Nangka Island, near Belitung

www.kanaloa55.com
David & Valerie Dobson
Mon 11 Oct 2010 14:57

 

2:29'.44s 108:32'.20E

Nangka Island, near Belitung

 

Friday 8th October 2010 Towards Kualadjalai

 

0500 We left at first very light to catch the entrance at high water.  The plan was to anchor here overnight so we could tackle the shipping lanes in daylight the next day. Very shallow waters most of the day between 5-15m.  Anchored at dusk a bit rolly but acceptable as an overnight stop.

 

Position

3:01.'41s 110:42'.97e

Days run 87 miles Average speed 7.01 knots

 

Saturday 9tn October 2010 Towards TG Nangka (small island off Belitung)

DSC07413.JPG

 

DSC07414 Fishing at Kualejelai.JPG

 

0530 Woke up to the noise of literally a hundred fishing boats swarming like flies out of the very shallow river, of course they all wanted to pass us as close as possible to get a good look at us.  I don't think they see sailing boat anchored here very often.

DSC07419 Kualejelai fishing fleet.JPG

You can hardly see all the fishing boats, gathering in very close proximity to each other in this photo, but literally there must have been 200 of them!

 

0800 up anchor and left in a glassy sea, we managed to sail for an hour or so then back to the engine and a lot of the time motor-sailing into a light head wind. 

 

1600 had a very heavy rain squall with 30 knots under it, luckily saw it in plenty of time to get the clear plastic sides up on the bimini so at least we were able to stay dry. 10 minutes before this arrived I noticed that the lashing securing the foot of the mainsail had chaffed through, lucky I was able to secure that before the squall hit us.

 

2400: Sunday 10th October:  flat calm furled all sails

 

0800 the pilot book proved to be somewhat wrong with the approach details, it told us to approach from the north, when the best passage is from the west! Thankfully the tide was high as we motored over the top of coral with a 4.5 metre clearance!  Anchored in 26m on a sandy bottom close to the drop-off.

 

Position 2:29'.44s 108;32'.20e

Distance run 172 miles  average speed 6.7 knots

 

DSC07431 Kanaloa at Nangka.JPG

As there were two other boats in the anchorage, we called them up on the VHF to see if they could give us a better way point, but the response was that the skipper was still in bed, sorry!

Never mind, we made it, and Valerie managed to get four lots of washing done and dried,  which had accummulated since we had left Bali one week ago.

DSC07461 Naangka mangroves.JPG

It was so nice to have clear water again and go snorkelling.  We even laid our crab pot we had purchased ini Mooloolaba for the first time!  Not having any experience, we noticed plenty of crab holes in the sand around these mangroves, and thought it might be a good place.

DSC07460 Empty crab pot.JPG

Next morning proved that only small ones had entered, taken the oyster meat bait and left again!

DSC07437.JPG

The Spring Tide had caused all the concreted slabs of flat coral to stand out of the water close to the beach like the Giant’s Causeway

DSC07441 Nangka shoreline.JPG

We just found room for the dinghy thank goodness

DSC07443 Island undergrowth.JPG

Ollie found the way into the dense junge undergrowth

DSC07445.JPG

And we found a man-made well, with plenty of clear water in it for the fishermen to gather when they work or fish on this otherwise uninhabited island.

Ollie very perceptively caught the sight of some Makack monkeys up in the trees watching us, saw a squirrel, and the traces of a large monitor lizard.  Also it seems there were some large holse dug on the beach seemingly by a very large turtle for egg laying.

 

DSC07451 Nangka sunset.JPG

Sunset a Nangka ilsland,  very low tide

DSC07454 K at Sunset Nangka.JPG

Kanaloa looks quite lonely out there, the other two boats had left at lunchtime.

DSC07456 Nangka sunrise.JPG

Sunrise next morning, another beautiful day, we were due to leave at 11 am also, but first had fun investigating the other sandy beachd island, and enjoyed some more snorkelling, over the coral reef just behind our anchorage point.  Excellent variety of fish, and some almost luminescent soft corals we’d not seen before.

DSC07467.JPG

Ollie showed us that he was as good a climber as the locals

DSC07468 High enough.JPG

But didn’t go too far up, in case he couldn’t get down again!

DSC07475 wild cat.JPG

This cat looked a bit sad in amongst the plastic bottles which had drifted onto the beach, it was probably earnest for some drinking water, as there was none on this beach.  We assumed it had been left to catch the rats, which would be decimating the coconuts on the island. Palm fringed beach.JPG

 

DSC07480 desert island.JPG

Sorry to leave this great place, we hurried away to continue our non-stop two night trip North West towards Singapore

 

DSC07481 sunset.JPGThankfully, we had a wonderful calm first night, as depicted in this sunset.