrinia.

In the past five days, we've just scraped the surface of the local food and drink options. We've spent all our time cleaning, so we haven't begun to explore the island or the reefs around it. We're looking forward to putting the cleaning supplies away and devoting ourselves to exploring the Gilis and their restaurant menus once Sten's mom arrives tomorrow.

August 20, 2008 - Gili Air, Lombok, Nusa Tenggara, Indonesia

The region of Indonesia that we've been exploring these past few weeks is Nusa Tenggara, which means south east islands. Between each of the islands of this archipelago is a strait. This time of year, the currents in all of the straits seem to be constantly running south. With the full moon this week, the currents are running extra fast.

Once boats have made their way up one of the straits to the north side of Flores or Komodo, they tend to stay north. Making their way west towards Bali in the protection of the islands, they don't encounter much swell. But since Sten is constantly in search of swell and the reefs it breaks against, we went south. We found swell and current and freakishly strong winds. What we couldn't find was an anchorage so that he could take advantage of the swell and do some surfing. As we discovered these past 48 hours, sometimes there is a reason why the road less traveled is, well, less traveled.

Hu'u, on the south east corner of Sumbawa, the home of Lakey's Beach, was too far from our anchorage on the north end of Komodo to make it there in a day sail. We were worried about having a slow passage and arriving after dark. So we decided to leave in the late afternoon, to navigate Selat Sape, the strait between Komodo and Sumbawa in daylight. We expected to get to the other end of the strait just before dark. Then we assumed (based on our last few passages in Indo) that we'd have a leisurely overnight sail along the coast and anchor up in Hu'u at day break. To put it mildly, things did not go according to plan.

The current was ripping through Selat Sape. We had a southeast breeze blowing against the south flowing current, but the water was relatively flat as long as we were in the strait, protected by Komodo Island to the east. We were blasting along at over 11 knots (way above Mata'irea's typical speed) in 15 knots of breeze with a 4 knot current assist. It was exciting sailing. Then we hit the mouth of the strait and ran into the 2 to 3 meter swell. And all hell broke loose. The current piled into the swell, creating standing waves. Then the wind speed kicked up to 25 knots, making those waves stand up even higher. It was the most chaotic sea state we've ever seen. We buried the bow, again and again. Green water was flowing over the deck. We furled in the jib to slow us down. But we were still moving too fast. The waves kept breaking over the bow. We were at risk of filling the dinghy, which was tied down inflated and upright on the foredeck. We rounded up and quickly double reefed the main. We slowed our speed through the water down to less than a knot. But with the current, we were still doing 7 knots over the ground. It was unbelievable. And frightening.

"Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition."

A comment that Sten made underscores how unnerving the situation was. But first some background: We've been having a debate these past few months about which way to go when we leave Asia. I'm pushing for the Med. Sten has been advocating for going around South Africa. His reasoning is that he'd rather deal with weather and rough seas than pirates. I'd rather take my chances with the odd pirate than have to face rouge waves. After we made it through the worst of the current, neither of us said anything for a few minutes. Then Sten turned to me and said "Okay, we can go through the Med." It was that scary.

Once we got out of the current, we found that we had new problem. The south shores of Sumbawa and Lombok are practically devoid of decent anchorages. The shorelines are rocky and steep-to, with very few bays that provide any protection from the heavy swell that pounds the coast. Over 200 miles of coastline, there are only three safe places to anchor. Unfortunately for us, we couldn't seem to position ourselves to enter one of the three in daylight. That first night out, we were going too fast, and conditions were too chaotic, to slow down to go into Hu'u in the morning. So we kept going. We were hoping to make it into Ekas, on the eastern end of Lombok's south shore, before dark. But the wind died during the day and we had a counter current slowing us down, so it was sundown by the time we reached Selat Alas (Alas Strait), the strait between Sumbawa and Lombok.

"Beam me up, Scotty!"

