Hi Everyone,

Our friend Patrick was asked to write up an article for the Royal Brunei Yacht Club magazine about his and Elizabeth’s experiences on Sail Indonesia.  (They participated in 2007 and we did it in 2008.)  I enjoyed reading it and Patrick said I could share it with all of you and our web site.  I just wish I had better photos to go with it.  I’ve written about Elizabeth and Patrick many times recently: we like them very much and truly enjoy their company and conversation.

Elizabeth and Patrick

(This is not a great photo, but it’s the only one I have of the two of them together as they watched Doramac entering the Penang boat yard.)

(And I don’t have a better photo of Labarque either)

TWO MONTHS IN INDONESIA

In 1990 we bought Labarque in Turkey. Although she was then 24 years old and had recently suffered a hard life in the charter business, we thought she had potential as an ocean cruising yacht. Of very heavy displacement, with a long-keeled steel hull, big fixed propeller, ketch rig, wheelhouse and teak decks, she’ll never win a race. But she’s proven a safe and comfortable home and we’ve now sailed her just over 100,000 miles.

From Turkey we delivered Labarque to England via the French Canals. Following a daunting refit, we at last set off for Vancouver in 1993. After an extended stay in Canada, we sailed for New Zealand in 1996, returning to Vancouver in 1998. From 1999-2001 we again sailed to New Zealand and back to Vancouver. In 2002-3 we did a one-year excursion to Alaska via Hawaii. We set off yet again for New Zealand in 2004, this time continuing westwards to Australia, Indonesia, Malaysia and Brunei. The following is an account of our adventures as part of the 2007 Sail Indonesia Rally from Darwin to Singapore.

Our four day voyage from Darwin was plagued with calms and very light winds and we had to motor for some 40 hours just to keep up with the tail end of the Rally fleet. In contrast, the final approach to Kupang, West Timor, was enlivened by a strong, contrary sea breeze. The crew of a heavy schooner called for help on the radio because their engine had broken and they could make little progress under sail. We towed them under power for the last few miles into the anchorage. Labarque is certainly not a high-performance sailing machine, but she’s a terrific tugboat. The Rally is not supposed to be a race, but there’s still a competitive element. Many yachts arrived a day or more ahead of us, some crews announcing that they’d sailed all the way. But some of those yachts were subsequently refuelled with suspiciously large volumes of diesel. We smelt a rat, but were perhaps just jealous.

We’d just left Darwin when we heard that Indonesian Customs and Excise had unexpectedly started to demand a (theoretically refundable) cash bond equivalent to 5% of a visiting yacht’s assessed value. We therefore made swift and sudden plans to avoid Indonesia entirely. But then we were assured that Rally yachts were exempted from the new rules. Cash bonds were demanded from other visiting yachts, all of which scattered rather than pay up. The bonds were then scrapped for a fortnight, before being mysteriously re-introduced at a 50% rate. One yacht caught by the new rules cunningly elected to join the Rally (for the standard AUS $450) after which officialdom left them alone. Still later, the regulations changed yet again and we’ve since been told that now a refundable duty is (sometimes) demanded of between a fifth and a half of the yacht’s value (accounts differ). We doubt that there will ever be any takers.

While Customs was doing its utmost to repel foreign yachts, across the corridors of power the Ministry of Tourism was struggling to attract visitors to what it calls “tourism objects”. (We politely objected to the phrase and suggested they substitute “attractions” or “destinations” instead.) The Ministry would obviously like the world to forget about the Indonesian army’s controversial interventions into East Timor. But the Indonesian army is not a shy and retiring organization. The gateposts of a downtown barracks in Kupang are decorated with a pair of enormous concrete grenades, realistically painted and complete with pins. Many governments still recommend that their nationals stay away from Indonesia and West Timor in particular. So how could the region be promoted as a safe and interesting tourism object for foreign visitors?

One conclusion was apparently to pull out all the stops (but fortunately not the pins) for the participants of the Sail Indonesia Rally. We were to be guinea pigs for an embryonic tourist industry and ambassadors to spread the word. As guinea-pig ambassadors, we can report that there are a lot of interesting things to see. The highlights were a Gala Dinner with the Governor, followed by a Cultural Show (including a rather good pop singer from Jakarta, memorable in kinky boots) plus two 15 hour bus trips to the mountains and the last Animist village in West Timor. A Police escort with wailing sirens preceded the convoy of 10 buses; four ambulances followed in case of accident or illness. The main road from Kupang was in good repair, doubtless because it was the supply route for the fighting in East Timor. But the side roads were awful. We gently suggested to our hosts that although their current batch of guinea-pigs were well used to long hours of mild discomfort at little more than walking pace, others might find this sort of endurance sightseeing a bit exhausting. But for us it was a magical experience. The villages through which we passed had clearly seen nothing like it, except perhaps when the buses were full of soldiers. At every stop a little toilet block had been freshly built for our convenience, supplied by a water tanker. And at every stop the honoured guests were individually presented with beautiful hand-woven scarves (ikats).

Kupang is where Captain Bligh first came ashore after being ejected from HMS Bounty in 1787. These days the city is a noisy, dusty, chaotic muddle, but none the worse for that. There are so few tourists that it’s impossible to walk a city street without constant greetings of “Hello Mister! Hello Missus!, Where you from? England? David Beckham, Wayne Rooney, Chelsea, Liverpool, Arsenal, Manchester United!” There was no doubting the enthusiasm. Small motorcycles and bemos (pronounced “bee-moes”) choke the roads. Bemos are small usually Suzuki vans, individually named and elaborately painted. The windscreens of many are decorated with such a profusion of opaque transfers, furry toy animals and convex shaving mirrors that the driver has to peer through a narrow slot. On most bemos the horn has been modified to sound like a machine gun. All bemo drivers sound their horns continuously to advertise their presence to other road users, to drum up custom from pedestrians and to pretend they are shooting down the bemo in front. No road rules are apparent, except for a vague tendency to drive on the left. Fortunately, everything happens so slowly that serious accidents are less common than might be expected. But one Rally participant hired a motorcycle, crashed through the windscreen of a bemo and broke his pelvis. An air ambulance flew him back to Darwin.

