Land of Dragons: Flores to Bali : Wonderful Sail to Indonesia Rally Part 3

The official map of the Wonderful Sail to Indonesia Rally. You can enlarge any image by clicking on it.

We bade farewell to Buton and the many friends we'd made there, and set our course for Flores. Sailing south through the night, the solitary rhythm of the boat was a quiet contrast to the daily festivities we enjoyed in Buton. At last we anchored in a tiny cove off a fishing hamlet, with a decent reef and clear water for snorkeling. For the next few days we hopped east along the coast, anchoring at night. We lingered to enjoy the snorkeling at some beautiful islands, part of a national park, which did not appear on any of our charts! I spent many happy hours underwater in wonderment at the marine life swirling around me. 

Split screen view of the sea and island, a diver's eye view.

A fabulous coral, the size of a car, and perfect. I called it the "lettuce garden".

Colorful reef fish.

                                           

A flamboyant but poisonous lionfish. They are pests, eating all the baby fish.

A clownfish hiding in its anemone home.

Samara II, a 38' Lagoon catamaran.

We had to keep moving to get to Labuan Bajo on “schedule”.  Approaching the city, we worked our way through the channel, past scores of local tour boats which take the tourists to the nearby islands to see the legendary Komodo dragons.

The channel at Labuan Bajo.  These Komodo tour boats are locally built with teak.

At Labuan Bajo, we attended a lavish gala party at the posh Jayakarta Hotel, meeting and mingling with government ministers and business leaders, including a fellow MSU alum, as well as fellow sailors. Wonderful food, fantastic live music and dancing under the stars.

The luxurious Jayakarta Hotel at Labuan Bajo, Sumbawa.

The dancers at the gala party

A "tribal weekend warrior" and me at the gala.

After a few days in Labuan Bajo, we moved on toward Rinca, which, along with better-known island of Komodo, is the sole home to the fabled Komodo dragons. Anchoring near mangrove islands as the ruby and amethyst sunset faded to twilight, thousands of fruit bats streamed overhead from their roosts toward dinner on the mainland. Francesca from SY Philocat joined us for happy hour and bat watching. What a great finale to the day. 

Fruit bats flying in the sunset.  They pooped all over the boat. 

On Rinca island we joined Mike, Carolyn and Joycie (the “Hens”) from SY Henrietta, on a guided walk around the island to spot wildlife, including dragons. 

Captain Gilles leading the way into the dragons' lair.

Macaques are cute... and can be nasty!

We saw deer,  macaque monkeys (which got a bit aggressive) and yes, dragons in the wild. You have to look all around and behind you because they prefer to run up from behind and bite you when you’re not looking. Bacteria and toxins take over, and a week later when you’re all good and tenderized, they have their meal. 

Here be dragons!

A view of the anchorage at Rinca, with Samara II in the center.

Buffalo. Accustomed to people but still wild.

The dragon senses prey with its tongue. Its bite is a toxic cocktail of toxins and virulent bacteria. 

Mike Sweet of SY Henrietta by a tree hung with skulls and bones of deer,
 buffalo, and other creatures which may have been the dragons' dinner.

The guides carried stout walking sticks suitable for dragon-thumping, and are rightly quite serious about their jobs. Our guide told us that a fellow guide had been bitten last year and had to be rushed to the hospital for immediate intensive treatment. The dry landscape was perfect camouflage for the dusty grey lizards, but we spotted several. Most of them were near the camp, where they congregate in the shade around the station kitchen. There we were stalked by a young dragon and the guide used his stick to deter its interest. We were glad we didn’t settle for the Youtube dragons.

We sailed on toward the island of Sumbawa. Having reached the western tip of the island at the end of the day, we anchored in a small cove across from the volcano Gunung Sangsaeng. The looming volcano would thunder like a cannon shot, then puff smoke from the summit every 20 minutes or so.

The volcano Gunung Sangsaeng thundering and puffing across from our anchorage.

Over sundowners, we contemplated the possibilities of things like eruptions and tsunami happening in real time. The next day we made for port of Badas, Sumbawa. A large pod of dolphins swam with us along the way. 

Gordon and I shooting photos on the bow while the dolphins play in our bow waves.

                            

We were again welcomed by wonderful friendly volunteers. The anchorage was near the dusty commercial port, far from the city, and we had to pay for transport every time we went in to town.

The harbor at Badas. A little gritty....below is the cove where we anchored nearby.

Our smiling volunteer guides took us for an open-house tour of a Navy ship

We were in Badas for my birthday. I had asked Gordon not to mention that it was my birthday, but he surprised me with a cake and happy birthday song sung by dozens of yachtie friends at an evening pizza party in town.  

Happy birthday to me.  39 and counting.

Locals.

Our local hosts took us on a tour into the highlands, to a village where coffee beans are grown. The villagers welcomed us with drumming on a large drum fashioned from a teak log, then we walked through the village, admiring their traditional homes. We saw ladies cracking candle-nuts to extract the meat for its oil.