Again, conditions in the second strait were rough. Just like the night before, the wind picked up at the mouth of the Alas Strait. And again, the wind was against the current. We found ourselves in the middle of standing waves again, although they weren't as large or steep as the night before. We were sailing dead down wind, trying to make it into Ekas, when a wave kicked our stern around, causing us to round down and accidentally jibe the main. The boom slammed across the boat. We initially thought that the preventer line had broken, but afterwards we discovered that the force of the accidental jibe tore the fitting that the preventer was connected to right out of the boom. The metal fitting shot through the bimini like a bullet, and continued its trajectory, blasting out the window connecting the dodger and the bimini. Frickin dangerous. It is just lucky that one of our heads wasn't in the way. Hours later we noticed that the impact of the jibe had also bent the traveler cam cleat.

Right after the jibe, I pulled the plug on going into Ekas at night. I was too wigged out to face a lee shore with current and swell in the dark. But not going into anchor created another problem for us. We only had 50 miles of coast to go before reaching the next strait, Selat Lombok (Lombok Strait), which runs between Lombok and Bali. We needed to slow way down to reach the Lombok Strait in daylight hours. But even reefed way down, we were still going too fast. If we headed due west, we would have reached the Lombok Strait at 2am. After our experiences in the prior two straits, which were bad enough during daylight, we weren't going near a third in the dark. So we spent the night running off south of Lombok, dodging fishing boats, trying to add miles to our course to fill the hours before daylight.

At daybreak, we entered the Lombok Strait and headed north, towards a safe anchorage. We hugged the coast, staying out of the main southerly current, and actually had some current with us, for a change. Then we hit the main southbound section of current and slowed right down to a crawl. At some point, I turned to Sten and shrugged, "Med or South Africa - I think I'm done here." He promised that it was just the exhaustion talking and that I would get my nerve back after a few days in a nice anchorage. We'll see.

August 18, 2008 - Komodo National Park, Nusa Tenggara, Indonesia

We've spent the past few days exploring one of the most startlingly different places we've ever been. After a few days, I'm left with an impression of hills that look like hammered gold bracelets, dotted with trees straight out of Where the Wild Things Are, water as clear as gin and thriving reefs covered with colorful coral and populated by big fish. We've spent our days stalking Komodo Dragons on sparkling white beaches and drift snorkeling in the raging currents swirling around these islands. We're so enamored with the spot that we spent an evening debating the feasibility of starting an charter yacht business here (the latest round in our favorite game - what are we going to do when we grow up).

We quickly concluded that labor was so cheap in Indonesia that bareboat charters don't make financial sense. A fully crewed charter boat would cost so little more than the DIY option, that bareboating isn't worth the hassle. In addition, there are no beach bars or restaurants to break up the monotony of cooking on board and the anchoring is challenging. We'd have to drop a bunch of moorings and open a restaurant somewhere to make the Komodos an attractive destination for the bareboat charter yacht trade. But for us, this place has been one of the highlights of our trip.

August 13, 2008 - Rinca Island, Nusa Tenggara, Indonesia

It took us around 28 hours, and some help from the engine, to sail from Savu to Rinca Island, one of two big islands and many small islands that comprises Komodo National Park. The big attraction here is the Komodo Dragon, a giant monitor lizard with a nasty case of bacteria in its mouth. Our first anchorage, in Rinca's southern bight, held the promise of dragons, but we didn't see any on the steep arid hills around us. However, we did see a whole new world of coral and fish when we went snorkeling. Hello, Indian Ocean! There were so many new species that I had trouble focusing.

This morning, two rally boats joined us in the southern bight. We heard from one of them that the President of Indonesia flew down to Kupang and arrested the head of Customs for impounding all of the rally boats. These cruisers also said that the President made a significant donation to the Sail Indonesia Scholarship Fund, which benefits Kupang University students, as a gesture of goodwill. Now, this is an unsubstantiated rumor and I have no internet here so I can't confirm it. But if it is true, what an unbelievable thing to happen. I'm struggling to imagine the President of a country of 250 million people troubling himself with a rally of 120 boats carrying at most 300 tourists. Could there have been that much coverage in the international press? Could he be concerned about the impoundment of the rally boats having a negative impact on tourism?

