End of Ramadan 2011

It must be the end of Ramadan tonight. Not long after a stunning sunset silhouetting Bali's volcano and the emergence the barest sliver of new moon, the fireworks that have been going off in isolated practice sessions previous nights let fly in furious congregation from all corners of the island behind us, even the village in the island center, as well as in silent bursts from the shores of Lombok across the strait.

There are four rally boats in the anchorage now. All of us hiked together around the island last night for a sunset beer on the west side and dinner at the Zip Bar on the east side. Many restaurants are closed and staff are cut back as workers return to family on the mainland. Our delicious meal (8 people ate for about $55) was served by two little girls, all of 6 and ten years! Hard to imagine our grandson successfully carry multiple plates to successful delivery.

Gwen Hamlin
Cafe Getaway
Sent from my iPad

Hanging Out at Gili Air -- August 20- 28, 2011

The Gili Islands are three small droplets of sand that dribble off the point west of Medana Bay. Gili Air, the closest one to Lombok, is the largest and the only one with an actual settlement predating tourism. Gili Trawangan, the furthest out of the three, shoulders the reputation of being the party island from the crop of fun-loving westerners that first started things rolling there but now said to be settling down to business and raising families. In the center is Gili Meno, the smallest and least developed.

Gili Air, however, has by far the best anchorage. Two arms of reef reach out from either side encircling the harbor area, protecting the moorings from all directions but due south. Although the prevailing winds at this time of year are from the southeast, the fact is the bulk of Lombok island knocks down their effect and so moored boats sit nice and steady....but for the occasional wakes of the twice daily Bali ferry traffic. At the other two islets, the strong currents that swirl between the islands are more of an issue. Although we have seen a few boats over at Trawangan, most eventually end up here at Gili Air.

We were past ready to leave Medana Bay. The last day or two a NW swell had sprung up setting all the boats to obnoxious rocking and rolling. Yes, even, a big catamaran like Quantum Leap was uncomfortable; God knows how the monohulls tolerated it. Even more unnerving was the effect it had on the floating dinghy dock. In the dark after dinner it was like a e-ride in a horror show! They say the swell comes up for a couple of weeks each year about this time. Let's hope it is over before the fleet arrives for the Sail Indonesia festivities.

So, with coffee barely down, we joined the stream of boats departing the bay, all bound for Gili Air. Amazingly, there were enough moorings to accommodate us all, (But to those following us, be alert to scattered reefs in the anchorage itself.) There was no sign of the swell.

Don and I hit the ground running, so to speak. Our first act was to get some exercise by circumnavigating the island, something the guidebook said could be done in about 90 minutes. That, of course, is assuming you don't check every menu, chat at every dive shop, or actually stop for a cool drink or an expresso! About two-thirds of Gili Air's shoreline is developed with a dense cluster of charming bungalows, cafes, restaurants, and dive shops.

The dive shops --really they are dive schools -- have semi-in-ground pools for teaching, and there must be a dozen of them or more catering to a steady flow of 20-30-something mostly-European tourists. Each compound is just that, a compound of pool, dive shop, bungalows, their own associated cafe or restaurant, all perched amid riotous bougainvillea and palms on the edge of the beach where the outrigger dive boats bob. They've made themselves places you want to hang out.

The restaurants in between are simple yet idyllic. Each has its own cluster of berugas, thatched 8'x'8' platforms on which you sit and lean back on plump pillows to take in the cool sea breezes while sipping fresh fruit juices or a cool Bitang beer or consuming inexpensive meals of Indonesian, Sasak (Lombok local tribal people), Thai or global continental (pasta, pizza or burger) origins. Prices are absurdly reasonable. A simple veggie curry is 25,000 rupiah or about $2.50 (although really is is closer to $3.00 since the dollar to rupiah exchange rate has slipped to $1=8500R) But even a full dinner at the nicest place comes to less than $20 for two.

And the best part of the whole place is that there are no motor vehicles! Transport if not by your own two feet is by pony cart! The carts are simple wooden carts with bench seats and a canopy and with two large, fat-tired wheels to cope with sand, and the ponies are healthy, sturdy creatures about the size of a Welsh Pony and come in every color of the equine rainbow. Perhaps the best part is that they wear bells that jingle as they trot to warn pedestrians of their approach. This is about the happiest background sound I can conceive!

We signed up to dive that first afternoon with Manta Dive, a school about halfway down the beach. There were several operations closer to the harbor, and its hard to say exactly why we picked Manta. They had a good reputation, we liked the owners frank conversation with us, and it didn't hurt that he offered us a professional discount.

Because Manta Dive is primarily a school, staff is not a problem since plenty of the student stay long enough to progress up the certification ladder. They send out each boatload of up to 21 divers with a divemaster (often European) for each group of 4-5 divers, plus a local captain and the usual retinue of hardy local helpers. For Gili Air diver operators these guys are particularly essential, because the outrigger boats are loaded and unloaded afloat in the shallows. Each diver boards carrying his/her own mask, snorkel, fins and weight belt, while the deck crew schlep aboard the tanks all previously set up with BCs and regs! When the tide is low, all this takes place a goodly walk down the beach, and on those occasions a pony cart is added to the mix. It's quite a load for the pony to have 10-12 tanks in one cart!

Also because Manta (and most of the others) positions itself as a dive school, you have quite an assortment of ability levels. They do their best to sort the groups on that criteria, but generally the boat is run just the way such a system needs to be run -- with lots of close supervision. Our divemaster (a cute young blonde European with too many tattoos...who is probably quite recently certified) strove to keep a tight rein on her group. The other reason they do this is to create the illusion that your group is the only one on the reef. This is an illusion only, as there were four groups from our boat alone! More than a little bit of traffic management is involved!

Unfortunately, the dives we saw just aren't worth it. Don't get me wrong; for the bulk of their clientele they are wonderful: easy conditions with always something to find...not unlike some of my diving had to be in the Virgin Islands. But after Komodo's top quality, what we saw here was pretty anticlimactic. After our second dive, Don surfaced and said, "I could get two massages for the cost of this."

And so we switched our focus from the water to the spa. There are several on Gili Air, but our choice was the small boutique Beach Spa near Scallywag's Restaurant. Owned by a German woman named Amadea (after Mozart's piece) who has been on the island six years, the spa's services are provided by a small platoon of attractive young women in black who speak little or no English, which makes for a very peaceful experience. No chit chat beyond hello and thank-you.

And one of the loveliest parts of the whole experience is the spa beruga. Larger and more finished than the beach berugas, the spa's beruga takes up a corner of the courtyard (which is, by the way, just the pumpkin color my New York living room was!) and offers big bold pillows to lean against (or a hammock) where the girls start you off with small cups of ginger tea...to which we have become addicted. With the waves gently sighing across the street, the babble of children and the jingle of the pony carts, it is all incredibly restive and reflective.