Thoroughly Kupanged, we sailed for Kalabahi, the capital of Alor. The island’s bemo drivers had evidently completed bemoantic training in Kupang as the little town rang to the sound of simulated machine-gun fire. The main event was the Alor Expo, an annual festival of music, weaving and traditional dance, combined with serious efforts to promote the island to foreign investors. Tourists seemed rare and the local population genuinely pleased to see us. This was less the case in Lembata, the next scheduled island on our way west. From a scruffy anchorage near Lewoleba it took us three rough and dusty hours by open-sided truck to get to Lamalera on the south coast. Here, brave madmen still kill whales and dolphins with primitive harpoons hurled from canoes. Japanese film crews have descended on the place, presumably to stir up some positive spin on whaling. But the Japanese have worn out their welcome and ours. For us this village was the only unfriendly place in Indonesia. The truck seemed even dustier on the way home.

After sluicing off Lamalera, we sailed away to Maumere on Flores Island. Maumere was almost completely flattened by an earthquake in 1992, but by 2007 the city had been at least partially rebuilt. To mark the 62nd Anniversary of Independence on the 17th August 1945 (when the occupying Japanese threw in the towel, although the Dutch didn’t reluctantly follow suit until 1949) there were formal celebrations to which Rally participants were invited. In the presence of scores of dignitaries, expertly drilled paramilitaries in white uniforms (actually high-school children in disguise) spent 90 (interminable) minutes raising the red and white national flag that had originally been created by ripping off the blue stripe from the flag of the Dutch colonists. Noisy and slightly erratic American-style drum majorettes accompanied the performance. They seemed bizarrely out of place but gorgeous in their day-glo suits, Napoleonic hats, fluffy pom-poms and decidedly kinky boots. Sensing our bewilderment, our guide suggested that we hurriedly move on to his nearby village for an Independence Day party. Here the events included a canoe race, sack races for the young, pea/spoon races for the younger and a tug-of-war (known locally as a ‘string-pull’). With the village string-pull champions decided, the visiting boat-people were challenged. To universal astonishment, we won two string-pulls in a row, helped by arms that had spent the last few weeks working winches. But our Ladies’ team was soundly defeated and so an honourable draw declared. The highlight of the celebrations was a competition to climb three 10 metre vertical poles at the top of which were a selection of prizes. But the poles were heavily greased. The victorious visiting string-pull team was politely offered the chance to try first, but sensibly we declined. In pursuit of the prizes, squads of increasingly filthy young men formed teetering pyramids and slowly inched upwards until invariably a component failed and the team collapsed into a heap. But after about half an hour, enough of the grease on one of the poles was transferred onto the assailants and the heights were triumphantly reached.

Indonesia is the world’s largest Muslim nation, but the island of Flores is four-fifths Catholic. Improvising brilliantly, the local Regent suggested that Rally yachts anchor off the village of Maurole to help celebrate the ordination of five new Catholic priests at the local church. It took some convincing to persuade the Rally organisers that such a tiny village could provide facilities and diversions for up to 124 yachts, but in the event Maurole (and the Regent) succeeded triumphantly. Catholicism in Flores seems much jollier than the Irish version. The new priests were led in by dancing girls and their surplices featured traditional woven designs made by their families. One parishioner explained: “We’re all completely Catholic, of course. But most of us completely believe in the old ways too”. Tours were later laid on to other nearby villages. One is locally famous for making arak (an expertly-distilled palm liquor), another for a sweet brown sugar made from palm sap using “extinct tools” – which we interpreted as meaning traditional methods. On another day, we tried our hand at teaching geography, mathematics and English at two nearby primary schools and then went on to two more villages. At each our welcome was almost overwhelming. We also took a tour to the coloured crater lakes of Kelimutu, passing a magnificent valley of terraced rice paddies on the way. The terraces took centuries to build and must be resilient to have survived the periodic earthquakes that shake Flores.

From Maurole we sailed 260 miles to Makassar, the capital of Sulawesi. The local Bugis people are traditional seafarers (and allegedly recently-retired pirates) whom are apparently thought brash and aggressive by other Indonesians. They are also credited with inventing a hair oil which stained furniture and thus led directly to the development of lace antimacassars. Makassar is now a humming and sophisticated metropolis. Only twelve Rally yachts made the trip, but the city was too busy to notice. The national Jet-Ski championships were (loudly) underway and the last stage of the Indonesian Car Rally was held nearby. Transport was easy, as there were hundreds of bemos (locally called pete-petes) and thousands of pedal-powered tricycle rickshaws (becaks) cluttering the pavements and swerving slowly amongst the traffic. Becak passengers sit up front and act as primitive air-bags in the event of a head-on collision. Undaunted, we took a becak to visit an enormous air-conditioned shopping mall where Manchester United credit cards were heavily promoted. Meanwhile, just a mile away, the fishing harbour was the authentic, teeming, cheerful, reeking shambles we’d been expecting. Few sounds are more evocative than the explosive bark of twin un-silenced diesels in a Bugis fishing boat. With our ears still ringing, we set off south in search of a dragon.

The Komodo dragon is the world’s largest lizard. For us the official tours are prohibitively expensive and so we decided to cheat. We sailed to Komodo first, but saw only a wild pig snuffling in the sand. So we moved on to Rinca Island, close by to the east. And there, parading with dignity along the beach like a digital extra from Lord of the Rings, was an enormous dragon. I must have been at least three metres long from nose to tail. The crew of one yacht on the Rally returned from an official tour on Rinca to find their aluminium dinghy heavily occupied by a dozing dragon. They had to wait politely for a considerable time before it woke up and sleepily moved on. In similar circumstances our inflatable dinghy would have been torn to shreds. Counting ourselves lucky, we ticked the box marked ‘Dragons’ and sailed for Bali.

For the first time the 2007 Rally stopped on the north shore of Bali at Lovina, a long way from the surfing beaches and nightclubs of Kuta in the south. A terrific show of Balinese dancing was presented on the beach, with a backdrop of some 120 anchored yachts. Later we hired a car to explore the local sights, including a rather beautiful Hindu temple near the centre of the island. But our time in Indonesia was fast running out.