This afternoon we motor sailed up the west coast of Rinca. The coast line was stunningly beautiful in a desolate way. High brown cliffs dotted with caves and shot through with red lines of clay dropped straight into the ocean. As we were dropping anchor this afternoon in our second Rinca anchorage, in an undulating bay on the west coast of the island, we spotted two deer on the shore. A short time later, a Komodo Dragon ambled down the white sand beach. We're headed to the park headquarters tomorrow, where we expect to see a lot of dragons, but it was cool to see one just wandering around. Just as the sun set, we saw a monkey meandering along the shoreline.

August 11, 2008 - Savu, Nusa Tenggara, Indonesia

We've spent the past few days fixing the mainsail, doing a variety of other boat projects, and hunting for shells on the beach while waiting for the swell to develop. When it did, it was well worth the wait. Sten says that it is the fastest wave he's ever surfed. We met an Australian named Dave, who has spent the past month staying in the village, surfing this fickle wave. He was here when Khulula came through 3 weeks ago. Since then, only one other boat has been here.

We invited Dave and a few local teenage guys over for dinner last night. I made some pasta. Dave enjoyed the break from a steady diet of fish and rice. The guys were very polite about their first experience with Italian food. However, their expressions reminded me of the look on Sten's face the first time he had to eat laplap. Over dinner we asked them about the broken Nautilus shells we'd seen on the beach. This morning, they paddled out in their outrigger to bring us a perfect Nautilus. What an excellent hostess gift!

August 9, 2008 -

We were very entertained to receive an email from our friend Nick, on Kika, telling us that the local paper in Darwin quoted our blog in a story about the impoundment of the vessels in Kupang. Nick has posted the article on his blog. To check it out, click on the link to his blog on the right hand side of this page, or paste the following link into your browser: http://kikasailing.blogspot.com.

August 8, 2008 - Savu, Nusa Tenggara, Indonesia

We're anchored somewhere along the coast of the island of Savu. We actually do know where we are, but because the friends who gave us the details about the anchorage here and the potential for the reef to produce both a perfect left and a perfect right in big swell asked us not to publicize the location, we're abiding by their wishes. So, we're somewhere in Savu, which is so off the beaten track that the two inch thick Lonely Planet guide for Indonesia doesn't even have this island listed.
Best of all, there isn't another cruising boat in sight. It is just us and the local fisherman, who spend all day long gill netting in the waters around us. It will be nice to have an anchorage all to ourselves for a few days. Not having to worry about boats dragging down on us is a nice change.
We had a fast, fast day sail to get here from Nemberala. For over an hour our speed over the ground was pegged at over 10 knots. That's unheard of for us. At least 3 of those knots were due to assistance from the current flowing in our direction. The rig wasn't even loaded up. Which leaves us a bit flummoxed as to how we managed to tear the mainsail. Luckily we've got a few more days to go before the swell sets in, so we should have plenty of time to repair the main.

----------
radio email processed by SailMail
for information see: http://www.sailmail.com

August 6, 2008 - Nemberala, Rote, Nusa Tenggara, Indonesia

We had a beautiful overnight sail from Kupang to Nemberala, a surf spot on the Southwestern corner of the island of Rote with a legendary 'left' known as T-land. The anchorage here is a little tricky to get into, as the charts don't show the reefs. But by keeping an eye on the wave occasionally breaking to our left as we approached the anchorage from the North, we were able to scoot around the reef and anchor behind a handful of other cruising boats.

Our Tuesday morning arrival was timed perfectly (and completely unintentionally) to take advantage of the local weekly market. As we cruised into the beach in the dinghy, fishermen leaned out of their boats waiving strands of pearls at us. As we pulled the dinghy up on the beach, a gentleman from Palau Ndao, an island situated 10km west of Nemberala, renowned for its silversmiths, approached us to show us some bracelets. All the jewelry was nice to look at, but what we were really after was a few eggs and tomatoes.

Nemberala is a cute little westernized Indonesian town - a result of catering to surfers. There is a bakery where you can order focaccia. The local restaurant serves burgers (when they remember to order buns from the bakery) and hashbrowns. And the resort at the end of the beach serves a mean margarita from its beautiful bar (this place has customer service down - when you sit down they hand you a pair of binoculars so you can check out the action out on the reef). We had a really fun time at the resort bar chatting with some folks from Adelaide, Australia, who have done more New England cruising than we have, a surf photographer (what a cool job), and a group that had just arrived from San Diego. Nemberala is not an easy place to get to and these people had all traveled a long way to get here. Unfortunately for them and Sten, the surf was not rewarding the effort they made to get here. The swell was minimal and forecast to stay that way for several days. Sten made the best of it and got out there and had some fun warm-up sessions in the small waves.

