After saying goodbye to Colin, Thant Zin and his family back in Chalong Bay, Into the Blue and Larus headed North toward the islands in Thailand made famous by films like ‘The Man With The Golden Gun’ and ‘The Beach’.
Our first stop was Klong Son Beach, which was an interesting anchorage in part to just how far the tide goes out at low water.
In case you’ve forgotten our dinghy has wheels which helps in these situations. I wore long trousers because these idyllic sandy beaches are often lousy with sand flies.
The Klong Son Beach Bar had no electricity yet still managed to serve nice good value meals and cold beer. And there was wonderful breeze and no sand flies.
We were so impressed with the quantity and price of the meals, that we had dinner there on both ournights in the anchorage.
Zoe took some fun selfies in the dinghy on the way back.
Our dinghy can be a little splashy and wet with four people, so I’m so protective of my very absorbent backpack.
Bill had the best seat in house, which is a common thread when he is confronted with a dinghy (or kayak) on the small side.
On the second night, those of us who had shrimp/prawns the first night were a little surprised when the owner enthused that the shrimp today were fresh! It did make us wonder just how old yesterday’s were.
As we’d had no problem with sand flies the night before, all of us were in shorts and none of us had brought insect repellent. We hadn’t counted on there being no wind however and Zoe and I got savaged.
Sand flies are sneaky. They are tiny and you don’t notice itches starting until it’s far too late and no amount of oral or cream antihistamine helps much. The bites last for weeks and itch like the devil if touched, knocked or just because they felt like it.
I hadn’t paid much attention to the sign as we don’t often pay for tour having boats of our own, but we we’re definitely following the tourist trail as Hong Island and James Bond Island were our next stops.
Unfortunately , I am all out of time for today as I need to make a little effort for going out for our Christmas lunch. There will be a Part 2 in the very near future.
We wish you all a Happy Holiday and very Merry Christmas and as a belated gift to you all is Banda Neira Part 1 from the Indonesia Rally, 2024.
From Debut, we night sailed to Banda Neira, which is located in the Maluku Islands or Spice Islands in the Banda Sea.
We had another dusk to dawn guest on the passage.
It sat (and pooped) quietly on the aft deck while Tim stepped over and around it during the night to adjust the mizzen.
The arrival was spectacular as we were greeted with the view of the impressive lava flow created by the 1988 Banda Api eruption.
We arrived a day after most of the rally boats. Most boats were moored stern to toward the shore between 2 mooring balls, one fore and one aft, and there was no room for another. Everyone used their dinghy to go ashore to a little pontoon and ramp.
Philip and Claudia on Bruno’s Girl had arrived late the previous day, and wasn’t room for them either and they were put on a regular swinging mooring. Bruno’s Girl is the yacht nearest us in the photo under the starboard gib sheet. They were of two minds where or not to trust the mooring, but wasn’t a lot of choice as the bay as being part of an ancient caldera formed by a huge volcanic eruption, it was very deep.
On our arrival it was decided that we would have to go on a mooring as well, so the marina staff grabbed a mooring ball, it’s line and weight and towed it from one side of the bay. They positioned it next to Bruno’s girl, which good because once we were tied to it, it was easy to tell that, after not very long a time, we were slowly drifting across the bay towing the mooring ball in front of us and getting further and further from Bruno’s Girl.
We dropped the mooring and were then lead to the top of the bay to tie stern to the shore. To accomplish this, you approach the shore stern first. While still underway, we dropped our anchor, and continue reversing, feeding out chain until that we were positioned several metres from shore.
Lines from the stern are take ashore by the nimble Marina staff who clamber through the undergrowth to find a branch or rock big to tie our lines to. We then pull up some chain so that we are suspended between the anchor and the lines ashore.
We came to understand that while we were anchored next to the volcano island, Banda Api, most of the other yachts were moored off the most populated island of Banda Neira. See map at top of page.
The area is tidal and twice a day, the tide would run north then south through the channel between the islands. One stern line or the other would tightened depending on the direction of the tide. This also shifted the stern of the boat, a little to the left and later a little to the right.
Our rudder isn’t hung from the back of the boat; it’s actually over a metre further forward and quite a lot of our stern is above the water. The bit of stern above the water is called the ‘counter’. It might look like we are very very very close to coral head behind us, but we aren’t really. The water is so clear that things appear much closer than they actually are, so we were actually only very very close. ;D
Nearby was this lovely little house very likely used for tourism. We were sad/disappointed to see all the plastic garbage festooning the branches at low water.
