Day 94, Year 3: Villages and Volcanoes
Date: Hari Senin (Monday), Bulan Agustus 11, Pada Tahan 2008
Weather: Sunny Skies and No Wind
Latitude:08 degrees 17.560 minutes S
Longitude: 123 degrees 37.893 minutes E
Location: Teluk Lewaling, Lembata Island, Nusa Tengarra Province, Indonesia
Today was V Day-vistas of villages and volcanoes . . . and at the end of the day a very special visit to the village of Dikasare in Teluk (Bay of) Lewaling. We started our day motor sailing west across the top of Pantar Island and then hopped across Selut Alor to the north shore of Lembata island. Lembata is named Kawula on most charts and Lomblen on others. Everyone today refers to it as Lembata, so that is what is used here. Whatever the name, our trip across the top of the island was fascinating.
The land drops sharply into the sea from the top of Mt. Kedang towering 5,000 feet high. There are no places to anchor on this north coast as it is much too deep right up to shore, but obviously supply ships get in and out of each of the little seaside villages. Actually, they weren’t so little. It is amazing how many homes are in these “middle of no-where” villages. We could see the perfect volcanic cone of Ili Api, also known as Mt. Warian, as we sailed along. Ili Api is just shy of 5,000
feet and it dominated the view most of the day as we puttered along the north coast. Just before the mountain, we hung a left and went into a huge bay that juts inland. Sailing in under the smoking cone of Ili Api was quite dramatic. The larger and deeper bay is Teluk Welenga but we turned to the east and entered Teluk Lewaling. The only information we had about this area was a handwritten note scribbled on one of the copied charts we bought in Darwin. For one anchorage area it said “pretty
coral, no people, lots of bommies” and for the other it said “a few houses, mangroves, and sandflies.” Well, we chose the latter for tonight, but that was because our friends Jean-Pierre and Colette on Safina were there and radioed to us saying it was a good anchorage and a nice village. We needed to see Safina to loan them our back-up camera. They bought a new camera in Darwin but the battery charger doesn’t work and without that they can’t use it. Anyway, we got the camera to Safina and then
went to shore to see the village.
As it turns out, the village where we are anchored is the village that rally participants will be visiting on Wednesday. Dikasare has 100 houses. Ninety homes are Catholic and ten are Muslim. A young man who could speak English met us at the beach. He learned English while working on a project in Malaysia and he took us to meet the head of the village. So we got a head start on the rally with a personalized tour and a wonderful weaving demonstration. The head of the village told us that they
would exercise for us. We finally figured out that meant “practice.” Cruisers who were here this morning got to see the cotton being picked, but we got to see it combed and spun by hand. We actually got to see the women build a loom from sticks and string and then we watched a woman as she threaded the loom. The process of dying the thread was explained and we got to see the plants that are used for dying. We also got to see how they tie the plastic string around the threads before it is dipped
in the dye to make the designs. This is one process where a picture is worth a thousand words. If I ever get to a high speed internet location, I’ll post these photos first. The ikat weaving process is absolutely fascinating.
So tomorrow we will go to the anchorage with the “pretty coral” but as much as I love snorkeling, today’s accidental village visit is going to be hard to beat. But every time we think we have seen the most spectacular, there always seems to be more.
<table style=”width:194px;”><tr><td align=”center” style=”height:194px;background:url(http://picasaweb.google.com/s/c/transparent_album_background.gif) no-repeat left”><a href=”http://picasaweb.google.com/110091696418315776431/080811Day94IndonesiaPantarToLembata?authkey=Gv1sRgCLLg2qePmdDMnwE&feat=embedwebsite”><img src=”http://lh3.ggpht.com/_WzplUbkWh1c/TTSTCzy0c0E/AAAAAAABLrw/OFzdVOUs01U/s160-c/080811Day94IndonesiaPantarToLembata.jpg” width=”160″ height=”160″ style=”margin:1px 0 0 4px;”></a></td></tr><tr><td style=”text-align:center;font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:11px”><a href=”http://picasaweb.google.com/110091696418315776431/080811Day94IndonesiaPantarToLembata?authkey=Gv1sRgCLLg2qePmdDMnwE&feat=embedwebsite” style=”color:#4D4D4D;font-weight:bold;text-decoration:none;”>080811 Day 94 Indonesia–Pantar to Lembata</a></td></tr></table>
<table style=”width:194px;”><tr><td align=”center” style=”height:194px;background:url(http://picasaweb.google.com/s/c/transparent_album_background.gif) no-repeat left”><a href=”http://picasaweb.google.com/110091696418315776431/080811Day94LembataIndonesiaDikasareVillage?authkey=Gv1sRgCOPmh9z5ivTwdg&feat=embedwebsite”><img src=”http://lh5.ggpht.com/_WzplUbkWh1c/TTSVHjYbFDE/AAAAAAABLog/XU9K_wJFKb4/s160-c/080811Day94LembataIndonesiaDikasareVillage.jpg” width=”160″ height=”160″ style=”margin:1px 0 0 4px;”></a></td></tr><tr><td style=”text-align:center;font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:11px”><a href=”http://picasaweb.google.com/110091696418315776431/080811Day94LembataIndonesiaDikasareVillage?authkey=Gv1sRgCOPmh9z5ivTwdg&feat=embedwebsite” style=”color:#4D4D4D;font-weight:bold;text-decoration:none;”>080811 Day 94 Lembata, Indonesia–Dikasare Village</a></td></tr></table>