The old teak drum.  Below, beautiful village people.

Cracking candle nuts is a family affair. Below, more beautiful people. I love Indo.

                            

On a mountaintop veranda, with the cool breeze blowing up the valley, we had lunch and welcome relief from the equatorial heat and humidity. 

Both trees were swaying in the wind.

 We went on to see the coffee trees...not really a plantation because they were self-sown volunteers growing in the open shade of larger forest trees. Before we entered the forest our guides recommended we anoint our ears with a special oil to protect against evil forest spirits. I am always happy to follow local recommendations! 

My pal Caty taking some of the protective ear balm.

The coffee trees grew at the altitude where the Robusta and Arabica species can both thrive. My Chilean friend Caty from Frankiz and I shared lots of laughs that day, communicating in Spanglish. Back at the bus, there were coffee beans for sale, but sadly, no brewed coffee!  We took turns pounding the roasted beans in a large mortar, the traditional way of pulverizing them.
Another day we visited a Culinary Expo and in the evening, a Fashion show featuring traditional fabrics made into historical and contemporary styles.

One of the exhibitors at the Food Expo. Very professionally done.

Master weavers of lovely brocades.  This talented girl is an expert at eleven years old.

There were expert weavers there, skillfully creating gorgeous brocades.  The youngest weaver was eleven years old! The ladies of the city were dressed in gorgeous finery and the breezy evening was enlivened by a fireworks display which blew sparks from the "bombs bursting in air" right into the crowd. It was a blast!

Local ladies at the fashion show, like beautiful butterflies.

North Lombok was our next port of call, still devastated from the powerful earthquakes which shook the villages to rubble only months before.  Ernest relief workers camped on the marina grounds, reminding me of those I met in Puerto Rico earlier in the year. In the village, people were living in blue tarp tents, but were clearing the rubble away bit by bit and still able to smile. An unseen man sang and strummed a guitar beneath a makeshift blue-tarp shelter, and laughed when I spoke to him. I witnessed the devastation as I walked to the local morning market. I didn’t take any pictures of the wrecked town; for me it somehow felt a little wrong, like “disaster porn". Fellow cruisers arrived days earlier and were working on constructing a new school with locally sourced materials, and we all admired and appreciated their initiative.

Click here to view a great Youtube video showing Cruisers Helping Rebuild in Lombok
                                                Well done!  So proud of you guys!!!

Gordon and I hired a car to visit the southern part of the island, which wasn’t as hard hit by the quake. We went to the lovely waterfall at Air Terjun Jeruk, a series of lovely woodland waterfalls which had no foreign visitors but us, due to the decline in tourism from the earthquake. We swam and splashed in the water. 

The guides here are expert photographers with smart phones. Way smarter than I am.....

Our guide pointed out macaques, black monkeys and other wildlife as we walked the forest trails from one cascade to the next.   The next morning, we bade a fond farewell to Gordon, who left Samara II to fly back to Australia.

Farewell to Gordon!

From Lombok Gilles and I, now just the two of us, sailed to the Gili Islands off the coast of Lombok for a look-see.  Charming Gilis are known to Australians as a big party spot, but as usual, I went ashore on Sunday morning so the party was just a hazy memory.  Still it was fun to look around. Pony carts are used instead of cars, which kept things quiet and peaceful. 

A pony cart on Gili, a picturesque way to see the island.

Low tide on Gili Air

Gilles and I sailed straight through to Lovina on the northern coast of Bali.   Gilles was napping and I was on watch in the afternoon on a beautiful day. I was inside on the forward settee, so focused on watching the sea directly in front of us for fishing nets and other obstacles that I was shocked and unnerved when, out of the corner of my eye, a wall of green was passing us to starboard.  A huge freighter passed well within a quarter mile of us, too close!!

Not the same ship, but just as scary!

I leapt to the helm and veered off sharply, dreading that we could have been crushed by the ship. I reported what had happened to Gilles when he came up. He accepted this with good grace! He reviewed the ship’s track and ours on the AIS and determined that the ship had seen us and altered course...to teach me a lesson. Lesson learned!

We stayed in Lovina, near Singaraja, northern Bali for a week. The Lovina festival was held during our visit, with vendor booths, live music, ceremonies and dance. We woke early one morning to the sound of gamelan music coming from the beach.  Worshipers at the Bali-Hindu temple on the beach were all dressed in white and processing down to the water’s edge with flowers and flags.

A Bali-Hindu ceremony at the beachside temple, with bare-butt tourists looking on.

The Lovina Festival stage, where dance and song went on all night.

Gilles always has a way of finding the pretty girls...and Hanumann the monkey god.

