Banggai Islands, Sulawesi

Sea Topaz
Duncan Briggs
Mon 8 Oct 2012 12:32
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.
 
 
Cloves drying in the streets
A Bento
A class in one of the High Schools
Our visitors
Up river scenes; back of the market
Local toilets
Sea Topaz after sunset in Banggai