North Hading Bay to Labuan Bajo Flores
Gaviota
Tue 16 Aug 2016 08:30
008:31.09S 119:52.05E
Early
start and on across the bay with a good wind and had a lovely sail nearly
close-hauled until the wind died and we had to motor the last part to the next
anchorage off the Ankermi Dive Resort at Wodong.
The plan
was to book a trip to see the Tri-coloured volcanic lakes at Kelimutu so we
swam ashore to the small resort to try and book this for the next day. I spent the afternoon trying to sort this out
but the prices quoted were crazy as the only way of doing it was to hire a car
and driver as it was a 4 hour drive away.
We asked around the dive resort (German) to see if anyone wanted to join
us but everyone had already visited them and the general response was they were
nice to see but not spectacular and not worth sitting in a car for 8 hours
for. This combined with what I had read
on good old Tripadvisor highlighting the rubbish issue once again, made the
decision.
Wednesday,
10th August another early start on a windless, cloudy day, motor on
(syd not happy!). But the wind
eventually did come up later in the day and we managed to put Syd’s downwind
sailing system in action for a few hours and passed our selected overnight
anchorage (mistake!) We ended up
anchoring off a village and spent a very rolly night as it was not protected
from the swell. Early start next day and
up went the Spinnaker for it’s first airing in a long time and we had a lovely
sail in 10+ knots to Riung – the gateway to the 17 islands National Park.
We
decided we had earned a day off so headed out to explore a few of the 17
islands. Sadly the Indoneisan idea of
National Park does not include picking up the litter or protecting the coral so
it was a bit disappointing but we did have some nice swims and the snorkelling
on the second of the three islands we visited was actually quite nice. We chose an island to overnight on and left
the next morning for Lingeh Bay.
Spinnaker up again in a nice 10-15 knot wind and we arrived ahead of
schedule looking forward to a relaxing afternoon – no such luck – suddenly we
were surrounded by small boys in canoes calling ‘mister mister’, ‘misses
misses’. They wanted anything we had to
give especially books and pens and had cocunuts, cassava and aubergine to
trade. This trading and chatting went on
most of the afternoon but they showed no signs of leaving so we decided to
organize a swim/paddle back to the beach.
It must have looked a strange sight Syd and I leading a pack of little
boys, some swimming with their version of a float (a piece of balsa wood), all
laughing and splashing as they tried to copy our front crawl. It worked and we managed to leave them on the
beach and swim back to peace.
Another
early start and we motored (again!!!) the short distance to Gili Bodo. It was a tricky entrance through reefs and with
the inaccuracies of the charts would not have been an option without the great
Cruising Guide to Indonesia which we had purchased in Darwin before we
left. We were surprised on getting to
the anchorage to see that the depths were double what was shown in the Guide
and rather than being calm and protected the dreaded swell was getting in but
the water was clear and the snorkelling was okay though not as good as it
should have been with a lot of damaged and destroyed coral (definitely a ‘should
have visited 10 years ago!). After
re-anchoring 3 times when the reef appeared to be dangerously close as the tide
went out we were suddenly surrounded by local fishing boats who obviously used
the anchorage as an overnight stop. No
peace and solitude to be had here!
Highlight was the monkeys who came out to play on the beach at dusk.
Early
start and another motor round to Labuan Bajo (gateway to Komodo National
Park). We anchored off the Eco Lodge 5km
out of town as we had heard that anchoring in the main port could trigger off
another stream of official visits and paperwork.
Tuesday,
16th August – We arranged for a local guy to pick us up and take us
and fuel cans into Town – he had agreed to get us diesel (‘solar’ in
Indonesian). As a foreigner you pay
double what the locals pay for fuel so it is a nice little earner for them.
Labuan
Bajo is a very busy port and approaching it in a local fishing boat was a great
way to see it. There is an amazing
collection of wooden boats in the harbour ranging from the enormous Phinisis
styled on Turkish Gulets that take divers and trippers out around the Komodo
Islands to smaller versions in every shape imaginable.
The fish
market was a smelly very unappetizing place with stalls of dried fish and lots
of flies and the vegetable market was small but we managed to get enough veg to
last us until Lombok and Bali.
Back on
board and another 60 litres of fuel was put into the tanks. Laundry collected from the Eco Lodge and next
stop Rinca and maybe some DRAGONS.