I'll spare you the play-by-play of each spa experience as we worked our way down the menu, but I will say that I have had the foot reflexology massage, the full body massage, a pedicure and a facial. Except for the pedicure, it has all been a new experience for me, and I am addicted. I'd like to bring one of the girls and the beruga itself home with me. I have gotten the recipe for the ginger tea.

We have lost count of the days we have been here. Last Wednesday, Tom and Bette Lee took the fast ferry to Bali for their inland travel there. Leaving us here was a far more pleasant option for us for yacht sitting than the original plan of the Bali Marina, which is said to be a bit of a pit. We haven't heard a word from our travelers, so we can only hope they are having as good a time as we are. While it has been an incredible treat to be traveling with Tom & Bette Lee, having the boat to ourselves as been equally a treat.

We haven't been totally alone. Another of the rally boats has come in: George and Melinda of Daedalus, a 60' power catamaran. They have joined us in our cycle of walks, spa treatments, and beachside meals, for just the right amount of socializing, two on two. With the end of Ramadan nearly here, many businesses will be cutting back their hours and/or closing as their workers go home to families on Lombok for the four day celebration -- i.e. no spa! Actually, we have cut back to one meal ashore a day, sometimes breakfast with all its gorgeously cut fresh fruit and veggie-packed omelets, sometime a leisurely late lunch of Sasak curries or Thai noodles, while tonight we will try a new dinner place with another new catamaran acquaintance, John of the Privilege cat Ile du Grace. The way it's been going, we have a new favorite restaurant every time we try a new one.

Being a tourist island, restaurant enterprise cannot close down completely come Monday, but we went out today foraging for fresh fruit and veg to replenish our stock for the duration, just in case! Every night, a smattering of fireworks goes off from this restaurant or that one in anticipation of the end of the month of fasting. Budgets are low. You have to be quick; sometime a pop and sizzle is all you get. And only when everything gets quiet do you hear the chanting from the mosque which is buried somewhere in the island's center.

Really, truly, this could go on indefinitely!

Gwen Hamlin
Cafe Getaway
Sent from my iPad

Photos

I am again having trouble with getting photos posted from my IPad to the Indonesia Blog. I spent all day ashore yesterday trying to learn a better way, and only succeeded in locking up the IPad. Fortunately, it began working again after a nights rest. I know I said this before and then had great luck. Well, we'll see.

Gwen Hamlin
Cafe Getaway
Sent from my iPad

August 18 - 20 --- Lombok / Medana Bay Marina

Medana Bay Marina
Rinjani's craggy northern face gentled as we rounded the island and headed down its western coast. Our destination was a "marina" in a "Bay", neither of which showed up by name on our charts. This was a waypoint provided by the Sail Indonesia Rally as a location where a rally event will be held in a few weeks, but the waypoint was offshore, and if a few other boats hadn't preceded us, we wouldn't have had a clue where to go in.

Fortunately, the British group we'd seen at Bajo Komodo Eco Lodge in Labuan Bajo, Flores, were here ahead, bobbing on some of the moorings the "marina" was providing. All the "quotes" should indicate that Medana Bay Marina is not a traditional marina, as we are used to thinking about them. It is, so far, a nice palapa-type restaurant with a floating dock connected to shore by a rolling ramp. Off the beach are 25 moorings, all a bit close together, but doable even for Quantum Leap. Under construction are what look like they are going to be very nice hotel rooms plus meeting center. Down the beach a bit is another new resort, a rather high end, sleek looking place called The Lombok Lodge. They also call their address "Medana Bay," so I suspect they are willing it into existence.

Lombok is sometimes referred to as "the new Bali." As Bali has become more and more popular and developed, some of that momentum has begun to spill over to its next door neighbor as the itch to combine luxury and being off the beaten track struggle with one another. (If you really want to combine luxury and being off the beaten track,check out www.amanresorts.com, an all-inclusive "ultimate island hideaway" on its own island off Sumbawa in the "if you have to ask the price you can't afford it" category - (Lonely Planet)) But what it means for cruisers is that we can access some of the slightly more first-world services that we we like or need -- from western groceries to laundry to mechanics to Internet.

Island Tour
Yesterday, we got a car and driver and took off on a "half-day tour" which expanded a bit as we went along, trying to squeeze in things we wanted to see with the standard route. Datu, our driver, was an excellent guide with pretty decent English. He took us first to the "Monkey Forest". This is the "high road" south to Mataram, the capital. The high road climbs up into the rainforest where macaque monkeys line the road to watch the traffic go by. It is most amusing to see the monkey families assemble along the guard rail, doing such family business as grooming, nursing and cuddling babies etc, all while keeping an eagle eye on the cars passing by. (Sadly at this juncture, I thought I'd failed to put my camera in my tote, so no cute monkey pictures.)

From the forest we descended into the increasingly bustling urban neighborhood of Mataram. The traffic, which had been pleasantly rural on surprisingly decent (if narrow) two lane roads, began to take on some of the hysterical characteristics of Kupang, i.e. lots of motorbikes attempting to share the lane. Into this mix to my amazement were added pony carriages which Datu explained carry folks home form the markets with their purchases!

Datu was keen to take us on the circuit of craft village stops. First up was the "furniture village." On the sides of the roads were shops selling chests, benches, etageres etc. He pulled into the Ratna Artshop which was delightfully filled with carved bowls, trays, boxes, chests, etc. , then painted and or inlaid with mother of pearl. There were also woven baskets and mats, even some iron items. Our function, of course, was not just to look, but to buy. Everything must be bargained for, and of course the best bargains come when you are ambivalently interested to start with. It wasn't that one didn't want these things. Hell I could have filled the car! But how ever would we get purchases home?!?!?! Nevertheless, we did not leave empty handed.

The same is true of the second stop, a weaving village where they make the traditional songkat, which differs from ikat by resulting in a different look to each side of the fabric.

The weaving village was a much poorer seeming neighborhood, but we were scooped up promptly after parking in front of a "women's cooperative" by a thirty-year old young woman who had her spiel down pat. She guided us to a compound of huts in which various women of different ages (including a 12-year-old) were industriously at work.

At the first hut, the deal was to get the visitors into the spirit by getting us to take the weavers place. I acquiesced because she would have been crushed otherwise, and let myself be strapped into the loom where someone half my size had been. I did not demonstrate any natural aptitude for weaving. There were probably two dozen bamboo rods controlling the pattern, a process I could only begin to grasp. They guided me through a half dozen passes of the colored threads and the proper "tap, tap" each then required, without my ruining anything obvious.

A girl begins to learn weaving at age ten, (putting in her time after school and before homework (whilst the boys play!) Her mother teaches her the traditional patterns, starting out simple. Each traditional pattern has meaning, as do all the colors, yet, our guide insisted, each weaving is the result of the weaver's own imagination. After my hands-on opportunity, our guide showed us several more levels where the pattern gets increasingly complex, after which we of course end up in the store where the young ladies have gotten quite polished in the art of sales AND are armed with a credit card machine! Hah! As I've said before, Bette Lee is somewhat knowledgeable in all this. I, on the other hand, was fairly well overwhelmed by all the color combinations, patterns, not to mention applications. It was fairly clear that I wasn't getting out without buying something, but did I want something to cover my shoulders, cover my table or hang from a wall! Yikes!