At considerable expense we’d purchased Labarque a three month Indonesian Yacht Cruising Permit in Darwin, but we could only stay for two months on ‘social visas’ that cost AUS$60 each. Applicants for a social visa need an approved ‘sponsor’ to vouch for them. The Rally organisers acted as our sponsor and so that particular hurdle was easy. But after eight days in Bali our 60 days were up and rather than pay for two new 60-day social visas (of which we could only use 30 days because Labarque’s non-renewable Cruising Permit would then expire) we decided to move on. At the latest we had to leave on the Monday, so the previous Thursday we’d handed in our passports, expecting them back the next day.

We hate it when officials take away our passports. Of all the 34 countries we’ve visited aboard Labarque, only the Cape Verde Islands (in 1993) and Indonesia have insisted. Friday came and went, and of course little happens at the weekend. Nothing happened on Monday either and it wasn’t until the Wednesday morning that our passports reappeared. By then there had been another development. Friends on another yacht had just suffered a broken gearbox. We suggested that they sail with us so that we could escort (and when necessary tow) them to Singapore for repairs. Then there were yet further complications. The Indonesian Immigration Service pointed out that we’d over-stayed our visas and were therefore liable to fines totalling 800,000 Rupiah (AUS$125). “But hang on” we said. “We couldn’t leave on Monday because you had our passports.” “The reason for the over-stay is irrelevant” they said. Although 800,000 Rupiah is not a huge amount of money, we were determined to make them work for it. By the Wednesday afternoon, “frank, bordering on direct” discussions had been going for six hours when at last they relented (stamping our passports for the previous Sunday) and we were cleared to depart.

Thus it wasn’t until the Thursday that we finally set off in Labarque with our friend’s Invictus IV (swiftly renamed La Barge) in tow. Two months earlier we’d towed one yacht into Indonesia and now we were towing another one out. When the wind blew (albeit feebly) we cast off La Barge to sail in company, although Invictus IV had to be heavily reefed to travel sufficiently slowly. This was further proof (as if proof were needed) that Labarque is a dismal sailing machine, especially in light airs. But after 146 hours of ponderous sailing, 65 hours of towing and a total of 960 miles, we’d together crossed the (shockingly busy) Singapore Straits and arrived at Raffles Marina in Singapore. Invictus IV now has a new engine and is well on her way back home to America.

In 2008 we sailed north to Penang and Langkawi before heading for Sarawak, Sabah, and of course the warm welcome always offered by the Royal Brunei Yacht Club. This year we explored Phuket in Thailand before returning to our favourite destinations in Borneo. We expect to be hovering around these parts for a while yet.

Patrick Southall & Elizabeth Fowler

Yacht Labarque

August 2009.

Hi Guys,

Just checking in.  Tomorrow morning we set off on our 3 night passage to Kuching so will be there late afternoon of Monday.  We will try sailmail, but don’t worry if you don’t hear.  There will be about 18 boats going from here so we’ll have company.  Just getting everything shipshape before we leave.  So that’s it.

Ru

November 16th, Sebana Cove Marina, Johor, Malaysia

Reading and Riding

Reading

I thought I struck it rich the other day when I found the May 2008 issue of Oprah’s magazine in the Sebana Cove Marina office. There are 3 shelves of books and a half shelf of magazines and cruisers may help themselves. Every few days I go to see what’s new. Sadly most of what’s new isn’t in English. It’s either German, Dutch, or Swedish reflecting the passports of many of the cruisers. But every now and then I do find some piece of fiction I think will entertain me. I read one of the Inspector Monk books by Ann Perry and started something called Move to Strike by Perri O’Shaughnessy. I never would have chosen the O’Shaughnessy book if there had been other choices; but there weren’t really. (After a few chapters I skipped to the end to see “who done it.” I don’t really like historical fiction and so left those for someone else. There were no biographies of autobiographies which I do like to read.

But back to Oprah’s magazine. A perk of having worked in a library is that I could take home magazines when the library closed at 9 pm and have them back next morning when we opened. So though I didn’t buy many glossy magazines, I did flip through them often enough to miss them out here in the cruising world. My Oprah magazine’s cover price in $4.50. In the Philippines where one could actually buy magazines, the magazines were even more expensive and just not worth the money. But I do miss them. Randal told me he couldn’t tell my hanging around the boat clothes from my go to town clothes. That’s not quite true, my go to town clothes don’t have cut off sleeves and shortened bottoms that roll up. And my go to town clothes are clean, or at least they are when I first put them on the first day I wear them. So it’s not like I want women’s/fashion magazines for the clothes. I want them for the company.

On the van to town the other day we started talking about books and one woman with a “BBC” accent just had read an amazing amount. We started talking books and have since gotten to know Elizabeth and her husband Patrick a bit. Elizabeth teaches English and History. I say teaches because every now and then they stop cruising and she teaches. Very interesting person with a wide range of knowledge and interests. Sadly she and Patrick will leave this week, but I will think of them when I read the half dozen 2007 New Yorker magazines she passed along to us. The New Yorker was not one of the magazines I took home at night, so old New Yorkers will be new to me.

Riding

Yes, it’s an elephant crossing sign.

Just before the Marina access road meets the main road into Sungai Rengit there is an elephant crossing sign. It isn’t just an example of the Marina owner’s sense of humor. At least I don’t think. Our van driver said there are “no more elephants.” What exactly does that mean? I’m taking it to mean once upon a time there were elephants because I like to think there were elephants here and maybe one day one will come walking out of the jungle that lines the road. Randal and I did see a family of wild boar one day. And of course there are monkeys by the dozens. You can see exactly where the expression, “monkey see, monkey do comes from.”

Look who finally got back onto their bikes! Randal and I got the bikes ready and did an hour test ride Friday night. There is a lovely back way to Sungai Rengit that is totally flat and goes through jungle and palm plantations towards the main road running along the coast. It is paved and FLAT!!! Perfect for riding. Inspired by our Friday afternoon ride, Saturday about 11 we rode all the way to Sungai Rengit for lunch. Occasionally a car or truck will passed by, but we pulled over and let them pass. It’s more the monkeys you need to keep an eye out for though we only heard them in the trees along the way. When we left the back road and joined the main coastal road cars were still courteous. They might be used to bikers. Many come from Singapore to ride and we chatted with several who were also riding to Sungai Rengit for lunch.

