Into Indo!

Bamboozle
Jamie and Lucy Telfer
Sat 30 Jul 2016 08:30
04:31.420S  129:53.840E

The chart plotter showing us leaving Thursday Island with a strong tidal push to set us on our way.  Torres Strait is littered with islands and reefs as well as the huge amount of shipping that gets funnelled into its narrow passages.  It was a pleasure to get clear of the reefs and shipping lanes after so long in the confines of the Great Barrier Reef. 

A rare shot of Bamboozle “at sea” doing what she does best, munching up the miles across the Arafura Sea with a strong trade wind on her quarter. This picture was taken about half way to Tual by Mike and Sarah on their beautiful great big catamaran Soul.  Although you can’t tell from the photo we were charging along at about 8 or 9 knots with 25 or 30 knots of wind.  Reefed down like this Bamboozle is so well balanced and comfortable (relatively) and she tracks so smoothly that the autopilot is happy doing all the work despite an unpleasant cross sea.  With some other yachts complaining about horrible conditions and having to hand steer…all we are doing is looking out and hanging on!


The bureaucracy in Indonesia is legendary but the customs, quarantine and immigration officers who came on board were very friendly and loved taking pictures and being photographed.  On the table you can see our red ships stamp….the quickest way to make an Indonesian official happy is to show him a piece of paper covered in stamps.


Searching out some fresh fruit and vegetables with Gijs and Femke from Kings’ Legend.  Tual gets very few foreign visitors and the locals seemed fascinated by us.  Every kid on the street would race up to us shouting “hello mister!”.   Just a little aside here, Kings’ Legend was a race boat that took part in the 1977 Whitbread Round the World Race (now the Volvo Ocean Race) finishing second and with future sailing legend Skip Novak amongst the crew.  As a ten year old boy I was taken down to watch the start of that race at Portsmouth and it seemed almost impossibly exciting to see mainly amateurs setting off to circle the globe.   From that moment on it was my dream to sail around the world myself and so it was quite a shock to have Kings’ Legend tie up next to us in Cairns as part of the rally 39 years later……co-incidence or fate?

Lunch on the beach whilst out exploring some of the smaller islands of the Kei Group.


Lucy enjoying a fresh drinking coconut (straight off the tree!) with Simon from Nicha and our guide for the day, Ebby.

Jamie being shown around a village by Ongen who was particularly friendly and looked after us both in Tual and out around the islands and villages.  The charming young Indonesians in these less visited areas are keen to practice and use their English and the government is trying hard to divert tourism away from the better known Islands of Bali and Lombok.


Everybody wants their photo taken….cheery smiles in the village shop.


The start of the official welcoming party in Tual. Handshakes, dancing, singing and speeches…..


…and more speeches…..and the translation of the speeches from Indonesian to English and the translation of speeches from English to Indonesian.  No effort is spared in making us welcome and all rounded off with a gala dinner (with more speeches and dancing and Karaoke!)

Making friends with the beer sellers.  Although Tual is a Muslim town, Langgur just across the bridge is Christian so there was a ready supply of cold beer at the festivities which seemed to arrive in a steady stream in cool boxes on the back of mopeds. I think the entrepreneur involved my have slightly underestimated the supply required for the thirsty crews of thirty yachts arriving after a salty passage from Australia!

Visiting one of the local schools caused enormous mirth…..we had no idea how funny we were!?!

Sunday lunch on the stunning Pasir Panjang beach although I only seem to have a picture of the party rather than the idyllic fine white sandy bay.  In the shade of the trees are lots of simple little stalls selling great fresh seafood cooked to order over an open fire.  Mainly only visited by local families at the weekend, 25 yachties turning up at once for lunch was a bit of a surprise and rather stretched the kitchen but a couple of the stalls pulled together to give us a great lunch and in return I imagine possibly their biggest ever day's turnover!