The plastic problem is terrible in Indonesia and much of South East Asia. It varies from place to place, but the people often seem oblivious to the problems it creates from damaging their tourist market to micro-particles in the food chain. When a ferry arrived at the island and all the passages had disembarked, Tim witnessed the crew sweeping all the plastic water bottles and bags left onboard into the water.
Despite all the effort that went into to getting us tied to shore, we weren’t comfortable leaving the boat for long periods, so we got our lines back onboard, hauled up the anchor and ended up….
… here. We were I was giddy with delight.
We anchored on the eastern end of the bay, facing the black lava flow that we had passed when we arrived.
We were the only boat there until Bruno’s Girl joined us a few days later.
Bruno’s Girl, the lava flow on the left, taken on one of my many snorkels along the shore.
I’m a simple soul when it comes to snorkelling. I like to meander along slowly and see what there is to see. From the beach to the point, there were nice rocky reefs with patches of sand between.
The water could be a little murky, but after several days I knew…
… which rocks to look between to find the moray eel that lived there….
… I noticed the sea cucumbers that put out a fancy black and white ruffle from their mouth to clean the algae off the rocks for breakfast, lunch and dinner…
… and the Lion fishes that came to the same patch of sand to hunt everyday. Lion fish are native to these waters and have predators that will keep them in check.
The Spice Islands have a long interesting history and today’s Banda Neira is too good to rush so, Part 2 of this blog will be coming soon.
It’s been far too long and I’m sorry for that, but I won’t dwell on that and will just get started.
Tim and I are currently in Thailand, having worked our way north from Indonesia and Malaysia with many stops along the way. If you would like to see our entire route from start to most recent location, just check out the map at the top of our blog. No Foreign Land is what Tim now uses to track our path. Over the years, Tim has made a note everywhere we have stopped along the way and there will be more blogs of those times to come.
We haven’t had long here, but these are some first impression of Chalong, where we cleared into Thailand.
Clearing in here involves visiting many offices and it was quite a quick process. We were warned that when you get to the last office, where you request the amount of time you wish to stay (a 60 day visa being the maximum allowed), if you get the lady official she will not want to give you the 60 day visa.
Guess what? We got a smiling lady official.
When asked ‘How long do you intend to stay?’, and Tim said, ‘60 days’ and her smile vanished. She didn’t say anything, but Tim waited silently and held his ground. Eventually still scowling, she gave us both 60 day visas. To be fair there is a crackdown on individuals trying to abuse the visa system to stay longer than they are welcome. See the last ‘White Lotus’ of a glimpse of the problems.
After clearing in we headed out to the shops.
Just outside the marina we passed this marvellous tree.
We often see them, all wrapped in ribbons of cloth, and I looked it up. How Auspicious Trees Can Revitalize Thai Cities - great article, full of information on the past, present and future hopes.
A different view of old and new; a bird’s nest of wires of telecoms wires and shiny electricity wires and pylons.
This is the roundabout on the main road nearest Chalong Marina. The roof on the left covers a small police station. This roundabout has a traffic police, whistles shrilling, starting, stopping, berating and fining drivers as well as helping pedestrians like us cross the chaotic and unrelenting traffic.
Each time we’ve passed the roundabout, there have been a number of cars and especially motor bikes stopped by the police to check they have the correct permits.
They also have long stretches of road without roundabouts or traffic lights. The solution for drivers wishing cross traffic to turn right is to use U-turn breaks in the road, but the traffic is continuous. There are no traffic lights or traffic police and if there was a lane for merging into traffic it was not apparent. It’s pretty hairy, I can tell you.
This is not a country we intend to do any in driving.
…
Yesterday we are anchored in a bay on the southern tip of the Thai peninsula. This is our second time here as we had a reunion of sorts with friends from our time in Fiji and Vanuatu.
The guests of honour - Thant Zin and his wife and daughter who were visiting from Myanmar. They now live in a more secure part of the country as their village is no longer safe from the on going fighting.
Colin from Burmese Breeze and Bill and Zoe from Into The Blue made up the party. Bill and Zoe were anchored in the bay with us. Thant Zin had scoped out the best restaurant for our group, staffed on the whole by young Myanmar men. It is better for them to work in Thailand right now and avoid the military draft and it was wonderful for Thant Zin and his wife to chat to the waiters and help with our ordering.