By the time we arrived in Sungai Rengit I was certain our 27 kilometer ride was more like 27 miles. For lunch we found a great seafood Chinese restaurant and ate a very filling pan fried sweet and sour fish with rice and veggies. Wisely we took the shorter, 12 kilometer but less flat way back to the marina. Hills, lycra and a full stomach are not a good combination for riding. Thankfully it was overcast and not blazing hot. When we arrived at the Marina entrance gate with 3 more miles to ride I told Randal that I was really out of condition for riding since we hadn’t ridden since the Philippines. But since it was flat I should have done better. “But you’re old,” said Randal. Hmm. Now being, 58 doesn’t mean you’re too old to ride. Our buddy Artie Levin was 75 when he and I rode up Bent Mountain in Virginia and he had to keep waiting for me. I was 30 something. But being 58 means that you can’t hop on your bike once every 4 months or so and ride. While we wait for boat parts, because it is such a tempting area for riding, I should hopefully get better.

Randal is hosing down our saltwater soaked carpet. For the too manyith time we have cruised with the port holes open and gotten spray into the boat. But I absolutely refuse to let it happen again! The problem is that closing the portholes makes the boat stuffy when you arrive at the end of your passage. The other problem is that it always seems so calm when we start out that we decide to just leave the portholes and hatches open. This last passage hopefully has finally shown us that a flat ocean at the anchorage you’re departing won’t predict the waves or swells you’ll encounter on the passage. The sound of crashing stuff down below is the reminder. Actually we do pack away most stuff really well. My art supplies have been displaced by stockpiles of beer and water. It would be really great to be able to totally empty the boat of everything and start over. First off I’d leave our heavy blankets and winter clothes at home. Although it can be cool enough for a light sweater at times, the heavy wool monsters we have stuffed in the spaces under the bed won’t be needed till we hit the Mediterranean in maybe 2010.

It used to be so easy to write up these emails home. First off, as quirky as it was, the Subic wifi worked most of the time. Now we are seeing just how super that quirky service was. We have suffered with the funky time cards in Puerto Galera. We added wifi antennae and that helped some times in Puerto Princessa and then in Kota Kinabalu. You would lose connection occasionally, but it was possible to use. With our cell phone connection you get connected occasionally. Our service now gives us 24 hours to use in 7 days. We still have over 16 hours left because we can’t stay connected long enough to actually do anything with it. The other choice was the pay as you go service. It went way too fast charging by bandwidth as well as time. It cost about $11 for about 4 hours. I followed a Sox game one morning and it might have cost as much as going to Fenway Park! So we changed to this 24 hour/7 day service which hardly works at all. I’m voting for the more expensive one that actually works. Hopefully there is a telkomsel office here in Bali.

The point of the wifi issue is that it gets hard to send email on a timely basis. And now we seem to be moving from place to place so often that it’s hard to take it all in and remember whom we met where and did what with! We joined up with Sail Indonesia in Labuanbajo though we arrived on the last day of the official visit. Most boats were gone, but we did meet one couple and their 2 and 7 month old son Jack. Jack talks up a storm and is adorable. When we moved on to Rinca, Canadian Greg from Cherokee dinghyed over to our boat asking if we felt he was anchoring too close to us. We said he was fine and he stayed to chat. From that we joined him and 2 other boats of folks who had linked up previously and all did the tour of Rinca Island, Happy Hour, a passage to North Komodo, Happy Hour. You get the picture. I might be a good enough sailor for this group, but I’m not sure I’m a good enough partier. We moved on from North Komodo to Teluk Bantatu. There was one sailboat and one tiny house on the island. The sailboat, Lavina is owned by Peter and Ula from Sweden. They came to visit and told us no one lived in the cute little house on the island. We had an impromptu Happy Hour. We moved on the next morning for Mataram. There we met Kai and Maryanne from Nabob. They are from Sweden also. We spent most of our time at Mataram with them, one day joining with 16 others for a day at Gili Air an island resort area. Then next day we hired a car and the 4 of us went to Mataram city to provision. Everyone has been very friendly and welcoming. When we arrived in Mataram Randal got on the VHF radio and addressed all of the boats at anchor telling them who we are and that we hoped to start meeting them. We were immediately invited to join with the group going for the day to Gili Air so we did. It is a beautiful little island with beautiful clean perfect beaches and you can walk around the whole thing in less than 2 hours. Unless you stop along the way at a bar or two or three. And the small used book shop and the house on the island where the woman lives who cuts hair. So it took us many hours to walk around the island. There were pony carts if you needed. No cars because no roads! Just a dirt path that circles the island. The one feature of our anchorage that is most memorable is the calling to prayer several times each night and early each morning, including the 3 am call. I’m not sure if all of the public prayer over the loud, LOUD speakers was related to Ramadan. I do know that custom has people rising at 3 am to eat and pray before sunrise and the start of the day’s fast until sunset. The loudspeaker prayer did wake me, but it wasn’t so hard to fall asleep to as the karaoke in the Philippines every night.

Now we’re in Bali and Randal is preparing the fish he caught on our way to Mataram. Big fish. He lost his gaff getting the fish into the boat. Not because the fish was so big, but the gaff hadn’t been secured to its handle so off it went. But we have the fish. Maybe a mackerel. I do have a photo to prove this entire tale, big fish and gaff handle side by side on the deck.

My computer had a few bad days and wouldn’t come alive at all. But taking out the battery, unplugging the computer and giving it a day’s rest seems to have brought it back to life. Since my photos are all there, it would have been sad otherwise. I will send off more photos to Audrey to load on the website. It works better than trying to include so many in the email.

