Hi everybody.
We're underway again. We have left Alor for the Komodo Island group--yes, where they have the dragons--about 300 miles west--half way to Bali. It's been an interesting time in Indonesia. Prepare to be enlightened.
This is a predominantly Muslim country of about 240 million. They don't seem to take it too seriously, though, as most of our feasts have had pork dishes, at least beer and often harder stuff is readily available and they love to sing and dance--all things forbidden by the strict fundamentalists. Oh, and, of course, we're loving the muezzine, the call to prayer five times a day--especially the one at full volume at 4:30 AM. Speaking of volume, they love it loud here. In Kupang, they did karioke at 1,000 decibels until about 5 every morning; they take the mufflers off all the boats, and the muzak in the "mall" requires ear protection for us westerners. The people are super friendly and helpful in everything from directions to actually taking you somewhere. The language barrier isn't too bad, but can be frustrating as we get farther away from civilization. This is a country with a paperwork nightmare, but they love you to use your own official stamp as they require multiple copies of everything. Check ins included quarantine, customs, immigration and the harbor master each with their own requirements--none consistent with the other. Actually, we were all technically impounded and had these big stickers placed on the side of the boat by customs. Seems that Raymond, the Indonesian organizer, is hated by customs, because he went around them to get a security bond waived for the fleet. It took an extra $5 and until our last day in Kupang to get it squared away with, of course, a ton more paperwork and the grease!!!
In Kupang, a pretty big city, maybe 80,000, there were all sorts of activities for us cruisers arranged by the ministry of tourism which is a cosponsor of the rally. We had cheap tours, traditional dance shows and a bunch of meals all at no or minimal cost. Unfortunately some of the concessionaires running the dinghy service(no dock so they pulled it up on the beach and relaunched for you), laundry and fueling were a bit greedy. For instance, fuel at the pump is 6,000 rupiahs/liter--these "entrepreneurs" were asking about 15,000. For reference, US$1 is about 9,000 rupiahs. So, of course we cheap cruisers created some major drama about that. Marco, a true entepreneur, was offering it at 7,500/liter. To make a long story short, the "in" crowd finally beat the crap out of him for undercutting them, but they finally dropped the price to meet his. Unfortunately, Marco also loved to drink which led to some rather unamusing misunderstandings, but, in the end, everyone pretty much got the fuel they needed at a reasonable price.
We were actually the first rally boat over the line which doesn't mean much since everyone motored the whole way, but the local officials awarded that honor to a boat that was in Kupang before the rally even started and wasn't a participant.--such is Indonesia. The boat that won the "best dressed" at the start wasn't half as nicely done as Rendezvous, but we left an hour late and don't think they even saw us. Joey is totally pissed off and ranted for 2 days about it. Our arrival was the 29th, a day before my bday, and Joey had seen to it that everyone coming in for the next 2 days wished me a good one. There was a distinctive lack of gifts and drinks, though--these guys are really cheap!!! But, we did manage to party a bit at Teddy's bar on the day itself. Of course this was the "new" Teddy's because he had been evicted by the local authorities from his old "right on the beach" bar in favor of some politician's nephew or something. Our only real concern was the cheap giant 2,300 rupiah beers kept coming, and Alan, Teddy's partner, managed to dig up some bourbon for the occasion.
The next day was another real treat of boats dragging. By now, of course, there're 120 boats in the anchorage. In spite of our verbal pleas to leave their windlasses powered up and keys in the ignitions, some of the yahoos took off on all day tours and did, in fact, drag without these things done. Some of these people are just nuts in addition to being cheapskates, but most are really great guys. Lots of Aussies, a fair amount of Yanks, with a sprinkling of Kiwis, Dutch, South Africans, French, Swiss(they seem to be universally cheap and shitheads)(I'm not bigoted, just observant), Canadians and Scandinavians. Lots of little cliques, but we love everyone!!! Another day, the old Teddy's bar had a TV setup for a rugby game between the Wallabees (Oz) and All Blacks (world cup winners from NZ).that particular afternoon. Some of us who attended managed to forget about dinner and paid the price the next day.
