Day 92, Year 3: A Quiet Day in Kalabahi
Date: Hari Sabtu (Saturday), Bulan Agustus 9, Pada Tahan 2008
Weather: Perpetual Sunshine with No Clouds
Location: Kalabahi, Alor Island, Nusa Tengarra Province, Indonesia
We really needed a day of rest and we got that today, but we are going to pay the price. We have been so much on the move that we had not done much forward planning. So when we did our planning today, we realized that we cannot reach our next rally location in time for the welcoming ceremony. And, of course, the welcoming ceremony is the highlight of each venue. So we will leave early in the morning and see how things go. We’ve run the upper and lower transits of the moon for tomorrow and this
tells us we should not leave here before 8 am, but there is no way to make the destination for tomorrow night if we don’t leave here earlier. So we are going to go for it. We will probably be met with a strong current that just won’t let us move north, but we shall see. We have never cruised where you have to run these moon transits in order to predict the current, but we are learning lots of new things here in Indonesia. The worst case scenario is that we will just skip the Lembata venue, but
that might not be such a bad thing. There is a wonderful little atoll close to Lembata with good snorkeling and beautiful views of the volcanoes. We will just enjoy that and work our way to the next celebration on Flores Island.
Late in the afternoon today we went ashore to do some basic shopping-Coke, eggs, bread, bananas, and a few veggies. Notice that beer was not on that list. That’s not because it isn’t a “basic” on Windbird, it is just that it is an item doesn’t exist here. There are lots of shops that sell the other basics, but there are no grocery stores as we know them. Fruits and vegetables are sold on the side of the streets and in alley ways that wind between the streets. Everything in Kalabahi is a little
worn by time and lack of money. We have been many places in our travels where the people have had very little, but somehow when you got to know them, they were a proud people who didn’t seem poor. Here we are finding the poorest conditions that we have seen since parts of the Caribbean and Panama. The people here are certainly very friendly but they seem beaten down by years of struggling.
