Day 115, Year 3: Gili Lawa Laut to Teluk Batu Monco (Montjo)
Date: Hari Senin (Monday), Bulan September 1, Pada Tahan 2008
Weather: Another Beautiful Day
Air Temperature: 84 degrees F + No Wind = Hot
Latitude: 08 degrees 27.034 minutes S
Longitude: 119 degrees 26.868 minutes E
Location: Teluk Batu Monco, NW Komodo Island, Indonesia
It is a good life out here. We snorkeled early morning, mid-day, and late afternoon today. Mark has decided that he is coming back as a fish in his next life and I’m right with him. We both really enjoy observing the underwater life and it is so varied and beautiful here. It is truly killing me that we don’t have our underwater camera. The Komodos have one of the best underwater environments in the world and we will just have to carry the memory with us with no photos. How sad.
We tried to do a drift snorkel between the islands of Lawa Laut and Lawa Darat early this morning. We went at low water slack tide, but the depths were too low. We ended up in 18 inches of water far away from the pass and had to paddle our way out. Evidently that drift snorkel must be done at high water slack tide. But no information we have told us that. Now we know. So we came back to the western most part of the bay where we were anchored and jumped in the water there. We just pulled the dinghy behind us and enjoyed the views. Our greatest find was a young green sea turtle. At first we thought it was hurt as it just did not move, but when Mark dove down she took off. When we returned to Windbird, we pulled up anchor and motored the eight miles to Monco Bay. It looked deserted which seemed delightful, but we knew Scot Free was there somewhere. As we entered further into the bay we spotted them and ended up anchoring near them in the southern end of the bay. Not long after we arrived Shirena came in followed by the Turkish boat, Kayitsiz. We had talked to Oskan while we were snorkeling in Lawa Laut this morning and told him about Monco Bay. He told us then that he thought he might come along later in the morning and join us. And then two more boats came in, Harbor Lights from Australia and Glass Slipper from the US. Unfortunately Harbor Lights lost their propeller on the way here and though all of us in this anchorage have spare propellers, none of us have an extra prop that will fit their boat. So they are going to have to try and sail all the way to Bali. They are a very light racing type boat, so maybe they will make it. I would hate to think that we would have to do that. We have wind here in the passes between the Komodo Islands, but once we head west across Sumbawa, I think the wind will die once again and we will be part of “Motor Indonesia.”
Once we got settled in here, Mark and I took off in the dinghy for the beach on the eastern side of this anchorage. We had read about others who snorkeled there and called it the “Japanese Garden” because of the beautifully spaced coral. We found it to be an interesting snorkeling area, and with a little imagination it looked like a Japanese garden, but the coral was not as beautiful as we had hoped. I did see a Map Puffer which was huge. It was a very special sighting. When we got back to Windbird we did a little snorkeling between the boat the beach just to check it out, but we didn’t fully explore the area until later in the day near low tide. It is so wonderful to be able to just jump in the water from the boat and see such beautiful underwater life. We are staying here tomorrow and will fully explore our back yard.
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| 080901 Day 115 Komodos, Indonesia–Gili Lawa Laut to Batu Monco |
