Labuan Bajo S08 30.952 E119 46.549
One of the pleasures of Indonesia is making friends with the locals. Peter is particularly good at this, perhaps because of his height or his (inherited) good looks he attracts the locals' attention. He has also made a big effort to learn a smattering of the language and this has clearly helped him, they love it when visitors speak their language although they are very keen to develop their English as well. On this occasion he was trying to get his phone unlocked in a local mobile phone shop.
At anchor in the bay some locals had come along side us to try to sell souvenirs but Peter noticed that they had a chess set on board and in no time an international chess tournament ensued. Peter played 3 different men for over 3½ hours, they cooked a lunch of rice and fish which they ate together despite Ramadan. Peter is a good chess player and did manage to beat one of the men but 2 of them were too good for him!
What this photo fails to show is the occasion they had 2 demijohns and a selection of other shopping on their knees and laps!
Labuan Bajo is the first touristy place we have arrived at in Indonesia with a large number of dive shops. The water clarity is particularly good around here and the strong tides that make their way between the Flores Sea and the Sawu Sea to the south bring plenty of nutrients to feed the reefs. The reefs are mostly in good condition and there are many corals we have not seen before, lots of beautiful soft corals too. There are plenty of small fish but the waters are fished intensively by the locals so there are few bigger fish to see, at least for us snorkellers. Happily we have not seen any of the methods of extreme overfishing that have been reported by others in the past including dynamiting reefs and poisoning them with bleach or cyanide.
On a sadder note the attitude to rubbish seems to be that it will take care of itself. Of course, with the litter chucked in the sea and the watercourses there is a small amount of truth in this as the next high tide or the next rain storm will make the rubbish disappear. Sadly we see a lot of rubbish, including masses of plastic bags, miles from the shore; the impact on turtles in particular is well known. Even the poorest market stall holders want to put everything in plastic bags and express mild surprise when we decline and put our veg straight in our rucksacks. So the problem is not going to go away without a concerted campaign and effort especially by the politicians who want to develop tourism.
Labuan Bajo is an important port for the island of Flores and there were a lot of interesting local craft in the harbour, some clearly for tourists but others just local trading craft.
We didn't see Captain Sparrow but he must have been there somewhere.
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