Audrey had worked really hard putting together our web site. Being unable to contact me easily made it a more complicated process. Luckily she is very patient and dedicated and my sister stepped in with “critiques” so things got done. Darlene Smithwick at the Roanoke County Public Library has been maintaining it these many years and Randal and I thank her enormously. But we decided it was time for a permanent place for our stuff so we have a site of our own now. www.mydoramac.com is the address if you don’t already know. When she finally gets the coordinates from us they will create the mapping section of the site. ANY DELAYS OR IMPERFECTIONS WITH THE SITE MUST BE BLAMED ON THE AUTHOR.!!!!!! NOT ON THE WEBMASTER. It’s true. Audrey has been heroic working to get the site up even with an extended stay in the US to help her mom. Audrey and Bob are our friends from Subic Bay. One of the things their company does is build and maintains web pages. Lucky us!!! And this way we can’t ever lose them!

I know I’m rambling, but the specifics are a bit murky after so much time. I will try to write again each day even if it’s a bit before I can send anything. At least it won’t seem like such a huge undertaking to catch up.

Both Randal and I enjoyed Makassar; but not the getting from the water taxi to the pier. Hopefully this photo is clear enough for you to see what I mea. There is a tiny man in white shirt on the pier so you can see how far down it is into the boats.

This is the pier in Makassar. The roof covering of the water taxi was almost as high as the pier. There was no ladder. Getting up was difficult, down dreadful and dreaded Randal literally had to haul me up. Getting down I had to just step into space half way down to the boat and hope someone caught me before I stepped off the boat into the water. I almost landed in the water one night. It was very low tide so the boat was further away than usual. I had put one foot onto something and the other foot had nowhere to go but down which was way too far to reach anything. I finally landed one foot on the boat with enough momentum to send me past the other edge of the bow. Luckily Randal had grabbed my arm to balance me or off I would have gone. One time we boarded from the shore and that was just as bad stepping on a bent piece of metal pipe with one foot and leaping from that onto the boat. Miss and you are in deep muck! But that was the only thing we didn’t like about Makassar. Everything else made us wish we could stay longer. I’m sending Audrey all of the photos so you can see them on the website. It will be a bit since I have to burn the cd and mail it. But eventually it will be there. Interesting, but not so different or scenic as Tana Toraja.

From Makassar we went to Labuanbajo bringing Petra and Janez with us. You have met them in an email. Labuanbajo was a bit like Puerta Galera without all the expats. But it was pretty and the people friendly.

Randal had secured our dinghy to the pier in Labuanbajo and was climbing out. Sometimes there are water taxi and sometimes you take your own dinghy. After the very difficult water taxi access in Makassar, this parking area was great. No one bothers the dinghy. I think that is mostly the case, everywhere anyway, but being part of Sail Indonesia probably is added security since everyone knows that’s why the “western” boats and dinghies are there.

Three examples of the roof decorations to keep away the evil spirits. We were first introduced to these on our tour of Tana Toraja but it must be common throughout Indonesia.

After Labuanbajo we went to Rinca Island.

The welcoming committee. You aren’t allowed to feed the monkeys so they don’t get dependent on handouts or become aggressive and grabby. Their eyes tell you how closely related we are to them making it hard not to take them seriously.

These guys on the other hand….. You took them seriously for a whole different reason. This guy was probably longer than me nose to tail. Probably outweighed me too. If you get bitten and it’s left untreated the bacteria can kill you. We saw the remains of a water buffalo. I like the monkeys better.

More in next email when I can

Fueling the Boat

The price was right and the fuel dock was just down the river. So Monday Randal and I went to fill up. Hashim, one of the marina supervisors came with us. We got 1500 litres @ 1.88 ringits per litre (393.3 gallons @ $2.03 US per gallon = $804.49 ) Only Hong Kong, back in July 2007, was cheaper. The most we have ever paid at one time was in Subic Bay. We took on 1,321 gallons and paid a total of $3,579.91. The most we paid per gallon was in Makassar in August of 2008 where we paid $3.26 per gallon. Divide the amount of fuel we had bought prior to our Terengganu purchase over the time cruising so far and it equals about $182 US per month. Randal says that’s not really the way to do it, but it does give you an idea after I write that we just put $804 of diesel into the boat. I wouldn’t want anyone to think we do it very often. We burn about 1 and 2/3 gallons per hour. We also burn fuel when we run the genset at anchor to charge the batteries.

Maybe this spreadsheet will make things clearer.

There were other boats at the fuel dock so we pulled alongside and tied ourselves to one. Hashim is in the red hat. The fuel worker in the white hat came aboard DoraMac for a tour.

I don’t know his name, but he was 22 and not married. He said he needed to earn money first. Smart young man! He was polite and helpful too. Randal made a flag bandana hat for him.

The fuel intake has a red cover so there is no mistaking it with something else. You can see our bow line leading from DoraMac to the one we are tied to. I had to throw the line and hope I didn’t mess up because we really didn’t have time for a second try. There are no brakes on a boat.

We’re the boat on the left!!!!

I really had a hard time interpreting this photo, but the real green and brown fishing boat is the one on the right. The image of the boat on the left is all reflected from our boat. Even the blue and white fender on the left is a reflection. The green paint on DoraMac is reflecting back all of that color…pretty amazing to me.

The bank of the Terengannu River.

A fishing boat going by.

See all of the lights? They are used for night fishing to attract the fish to come to the surface. When we make night passages you can see the lights from miles away even. With our radar set for 3 miles, you don’t see the boats on the radar but you see their lights. Makes me nervous though I am getting better at trusting the radar. The bridge at the top of the photo is the one we ride over to get to town. On the other side of the bridge is the Crystal Mosque.

June 10, 2008

We left Sabang and took the one road that really leads anywhere; the ridge road back to Puerto Galera from Sabang. Many people take bancas to get between places along the coast and “driving” to Coco Beach we found out why. We turned off the ridge into the woods onto a bumpy dirt road. We stopped at a sign nailed onto a palm tree indicating Coco Beach was down a dirt path into the woods. Dante parked our red minitruck and we all got out. With Dante as our leader we started down the path into the woods towards Coco Beach.

Puerto Galera with Carol # 1

Randal is in the galley making us our first pineapple shake. I just tried it and you can almost imagine rum in it: it tastes just like one of those wonderful bar drinks with the little umbrella and cherries hanging from it. Yum! One day I’ll be brave enough to make us avocado shakes.

