Day 109, Year 3: A Day in the Life
Date: Hari Selasa (Tuesday), Bulan Agustus 26, Pada Tahan 2008
Weather: Beautiful Day with Dark Clouds and Rain Sprinkles in the Evening
Location: Labuan Bajo Eco-Village, Flores Island, Nusa Tengarra Province, Indonesia
It has been ages since we have had any rain. In fact, I’m not sure we have had rain since leaving Bundaberg and heading up the coast of Australia. What we are having this evening is just a few sprinkles, but it is a reminder that the rainy season sets in here in October and those perfectly blue skies might have to start sharing the space with a few rain clouds. Of course, by the first of October, we will be heading north to Borneo and I’m not sure what the weather there will be like.
We didn’t move on today. We decided to stay put and go back to Labuan Bajo to do a little fresh food shopping , to go to the internet, and most importantly to get some more money at the bank. Our little cadre of Scot Free, Safina, and Shirena (Tina only today) hopped on one of the local putt-putt boats and chugged away to town. These boats are wooden canoes with one cylinder diesel engines. They hand crank to start the motor and they use a bamboo pole to steer once they turn off the engine.
We got money, found fruits and vegetables to buy, and tried the internet. But is was sooooooooooo slow that it was really impossible to accomplish anything. Long ago we gave up trying to upload photos to the website, but now we can’t even check our land-based g-mail email account. Maybe Bali will be better, and if not, I’m hoping Singapore will have first-class internet. I’m not sure what it will be like in Malaysia and Thailand, so Singapore might be it until we either get to the Mediterranean
or to South Africa.
When you are sailing as we are, the other cruisers become your community. We don’t see each other often, but we do keep up with each other through the radio net each day. This morning we heard that Margaret of Aqua Magic has returned to her boat from a trip to either a doctor or the hospital. The net was not coming through very clearly today, so we are not sure what is wrong with her. But most certainly, she and Patrick have had a tough go of it in the past couple of months. First they landed
on a reef and then Patrick got his hand caught in his wind generator and broke a couple of fingers. Then they ran into another boat while anchoring. Then we heard that he had been sick and just a week ago, he got stung by a Portuguese Man of War. And now Margaret is sick. All I can do is be thankful that Mark and I have been relatively free of major health problems. Donna and Gerry on Scot Free II had a very bad, no good, horrible day today. They had diesel delivered to their boat early this
morning and somehow a five-gallon jug of diesel spilled on their deck and landed on their main cabin settee cushions by pouring in through an open port. Then this evening a Pepsi can exploded in Donna’s hand in the main cabin and spewed everywhere. And then to top it off, Gerry was cleaning the deck and salt water spilled on to the main cabin settee cushions through one of their mushroom vents. I think I would have lost my sense of humor much earlier in the day, but when we delivered some trip
planning information after dark tonight, everyone on Scot Free seemed to have settled into their day of bad luck.
Tomorrow morning we are all heading to Rinca Island. Rinca and Komodo are the two large islands in the Komodo group. Rinca (pronounced ‘rincha’) actually has more wildlife than Komodo, so we are going there first. We will first go to an anchorage where there is a Ranger Station and go on guided walks with a ranger to see the komodos. We will then move around to the south side of the island to an anchorage where we will reportedly see wildlife foraging on the beach. There will be komodo dragons,
wild boar, water buffalo, long-tailed Macaques, wild horses, Timor deer, and brahminy kite eagles soaring overhead. There are also some great snorkeling opportunities and we will make a stop at one small island on our way to Rinca tomorrow morning to see the underwater coral gardens. I think we are the only boat doing this, but we have become addicted to the beauty underwater.
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| 080826 Day 109 Flores, Indonesia–Another Trip to Labuan Bajo |
