Since the beginning of the year (really from mid December) we have been busy traveling East, with many amazing destinations and experiences. I did not have enough time for regular updates, so I feel a quick post to catch you up will be helpful. Hopefully I can write in more detail about some of these experiences later.

December. We left Lombok on December 19, then met up with SV Antares on the 20th for a kids playdate. We passed Sumbawa and spent our Christmas Eve at a small volcanic island. On Christmas Day we encountered a family of pilot whales that invited us to swim with them for about an hour, playing with us – a very unique and special experience. Ute later found out that they were “pygmy killer whales”, a little researched species (obviously with no killer instinct). We continued into Komodo National Park, went scuba diving with Manta rays and encountered Komodo dragons in the wild.

In January we crossed the Flores sea and headed up to Taka Bonerate, the little known third largest atoll in the world. The sky around us reflected the turquoise waters beneath for miles around us. We had good wind for sailing, but too many waves for diving or snorkeling, so continued on to Sulawesi and Wakatobi National Park, where we stayed for a week of swimming, beaching, and of course diving.

From Wakatobi we started a 2.5 day passage to Ambon in good weather, but then had to evade thunderstorms both nights at sea and had continuous 3-4m waves, which made the ride less comfortable than expected. Passing over a 5000 meter deep trough in the ocean floor, we only met two other ships (big merchant vessels) on this leg.

Ambon was pleasant and an unexpected discovery. We had heard about the muck diving (scuba diving for small, unusual creatures, often in not so clear harbour waters) in Ambon, but did not realize how special this is. While we waited for our visa renewals, refueled and provisioned for the next month, we had some amazing dives and had the good fortune to discover a range of unusual critters, including sea horses, Rhinopias, and the psychedelic frogfish.

At the end of January we left Ambon for the Banda islands, the original spice islands that were heavily fought over by the British and the Dutch in an attempt to control the nutmeg monopoly. These were endemic to this small group of islands, and in Europe they were believed to help against the plague – making them more valuable than gold. In an interesting twist of history, to control the nutmeg business the Dutch traded the island of Pulau Run from the British, giving them a seemingly worthless island in North America in exchange: New Amsterdam, today’s Manhattan! We found Banda to now be a very relaxed, pleasant and friendly place, with fantastic scuba diving under the lava flows of Gunung Api, and in “Mandarin City”, which houses a colony of Mandarinfish.

In February we turned back North towards Seram in the Malukkus, and then finally into the Southern end of Raja Ampat: Misool. This island is known by divers for some of the most diverse coral in the world, and there is a continuous flow of high-end liveaboard dive safaris coming here from Sorong. There are hundreds and perhaps a thousand small rocky islands around Misool, and we spent time in this beautiful area, also called a “Thousand Temples” due to the rock structures.

By the time this blog post uploads we will have reached the civilization and telephone network of Sorong, capital of Raja Ampat. This will be a major provisioning and service stop for our boat, and was our goal for this part of our journey from Singapore. What a journey it has been already!

Our journey has taken us from the Western-most tip of Indonesia in Aceh to its Eastern region. This is a huge country: superimposed on North America it would stretch from West of California to East of Maine.

The one thing that has remained constant is the hospitality and friendliness of the Indonesian people. Wherever we go we are met with friendly smiles, waving hands, thumbs up,  Selamat Pagis and Sores, and of course selfie-times.

When we first arrived in the Anambas, Agus, who works in the restaurant in Nikoi, welcomed us to his hometown Tarempa. He was on his two-week annual leave, precious time to see friends and family. Instead he spent two days guiding us to the various offices, waiting while we served the officialdom. Here I learned that for any kind of paperwork (and we need to extend our visas monthly at the immigration offices) it is best to take Hero and Robin along: the moment the officers see the children their faces light up and they turn extra helpful.

In Bali, Joe helped us to source a new outboard engine for the dinghy, drove us around town, took us on an afternoon outing to the waterfall, haggled fruit prices for us, and brought freshly caught tuna as a birthday gift for Niki.

In Bima I dinghied to the beach to buy Diesel, and the kids there helped me carry the jerry cans to the road, then the local men went out of their way to help me find a truck and driver to take me to the gas station, one handing me to the next until they had a solution.  Without question the driver also helped to carry the full jerries, came with me on the dinghy, helped to pour them into our tanks, and then we took selfies.

In the Banda islands we walked through a village, looking for the nutmeg orchards. Idin was peeling bananas in front of his house, dropped what he was doing, and (after a selfie 🙂 guided us to the nutmeg trees, explained how they grow and how the fruit are processed, and then invited all of us to his house for a refreshing drink and probably the best banana chips we have had. As we slowly travel Eastward I leave a trail of new WhatsApp friends.

In most places we are the show of the town. A sailing yacht with a blond family on board is an  exciting event. The fishermen drive their boats to take a close look at Rainbow Safari. Kids paddle out in dugouts. The more daring ones climb onto the sugar scoop for photos. In town, our children have developed a dance to evade the women who want to pinch their cheeks, and depending on their mood, smile or turn away for the obligatory photos. Touching blond hair is also a national sport (I remember this from Italy when I was a kid. Wonder whether Indonesia or Italy would win in a blond-hair-touching competition. Or is it countries starting with I? I don’t remember it from India as much, but I’m sure it must be practiced whenever cricket is not on. Of course cricket is always on, so maybe that’s it).

Yesterday we had three curious fishermen come to our boat. They obviously wanted to have a closer look at Rainbow Safari, and came onto the sugar scoop. It was very awkward. Of course there was a language barrier. My three words of Bahasa were as limiting as their three words of English. I did not want to invite them into the boat. Part of it was embarrassment because of the obvious wealth gap between them and us. And part of it caution: you never know who might be tempted to come back at night – we already had a dinghy engine stolen. Maybe living in big Western cities has made us too cautious, made us prefer distance and perceived security of anonymity over going out and cherishing new relationships.

After the fishermen left we decided that we need to change our expectations and behaviours to better fit to the cultural norm here. We are the visitors, trying to learn something new, and clearly the Indonesian culture with its emphasis on people, relationships and friendships has a lot that would be good for us to adopt. So we developed a new routine to welcome visitors at least into the outside cockpit (but not inside, with its overwhelming clutter of possessions), to offer snacks and a soft drink, to take photos and laugh, and then send the curious visitors on their way. A few more words of Bahasa would also help. We tried this for the first time today and it seemed to work. We will continue to refine and learn and hopefully in the process shed some of our engrained caution and trade for some of the really nice habits that are common among the friendly, helpful people of Indonesia.