We were anchored here, and Gilles was traveling ashore overnight, when the deadly earthquake in northern Sulawesi struck. Craig from SY Il Sogno had a useful earthquake alert app on his phone, and told us the news but that no tsunami warnings had been issued.  This was true…the tsunami warning buoys in the area had been non-functional for a long time. We later learned that there actually had been a tsunami! That night, alone on Samara II, I spent some time thinking about how it would be if we were in the path of the killer wave.  It would be pretty much like hiding under your desk when a nuclear bomb is dropped!  Thankfully, nothing happened.

Misty morning.

We were treated to several wonderful performances of Balinese dance, the most stylized and refined of all, accompanied by gamelan orchestras. We visited Bali Hindu temples,  Ling Luang Kiong Chinese temple, with insights and explanations from Flora of SY Skybird II, who grew up in Hong Kong, and a Balinese Buleling royal palace. It turns out that the wife of Raymond, the Indonesian government organizer of the rally, was born into the royal family, and her regal stepmother paid a visit to our group.

Ling Luang Kiong Chinese temple. Thanks to Flora for her explanations of the Taoist temple

The royal palace at Buleleng.

We visited Menyali village which showcased local folkways, such as coffee growing,  hand embossing of aluminum sheets into decorative art, inscribing Balinese script onto Lontar palm leaves, and baking little coconut custard cakes in terra cotta molds over the coals.

Toasting the Luwak coffee, which is pre-digested by civet cats.

Naturally there was a feast and dancing, and music played by the high school kids, who befriended me.  They showed me how to play their drums and gamelans, and we were having so much fun that I didn’t notice when the bus left!  

Gilles jamming with the band.

Di getting lessons with these wonderful kids.

                                   Click here to see these talented kids performing

And Captain Gilles left me behind!  The kids and I ran to catch the last car, otherwise they might have driven me back to the anchorage on a scooter. That would have been fun too!  We went on to an artesian pool for a cool dip, and enjoyed chatting with locals.

Mike and the Hens from Henrietta invited me to join them on a tour of the renowned paddie fields in the Tabanan region, and the amazing temple at Ulun Danul.  

Ann, Di, Joycie and Carolyn..they are the Hens of Henrietta.

We visited the temple on a high holiday, and many places were off limits to visitors 

Beautiful offerings made from fruits. There was also one made from pork.  Really.

Young temple dancers, already poised and professional.

Lovely views of the rice paddy fields in southwest Bali.

The lakeside temple at Ulun Danul. Gorgeous.

Stone carvings of Garuda, the eagle god, and palm thatch roofs at Ulun Danul.

We spent a few hours in the bustling city of Ubud, full of enticing shops and worth at least two days of exploration.

Macaque monkeys hanging out by the road near Ubud.

The next day Gilles invited me to go exploring with him on the motorbike. We rode up country into the hills, past fragrant blooming jasmine, coffee groves, bougainvillea flowers in riotous abundance, and up into groves of tall clove trees, where workers on tall ladders harvested the flower buds and the air was perfumed with spice.

Gilles and I riding the scooter through the back roads of Bali. What a fun day!

A hot pool with stone spouts.

Harvesters collecting clove buds, which perfumed the mountain air.

Fresh clove buds. When dried, they look like what we buy at the store.
They taste spicy, sweeten your breath, and numb your mouth.

The crater lake we admired while eating lunch on our ride.

 We stopped many times to look at things of interest, such as sleeping fruit bats, and had a delicious lunch at a French restaurant on a high ridge overlooking a lovely crater lake.  It was a fun day. We didn't have enough time to experience all the magic of Bali, but it was time to move on.

Another day, another passage.  Love it.

We sailed on to Melengan Island, in the national part on the northeast corner of Bali. We anchored in a spot near the reef; the anchor was well set in sand and the sweep of the chain would be well clear of coral and shore. I snorkeled and swam, and we lounged until the golden sun began to set. 

The calm evening which turned gusty later on.

Suddenly, the ranger who appeared to have been lounging on the pier all afternoon came in his boat to tell us we had to move to a mooring. No amount of protest or persuasion would budge him, and so, reluctant and grumpy, we moved. The mooring line was like a shoestring, and completely inadequate for mooring a big boat like Samara II.  There were two choices: stay and hope the wind remains calm, or sail through the night to our next destination, which we were reluctant to do on the spur of the moment. We crossed our fingers and tied up to the mooring. At about two a.m. the wind came up, and Gilles in his cabin and I in mine were both awake and listening when the mooring broke and the we went adrift. The boat was already aground on the reef in the moments it took for Gilles to start the engines and for me to grab the spotlight and shine it around through the dark moonless night to reveal our orientation to the reef and the channel.  Gilles powered one engine into reverse and the other to forward to pivot the boat, and we managed to get the boat off the reef and out into the open channel. There was no other choice but to put to sea in the inky darkness.  We unfurled the genoa sail and sailed north into the night.

Next up....from Bawean to the Rally's End; Part 4.