We had now survived two craft villages and Datu was already turning towards a third when a small crisis raised its ugly head. It was 3pm and we were starving. The problem? It's Ramadan, the month when devout Muslims fast from sunrise to sunset (4:30am to 6:30pm). Noisy mosques notwithstanding Lombok is the first island we've been on where the majority of the population actually is Muslim. Our dilemma was how to fins something to eat without being offensive to the locals.

This is a big tourist island, so we thought the downtown mall food court might be the solution. It was and it wasn't. All the restaurants therein but one (including Mickey D's!) were closed until sunset. The one that was dispensing food was KFC, yet you could not sit in the restaurant! We did not want to try to scarf greasy chicken in the back seats of our taxi inflicting the aroma on our gentle, fasting Muslim driver. Datu's solution was to go for a walk while we hunkered on the tailgate in the parking lot surreptitiously wolfing down awesomely delicious (and greasy) chicken thighs! IMPORTANT NOTE: WE WERE NOT ALONE! The tailgate strategy was in play in several corners of the lot. Evidently not everyone plays by the rules.

From the mall it was off to the pottery village, which honestly was not too exciting, mjuch less personal, and much easier to resist. After all, pottery in the luggage...? Really?

In truth, the best part of the whole day had little to do with the shopping ops, but far more to do with the pleasures of land-cruising. It is absolutely worth the price of admission just to ride around in a car through the many various local landscapes with a guide who can answer questions about what you see. On Lombok, the land is evidently much richer than the other islands we'd visited, not to mention blessed with more water. Every scrap of land is cleared, terraced and cultivated. The majority of plots (paddies) support three crops a year: two harvests of rice and one of peanuts is typical. There were also stands of corn, tobacco, beans and chiles, also bananas, papaya and other crops shoe-horned in between fields, as well as water buffalo and goats staked our in cleared areas.

The houses are generally in better shape: larger, painted and landscaped. There are mosques everywhere, and the whole look of things reflects some impact by Bali's Hindu influence (there is much shared history with Bali, and still a sizable Balinese minority.)

Then, too, there is the tourism impact. In the coastal town of Senggigi there is everything from quaint guest houses to backpacker digs, to luxurious mega resorts like Sheraton and Holiday Inn! They say (They=Lonely Planet) that Lombok is on the verge of a tourism explosion. Interests from Dubai are at work on a huge development that will remake South Lombok. I asked Datu what the locals think of this, and he says they are in favor.

By the time we drove out of Mataram and up the rugged coast road through Senggigi and north to Medna Bay, the sun was heading toward the horizon and the frenzy of rush hour was beginning to set in. And not just any rush hour, Tom observed, but one likely complicated by a mass hypoglycemic crash as the hour inched toward the end of the Muslim fast. Drivers did seem a little extra crazy, and Datu's good humor a tad stretched as he strove to avoid hitting the motor bikers, push bikers, pony carts and pedestrians that use the road willy nilly not to mention a gathering a food carts along the road's edge! How they survive a month of this we can't quite imagine, especially as they don't get much sleep with all the prayers going out all night over the loud speakers. The boys irreverently call it Muslim karaoke, and to be honest, that is what it sounds like! Last night, the impact was somewhat muted by a power outage.

Today while I type in the marina palapa (and try vainly to upload photos to the BLog!), the boys went for a walk along the beach, and, after a little haranguing finally ventured out of the compound far enough to restock on eggs, veg and fruit. This should slightly appease Bette Lee who opted to stay aboard and clean off all the salt accumulated in the past week or so.

Tonight we are going back to Senggigi for a tourist dinner. Meals here at the marina are actually quite nice, as well as affordable, but they are a little repetitive. So I soon need to pack up and get ready.

Tomorrow, I believe we will poke our nose out to Lombok's famous offshore islands, the Gillis. The Gillis are three islands that are much smaller not to mention much less offshore than one imagines from the guidebook. There is said to be good diving, so Don and I will get wet once again. We will stay there a few days before moving on to Bali.

August 14 - 18 -- Approaching Lombok

We are approaching the island the of Lombok. The seas and winds, which have been turbulent and gusty the past two days, have calmed in its lee. Indonesia's second largest volcano, Rinjani (3726m) looms off our port bow, smoke rising from several active vents in a smaller cinder cone northwest of it.

Our past 4-5 days have been relatively laid back. We have been passing a 24 hour flu bug around amongst us, one at a time taking our turn fighting nausea, fever, and chills. During this time we moved west, motoring up to Komodo Island in hope of finding mantas, but finding only strong currents, then onto a delightful anchorage on Komodo's northeast corner, where Don and I enjoyed a lovely late afternoon snorkel while the safari boats assembled around us and Captain Tom fell prey to the scourge.

Although Tom felt the pressure to move on most pressingly, the rest of us were happy to hang out, read, and nap, and we persuaded him to linger a whole day. The only thing that could have made it better was cellular coverage for our Internet modems! And maybe some scuba tanks. There are several great dives in this part of the island group described on the Park map, and I kept hoping that the next safari boat to come round the bend, would be Bajo Dive, and that seeing us, they would come to collect us But, alas, no... Don and I may hae to come back some day.

When Tom felt better, we moved up to Gili Banta for an afternoon where the anchorage was NOT especially protected. So, that evening we set out for the two-day passage to Lombok. For the first time, we had weather. Winds pushed 30 knots, and old QL slewed and hopped around in the lumpy seas churning the strait between Banta and Sumbawa. Unfortunately, Bette Lee, the last to succumb to the bug, went down for the count during all this. What miserable conditions in which to feel miserable! Or, perhaps, she hardly noticed! Even in the less of the 200 miles-long island, we got little break; every time there was a break in the island's profile - a bay or a gulf -- the winds would rush through, and the seas would get bumpy. We actually had to reef the sails as the catamaran bashed along doing 9-10 knots!

A highlight of this coast was the volcano Tambora, defining much of the east end of Sumbawa. Tambora's eruption in 1815 is recorded as one of the most massive of "modern" times. It literally blew its top off, reducing its height from 4200 meters to 2850 meters. The blast killed tens of thousands of locals, burying them Pompeii-style, but also putting up such a cloud of ash into the atmosphere that, as well as wreaking havoc on regional agriculture (and precipitating famine) it changed the climate worldwide. The year after was known in the west as "the year without summer"!

Instead of a second night at sea, we pulled into an island off Sumbawa's northwest corner called Pulau Medang. It proved to be one of the most picturesque anchorages I can remember stopping in, and for me such a vista alone would be positively medicinal (Unfortunately, I'm not sure Bette every really saw it!)

