Nobody but the Monkeys - Gili Bodo, Nusa Tenggara Province, Indonesia
Harmonie
Don and Anne Myers
Sun 5 Sep 2010 08:27
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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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