Arrived at Teluk Labuhanbajau
S/V Galatea update
Neil Scott
Fri 10 Apr 2015 10:55
I forgot to mention the back end of our Pulau Sipika stop. The second night was much less stressful with no squalls. We did stop over at the surf resort but unfortunately were unable to get dinner there. Mr Ovie's first surfer guests were getting in at the end of the week and he was busily preparing for the new season. A very interesting guy, a local, who clearly has his act together. He has a vision and a strategy for a decent, well run resort that caters to surfies on one hand and with up-scale accommodation for families and couples on the other hand. He did swap out a bunch of our warm beers for cold ones, which was nice. From his anchorage, our routing took us through a 10 mile long passage between 2 islands in the Telos group. This was our first sighting of man's destructive activities - a couple of sites for loading mountains of logs, mostly old growth Mahogany, onto barges. Last night, the 9th, we had a good overnight anchorage at Teluk (bay) Itanamakinu, on one of the lower Telos group islands. After anchoring we had to successfully get rid of our first dugout canoe paddler/peddler from the shore. We have not had to deal with that this whole trip, unlike our South Indonesia travels through Timor and Flores where we were besieged by people in their canoes generally with nothing other than a wish for handouts from the boat. At least this time the chappie had some green coconuts and other trinkets for sale/barter. He also wanted us to pay for anchoring in his bay, but gave up on that idea when we said we weren't getting off the boat and were not going surfing in the nearby break. Talking about surfing, this trip has made us wish that we had been able to surf. There are tons of great breaks of different size, difficulty etc, with nobody on them. Granted it's only the start of the season, but not a soul around. Maybe something to take into account for the next time around, at least where Teague is concerned. We are now at Teluk Labuhanbajau, a very large bay at the northeastern tip of Pulau Siberut, the northern island in the Mentawi group. The water is calm and deep up close to the beach, so on beach-ward swing we are pretty close to shore. Hopefully no onshore squalls tonight. Again, other than a few other fishing boats, it is just Galatea. We will be here for 24 hours before departing around 6pm tomorrow for an overnight crossing to the town of Padang about 2/3rds down the west coast of Sumatra. That is where we will refuel, say goodbye to Teague and have Chris joining us from Sydney. Ok, that's it for now. Neil, Teague and Mike - S/V Galatea
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