Day 93, Year 3: Leaving Alor and Heading West
Date: Hari Minggu (Sunday), Bulan Agustus 10, Pada Tahan 2008 Weather: More Sunshine and Fluky Winds
Latitude: 08 degrees 21.816 minutes S
Longitude: 124 degrees 05.778 minutes E
Location: Blangmerang, Panta Island, Nusa Tengarra Province, Indonesia
There was once again a mass exodus early this morning of rally boats leaving Kalabahi. I think there were about 40 boats in the anchorage, and the only one that stayed behind was Mike on Good News. He was visiting an orphanage today and delivering clothes and school supplies. I gave him some of the little practice books that I had to give to children and I think some other cruisers did the same. It took about an hour and a half to get out of the long, thin bay leading out of Kalabahi and back into the main pass. We are getting a little better at timing our passages and had less current against us today. But there was almost no wind. I heard a cruiser say yesterday, “If thou art sailing then thy wind and thy current will surely be against thee.” I might have my ‘thous’ and ‘thys’ and ‘thees’ in the wrong places, but you get the idea. So Windbird, the motor sailor, decided to go the 36 nautical miles to Blangmerang instead of head on and yet into the further anchorage after dark. Only Shirena and Scot Free came to the same anchorage with us. A whole slew of boats had planned to anchor just north of where we are on the southern tip of a small island. But when they got there it was totally untenable so they went on but were going to have to sail through night. Shortly after we arrived here, Tina of Shirena, Gerry and Donna of Scot Free II, and Mark and I got in our dinghy and went over to the village. It was a huge village with hundreds of people. This side of Pantar is very dry, so there is not one blade of grass. The village was laid out in a rectangular grid with semi-paved narrow streets and concrete sidewalks. The homes were all single-story concrete block or brick and mortar, with lots of people in each tiny little home. Most roofs were corrugated iron, but the homes did not look like there was any furniture inside. There were at least four mosques in the village and most people we met appeared to be Muslim as the women were all wearing a head covering. No one could speak English and none of us speak very much bahasa Indonesian, but we walked and took pictures to the delight of the people. They love having their pictures taken and looking at the images. At one point, I had stopped to take a picture of a mother and her baby in a doorway, and when I went back to the sidewalk, I was met by a parade of Muslim women all carrying beautifully wrapped bowls of food on their heads and the men carrying live ducks, chickens, and goats. They motioned for us to join them and Mark really wanted to go. But this time I was hesitant. I’m sure it would have been an interesting feast, but since the animals were still alive, it was obviously going to be a long time before dinner. If we joined them we would have had to eat and drink whatever they offered. The food would have been fine, but the drink could definitely cause a problem. Beer and Coke are the only things we can have when ashore, and I am absolutely positive that neither was going to be served. And we didn’t bring any mosquito repellent and it was getting late in the day. So we continued our walk but did not follow the parade. We made our way back out to the sailboats and Tina invited us all aboard Shirena for sundowners. Robert had stayed on the boat to work on their autopilot which is misbehaving. Shirena seems to be plagued with electrical problems and this time there is bad connection somewhere and he just can’t find it. But regardless, we all enjoyed our time together and we headed back to Windbird just in time for evening prayers being blared from the speakers on the roof of the mosque by the harbor. It is a new experience for us to measure the time of day by the call to prayer, but that is a fact of life in Indonesia. I think we are starting to come down from the fast pace of life we experienced in Kupang and will move at a slightly slower pace until we reach Bali.
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| 080810 Day 93 Alor, Indonesia–Leaving Kalabahi |
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| 080810 Day 93 Pantar, Indonesia–BlangMerang Village |
