Nobody but the Monkeys - Gili Bodo, Nusa Tenggara Province, Indonesia

Harmonie
Don and Anne Myers
Sun 5 Sep 2010 08:27
08:22.064S  120:00.973E
 
On August 26th we mostly motored west along the green mountainous coast of Flores Island (which reminds us of the big Fijian Islands) to its northwest corner where a fabulous array of small, scruffy islands lie.  Gili Bodo is one of those islands.  We read about it in the blogs of two boats that sailed this way a few years earlier and liked their description, "good anchorage, no village, no people, good snorkeling".  After causing a stir in Bone Rate and smiling at curious canoe boys in Inca Village, it sounded good. 
 
Gili Bodo is not an official rally stop, nor was Inca Village or Bone Rate or Hoga Island, but all are on the way from official stop Wangi Wangi to official stop Labuan Bajo (La-bow-ahn Bah-joe).  We were warned by the Sail Indonesia staff at the beginning of the rally in Darwin that the official rally stops were not scheduled by sailors, therefore, we might find the timing to be a bit odd.  The official rally festivities are scheduled to occur in Labuan Bajo September 6-9.  Unfortunately, that timing leaves only about two weeks for the rally boats to get from Labuan Bajo 360 miles west to Bali where we all have to obtain visa extensions before our initial sixty days run out on or around September 27.  In between Labuan Bajo and Bali is Komodo National Park, containing some of the best cruising grounds in Indonesia and not a place you would want to rush through.  So, as much as we enjoy the royal treatment and festivities (when they take place without protest), we've decided to stop briefly in Labuan Bajo, but skip the hoopla and move on to the Komodo area and points west ahead of the rest of the sailing pack.  Storyteller is doing much the same, but is about five days ahead of us.  We'll most likely catch them in Bali.
 
So, about Gili Bodo.  Very nice.  Quiet, calm and the first night we only had to share the place with two other rally boats, a few local fisherman, and a few monkeys.  We heard the monkeys before we saw them, but thought they were just fantastically loud native birds.  Later, we saw five or six on the beach, but they didn't stick around long enough to get their picture taken.  Small gray critters with white faces and long skinny tails, they only visited the beach in the morning and then disappeared into the trees.  We joined the crew of Japanese boat Nirai and English boat Do It on the beach that night for a drink in front of a fire, but no monkeys made an appearance. 
 
This was the first time we had a conversation with the Japanese crew, and only the second time in all our travels that we've seen a Japanese sailboat.  We asked Riri why, and she said most Japanese sailors are men who sail only on the weekend.  Typically their wives don't enjoy sailing, so most Japanese sailboats stay put.  Not so for Riri and Shige.  They left home nearly six years ago, crossed the Pacific to Alaska, sailed down the US west coast, went through the Panama canal, up the US east coast and across the Atlantic Ocean to the Mediterranean.  By the time they got to the Med, the pirate situation in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden was really heating up, so they decided  not to continue east, and instead turned around.  They re-crossed the Atlantic, went back through the Panama Canal, crossed the South Pacific and joined the Sail Indonesia Rally in Darwin.  From here they will sail to Malaysia, then Hong Kong, then back to Japan.  I don't think we've ever met anyone who sailed so far around the world only to turn around and sail back.  In the end, they will have sailed more than the distance around the world, without actually sailing around the world.  Hmmm....
 
Picture 1 - Our view of Gili Bodo and one of the rally boats with pretty Flores Island in the background.
 
We stayed two nights anchored next to Gili Bodo, then moved on to the town of Labuan Bajo to stock up.
Anne

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