July 22-25 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 mouthed 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.
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