Day 100, Year 3: Pulau Besar to Sea World
Date: Hari Minggu (Sunday), Bulan Agustus 17, Pada Tahan 2008
Weather: Same Old, Same Old
Latitude: 08 degrees 38.040 minutes S
Longitude: 122 degrees 18.565 minutes E
Location: Sea World Anchorage, Flores Island, Nusa Tengarra Province, Indonesia

No, we are not at the San Diego Sea World, but we are anchored just off a little resort called the Sea World Club. We escaped Pulau Busar as soon as it was light this morning. We continued to roll from side to side all night long which made sleeping soundly a little difficult. After bashing into 20+ knot winds and seas for five hours, we made it to the Sea World Club anchorage in Waiara, Flores. Some people call this the Geiliting Road anchorage. It is the site of the next Rally event that begins
on Wednesday. We were so sorry that Pulau Besar didn’t work out for us. According to the Lonely Planet, a cyclone and tsunami hit in this area in 1992. So between the 1992 natural disaster and bomb fishing that is practiced here, most of the coral in shallow areas has been destroyed. Not far from where we are now anchored were the Maumere “sea gardens”, once regarded as one of the best diving areas in all of Asia. They are trying to regenerate, but are not there yet. I guess we will just have
to wait until we reach the Komodo area and try snorkeling again there.

We have not been to shore here yet, but we have been visited by plenty of locals wanting to sell us fruits and vegetables, shells, solar (diesel fuel), komodo dragon carvings, and anything else they can think of. This is a once a year opportunity for them to make money and they are working hard at doing just that. We arrived here early in hopes of doing a couple of land tours before the rally festivities begin, and if things work out for us, we will then leave the day after the welcome ceremony.
There is another rally stop not far from here a week from now, but we think we are going to get out of Dodge before the crowds and make our way to Komodo as quickly as possible. Many of the beautiful anchorages there hold only two or three boats, so it is our hope that by going early we will have a few days there before everyone else arrives. Of course, everyone else could have the same idea. So we will just have to see how this works out.

We received an email from our son-in-law Jed this afternoon who reported that he and Sam are doing great in Heather’s absence. Sam misses his momma, but he is cuddling his stainless steel sippy cup with momma’s milk and falling asleep with that. Not sure how Heather is going to feel when she realizes she’s been replaced by a metal cup! But it was so wonderful to hear from Jed and know that he and Sam are having a good time. No word on how Heather is doing, but as I write this it is early Sunday
morning on the Cape and Jed will be heading to Boston with Sam to meet Heather in the evening. I’ll give a full report on the walk once Heather is home.

Our afternoon was spent washing Windbird. She really needed a bath and the drenching of salt water she got on the trip here was a good excuse for a full cleaning. We washed her down with soapy salt water and then rinsed her with our precious fresh water. As of yesterday, we had both tanks full, so we splurged. It has been ages since we have seen rain and there’s no hope of rain until late September or October, so once in a while we will just have to do what we did today. Besides, the water in
the anchorage looks very clean so I think we can continue to make water while here. We are going to a beach barbeque at the resort tonight and tomorrow we have hired someone at the resort to take us to the town of Maumere. We will purchase diesel fuel in our jerry cans and get a few more million Rupiah out of the bank. Somehow we keep finding more and more ways to spend money we don’t have.

080817 Day 100a Flores, Indonesia–Pulau Besar to Sea World Anchorage

080817 Day 100b Flores, Indonesia–Independence Day Celebration at Sea World