The bay, big enough for dozens of boats, appeared uninhabited, the only clue to sustained habitation (the village is on the far corner of the island) being the the orderly look of the lush palm plantations backing the gorgeous white sand beach. The water in the foreground was turquoise and the beach was dotted and backed by dense, dark green vegetation, the first thick coating of green we had seen in along time. Definitely the most South-Pacific-looking island we've seen this trip, but particularly so after the Komodo archipelago.

There were local fishing craft at large in the bay or drawn up on the beach, but even these looked different -- long modern-ish looking outriggers, with covered cockpits -- and as they worked back and forth industriously across the bay, they left us alone. After Komodo where every passing fishing boat would approach to sell us dragons and T-shirts (and resist the word 'no'), this was a relief.

After a light supper, it was early to bed for this morning's 4am departure. We knew that Bette Lee was back amongst the living when even she was up at that awful hour!

Gwen Hamlin
Cafe Getaway
Sent from my iPad

August 13, 2011 -- Don's Birthday

Don's birthday kicked off with huge breakfast of (our last) eggs, bacon (from the depths of the freezer), and even some hash browns. Afterwards we jumped in the cool blue water to work it off cleaning QL's waterline. A catamaran has a waterline 4x its length (one of the negatives of two hulls!), but the fresh bottom paint allowed the scum to wipe off easily, so Don and I took off to work off the breakfast with a snorkel at the nearby rock, towing the dinghy behind in the slight current.

On a previous day, Tom had dinghied around the the island to the construction site of a small bungalow eco-resort and had befriended one of its owners, an Italian named Antonio, who had graciously invited us to a meal. So, we dropped the mooring that had begun to feel like home and motored around the corner to pick up the mooring Antonio had installed in the strait off his beach for freighters bringing in construction materials.

A project like this is a fantasy that has flitted through our minds more than once during our travels. It seems like the perfect way to make a living while remaining in paradise. But Don and I are fortunate to have enough imagination to not only dream up the plan, but to foresee all the hassles and challenges of building a project in the third world...and so not even start! It takes a special kind of person to see through the building of a house, let a lone an ongoing business endeavor like this. Our friends Ben and Lisa on Waking Dream in Tonga and Joe and Julie of Apogee/Palmlea Farms in Vanua Levu, Fiji, are those sorts of people. Most of the others are more like we would be; at risk of being overwhelmed part way through.

Antonio gave our group the tour of his project, a dining hall, a kitchen, and a projected 18 bungalows, ten of which are complete. His objective is to create buildings that meld aesthetically with the natural contours and look of the environment, and when complete I think he will have achieved this. The handsome bungalows reflect a native Indonesian design, sort of a quonset hut shape of thatch, with a porch in front. Don was particularly impressed with the intricate bamboo roof framework, particularly for the large dining area. A dive center was already set up with two dive masters, two compressors and a slew of tanks as is an office in Labuan Bajo to feed customers their way, via several excursion boats that already come and go from the dock.

But Antonio still has some challenges ahead. He has plans for a large solar array on top of the hill to augment his two diesel generators and eventually a big water maker. The island has two springs, but so far he has not succeeded in tapping into the islands supply. Instead they are digging a well on another island and a building a special boat to carry the water in! Labor is...well, Indonesian. There is just no tradition of continuity...very frustrating for a Westerner! But Antonio has a business track record in SE Asia, so he seems to be of those who will succeed, even though it is hardly the average retirement project.

The evening began with an invitation to Antonio and his staff to Quantum Leap for wine and cheese. Antonio showed up after dusk in his peeled down wetsuit. He'd been out trying to shoot a fish for dinner. His two dive masters -- Laura and Bert (from Milan and Belgium respectively) -- came along, as well as the chef, who, obviously had to leave early to oversee the meal. The Europeans were quite impressed with the boat, but were more practically all alight at the Australian wine, pungent gorgonzola and homemade foccaccia on offer for hors 'd'oeuvres. It had been a long time since they'd had such a luxury!

Ashore dinner was served around a table for thirteen set on the sand beneath a full moon. The tables to do this had only just been delivered, and the placemats were creatively made by a new staff member from folded dish cloths! This recent recruit to the staff served us with all the panache of a proper restaurant. I think he's a keeper! Not officially open yet, Antonio already has several guests, all Italian, so the table conversation burbled in Italian at one end and English at the other with the host jumping back and forth between the two.

Back on the boat, Bette Lee had secretly made Don a birthday banana cake (in honor of Don's Mom...and the available bananas!), but we were all so full from the hors d'oeuvres and the multi-course dinner, that we decided to extend Don's birthday and have the cake for breakfast the next day instead. Hey, at 8am, it's still his birthday back in the US!

Gwen Hamlin
Cafe Getaway
Sent from my iPad

August 12, 2011 -- Komodo Dragons

The Komodo Dragons

After our last dive, the boat steered for the park station on Rinca Island. It's a tad anticlimactic to seek out the famous Komodo dragons on an island other than Komodo, but in fact, for some reason, populations of the world's largest reptile are greater on Rinca. Our 60+ safari boat wriggled its stern into a tiny pie-wedge of a space between other safari boats at the end of a dock, and we clambered off. Chris matched us up with a guide, a wiry man of indeterminate age from a local village (with enough English to do his spiel but not to answer questions!) who, armed with a forked stick, took us down the path to the base camp where we paid our park fees. (Everything has a price, including cameras!)

The dragon tour includes an hour's hike around a loop trail passing through areas of typical Rinca vegetation in hopes of catching sight of any or all of the park's animal denizens: water buffalo, Timor deer, monkeys, megapode birds, wild horses, goats, snakes (including a spitting cobra!) and, of course, dragons.

Tho Komodo Dragon is the world's largest reptile. It is actually a monitor lizard that can grow to 3 1/2 meters in length. It has stout legs on which it can get up and run short distances to chase down prey, a huge tail which it can use as a weapon, and a bite so full of bacteria that even prey that it can't subdue in the primary attack -- like water buffalo -- will eventually succumb. The Dragon will wait.

So, should it be so inclined, a human isn't unrealistic prey for a dragon with either an appetite or a fit of pique! PR for the dragons is such that tourists and cruisers are warned to exercise serious caution, and our guide, although pledging to do his best to protect us, made it clear there were no guarantees. The forked stick was not terribly reassuring.

We enjoyed our walk for the chance to stretch our legs and the opportunity to learn a bit about the dragons' behaviors. For example, a female dragon, in August and September, will dig its nest where a megapode bird has previously dug her nest, and then dig two more holes as camouflage. The female will guard the nest for three months but then will leave. The eggs incubate for eight or nine months and hatch around April.

This is the critical time for the babies. Upon hatching they must scamper fast up into the limbs of the trees before their mamas and papas (and all the neighbors!) come back to catch them and eat them! Nice parenting! The babies stay in the trees eating geckos until they grow to about 1.5 meters at about three years, when they can no longer manage to climb. It is about this time that they develop the bacteria in their saliva.

