01.35.928 S 123.29.612 E
Arrived in Banggai Town a few days ago. Again Raymond
has been brilliant in providing a contact person. We did not go ashore the first
day as we arrived in the afternoon, but the next day we were met ashore by Jemi
and Alex. They organised diesel and water and we went to an ATM to get some
cash. We also walked around town and went to the vegetable market in a "bento"
(a motorised tricycle). The fact that is was Sunday did not seem to matter.
Going ashore was a bit tricky, there were lots of small local boats about. The
jetty we ended up using was quite high, especially at low tide, but we managed.
Duncan worked hard ferrying the diesel and water in the dinghy. That was
yesterday. Today we were invited to visit the school Alex teaches English at. He
wanted us to come and talk to the students to motivate them to work hard on
their English. It was a big High School of 800 students. We visited the three
top classes and were well received. Then Jemi and Alex came with a whole bunch
of other people to come and have a look at the boat. We very much get the
impression that we are the first yacht ever in the bay. We have been treated
like royalty everywhere.
This afternoon we took the dinghy up the local river and
got some very funny looks from the locals, they had never seen anything like to
white people in a white dinghy.
We keep getting text messages all day from our new
friends thinking of more excuses from stopping us leaving. But we feel it is
time to move on and see some of the other islands in this remote archipelago
before we head further south.