The day after rugby, I took a $15 all day tour. Woke up a bit under the weather, but I thought it was from all the smoke in the air. Indonesians love to burn stuff and the air is like LA. Unfortunately, it turned out to be a full blown summer cold--more on that later. Anyway, the tour was amazing. The buses, while not air-conditioned were modern, and we even had a copilot, sort of. We started out at this musical instrument maker that is 40 plus strings on a bamboo core with a palm sort of echo chamber around half the outside. The guy did some traditional music, and we had the obligatory dancing with that, but, then, he did a bit of Clapton and Dylan and it sounded just like an electric guitar. Really amazing. They also had some goofy hats with like a swan neck sticking up and a sort of flat brim and crown. Too goofy to buy, but I was tempted. Next we hit an uninteresting WW II memorial dedicated to the OZ troops that liberated Timor, followed by a local market with the usual junk.
The last stop, though, was truly unbelievable.
Flash bulletin. While I've been writing this, we had to replace the water maker pump. The newer one developed a small leak at one of the valve caps. The yahoo who worked on it in Sydney used locktite or something and nothing we tried could get the cap off to check the valve or o ring or whatever was leaking. No problem. We have a spare pump and bronze head. After a few hours work, the engine room crew put the spare in and commissioned it. Everything looked good until about 5 minutes ago when we were congratulating our foresight sitting in the cockpit and the spare pump went nuts!!! If we can't fix it or the other one, we'll have to go directly to Bali and hope to get repairs or a new head there. I know I can a new one flown in, but they are super expensive AND I don't think the new pumps fit exactly the same way. In any case, this sucks.
Back to the tour. We had to drive way out into the hinterlands to a "sacred lake" for a ceremony and, as it turned out, lunch. This was miles off paved roads and the track was lined with flags every 2 feet to mark our route--1,000s of them which must have taken an army to put in. When we finally got to the lake, we disembarked and there were at least 1,000 people there to greet us with a "portable" musical thing and dancers to escort us to the festivities. Really felt like royalty. Just incredible. Then we had the obligatory speeches, traditional dancing in which were participants, and then lunch. That night was another free dinner with entertainment and speeches which I actually left early as the cold was coming on full strength. We had planned to leave for Alor, our next stop 130 miles NNE of Kupang the next day, but I was really feeling bad. We hung out the next day and Joe and olivia hit the Chemist for cold pills and cheap antibiotics as my supply was running low. Don't need a prescription for much here in Indonesia.
So--Tuesday the 5th, off we go. We left about 11 because there are strong tidal currents and flow between islands and you have to time your transits to take advantage of flow in the direction you want to go. The captain was still unwell and actually had a 101 degree temp so he was relieved of most watches, but, gallantly, still stood about 5 hours watch. Moving here near the equator is weird. This is the latitudes typically called the doldrums. We had great weather, and about 25 knots of wind when we left. We were worried about hitting one of these passes too early. Sadly, after only a few miles the wind shifted to 5 knots on the nose, and we, along with everyone else, motored the rest of the way. Oh and there was a 2 knot current against us all the way that they had neglected to mention to us. One positive note was the totally incompetent and unhelpful Aussie contingent of Sail Indonesia were now replaced with Indonesians who could actually do something. We did manage to hit the pass into Alor just right and arrived about 7AM on the 6th. Had another bunch of paperwork but nothing as bad as Kupang and sat around all afternoon at the Ad Hoc beach bar with Mike off Good News, who is singlehanding his Fontaine Pajot 56 foot cat. Beers were only 2,000 for a giant and 1,200 for a regular size at Alor and we felt we needed to show our appreciation for the price reduction.
That afternoon and next day about 50 boats pulled in and it's a really small anchorage. Yesterday, the wind kicked up just a little and we had more dragging anchors drama. Some people just won't learn, but fortunately we have held so far. There've been more tours--we didn't go, and more free dinners and entertainment--we are really being treated well. The fuel cost was even lower than the ultimate deal at Kupang, and we didn't even have to negotiate. So Alor is a bit small, and it was crowded so we decided to leave today for the Komodo group to check out the dragons. Several others left today but aren't going quite so far. With us needing to get to Bali around the 25th to temporarily get rid of the crew and get Rose back aboard, we just decided a straight shot to Komodo which is about halfway, would be better than day hopping like we did in Australia. Of course, now that plan may be in the tank if we can't get the watermaker repaired.
So, there you have it. Up to the minute reports on the fate of Rendezvous Cay. The trials and tribulations of world cruising. Equipment problems, boats dragging, fuel drama, boat impoundments, the entire exciting story to date
More later
Cheers
Tim, Joe & Olivia
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