It took a while for baby girl to warm up to me, but after that we gone on wonderfully.
Thant Zin’s daughter drew every eye and she was petted and cooed over by a great many ladies of all ages.
We had a lovely few days together.
…
Moving from place to place and country to country as we do, we are often caught out by unexpected changes. For me the greatest yet most satisfying challenge is provisioning, finding the food and supplies we need.
Food shopping in Indonesia is done on the whole in open air markets. It takes some getting used to but it is a wonderful way to shop going from stall to stall and trying to ‘share the love/money’ with as many people as possible.
Malaysia is much more European in its shopping style. There are road style stalls of fruit and vegetables but we very quickly got into the habit of using supermarkets where we could get everything in one place.
Thailand goes one step further than Malaysia with its small high-end supermarkets and Makro style bulk shopping. We haven’t been here long and I hope as we get away from the cities we can find smaller shops and stalls.
One major shocker for us concerns milk. Tim buys fresh milk when ever we can; when we can’t we have a supply of powdered skim milk. In Indonesia, we’d been using our stock of milk from Australia. We could buy powdered skim milk in Malaysia everywhere except the island of Langkawi. This is the island where we cleared out of Malaysia for Thailand. We could buy full fat milk, but that isn’t to our taste any more so we didn’t. We were sure to find it in Thailand, but we haven’t yet.
We can buy UHT milk and oat milk in cartons but that’s heavy and takes up space. We will keep looking. In Malaysia we buy thinking we can’t get in the shops - like tinned tomatoes (though you can buy those in Thailand) - on sites like Lazada a Malaysian type of Amazon. You need a local phone number and a place to have the goods delivered and we have neither.
We haven’t been here long and there are many more towns and cities, like Phuket, in our near future so fingers crossed.
…
We’ve updated our travel plans and the next part is an excerpt from an email explaining them…
Since we left Pangkor Marina we’ve been trying to get into the swing of things but we don’t feel ready to start the long passage to the Mediterranean. The boat looks great and has all its mechanical things bits and pieces serviced, our oven and fridge have become a little erratic with the oven going out unexpectedly mid muffins and the fridge door handle not always giving the expected ‘clunk’. Tim can tune most of these things but we need to be sure they will stay tuned.
Having had everything off the boat for the work, it doesn’t feel organised below deck yet. We got rid of somethings and added others and need more time to feel comfortable.
It would also be good to have a more frugal year, we have decided to stay another year in the South East Asia.
I know the weather and the flooding you’ve been hearing about must be very worrisome but none of the weather has affected us. Unlike the poor locals, we move with the seasons.
We have lots of friends going to the Med this year, but some of our first sailing friends from the Caribbean are making the passage next year and it would be really nice to do this with them.
This will also give us a chance to see places we missed on our first time in Indonesia and more time to catch-up on the blog.
We are cruising Indonesia on the Sail 2 Indonesia Rally. A rally is a great way to experience somewhere like Indonesia, which is our first experience in the Far East.
The rally organisers have provided an introduction to and information on travelling and cruising in Indonesia. Raymond, a native Indonesian, helps with clearing in and out of the country, and arranging and renewing visas. There is a lot of bureaucracy and requirements can change so it’s great to have someone that knows the ropes and is looking out for us.
The main religions in Indonesia are Muslim and Christian. They sometimes live in the same villages, in their own areas in Debut, but it seems to vary from place to place. There are villages or towns that are all one or the other and everyone seems happy. We are careful to show respect to the local inhabitants through our actions and dress.
Having said that, halfway into the rally, it seems that no matter how we try to blend in, we are strange and exotic to them. They do not meet many Caucasians or English speakers and they are hungry for photos with us and a chance to practice their English.
The rally brings in some money through tours and lavish dinners, but more importantly to the communities, the hope of attracting more tourism. Many of the places we have and will visit are off the normal tourist routes.
Everywhere we’ve been has welcomed us with open arms and great pride is taken in showing us their culture and their country. We are very fortunate to have this experience.
Our itinerary.
Wonderful Indonesia is a site with gorgeous photos and shows many of the best places and things to see, though not necessarily by boat!
Our first stop in Indonesia was the town of Debut, in the province of Maluku. Tual is the normal point of entry for yachts entering Indonesia but the rally arranged for Customs and Immigration to come to us in Debut.
Once cleared in we were invited ashore for the Opening Ceremony.
The dock and central meeting place of the village, dwarfed by the church at the top of the road.