On our hike we saw a water buffalo, a megapode bird, monkeys, the banyan trees the baby dragons favor for hiding places, the tamarind trees the monkeys favor for the fruit, and the dry river bed where in the rainy season the dragons can catch the larger animals...but we didn't see any of the 1700+ dragons counted on Rinca. No worries on that account though, because we had already seen six dragons sprawled like road kill outside the base camp kitchen!

On our walk back to the dock, however, as the path stretched across a wide flat that appeared to have, in wetter times, been flooded, we actually saw a dragon on the move "in the wild." The sun was setting and the park closing to the public, so perhaps he was on his commute home. A troop of monkeys scampered across the flats in front of him, and he moved along handily behind them. The males in our own troop -- Don, Tom, (Japanese diver) Masaji, and deckhand Vernon scampered off in pursuit with the camera. Vernon still had the stick.

As the sun set and the boat rafted back up with Quantum Leap, we were a little sad to be wrapping things up. They, of course, urged us to dive with them the next day, too, but the cost was mounting up. We had a very good two days with Bajo Dive. Their friendly set-up -- with hot tea and coffee always available in thermoses at the table -- facilitated conversation over the shared fish i.d. book. All three dive masters were friendly and informed, and we all felt that spending the $$$ to dive with a local operation, even to saving the fuel on Quantum Leap to make the run down to Rinca, was well worth it. We recommend them highly to those that followed.

Gwen Hamlin
Cafe Getaway
Sent from my iPad

August 10-12 -- Diving in Komodo National Park

(Sorry! Back to limited spectrum on the WiFi so no pix yet. Just words!)

The small islands of Komodo National Park rise up from the sea in midday colors exactly that of tawny lions. At least now, in the midst of dry season, they are almost entirely coated in pelts of tall buff grass, with only outcrops of rock casting shadows of grey and the very occasional tree plus the scattered skirts of mangrove adding the slap and dash of color. Only on the two large islands of Komodo and Rinca (pronounced Rin-cha) (and two smaller ones in the south) is there enough fresh water available to support a food chain substantial enough for the famous Komodo Dragons, which bring the area its fame and its protected park status.

The sea surrounding these islands is very blue and clear, and we were attracted as much for the diving as to see the dragons. In truth, more attracted by the diving. We'd made a booking with a Labuan Bajo dive operator -- Bajo Dive Club (www.komododiver.com) -- to pick us up for a day of diving. Although we had imagined when bringing our own gear for this trip that we would be in circumstances we would be able to dive on our own, the fact is that the strait's strong tidal currents make local knowledge in choosing sites and times as well as an independent skipper to follow the your drift not just desirable but prudent. Plus, Tom and Bette Lee carry neither their own tanks nor scuba equipment.

Unfortunately, as affordable (cheap) as most things and services are in Indonesia, diving is not. The going price comes out to about $80 plus park fees for a two-tank trip. The best deal around is the multi-day safaris on the pirate ships. Most of these are geared to backpacker expectations of comfort and service, but some for sure are fancier. Here you really get value for your rupiah.

Bajo Dive recommended an anchorage on the west side of Siaba Besar island with a mooring where they would meet us in the morning. However when we got there, the wind was piping a brisk 20+ knots, the tidal current was cranking, and the mooring, tucked between the curve of the larger island and it's smaller partner Siaba Kecil (besar means big; kecil means little) appeared hemmed about by shallow reefs. Not liking the look of it, Tom did an about face, and we put the hook down around the corner for lunch and a chance to review our options, the chief of a change being how would the dive boat find us if we weren't anchored where we'd said we'd be? (No VHF and out of cell range.)

We might have given the planned mooring another shot as the wind died down, but one of the pirate-like wooden liveaboards came in shortly afterwards and picked it up for the night! There's rubbing it in your face.

Fortunately for us, a young fisherman with decent English came by and offered to lead us to a better spot than we'd picked. It involved a bit of back-tracking, but this mooring -- on the west side Sebayur Besar Island was well out in a large encircling bay with picturesque islets and rocks all around. We offered to reimburse him for the fuel he expended leading us here and then, inevitably, bought some of the souvenir carvings that no self-respecting Komodo islander is at large without! We were a tad smug when just past sunset another live-aboard schooner came in to find the mooring taken. Fortunately, there was no complaint; they just dropped their anchor despite the 80' depths!

Amazingly, Bajo Dive found us the next morning before we'd even begun to worry. Also before we'd begun to get ready. In fact, we were still at the breakfast table! They rafted alongside and we scurried to move our gear aboard.

The boat was a slightly larger version of Thomas's Alor Dive boat. These are all wooden ships built, we are told, in Sulawesi for about a tenth of what a American-style fiberglass boat would cost. The small ones serve as dive boats and day excursion boats, with a platform for sitting, a canopy for shade, a toilet, and a galley sufficient for producing the included nasi goreng-type lunches. The big ones are for multi-day dive excursions and can sleep probably six to twelve. They are very atmospheric-looking.

Over the next two days, we made four excellent dives with Bajo Dive. On the first day we were aboard the small dive boat with four other divers (including our intrepid lady travelers Carilee and Jan). On the second day Bajo brought their "big boat", the one set up for overnight "safaris" (their word for charters.) Each vessel had a captain, two divemasters -- Augustus and Steffi the first day and Steffi and Chris the second (Steffi and Chris both from Germany) -- and several willing deckhands. These young guys have been shown a few things about readying scuba divers for the water, and they are very keen to be helpful. In principle, I approved even while actually wishing to be left to do things myself.

The dives themselves were truly impressive. Better than almost anything we saw across the Pacific (with the exception of the south pass of Fakarava, Tuamotus, or the beautiful corals of Fiji's Somo Somo Strait)). Honestly, they rank as some of the best, most interesting dives I've ever done, right up there with the Red Sea and Palau. The corals are vibrant, colorful and very varied, and every site we went to had lots of fish life. Ever since my Red Sea trip in the early '80s, I've been a sucker for the clouds of colorful anthias (anthiases?) -- small orange to pinkish "goldfish"-scale fish -- that hover along Indo-Pacific reef crests nipping plankton from the currents. There is so much going on, so much color, so many species, it is hard to take it all in. I could do the dives over and over....if I didn't have to be paying for them!

The first dive, Batu Bolong, was distinguished above water by a rock with a round hole in it. Unfortunately there was a crowd of other dive boats hanging around it which initially put me off. But by some bit of luck, we dropped below the other divers and circled around behind the rock, and by the time we ascended to shallower levels, most had cleared out. However, like most crowded sites, there is a reason for it. The corals were beautiful and the fish life prolific and varied, including larger pelagics hanging out in the blue.

Our second dive was a drift dive over a fascinating bank of vigorous hard corals punctuated by eye-catching orangey-yellow soft corals. Although the current was more than some of us liked, this dive will stand in my memory for a record seven turtles popping up out of vast stands of staghorn corals.