We just had the best weekend visit with our friend Carol Carino. She came to visit and she took us on a tour of Puerto Galera! We visited Escarceo Point Lighthouse, Coco Beach Resort, Tamaraw Falls, Calapan, Ponderosa Golf Course, White Beach and had a special breakfast and tour of The Moorings, a hotel and resort just up the hill from the Puerto Galera Yacht Club. Carol had stayed with us in Subic Bay when we were tied to the pier, but was afraid that the boat motion here would make her seasick. So she stayed at The Moorings and asked them to provide her with a car and driver. The “car” was a converted mini pickup truck with two benches set up in back. It was bright red inside and out, cute and actually quite comfortable. And we covered some really bumpy, hilly terrain. Between us, Carol and I took hundreds of photos. My favorite is the one where I made friends with a water buffalo! Carol took lots of photos of that and some video too. The pictures from the top of the old Escarceo Point Lighthouse are neat too. And then there are the ones from the VM restaurant in White Beach where Carol and I had really great Halo Halos. We saw beautiful scenery, ate too much food, and had an altogether wonderful time that was way too short.

Carol came Saturday late morning. Her driver, Michael, took her from Makati to Batangas where she caught a morning banca ferry to Puerto Galera.

After she checked into The Moorings and got settled she had her driver take her to Muelle Pier. Earlier in the morning Randal had gone to Sabang to pay for our Scuba outfits and was on the pier in the Rock N’Roll Café at the computer. He stayed there, but Carol took the service boat to DoraMac to bring us some vitamins. She had been kind enough to bring us a gift of Caltrate for me and Cardio vitamins for both of us. Carol wants us to stay healthy! About 11 she and I took the service boat back to the pier and we made our plan for the day. In trying to plan for Carol’s visit I had read about the Escarceo Lighthouse just outside of Sabang. Amazingly in our prior trips I hadn’t walked there. It is slightly uphill and about a mile out of Sabang the opposite direction from Puerto Galera. Carol’s driver Dante knew the area and took us there on our way to lunch in Sabang. The landscape and 360 view was lovely.

Then it was back to Sabang and lunch at Portofino.

After lunch we went off on another adventure, to Coco Beach Island Resort. Coco Beach is between Sabang and Puerto Galera so was on our way home. It was supposed to be a nice place to swim so we thought we would check it out for another day. It was much more interesting than a simple resort. More like a socially responsible resort that was trying to maintain the environment and offering good work to local families. I’ll tell you about it next email.

Ruth Johnson

DoraMac

As of about 2 pm this afternoon, Randal and I are certified Open Water divers. I would like to have opened with something more profound about the beauty of undersea exploration. But the truth is most of the course was a profound struggle for me. The actual swimming around underwater looking at neat stuff was fine. It was everything else that was really hard for me. Hard enough that at one point Simon was making me tell him why I was doing the course, for me or for Randal. Simon was our instructor and the question was asked because I was stumped at a very important part of the training. If I couldn’t do it, I couldn’t go on to complete the course. No way around it.

The course to become an Open Water diver is the first level of Scuba diving. You only are advised to go down to the depth of 60 feet. If you only go down that far, you don’t run into the issues that deeper dives can have, like decompression sickness. You also aren’t trained for high altitude dives or really cold water diving. We are certified as beginner divers who can do recreational dives to see fish, coral reefs, and what is hanging onto our propeller or anchor. Those were our goals. Simple. Reaching them, not so simple.

Of the two of us, I’m the one who really likes being in the water. If there is a chance to swim, I’ll go in. I grew up by the ocean. Randal grew up in the mountains and can swim, but it isn’t just great fun for him. But, of the two of us, he had the easier time learning the basics of SCUBA. The tanks, regulators (breathing apparatus,) underwater compass all made sense to him almost instantly. I still need to be told lots of the steps to hook up the equipment and take it apart. By the 4^th day I was better than the first, but not competent, not yet. I even managed to put my leg through the arm of the wet suit preparing for dive 3. And our 4^th day, I put the suit on backwards, at least as far as I could before Randal pointed out what I had done. That wasn’t so bad to undo. But getting my leg out of the sleeve was a real task. These suits fit snug as it is, so the sleeve was way tighter than the leg. I can laugh now. Then I was hot and stuck! Simon was kind enough to say he had seen it all before. He also said some folks had quit the course when asked for whom they were doing it. Simon looks like a British version of Matt Lauer of the Today Show.

Over the 4 day course we had to learn emergency procedures. How to drop off your weight belt with one hand; how to take off and put on your BCD vest underwater (vest that holds the tank and every other piece of equipment and helps you go up, down, or float around.) We had to learn to switch from our main regulator to an alternate regulator, our own and our diving buddy’s. We had to simulate being out of air and take our buddy’s alternate regulator. To teach us what it would feel like to be out of air, Simon turned off our air supply from the tank to the regulator. Randal went first. He did fine. I didn’t even let Simon get half way with turning it off before I made the out of air motion and grabbed for Randal’s alternate air supply. I felt like I was out of air. None of the tasks that got between me and my supply of air were easy for me. And it is air, not oxygen in those tanks. Filled they weigh 20 lbs though felt like 200 to me wearing it and my 12lb weight belt out of the water back to the dive shop.