There was one gentleman who helped with the disembarking and tying up of the dinghies. He was always there at whatever time we arrived or departed for the whole of our visit. He’d also indicate to us which direction to head going back to the boats. When the tide was high, we could go straight over rock reef between our anchorage and the village. When the tide was low, he’d describe the direction for us to with emphatic gestures to ensure we’d miss the reef.
Once we were all ashore, we waited behind the coconut frond ‘ribbon’.
There was some milling around as we waited for all the dingies to arrive.
It began with the trumpeting of a conch shell.
The conch sounded, the ribbon was cut and we were officially welcomed.
Each person on the rally was presented with a scarf.
These are our scarves. You’ll see the design in the blue scarf repeated a little later.
The Welcome Dance.
The band.
A welcome song in Indonesian.
A sneak shot of two of the previous singers and a happy moment when tradition and present day embrace.
This young lady was one of six dancers. She was the one the others looked to check what came next. All the movements were graceful and precise.
We adjourned to the shade for refreshments.
Next was a walk through the village to the sightseeing part of the ceremonies. The road from the dock went straight up to the church. On each side of the road were streets of houses with, we were told, Muslim on the right and Christian on the left.
At the church we turned right. More about turning left later.
This was fascinating. The cassava/embal flatbreads are a staple of the Kei/Kai islands. A mould is used for the shape and pattern. I have learned since that they are cooked as well and maybe this drying is the final step for longevity.
Remember the design on the blue scarf? Embal is food and art in the Kei Islands.
Across the road, bags of embal for sale. I expect there would be all sorts of things for sale on the table if it wasn’t for the day’s celebration.
Ayu, our guide and friend, has a lovely blog she has created to help promote the Kei Ilsands. There is lots about the local food including embal - Kei Island Guided Tour by Ayu.
This is a fascinating article on Cassava found while I was trying to find the name for this type of bread. Eat more cassava!
We walked down the hill, across the river and ….
… on to the waiting yellow buses for an island tour.
We visited fresh water filled caves. There were two caves. One for drinking and one for swimming. The most impressive was the bathing pool.
We were warmly welcomed to Letvuan…
… with traditional music,…
… beautiful dancers and much enthusiasm from all.
Our tour continued with a visit to a bomb shelter. It was part of an air field built by the Japanese during their occupation of Indonesia in World War 2, March 1942 to September 1945.
Our next stop was to a coffee plantation and we were encouraged to participate.
The trees produce two types of coffee bean on the same tree. Sadly, all I could remember of the information was that a pod had either 2 or 3 berries and each was a different type one being Arabica ( for sure) and the other ‘possibly’ Robusta.
My coffee tree, which was labelled with my name so I could check on it on future visits. You can see I’m a little frazzled. It is hot and humid!
The last event of the day was a gala dinner on the waterfront over looking the river and seaweed beds.
All this was setup for us! All around the seated area were the people of Letvuan, some with food to sell or the local coffee, which is rich and sweet.
I bought a tray of little fried parcels filled with vegetables and fish and something bright pink and sweet in a bag. The fried parcels definitely won.
No Indonesian event is complete without a sound system and enthusiastic DJs.
There were many dances showcasing daily activities and industry, like sugar cane.
The Coffee Dance enacting is the land clearing, planting, care and harvesting of the coffee bean. Very good advertising.
After the performances, we had a wonderful buffet dinner before becoming part of the performance ourselves.
We were led a winding path between and around the tables by the performers.
Some time later, it all got wild.
Lots of people love karaoke, and Indonesians definitely do. During dinner we were aware of people singing along but it wasn’t until we heard someone singing a Celina Dion song followed by a Whitney Houston song, both surprisingly well sung, that we looked to see who it was. It was Ayu! She is a great guide but she is a great singer too.
I hardly need to say that a good time was had by all.
The next morning with Philip and Claudia, a driver and Ayu we set for to shop and see some of the local sights.
Our first stop was a fresh food market. It was the first day of rain we’d seen in a very long time.
The market was very good.
What was different from anything I’d seen before were the meal-sized piles of prepared vegetables. Noodles (mei) or rice (nasi) and sautéed vegetables, seasoning, and crispy fried shallots topped with a fried egg is called Mei or Nasi Goreng. I suspect it’s one of Indonesia’s best know meals.
FYI, onions as we know them are very expensive. They are probably imported and a cheaper local option is shallots.
Claudia and Philip getting their shopping too.