The next day we dove first on a less-visited site -- dubbed Lonely Tree for the one Charlie Brown straggler topping a very small islet. Below was a hulking mound of a dive site where we spent most of our bottom time on the lee side avoiding the tidal current. The colors here were bright and busy with clouds of tropicals at all levels, and our dive master Chris hunted and poked finding small stuff as well as large.

The second dive brought us to another isolated rock-let, this one with a sheer wall on the lee side. Although the drift current was less, I felt there was some vertical currents to cope with, and we ended up deeper than intended. Shortly after entering the water we saw a white tip shark in the deep, and later Chris found a small white tip napping under the table corals. He also found several interesting nudibranchs and slugs, a cowrie relative looking like a blob of black sponge, and a nice moray. Cruising the top of the rock during my safety stop I glimpsed a snake eel winding among the fire corals.

Gwen Hamlin
Cafe Getaway
Sent from my iPad

Gwen at Medeterreneo!

Kingfish at Medeterraneo

Salad at Mediterraneo

Scuba Diving Komodo Dragon!

Mediterraneo

Hmmmmnnn...Canned Sweat!

Breakfast with Jan and Karianne

Market

August 9-10 Labuan Bajo, Flores

Labuan Bajo (Ba-Jo, Gwen, not Ba-ho a la español!) is a town blending Indonesia realities with the influence of tourism. It is the gateway for tourists drawn to the attractions of Komodo National Park: the famous dragons and reputedly good diving. As such, it has more services, and the harbor is full of atmospheric schooners -- any one of which looking like a stand-in for Johnny Depp's Black Pearl -- that carry adventure travelers on multi-night excursions to the Komodo Park.

We pulled into the anchorage off the beach to the south of the town of Labuan Bajo proper. Our "cruising guide" -- 101 Anchorages in Indonesia -- promoted this as a peaceful alternative to downtown. No mosques in sight. It also hyped the cruiser friendliness of the Bajo Komodo Eco Lodge, where, if I can paraphrase from memory :"You can sip a glass of chardonnay and enjoy the view over the fresh water pool." Something like that.

A group of four Rally boats was here ahead of us and already had refueling in the works, so we jumped on that right away. Several guys (plus three children) took our fuel jugs off to the depot and returned them that afternoon. It doesn't get much easier than that!

In the evening we went ashore to the Lodge for dinner and found it as charming as advertised. It's the little things that truly feel like luxury....a table with a table cloth and linen napkins (instead of toilet paper-weight squares in the warungs!) We joined up with the other cruisers -- generally a British Isles group -- for drinks, before sitting down to a nice dinner.

In the morning, our early taxi was NOT waiting for us at 7:30am, so we were forced to have a nice breakfast at the lodge while we waited where we made the acquaintance of two single ladies just arrived traveling together, one from the US and one from Norway, a friendship forged originally in Peru!

Finally a car arrived and the driver Michael expertly conducted us on the sequence of our errands: the fresh market (what a warren of stalls!), the Telekomsel office (in a private residence on a hilltop with an awesome view of the harbor!...and no, they couldn't do anything about the speed of our wifi modems! -- we'd have to drive four hours to Redeng to fix that!), the dive shop to arrange a dive rendezvous in Komodo, the harbormaster for our Komodo Park permit, the "supermarket", a craft shop, the post office, and finally Mediterraneo, a truly lovely rrestaurant, for lunch.

And here I sit! Five hours later. I have died and gone to heaven! After a fabulous lunch (our breakfast friends happened to arrive after us and joined us again!), I moved from the table to the loft where bean bags and low tables are arranged for those who wish to use the WiFi! For five hours since lunch I have sat and sipped watermelon juices, visited with other travelers, all whilst managing to post dozens of photographs and all this text to the Blog! Don, Tom and Bette Lee will come back to the restaurant after naps for dinner and to retrieve me (I hope!)!

And I am about to run out of juice...battery juice that is!

More ...

Lucy Rock

This islet made us think of our cat Lucy....(has she forgotten us totally?0

Approach to Labuan Bajo

Layers and layers

Onward to Labuan Bajo, Flores

When we were unable to get into the volcano anchorage at Adonara at the end of our first day out of Alor, it mean that we had another 36 hours to sail to reach Labuan Bajo (pronounced Ba-Jo). It was disappointing at first to have to face two more nights of night watch instead on a full night's sleep at anchor, but the nights both proved to be smooth sailing, with a quarter moon and only the intermittent lights of nighttime boats keeping close to the coast.

My morning watch at 6am gave me the gift of having the approach to western Flores all by myself. The many-layered vista of islets and mountains in tawny shades of grey warmed as the sun rose. This is the region of the Komodo National Park. The climate is quite dry, and the islands wear their winter brown with only a few trees on their tops and perhaps, like a green petticoat, a fringe of mangroves around the water's wedge.

We pulled into the anchorage off the beach to the south of the town of Labuan Bajo proper. Our "cruising guide" -- 101 anchorages in Indonesia -- promoted this as a peaceful alternative to downtown. No mosques in sight!

Racing the Sunset

Adonara is just to the left of the photo as we race against the sunset.

August 7, 2011 - It Doesn't Always Work Out.....

...

On our way out from Alor, Bette Lee was able to get enough cellular signal to pick up her Sailmail emails. Incoming was a message from our friends Mark & Laura on Sabbatical III about a gorgeous, UNINHABITED anchorage off the small island of Adonara with beautiful clear water, nice reefs plus active volcanos nearby!

Liking the sound of that, we adjusted our heading and did the calculations only to find that at best we'd arrive right about sunset. Not ideal. We poured a few more revs on the engines in hopes of arriving in time, but in fact the sun set about a half hour out and as we approached the pass, dusk came on faster than we could. Even though a rally boat had slipped in about an hour before us, there was not enough light to see our way in.... especially when the depth sounder popped up with 10' when the chart said we should still be in 135'!

And so we were forced to turn around and continue on. Very sad. Perhaps had we just been a few meters to the right (the charts for the area are notoriously off), we would have made it in. But it simply wasn't worth the risk.

However, after we got all the sails re-raised and set, it had gotten dark enough that we were able to see the fiery lava vents on the surrounding mountainsides blazing like hearth fires in the dark.

And if the crew doesn't straighten up......

Two Chiefs

After performance shopping opportunity

The Takmara Leggo Dance

The man on the right is singing the chant..the ladies appear to be in a trance.

The Chief and the two white giants

Takmara Leggo Dance

Dancing Chief at Takmara Village, Alor

Big Moko Drum!

Most of the moko drums in the museum were about 18-24" high. This one is huge. BIG wedding dowry.

changes the Aussie Look Dramatically

Five Cruising Couples in Ikat

Tom & Bette Lee in Full Ikat Dress

Leggo dance at the cultural competition

We did!

Beachfront Warung in the Night Market

Would you eat here?

Photos

One of the big differences we are encountering is that we aren't the only ones taking pictures. Every picture of Don and me with local began with them wanting to take picture of themselves with us on their cell phones!

welcoming Dance

Speeches in Indonesian and English

Smaller scale sail

Back in the saddle!