Walking the beach at low tide we found big knobby starfish and chards of coral. We also spotted some pigs foraging in the tidepools - free range pork, as Sten quipped. We watched the locals harvesting seaweed from the shoreline. In this arid region, where it is hard to grow vegetables in any abundance, seaweed provides an important source of vitamins and calcium. The seaweed is also a cash crop. It is shipped overseas to be used as a thickener in dairy products and a fat substitute in diet foods.

We joined some other cruisers for a few Bintangs and mie goreng (fried noodles) at the local restaurant. Over dinner we learned a very important phrase should we ever find ourselves in need of a beer in Australia: "I'm as dry as a dead dingo's donger." We've tucked that away with "spat the dummy," which translates essentially as 'threw a hissy fit.' Our Indonesian isn't making much progress but hanging out with all these Australian cruisers we're learning some colorful Aussie slang.

Additional boats released from bondage in Kupang arrived each day we were in Nemberala. Soon this serene spot started to feel crowded too and we felt the itch to move on and find our own wave.

August 4, 2008 - Kupang, West Timor, Nusa Tenggara, Indonesia

And now, for the rest of the story . . .

Last week I commented that the first day of the Indonesian clearance process had been a cake walk, but for the minor hiccup of having our boat impounded. How I wish that I could take those words back. The whole experience reminds me of one that a dear friend of mine, whom I'll call Jimmy, had lateraling from one law firm to another. Jimmy was considering leaving the comfy confines of his law firm, where the partners in his practice area were a fairly collegial bunch, for the opportunity to work in a shop across town with the best book of business in the city in Jimmy's practice area. The jump seemed like a no-brainer, except for the fact that one of the partners in the firm across town, whom I'll call Partner X, was notoriously difficult to work for. This guy wasn't just your garden variety demanding law firm partner - difficult to work with until you figure out to handle him or her. Partner X was actually possessed by demons who made his personality change from minute to minute. When Jimmy interviewed with Partner X the demons had apparently gone out for coffee, because Jimmy came back and reported, somewhat famously within our circle of friends, that Partner X was a pussycat. So Jimmy made the jump. By the time Jimmy's books were shelved in his new office across town, the demons had found their way back from their coffee break. As Partner X wrecked havoc on Jimmy's work and family life for the next two years, Jimmy would vehemently deny that he ever said that X was a pussycat. Luckily for Jimmy he never put the pussycat comment in writing, so while we could tease him, we couldn't really pin him down on it. Just as Jimmy was persuaded to ignore someone's reputation based on his own first impressions, so to did I ignore Indonesia's many centuries long history of corruption and bureaucracy based on a painless first encounter. Unfortunately, unlike Jimmy, I put my first impressions in writing, for all the world to read.

Lest anyone decides to join the Sail Indonesia Rally (the "Rally") because I implied that it made our clearance process here easy, what follows is a detailed account of the three ring circus into which the clearance process devolved, as I experienced and perceived it. Your mileage may vary. At the bottom of this epic post I outline the other options for bringing your boat to Indonesia. And as improbable as it might seem after reading the following, I explain why we would consider joining the Sail Indonesia Rally again if we ever return to Indonesia.

Under the Big Top

Tuesday, July 29th - We receive morning boat visits by Customs and Quarantine. How nice of them to come to us - sure beats traipsing all over town to find them as we usually have to do when arriving at foreign ports. We give out copies of our crew list and CAIT (Clearance Approval for Indonesian Territory - our cruising permit) and our original Australian Clearance papers. We make the officers very happy by producing our boat stamp (which I had made up at Lawyers Stationary in Boston before we left for $14) and making everything official. We are told that we and all the other vessels are being impounded because we failed to give 24 hour notice of our arrival and that our sponsors failed to fill out some paperwork. This is the first we've heard of the 24 hour rule and figure that Sail Indonesia will take care of whatever else went awry, because frankly, that's what we're paying them for. The only reason we joined the Rally is because it is the only way to legally enter Indonesia without being subject to a law that allows the Indonesian government to require us to post a bond of up to 30% of Mata'irea's value to guarantee that we will depart within 3 months time. That's a lot of money. And good luck getting it back when you leave. So several months ago we forked over $500 to Sail Indonesia to have their agents get us out of paying the bond and smooth our way through Indonesia's notorious bureaucracy.