We did class work, beach work, and a dive each of the first two days. Each dive itself was about 45 minutes. Randal and I got to Action Divers at 9 am in the morning. The first day we ate lunch about 2:30pm. The second day it was 4 o’clock before we ate lunch! Full days. I was totally exhausted at the end of day 2. We also then had to walk the mile from the shop to catch a jeepney from Sabang back to PG. Very tired. Our 3^rd and 4^th dives were several days later. Randal had developed an ear infection. No diving with ear infections. He put in ear drops and took amoxicillin and we were able to resume diving 6 days later. I honestly felt as if the reprieve were over. Our 3rd dive was the watershed for me. It was do the emergency tasks that scared me, or quit. There was no way around it To pass the course you have to be able to deal with water filling your face mask or even losing your face mask. You can’t just pop up to the surface, fix it all and go back down. And you can’t hold your breath while you replace your mask. That actually would make it easier so you don’t accidently breathe in through your nose. You have to keep breathing through your regulator and not breathe in through your nose at the same time. You can NEVER HOLD YOUR BREATH WHILE SCUBA DIVING. The air in your lungs compresses as you go down. It expands as you go up. If you hold your breath and go up, your lungs over expand and cause significant problems. Plus, it might take a bit of time for you or your dive buddy to find your mask. And, you may be down too far to just shoot up, while exhaling, without hurting your ears or causing other problems. EXHALING IS NOT HOLDING YOUR BREATH. And besides all of the safety issues, you don’t want to waste the time or air. Your dive buddy has to stay with you so would have to go up too. Lots of reasons why you have to deal with the mask skill. I struggled and struggled. When our friend Audrey took us for a scuba lesson in Subic, she tried to teach me to clear my mask. It is very helpful for snorkeling too. I couldn’t do it. Even though Audrey is a professional dive instructor, she didn’t push it; we were just there for an introduction to diving, not a real course. With Simon we had to try it during dive day 2, but only to begin to try. I actually didn’t understand how it worked so was doing it wrong. Simon showed me and Randal practiced with me on our boat. I even practiced with my snorkel, putting my face in the water with no mask and breathing through my mouth (snorkel) and not also up my nose. I got one tiny, very tiny bit better. Yesterday, dive day 3, it all came to a head. I couldn’t fill my mask and clear it. Each time I would try I’d get water up my nose or down my throat. I would shoot to the surface and yank off my mask. Simon would have to come up. Randal too. Randal to check on me. Simon to make me go down and try it again. Simon actually let me get away with only half filling my mask. But then we had to take the mask completely off and replace it. At that point my nose and throat still burned and I just wanted to cry. I wanted Simon to say, I could skip it, but I would have to learn on my own. Simon couldn’t do that. He is a professional dive instructor and we were doing this for certification. Randal was able to do it. He tried to help me. Simon told me I could do it. Any time I questioned equipment or anything, Simon said it was just because I was nervous and if I would just relax and do it, it would be fine. (I do think the regulator mouth piece was too big, but I obviously could use it.) Simon bases much of his teaching on the belief that people take the course because they want to dive and will do what it takes to learn, conquer any fear and learn any skill. If one can’t learn a skill, they just don’t want to enough. There is much truth in that. The confrontation came after I had taken off my mask, replaced it, cleared it and then shot to the surface and whipped off my mask. Simon was really frustrated that I could do it, but not stop panicking anyway. “Why are you doing this course? In your heart do you want to dive? Do you want to explore the ocean bottom and see fish and things? Or are you just doing it for Randal?” “If in your heart you want to dive, you’ll conquer your fears.” Simon asked me these questions to make me decide what I wanted to do, keep going, do the skill, and dive? Or did I want to quit? I certainly wanted to quit trying to learn that mask skill. But I knew I wanted to keep going, not just for Randal. But I couldn’t promise Simon that I could take off and replace my mask. I could hardly breathe at that point. I just wanted to cry. That had happened at Outward Bound one time when I was faced with a physical challenge that scared me. I stopped to cry for a bit, got it out of my system, started to breathe normally again and went on. I did the same thing, cried a bit. Put my mask back on, went down and found a way I could do it. It involved holding my nose part of the time. But I got my mask off, back on and cleared and stayed at the bottom. I felt like a kid who had cried about getting a shot and then it really didn’t hurt. I felt both successful and foolish that it had taken me so long with such a struggle. Simon dealt with it. He told me that people have stopped the course at the point when he asks them that question. I really do want to dive to clean our boat bottom, free snagged anchors and even see some neat fish and things. Not just for Randal. We did a dive and practiced other skills like going to the surface when almost out of air so just exhaling and not inhaling at all. That dive was 45 minutes also and then we had to walk forever back to the dive shop through the low tide. I thought my knees would buckle from the weight. When my friend Martha and I walked the Coastal Path in Wales we carried at least twenty pounds, all day for 3 days up and down hills and that didn’t seem so heavy. This partly empty tank weighed a ton. While we were taking apart the equipment and rinsing it in fresh water, Simon told us our 4^th dive would be from a boat and we would learn new skills and do the mask removal again. I wasted time worrying about it all night and all the next morning until I actually did it during the dive and it was fine!

Yesterday was our 4^th and final dive. It was the day I made sure I didn’t put my leg in the sleeve; instead I put the suit on backwards and had to change it around. It is like pulling on a very thick, wet, too small bathing suit that covers you whole body. Trying to pull it up over my hips and butt was a real challenge. We got our tanks ready and I remembered half of the steps, put on our booties and weight belts and, since it was a boat dive, climbed up the ladder into the banca that would take us about 10 minutes out to a cove for our dive. My friend Shelly Shuster said she fell off the ladder getting onto the boat for her 4^th dive. I could see how it happened and almost did the same thing but for the boat person hanging onto me for dear life. You walk up a steep narrow ladder while wearing your weight belt. When we got to our dive spot, we anchored and put on our BCD and mask. Sticking our tank and butts over the side, one at a time we fell a few feet backwards down into the water. Doable, though I think I forgot to pump up my BCD as full as I should have. You keep one hand on your mask and regulator so they stay put and one hand behind your head in case you bang into something. I don’t remember having my hand behind my head, but I know I had my hand on my mask and regulator because they stayed put. Our next task was to learn to use our underwater compass. Randal got an A+, I got a D+ but I have an idea how to do better. Then we did an emergency ascent with Randal breathing from my alternate regulator. That was fine. Then we had to do the mask task. I did it first try with my convoluted nose holding method. I kept my eyes open so I could see what I was doing and that works better for me. You can’t see clearly of course, but well enough to make it less scary. Then we went for a dive to practice buoyancy. You use your inflatable/deflatable vest, weights, and your breath to keep yourself in place and not float away or float to the bottom or surface. Your weights are fixed but you can use your vest or breath. If you start to sink you inhale deeply and inflate your lungs. If you rise too high you exhale a lot more than you breathe in. It does work, though takes lots of practice. We practiced for about 30 minutes of that and then it was time to get back into the boat. I was actually sorry the dive ended, amazing since I had been dreading it earlier in the day.