Alor Dive Boat

see www.alor-dive.com

Young visitors

Alor Internet Cafe

Oooops, tide miscalculation

Don's Spot -- Kalabahi

Anchorage in Alor

August 1-6, 2011 -- Alor

We are underway north out through the channel through the Alor Archipelago to the Flores Sea bound for Labuanbajo on the west end of Flores Island. I am sad to depart Alor; I have become attached. This is a somewhat surprising feeling as we had our doubts as we first pulled up to the anchorage off Kalabahi, the main city of the Alor Regency.

It all has so much to do with atmosphere. After the gorgeous motor up the fjord bracketed by the mountains and the quaint-looking villages along the shore, weaving around the village fishing structures built in the middle of the channel and waving at the stream of ferry boats packed with people, we pulled into the head of the bay off the city and thought, "Oh, no, here we go again."

Kalabahi was a city, albeit definitely smaller than Kupang, but there was a large commercial wharf area with big freighters and even a small cruise ship; the clamor of waterfront work, more motorbikes, and the call of competing mosques; the air was laden with smoke, and, damn if the anchorage wasn't deep!

Quantum Leap was the first arrival, and a official runabout darted out upon sighting us to set small marker buoys to to keep us clear of the cruise ship's turning radius. The shoreline in our designated anchorage area was crammed with a jumble of very poor looking houses and a riot of children and their shrill babble. Tom hunted for a spot to drop the anchor in less than 70 feet, but we didn't like how close the boat set back toward the shore, so we bit the bullet and moved out into the deeper water. This made our hosts a bit anxious, especially in the afternoon's suddenly stiff breeze. But it turned out to be a good move as later one rally boat, pushing to be in shallower water actually got caught aground over the shelf as the tide went out and heeled onto its side. (They managed to get off on the midnight high tide which was very fortunate since they went aground on the new moon tide! If they hadn't, they might have been stuck there for weeks!)

Fortunately, the holding proved good, and none of the rally boats had any other anchoring issues other than getting a bit close to one another during the periods of slack breeze and tide. Over the following day or two about 35 of the total 108 boats in the rally fleet assembled in Alor.

Our feelings about Kalabahi began to improve after a good night's slept in dead calm conditions, a beautiful morning, and chorus of charming overtures by children paddling around us in their rustic outrigger canoes. Ashore, the good feeling consolidated when we found that the Alor-based organizers for Sail Indonesia were truly working at it. They had constructed a dinghy dock off the wharf with a ramp. While it didn't prove to be quite big enough when the whole fleet was in at one time (let alone the 100 boats they had hoped to lure!), it sure was a valiant effort. Plus there were always helpers on hand to assist you on the somewhat wobbly platform and to help you up and down the "ramp" which also could have used a bit more engineering to work with the tide. Still, it all worked and the attention was great.

On the dock was a tent with our chief guide Ahmad, and three English-speaking assistants, two of whom - Nettie and Mila -- were students and one -- Yani -- was a lecturer at the local university. Ahmad had the flair of a consummate car dealer/public relations man, quick to exercise his repertoire of jokes. His assistants were eager and charming, tickled to speak English with us all and hopeful of being helpful.

On our first day we wandered around finding the Internet cafe and a warren of wharf-side shops and markets, and the local ball field with basketball, volleyball, soccer and the like in full afternoon use. The Internet cafe became an important spot since Bette Lee and Tom were keen to locate and order a replacement car for the Lewmar traveler. Unfortunately, our new cellular modems did not prove to work well in Alor, despite being surrounded by cell towers. Bette Lee was occasionally able to connect enough to send and receive Sailmail via Telnet, but my IPad was hobbled, the only thing getting through being headlines from the NY Times! At the internet cafe I figured out how to collect our emails from www.mail2web.com, but, since you can't hook the IPad up to ethernet, I had no way to get out the 26 emails, Blog posts, and photos I had (and still have) backed up in my Outbox! (What I needed was a hotspot, and although one showed up on the connect screen, I couldn't determine its source or how to get connected to it!)

We also found a warung/restaurant for a nice Indonesian lunch with Richard and Michelle of Thor We were a bit worried that the start of Ramadan -- during which time (a full month) Muslims fast during daylight hours as an exercise of faith and discipline -- might curb our taking advantage of Indonesia's very cheap eateries, but in Nusa Tenggara at least, the majority of the population is Catholic, so daily services (mostly) go on unabated.

A small restaurant like this has a very short menu, about 6-8 items, centered on lots of rice, a small bit of protein and a heap of very spicy chili sauce. Richard got a big gulp of hot sauce and turned a frightening shade of red, coughing and hiccuping for a good five minutes....then jumped right back on it...more carefully! Later we also tried out some of the rustic open-air warungs of the beachside night market. We got surprisingly good food and even fairly cold Bintang beers..but we never figured out the purpose of the two deer (looking a lot like reindeer!) tethered out front. Hmmmm...?

Scuba with Alor Dive

The next day we went diving with Alor Dive, run by German PADI instructor Thomas Schreiber (www.alor-dive.com). He picked up nine of us from Quantum Leap with his Indonesian-style dive boat, and took us for a lovely ride back out the fjord and north up the strait to two very nice dive sites. You would think cruisers would be champing at the bit during a leisurely boat ride, but to the contrary, we all truly enjoyed the close-up look at the shore and the so-pleasant chance to sit and talk on the deck with someone else at the helm.

The boat was very well set up for diving, equipped to accommodate 14 divers and with very easy entry and exit to and from the water. The equipment provided was all up to date and in good condition, and Thomas's briefing (in English and German) was to the point and not fussy.

It had been three whole years since Don and I were last in the water, and I worried we might be a little rusty, but this trip was the perfect reentry. It felt like we'd been diving just yesterday!

The dives themselves, just two of the 43 publicized sites in the marine park, featured gorgeous hard and soft corals and really impressive sponges. We didn't see any big pelagics (but the group who went the next day did), but the colorful reef fish were plentiful. (Thomas caught big eating fish the day before and the day after our trip!) The first dive was a wall with encrusted undercut ledges, wire and black corals, crinoids, tunicates and huge vase and barrel sponges. The second was a drift dive along a bank of mixed hard and soft corals and anemones. Here we saw a huge schools of black or Indian triggerfish (looking much like the Caribbean's black durgons), sennet and fusiliers. A highlight for me was a school of ten coral shrimpfish swimming in tight formation head down, something I don't remember previously seeing!

Welcoming Ceremonies

The next day brought a full agenda of welcoming ceremonies. The day started with a ceremony where a troupe of costumed warriors went out in a traditional boat to bring the cruisers ashore. Most of us were already ashore (especially those of us who didn't keep the radio on and missed the announcement to wait!), but our friends Richard and Michelle of Thor and Tom and Barbara of Gosi were collected officially by the warriors.