On Tuesday we also make a late afternoon shore visit to Quarantine and Immigration at the CIQ (Customs, Immigration & Quarantine) office set up on shore for the Rally boats. We pay Quarantine 105,000 Rupiah (approximately $11) and they give us a green book that we are supposed to present to each harbor master as we travel through Indonesia. Immigration stamps our passports and asks for two copies of our crew list. At this point we think we are done with the paper work and are just waiting for Sail Indonesia to tell us that they've fixed the problem with Customs and we can get our impoundment seals removed. How silly of us.

Wednesday, July 30th - We hear from some other cruisers that Customs wants everyone to visit the CIQ office, even though we've given our Australian Clearance papers to Customs officers during their visit to Mata'irea. The Customs officers ask for a copy of the Australian Clearance papers. I tell them that I don't have any copies (we left Darwin as soon as we cleared out), and that their friends out on the Customs boat have our only original. The officer tells me to go get the original from his friends and bring him copies. I decide to wait to see if it is really necessary to give him a copy of something one of his fellow officers already has. As I move to leave the table, the Customs officer reminds me that I can not leave Kupang or remove the seal on my boat until our sponsors do the right paperwork, otherwise "we sell your boat." Lovely. But still, I'm trusting Sail Indonesia and their agents to take care of the problem.

Thursday, July 31st - The CIQ office has now turned into a CIQHMMA office. In addition to the three tables filled with Customs officers, Quarantine officers and Immigration officers, there are now tables for the Harbor Master and the Ministry of Agriculture. There are at least 30 officials in the room and they all want copies of everything. Kafka couldn't have come up with a more surreal situation. In a fit of high pique I head down to the copy shop and make 5 copies of everything anyone in Indonesia has ever given me. I figure that I'm wasting paper and ink, but this turns out to be a very prescient move.

Friday, August 1st - We learn that a letter agreement has been signed in Jakarta that will allow the impoundment stickers to be lifted from our vessels.

Saturday, August 2nd - Some Rally participants fill out the paperwork to have their impoundment seals broken, but we're off on a tour to central West Timor, so we can't do the paperwork until Sunday. Those that fill out the paperwork on Saturday only have to provide the skipper's passport number and one other piece of paper - I believe it was a copy of the CAIT - and pay 50,000 Rupiah (approximately $5)

Sunday, August 3rd - I'm impressed that the Customs officers are making themselves available on a Sunday in this very Christian and Catholic part of Indonesia. I arrive at the CIQHMMA office with pen in hand ready to fill out the documents that will allow our impoundment seal to be broken, only to find out that I need to provide four copies of every piece of paper I'd ever been given by anyone in Indonesia. Luckily I made the necessary copies on Thursday. But of course they were back on the boat. So while I stay in the CIQHMMA office and harangue a customs guy for 15 minutes in an effort to try to figure out why the process had changed so much since the day before, Sten scoots back to the boat to grab our bag of copies. It turns out that after the group completed their paperwork on Saturday, Customs made the necessary copies for them. But Customs is broke, and it doesn't have a copy machine (which explains why they asked me on Wednesday make copies my Australian Clearance, of which they already had the original, and possibly why they impounded us all in the first place). So Customs wanted to shift the cost back to the Rally. They told Sail Indonesia to make the copies. Someone affiliated with Sail Indonesia decided that it would speed things up if Rally participants brought their own copies in. Unfortunately, this change of procedure was not relayed to the participants on the morning radio net.