Back at the dive shop I stayed in my wetsuit so Randal could take a photo. I have kind of a dazed expression and you can see the impression of the mask on my face. There was just too much activity with another boat of divers coming back for me to take a photo totally suited up. We changed and finished our final log entry. Simon filled out our temporary certification and we were done! Certified. Even me! Thanks Simon.

Randal and Simon before a class.

Another group of divers preparing for a dive. Just at the water’s edge right in front of the shop is where we practiced our skills. Then we would swim out further to the reef and look at fish and things and practice buoyancy.

Dazed and confused! The wet suit kept me warm in the water. Though the surface water was quite warm compared with Atlantic Ocean swimming, 15 ft down and 30 ft (our boat dive) it gets colder. Also, it kept the stinging things from being annoying. Randal and I had to do a swim and tread water test after one dive class and we had no wet suit. The stinging things were only annoying. Can you see the mask outline on my forehead and cheeks?

You keep track of your dives, locations, duration and conditions for proof that you did dives and to remember the conditions at a dive site. Simon stamped our log books as proof.

I cannot imagine wearing one of these contraptions though you certainly wouldn’t have to do the mask task. There are regulator apparatus on the wall and a mask and snorkel on the lower shelf

Hi Everyone,

Saturday, May 31, 2008

I am sitting in the Rock N’ Roll Bar fighting with my email, my new blog, and following the Red Sox. I could tell you that my lucky red Red Sox ring broke and that’s why they aren’t doing so well lately. But it broke after they started losing. And I did lose my Red Sox hat in 2007 in Sai Kung the day before we left to come to the Philippines; Sox won the Series in ‘07’ so it’s not the fault of the ring.

I am realizing just how spoiled I got when we were attached to the docks at Hebe Haven and even more in Subic. In lots of ways it was just like living at home without TV. And even then we could get one channel with Grey’s Anatomy, Desperate Housewives and the Gilmore Girls till it ended. We had AC and unlimited water. You stepped off the boat onto the dock and could be on your way. Very different when you cruise. You have to provide everything for yourself.
We have to make our own power, water, and transport ourselves from boat to shore. There really isn’t enough power to run the AC, so we don’t. I don’t mind, but Randal suffers from the night heat. You have to think before you use anything that drains a lot of power, even our electric kettle. We can make enough water fairly easily so that’s good.

Because it is the “slow season” here the service boat has limited hours. Sunday through Friday it runs from 8am to 9am and then from noon to 9pm at night. If you miss it, you swim back to the boat. Remember when Randal missed the last boat back at Christmas time? Only the goodness of a few hearts got him back to our boat that night. Friday it runs from 8 am to 10 pm and Saturday from 8 am till 9 pm. Randal is also dinghy captain and he doesn’t want to mess with it, so we aren’t. We really haven’t needed it yet; our schedule matches the service boats. We have to be in Sabang for our SCUBA class by 9 am so have to catch the early service boat anyway. Scuba class lasts from 9 until late afternoon. Other days it’s nice to have the quiet morning on the boat to read, paint or even swim around the boat area. Randal works on boat things and I do laundry if the genset is running to charge the battery bank.

Sunday, June 1, 2008

After my internet session and after the 10th inning of the Sox Orioles game, Randal came back from getting a shave. It was his turn with the computer so I went off to the town center. It is just about a half mile walk along the main road that curves and goes down the hill to the row of shops and activity. I stopped in one of the little office/school supply shops for a notebook. I have decided to go back to keeping a paper journal; power and wifi being iffy. Just a pen and sunlight are needed for that and no power crashes can lose everything you just struggled to write. There is just something more fun about pen and paper anyway. I ended up buying 3 smallish notebooks for a total of 67 pesos. The last time we checked in Sabang it was about 43.20 peso to the dollar. It has gone up a tad. Not much money to us, but I thought that it would be a luxury to some school kids here to have more than one. Not that most of the kids look “poor.” They all seem energetic and happy and just the right size. Filipino women are my height or shorter than I am. None of them seems to weigh even 100 lbs. I stopped to try on a top the other day and it needed about another half yard of material to fit me. First the adorable “small” Muslim woman said it fit because it was “an extra large.” Then she told me leaving half of my top half uncovered was the style. Not my style…. I was trying it on over a tank top so maybe that was the problem. Maybe I’ll get one for when we are making a passage and there will be no one to see anyway.
At the small supermarket I bought some more amoxicillin, no prescription needed. Randal is taking it for his ear infection. One does tend to self medicate when cruising. Especially on a long 5 to 15 day passage, there is no other choice. He is improving and the swelling on the side of his face is going down. But still no diving today either. I bought some Ritz like crackers and some other cracker that resembles a saltine and some brown bread. It was bread delivery day so it was available. Since it is the off season, bread and yogurt don’t disappear in 20 minutes from being shelved. And the market isles were not jammed packed. Last December, between the heat and the crowds it was quite awful to shop. And truly hard to find bread. I headed back to the pier stopping to find where the post office was located. It was closed with no hours posted. I’ll have to check during the week. As I was walking, I spotted the most pathetic dog. Its hips were rubbed raw and it was very thin. I thought, no pretty scenery or inexpensive trinkets or moorings can make up for how sadly the dogs and cats are treated. They aren’t mistreated, but totally neglected if they are strays. There is no neutering so lots of unwanted pets. Not that there are roving packs of animals. I am afraid to think why that might be. But just too many mangy skinny looking dogs and cats. It puts me off. I couldn’t think of how to rescue the poor dog; we can’t possibly take an animal. So I walked back to the pier and found Randal still on the computer. I left him there, stopped at Brettos for yogurt and caught the service boat back to DoraMac. I finished my painting and wrote in my new journal. When Randal returned it was time for mango shakes. I also started cooking vegetable soup, the best way I know to use vegetables before they can go bad. I even threw in a half cup of rice that cooked as the soup simmered. Pretty good stuff, and healthy!

Jan from south of Copenhagen stopped to visit about sunset. Randal met Jan at the Classic Club Thursday. Jan is an experience diver so after a tour of DoraMac, we talked diving for a bit. Then Jan was off to his boat and Randal and I tested the veggie soup. By 8:30 Randal was off to sleep and I read for a bit more. By 9pm I was ready to call it a day too.