It was 20 miles from Tawau to Nunukan, where we checked into Indonesia.  Our route took us inshore of a large island where we had to dodge fishermen with long nets laid and massive seaweed farms coming out from either shore with just a narrow open pass between them.  They were marked by hundreds of old plastic water bottles!

First night in Nunukan

We had to wait on board for the next day when Port Health and Customs visited.  They came in two boat loads, the first with enough people to sink Serenity - and we are still not sure who half of them were.  They were as pleasant and polite as ever, made a cursory check around, reviewed our documents and filled in their own, then rubber stamped everything multiple times and we were free to take down our Quarantine flag. This is flown when you first arrive as a request for health clearance. 
We had paid for a local agent to help us with clearance and Kiko took us to the ferry terminal to do immigration.  Here we had our biometrics checked and got a stamp in our passport, then on to the customs office where it all went wrong.  Our main agent was supposed to have uploaded documents to the customs system, and it hadn’t happened.  We went for a late lunch at a nearby warang (a small restaurant selling local meals such as fried rice and fried noodles) while Kiko tried to sort it out but, in the end, Phil and Mark from 9 Lives had to go back the following day to complete the clearance.
Officially in the country we went hunting for the local market to top up our fruit and veg.  Nunukan was a small town and very free of rubbish by Indonesian standards.  The market was small, but we managed to buy enough for what we thought would be a short visit to a small off-lying island; we were reminded of the friendliness of the Indonesian people, and their love of a selfie.  In the evening a group of young people came past in a boat.  They all worked for one of the Indonesian banks and wanted to practice their English.  More photos, on Serenity this time.

These shopkeepers wanted a photo with us

As did these women in the market 

And the staff from BNI out on a Friday night tour of the bay

We left the next morning, along with a couple of other boats and once clear of more seaweed farms around Nunukan Island we turned south for Pulau Maratua.  This would be an overnight trip to arrive at morning high water to get through the pass in the reef to the lagoon.  It was a windless night and we motored all the way, slowing down for the last few miles to arrive at what we had calculated was slack tide. We followed Mariposa into the pass and while they had no tide by the time we came through 15 minutes later it was already beginning to ebb. We anchored just round the dog leg in the channel for the day in order to check out the route across the sandbar to get right inside the lagoon.  We did this in our dinghy with our lead line (a lump of lead on the end of a rope marked every meter). We figured there was just enough water to get through.

Pulau Maratua on a satellite photo.  The darker the colour the deeper the water.  The pass is the narrow dark blue strip on the right of the photo, with our first anchorage just inside the lagoon.  Our second anchorage was at the anchor symbol on the west side.

The village next to our first anchorage

Sounding out our route over the sandbar by dinghy.  The southern route is the way we went in and the northern route where we returned

At high water the next morning we crossed the bar with about 0.7 of a meter under the keel and made our way to the western side of the lagoon to anchor off the Noah Resort.  Mariposa took a slightly different route and had deeper water than us.  Strong winds were forecast for the coming days, and we hoped for more shelter under the lee of the island.  The first night we had an excellent meal on board Mariposa with Michael and Birgit.

The accommodation of Noah Resort set among the jungle and colourful bushes

Maratua is a thin horseshoe shaped island, less than a mile across at its widest.  The lagoon is protected on the other sides by coral reef and the whole area is a dive site, with several resorts catering to divers.  When two other boats, 9 Lives and Kanaloa, arrived the next day we arranged a day’s snorkelling through Noah resort for the 10 crew.  We were taken outside the lagoon to the eastern side of the island and, visiting 3 sites, saw plenty of healthy coral and lots of sea life including eagle rays, a lobster hidden under a rock, two sea snakes and plenty of turtles.  It’s good to know somewhere is bucking the trend for declining coral and reef life.

Colourful coral, a lobster under a rock and a nice spot for a coffee break during our snorkelling trip

We ended up staying 10 nights here.  The wind was strong from the southwest and we wanted to go south.  With big seas also forecast we thought it would not be nice sailing and the lagoon was a lovely place with beautiful blue water for swimming.  We could take our dinghies to a nearby broken-down jetty, park among the local boats and a 5-minute walk took us to the outside of the island and the main village .  Here we could have lunch at a warang by the beach and, when our stay turned out longer than planned, we could top up our supplies in the local small shops and at roadside fruit and veg stalls - all selling small amounts of the same sort of produce such as carrots, onions, aubergine, bananas and pineapples.

Local boats tied to the broken down jetty we used to get to the village

It is good to see traditional skills still alive.  This wooden boat will take 5 months to build

A typical menu at one of the beach-front warangs

On Saturday there was a wedding in the village and these little girls were all dressed up for it.  The bride and groom spent all day sitting on a dais in the middle of the village while guests came forward to greet them and give gifts of money.  It was a solemn affair for them,  so none of the smiling faces we would expect

On the beach, the sign welcoming visitors to the island

It was nice to be able to relax after the rush of the rally, but we also filled our time with quite a lot of socialising.  Eventually we had 6 ex-rally boats anchored together, and we would be splitting into two groups from here with us and Olena going south and the rest going east to Raja Ampat, so there was a round of farewells on each other's boats and at the resort restaurant.

Sundowners on 9 Lives

As the wind began to ease boats began to leave with those going east, the easier direction as it would not be directly into the wind, leaving first.  We said a final goodbye to Mark and Jane on 9 Lives, who we have been sailing with for over a year, to Warren, Trish and Morgan on Kanaloa and to Mariposa, then after letting the wind decrease a bit more we also lifted our anchor followed our and Mariposa’s inward track back out of the lagoon and turned south towards Sulawesi.