In addition to explaining why the process changed so much overnight, the Customs officer lets slip that "Sail Indonesia is blacklisted" and that "Raymond Lesmana [Sail Indonesia's agent] is blacklisted," which is how we all found ourselves impounded to begin with. In past years some Rally participants did not clear out of the country within the 90 days permitted by their cruising permits. So it has become more difficult for the Rally to get special exemptions from the bond requirement for Rally participants. It seems that this year, Lesmana, or whomever he subcontracted, did not take the necessary steps to allow us all to enter the country without getting impounded. During my star turn as a harridan, I also learn that there is no yacht agent in Kupang that the Customs office will work with. So without Jakarta's intervention on your behalf, there is no way to legally clear into Indonesia in Kupang. The Customs officer also claims that we all violated Indonesia's 96 hour pre-arrival notice rule - a dramatic increase from the 24 hour notice requirement we first heard about on Tuesday.

While I deal with Customs, Sten is off trying to fill our jerry cans with diesel, without paying the 20% surcharge asked for by the cabal on the beach. With the help of an Indonesian who works with a local expat that befriended us, Sten goes to the government owned filling station. Technically, since the Bali bombings, it is illegal to fill jerry cans in Indonesia. But everyone does. At the filling station, there is a whole line of Indonesians getting jerries filled for the yachties in the harbor. But the filling station refuses to fill Sten's jerry cans. Later that afternoon, the expat's Indonesian worker returns alone to the filling station with our jerries, but the pump operator still refuses to fill them because he recognizes them as belonging to a Westerner.

Monday, August 4th - While Sten is helping the expat rebuild an engine and the expat's Indonesian workers are filling old Indonesian jerry cans with diesel for us, our paperwork is processed and a Customs team comes out to remove the seal from our boat. I sign some papers, snap their photo (you can never have too much documentation) and ferry them to the next boat on their list. As soon as the sun sets, we pull up anchor to get the hell out of Kupang, a terrible anchorage, and head to Rote, which is hopefully far enough away from the Rally route to ensure that only a few other boats will be there.

Indo Options

For boats that are following in our wake to Indonesia, the Sail Indonesia Rally is one of three available options that we are aware of, each of which has various degrees of cost and risk associated with it.

The option at the most expensive, but presumably safest, end of the spectrum is the Rally. In exchange for the $500 Rally registration fee, you expect to nullify your risk of being slapped with an import duty on your vessel, a bond payment that you may or may not be able to recover when you leave the country. It took a few days, but in the end Sail Indonesia lived up to its end of the bargain.

The option at the opposite end of the spectrum is to stay far away from Kupang and clear into another port, such as Selmlaki (aka Saumlaki). Before you arrive, you must arrange for your own CAIT (Sail Indonesia does them for the Rally participants). Once you have arrived, the paperwork is apparently minimal, though Quarantine costs $23 (twice as much as in Kupang). There is no customs in Selmlaki, but they are happy to receive yachts and provide immigration and quarantine clearance. The local officials advise yachts to wait until they arrive in Bali to do their customs clearance. This is the cheapest but riskiest option. Yachts that choose this approach run the risk of being impounded somewhere along the line as they make their way towards Bali. We've heard rumors of a boat that was recently impounded in Lombok. However, for yachties that don't want to participate in the Rally, but want to see some of Eastern Indonesia, surf some of her undiscovered waves and check out the dragons, this is the only other option.

Somewhere in the middle of the spectrum lies a third option - heading straight to Bali and clearing in there. For a fee, Bali Marina and Royal Bali Yacht Club will both arrange for your CAIT and clearance into the country. As far as I'm aware, yachts that have cleared into Bali have never yet been asked to post a bond. There is a small risk that you might be asked to post a bond at another port of call after clearing into Bali, but the risk is mitigated somewhat by the fact that most yachts that go directly to Bali don't make many other stops in Indonesia before they clear out for Singapore.

To Rally or Not to Rally, that is the Question

So, after our first rally experience, would we join a rally again? Unlikely.