Next we walked to a well-organized event at the head of the soccer field. After a traditional lego-lego dance -- a circular tribal-style dance of union (very reminiscent of Vanuatu) in which the cruisers joined in arm-in-arm with the dance troupe -- we ascended to three pavilions that had been set up for cruisers, officials, and invited locals (with comfortable chairs and boxed snacks) around a stage. Here, after welcoming speeches, a troupe of beautifully-costumed (and beautiful) dancers performed a dance telling the story of cooperation between clans when a house has to be rebuilt, representing both male jobs and female jobs. (If I had to guess, this might be a modernized, pro-social interpretation of traditional dances which traditionally countered the women's roles with men hunting and fighting! But, understand, that is just my guess!)

In the afternoon we watched a cultural dance competition with four troupes, including the one that had performed for us earlier. As before, the troops were all attired in traditional ikat, the colorfully woven sarongs and sashes draped and pinned to make gorgeous "dresses" suggestive of Japanese kimonos. Their hair is coiffed and bedecked with beaded ornaments, or feathers in the men's case. Each troupe wears different ikat and ornament, presumably representing their tribe and clan.

Finally, in the evening was the official welcoming dinner at the Governor's "white house"! Here we were treated to a very interesting buffet and more dance, including a troupe of talented elementary schoolers playing traditional bamboo and drum combinations.

But the highlight of this evening for the cruisers was that five cruising couples had been invited to participate in the performance by modeling five different clans' traditional dress. Our own Tom & Bette Lee plus friends Richard and Michelle of Thor, Tom & Barbara of Gosi, plus Frenchmen Pierre & Ellen of the Amel Lady Annabel and Scots Will & Margaret of the Formosa 51 Atlantia were those selected. (OK, I admit it; I was a little envious!) Given that all the men were individually twice the size of a local person, there was some concern the costumes could be made to fit, but, wow, did they all look fantastic. Unfortunately, but not unexpectedly, they were not allowed to keep the outfits! But they, and everyone, was once again gifted with ikat scarfs.

What really distinguished this whole day was that the Alor dignitaries were in full attendance at all functions. Don and I were personally introduced with Tom and Bette Lee to the Governor and First Lady at the morning function, and at the dinner, the officials shook hands with each and every one of us. The whole thing felt very personal.

Island Tour

On Friday, Ahmad offered an island tour. We were impressed that they could muster three (intact) busses and that the three busses were filled full.

Our first stop was the Museum of 1000 Moko. Completed in 2004, the museum's aim is to collect and preserve artifacts of the Alor Archipelago's multi-cultural legacy in the face of all the modern change. Although small, the museum's three buildings present a nice collection. In the first building are the moko drums, bronze drums that are not only used as instruments in custom ceremonies but are important as dowry items. Interestingly, the drums came to the islands through trade with Vietnam! There is also a nice display of traditional fishing equipment and techniques, including the fancy floating platforms that we dodged while coming up the inlet and the woven bamboo fish traps we saw diving on the reef. Across the aisle was a display of traditional head-hunting weapons in use in inter-tribal warfare as recently as a few generations ago!

The second building displayed samples of ikat weaving from different Alor clans, and between royalty and commoners. According the museum guide, despite individual variations, the people of Alor can distinguish members of one tribe from another by their ikat!

After the museum, the busses conducted us out of Kalabahi and into the rugged countryside along the north coast. We passed lots of banana plantations growing thickly in the rocky soil. The front yards of many houses are cultivated as vegetable gardens. Everywhere are piles of rock collected manually to smooth the dirt around the houses and to be picked up for building materials. Most houses have foundations of rock and cement, but are topped with by walls of brick and mortar (they use a lot more mortar to brick than we are used to!) Windows are sometimes inset with the pretty wood and glass frames we'd seen in Kupang, but sometime unglazed with wood shutters thrown open. Along the beach, we were surprised to see round wells; it seems mighty close to the tidal line!

Our destination was Takpala, a traditional village of the Abui tribe. It is way up a mountainside, at the end of a dramatically steep and stoney road. Children from the lower village raced after the bus to hop onto the back fender for a free ride, terrifying foreign grandparents inside the bus.

From the road we climbed a path to the village proper. Pretty quickly we realized that Takpala is actually a "museum village"and that the crowd of "residents" in traditional dress awaiting us don't actually live there, but below in the (only somewhat) more contemporary housing with electricity. (Which explains how Ahmad could so assertively proclaim how we wouldn't find a television anywhere here!) The performance ground was framed by several traditional style houses, open-sided on the main level, with storage "attics" under the steep thatched roofs. There were also two smaller guesthouses, traditionally reserved for the families negotiating for wives.

There followed a lego-lego circular chant dance by about ten women and two men clad in traditional ikat adorned with traditional baskets for betel nuts for the women and traditional weapons for the men. Like the Ambrym dances in Vanuatu, you can see how the arm-in-arm circle, hypnotic chant and the repetitive-patterned stamping, would strengthen a sense of community loyalty and interdependence. The connection to Vanuatu was augmented by the fact that the Abui clan population were clearly of a more Melanesian ethnicity than the folks we'd been seeing perform in town who appear more Asian or Malaysian. Also like Vanuatu, the women dancing were older. One wonders if the younger generations are learning the traditions. At least in Takpala, unlike Ambrym, performing does not not require dancing nude! After the lego-lego, the older and younger male warriors enacted a battle. They were armed with wicked looking bow-and-arrows, daggers and swords!

After the dance we had a chance to buy local crafts. Which most of us did. I bought some beaded necklaces and Don bought a dagger.

WE survived the downhill trek, backtracked through the city and drove out to the west end of the island, stopping for a box lunch and a snorkel right where we had happened to do our second dive! Unfortunately, the current was running strongly in the strait and we were advised to stay close to the beach to avoid being caught and swept away. Also unfortunately, the strong current reduced visibility markedly! Still, any opportunity to float with my face in the water is wonderful and refreshing.

And so went our stay in Alor. The wonderful smiles of the local folk, from the children who started our every morning with their cheerful and hopefully shrill "Good morning mister, good morning Missus" (We gave out over a dozen of our baggies containing a school notebook, two pencils, erasers and silly bands the first morning, necessitating our cutting back on following mornings or else we would have none left for future stops
!), to the eager efforts of the local Sail Indonesia committee, to the surprised pleasure on local faces at our feeble attempts at Indonesian can't help but warm the heart. The clutter and clamor of the waterfront receded in the face of the area's beauty, the charm of all the welcoming efforts, ceremonies, and delightful dance performances, and the friendly people.

And so we leave with that sad tug that insists one could happily spend some more time here. It ended up being a great place to be on a boat.

Gwen Hamlin
Cafe Getaway
Sent from my iPad

Photos on Hold

Our hopes for our mobile cellular wifi have not proved to be realistic. For the past week I have had 26 emails backed up in my Outbox, most of them photographs! So it does not look good for posting more pictures for awhile. I will continue posting text updates and will add. Photos when I get the chance...maybe back home in Florida.

Gwen Hamlin
Cafe Getaway
Sent from my iPad