Sea World

Sea World/Maumere/Flores 18-22 August

We left early for a short 11 mile motor across to the Island Pulau Besar. Pulau means Island and besar means big. Our bahasa Indonesia gets better every day but we don’t know what day of the week it is. Albireo a German yacht is already there. The anchorage is totally protected from anything but north.Courious fisherman approached us instantly from the tiniest village I have seen so far. I counted 10 homes. We got lots of bananas (too many ) and they drifted of with a cap, t-shirt and pen. Don’t know who got the better deal. In the afternoon while having a sundowners we suddenly watched our dinghy drifting off. Brave Mike jumped after and swam his 100 meter world record but both were rescued by the local fishing boat and brought back to Albireo.The painter was rubbed through in the tube outside the dinghy. Glad it didn’t happen while we had a granny nap. At nights we always kept a second painter on the dinghy.

On Tuesday we motored to the next rally event anchorage at Sea World. Most of the boats were already there. The anchorage is very deep and it looked like there was no more room for us. Who wants to anchor in 30 meters. So we went past the fleet and found a sandy spot in 3 meters. That’s were normally only cats go. Our first impression: Resort nice and restaurant very nice. Good beach and reef. Beautiful hilly scenery. Prices for tour expensive and not well organized and price for 20 litres drinking water 20,000rp ($2.50). So we went to the other side of the creek and got same water for 12,000rp.Unfortunately when 100 sailboats rock up the prices automatically inflate.

The welcome ceremony was fun and the food delicious. Best dances we had seen so far. Our Kiwi cruisers performed the haka and two cruisers embarrassed us by fighting (about a 2 two year old child). Aki from the only Japanese boat sang Karaoke very well.

We visited the market in Maumere ( ride on back of motorbike). Maumere is quiet dirty and noisy and the day was very hot so we did not stay long. Bemo back to Geliting ( near Seaworld ) but could not find any eggs for sale. We were told the supply ship comes tomorrow. What’s the matter with all the local hens at Flores?

On Thursday we took a tour with the German Boaties of Nada Brahma (from Hamburg). The resort organized a nice aircon 7 seater for 500 000rp (A$60).That was a quarter of the price from the other organizers. We went to the Maria Statue on a hill and had a superb view over Maumere and ocean. Then to the famous Sikka village where we found an old Portuguese church and lots of ikat sellers. I bought a nice one for a good price but more and more sellers tried to make me buy all of them so I ended up running away from them. Mike filmed the scenario and I looked like a giant between all of these super short women. Back to lunch at Maumere (another Nasi Goreng).And then to the traditional fishing village just west of Maumere. The houses are build on stilts over the sea. They look tiny and uneven and poor. People all smiley and friendly. The harbour was full with traditional boats from Macassar bringing cement. They did not look seaworthy and the rigging was ancient. On the way back we asked the driver to stop so we could buy more Bintang.The shop had everything from beer to donuts to brooms. At night we had dinner at the resort for $5 p.p. So far our most expensive meal. We missed the cultural performance at the Sail Indonesia stage, it was not communicated.

See you later

Rosi & Mike