Day 116, Year 3: Monco Bay for Another Day
Date: Hari Selasa (Tuesday), Bulan September 1, Pada Tahan 2008
Weather: Another Beautiful Day
Location: Teluk Batu Monco, NW Komodo Island, Indonesia
We spent a quiet day in Monco Bay. Shirena and Windbird are the only boats left in the southern part of the anchorage and Kayistiz from Turkey is still here in the eastern part of the bay with another boat that came in during the day. Scot Free left this morning. They went to Wera on the eastern end of Sumbawa where they build 100 foot wooden boats there using few metal fasteners, mostly wooden pegs. Mark was so anxious to visit Wera and watch the wooden boat building process, but both Safina
and now Scot Free have reported that it is impossible to leave your boat unattended to go into town. The local boys swarm all over your boat taking anything and everything they can get their hands on. We would have to bring everything we have on deck down below and it just sounds like too much trouble. So unfortunately we are going to skip Wera and do an overnight from here to a place called Kananga in western Sumbawa. There is a fairly prosperous little village there, so the locals don’t invade your boat as they do in Wera. Once there we will decide where our next stop will be. We certainly want to avoid the areas where there have been reported problems, but we would like to see some of Sumbawa if that is possible. Safina is hopping along the coast and will report to us each evening on the radio how things are going for them. That will help us in the decision making process.
Today was a snorkeling day. We snorkeled for way more than two hours this morning between our boat and Shirena and then went out to the eastern point again this afternoon. My favorite sighting of the day was a juvenile spotted parrotfish. They look so different from the adult version as they are white with a very orange head. The adult is a nondescript color and is whitish-yellowish topside. We saw lots of adult spotted parrotfish, but to see the juvenile was very special. We will not be snorkeling again until we reach Gili Air on the west end of Lombok, and we will miss it. Our time snorkeling here in the Komodos has been wonderful.
So westward we push with new islands to explore. Sumbawa is our next stop and is evidently beautiful. Once we reach Kananga we can report on that first hand.
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| 080902 Day 116 Komodos, Indonesia–Underwater at Batu Monco |