In the front row from bottom to top, candlenuts (which are cashew nuts like but not as rich), potatoes and galangal (like a mild ginger) or maybe fresh turmeric (though I think I see the yellow of turmeric on the upper shelf), a big bowl of ginger root, garlic with two white onions (I think, perched on top), little red shallots and finally lemongrass.
What I am sad not to have photos of is the fresh tempeh and fresh tofu in beautiful displays. I will try to do better next time. :)
We had lunch at Forganza, a very beautiful restaurant perched on the shore of a bay. It is famous locally for special events like wedding receptions.
We had a lovely lunch with various seafood, stir fried vegetables and rice.
The deck adjacent to the restaurant where, I’m sure, many wedding, birthday and anniversary photos have been taken. Poor Tim on his own in the middle. :)
A functional photo! This will seem very strange to those from North America, Europe and the UK, but all or at least many toilets, in homes and public areas have not a bathtub, but a reservoir for water used to flush the toilet. At dry times of year, water can be scarce. Having a large dedicated tub of water to tide you over a dry spell is really good planning.
Me, Ayu and Claudia next to the bridge to Tual where we turned around and headed back to Debut.
Back onboard, I put into action what I learned at the market.
Mei Goreng was on the menu with our newly bought vegetables. We often have this with tofu or tempeh as a change from fried egg.
Tempeh is fermented soy beans and as the least processed soy product is supposed to be the best nutritionally. This is tempeh that I thinly sliced and marinated in oil, soy sauce and a bbq dry rub from The Bin Inn in Whangarei. After a few hours I fry it till it’s dry and we use it like you would meat in a sandwich. Yum.
I will talk more about tempeh later. I am on a huge learning curve.
At the start of the blog, I mentioned, ‘turning right at the church’ on first day out in Debut. Two days later, we turned left and found a local industry.
Probably up to 15 people work here making fishing floats out of coconuts.
The assembly line.
The finished product.
The cleaned coconut shells have a loop of rope attached and are sealed with a latex glue. Useful, better for the environment and a sustainable source of income. They are not short of coconuts.
Further along to the left we found the local shop.
Behind the eggs, from left to right, is black rice, white rice, mung beans and a big bag of raw peanuts; in the pink bags are shallots and garlic; the bags against the wall are different types of rice. With some greens from the garden, you could make a variety of meals before heading to the supermarket.
The currency here, the rupiah, has been interesting to get used to. The smallest note is 1,000 rupiah and the largest 100,000. Today 100,000 rupiah is $6.58 US.
The rupiah (symbol: Rp; currency code: IDR) is the official currency of Indonesia, issued and controlled by Bank Indonesia. Its name is derived from the Sanskrit word for silver, rupyakam (रूप्यकम्).
Our last night in Debut was the closing ceremony. Village officials closed the event and we had last meal of tasty and interesting local food.
We were sad to leave Ayu and now I wear with pleasure a handbag (made of tree bark though you’d think it was leather) from Papua where she studies.
We left the next morning in search of clear water where Tim could clean the hull.
The place we found had a beautiful white beach. It wasn’t until a day later that I realised it was the beach that we had been to before with Ayu on our shopping day.
It looks quite different if you arrive by sea rather than land.
The blue and white sand is very lovely.
The sand is so soft and white that it seems almost impossible.
I was interested to see this guy decanting pre-mixed petrol and oil into old water bottles. Scooters and motorcycles are the most common mode of transport and one can buy this ‘pre-mix’ at many places along the side of the road. It seems like anyone at all can sell it.
While I was taking photos, Tim and Philip disappeared into the distance.
We had a couple of memorable moments in our time there.
The first was this. Between where the boats anchor and the beach is a long rocky reef. The tide rose and fell between one and two metres. At low water the white sandy beach had a rocky ledge and the reef further out was only half a metre (maybe) under the water.
We learned much of this when friends went ashore for dinner (high water). After dinner when they got back to the beach, they had to haul their dinghy down over the rocky ledge, discovered the off shore reef when they came to a sudden stop on it, and had to wade over to hunting for patches deep enough for the dinghy to get over. It took awhile but they got back safely. We were glad we were there to watch it, if only for moral support
The second was that we had a meal ashore for lunch that did not agree with Tim. He felt pretty awful and this kept us in the anchorage an extra day. It also made him empathise strongly with Claudia who has bouts of seasickness when the conditions are wrong.
We did leave eventually and our next stop was an over nighter to Bandaneira.