We prefer to make our passages during the best weather windows possible rather than on some preordained date that may not have favorable weather for passagemaking. This port of entry seems to have been chosen for its convenience for the Rally organizers, rather than for its suitability for yachts. The anchorage in Kupang is on a lee shore most of the time. When the wind gets up in the afternoon, there is no protection. The holding is terrible, so practically every day boats have dragged down through the fleet. But the worst part of the experience has been how some of the Rally participants have behaved - and I'm not even going to get into the solicitation occurring onshore. Meeting some of these boats individually they stuck us as lovely people. But trap people in a bad anchorage, where their home is at risk, and they can't do anything about it, then the worst is bound to come out. I'm as guilty as anyone. After holding onto my cruisy attitude for five days I finally lost it on Sunday and vented my frustration all over a poor Customs officer who was only doing his job. Usually people vented their frustration over the radio. Dutch guys were yelling about how the Rally is responsible for making us all criminals, English saying "lets all queue up," Aussies responding with "f* your queue," Kiwis chiming in with "can't we all get along," and I'm sad to say several Americans making complete asses out of themselves. Then there were the passive aggressive folks who would hold their mic open to drown out the statements of anyone they didn't agree with. Everyone was just stressed out and unpleasant. Because we prefer to choose our own passage dates, ports of arrival and company, we are not in a hurry to sign up for any more rallies.

So, would we join this rally again? As improbable as it sounds, given all the above: possibly.

If we were coming this way again, we would still join the Sail Indonesia Rally, because we feel that it is the least risky option as long as there is an Indonesian law allowing a bond to be levied against boats arriving in Indonesia. But, and this is a big but, we will not come anywhere near Kupang again. As lovely as the Timorese are, Kupang just isn't a safe anchorage, particularly with 120 boats in it. Thankfully, there is another option for future Rally participants. Friends of ours are participating in the Eastern Passage Rally, a subset of the Sail Indonesia Rally. They were not impounded when they arrived at their first port of call (I believe it was Selmlaki). And even better, there are only three boats participating in the Eastern Passage. At this point we believe that the Eastern Passage would have been a better option for us.

August 2, 2008 - Soe Province, West Timor, Nusa Tenggara, Indonesia

At 7am this morning we joined approximately 200 other cruisers for a tour of central West Timor. Together with along with 36 tour guides, 18 bemo drivers and 18 bemo conductors, we piled into 18 bemos and, with horns blaring, followed our police escort and its wailing siren up into the mountains. As we drove out of Kupang, modern cement homes gave way to more traditional dwellings.

Beehive huts - the doorway is only 3 feet tall

Our first stop was the village of None (no-nay). At the outskirts of the village, we were greeted with a welcome dance and ceremony. Then the villagers led us into the heart of the village, where we witnessed a war dance, complete with swords, and several other traditional dances.

The villagers are wearing Ikat, a colorful cloth that is locally woven.

With a tour guide translating for us, we bought an Ikat similar to the shawl on the flamingo dancer's shoulder in the photo above. We found one that was well used, and a bit dirty. But it was woven by hand from handmade cotton thread, which was naturally dyed with indigo. It is really beautiful, in a rustic-must-wash-immediately kind of way. Bargaining opened at 1,000,000 Rupiah, but at the end we got down to 1,250,000 (approximately $13). We would have paid more, but that's all we had in our pockets. Afterwards I asked a guide if we overpaid. After some cajoling we got him to admit that we had, "maybe a little bit." When we arrived back at the bemos, the drivers came over to check out our purchase. They felt the knobby, natural threads and gave us the thumbs up.

Ikat being woven by hand

At the next village, Boti, which is only 50 kilometers from the border from East Timor, we witnessed a hair cutting ceremony. A pig was slaughtered and its blood was used to bathe the scalp two year old child who then received his first hair cut, by means of a razor blade being scraped over his blood-coated scalp. After the ceremony we had a delicious lunch, prepared by the villagers. As far as we could tell, pork wasn't on the menu.
In both of the villages we visited today, many of the older men and women were wearing beautiful heavy silver bracelets. And many of the men were wearing sashes decorated with very old silver coins. Everywhere we went men and women were chewing betel nut. It stains their lips, teeth and gums red and gives them a nicotine-like buzz. They mix the nut of a palm with the leaf of vine, which belongs to the same family as kava, and lime powder. The combination creates a mild buzz when chewed. The lime causes their mouths to flood with saliva, which they then spit on the ground, leaving read stains everywhere. Other than stains on your carpet, the more significant long term effects of betel nut chewing include mouth and stomach cancer.

A brand new loo in Boti. This was one of the nicest johns we saw all day. Soap and toilet paper are definitely not standard issue in Indonesian bathrooms.