Day 95, Year 3: Teluk Lewaling to Kroko Atoll
Date: Hari Selasa (Tuesday), Bulan Agustus 12, Pada Tahan 2008
Weather: Sunny Skies with a Few Puffy White Clouds; No Wind When Needed
Latitude: 08 degrees 14.598 minutes S
Longitude: 123 degrees 19.464 minutes E
Location: Kroko Atoll, Adunara Island, Nusa Tengarra Province, Indonesia

We traveled from Lembata Island to Adunara Island today and our “new” Yanmar engine hit 3,000 engine hours. I call it new because it was new when we started this circumnavigation. But we aren’t even half-way home and 3,000 engine hours is a lot of motoring. But it has brought us to beautiful places to meet beautiful people. Tonight we are anchored near Kroko Atoll behind a little sand islet. It is a beautiful spot with active volcanoes looming up in every direction on the horizon. We have made
the decision to stay out here and live the good life while most of the other rally boats are just about seven miles away in the anchorage at Lewoleba, Lembata. When the seventy plus boats leave there, they will come here and there is really only room for about five boats, so we just wanted to beat the crowd to this little piece of paradise.

We went snorkeling this morning on the reefs under the awe-inspiring Ili Api volcano before leaving Teluk Lewaling. It was not the most beautiful snorkeling spot, but it was wonderful to get in the water again. It’s been a long dry spell since Lizard Island on the Great Barrier Reef. Even though I would not rate today’s snorkeling spot very high on a scale of one to ten, I always find it fascinating to search for new fish and delight in seeing old friends. Today there were lots of the ever present
bright blue starfish, but I also saw the brown and tan sea star with the scientific name of Nardo tuberculata. I first saw this specimen on the reef at East Hope Island in Australia. Today this guy was in a seagrass bed along with the blue starfish. Something new to us today that was in abundance was a soft pink plant-like animal that looked like a feather duster. The branches were in one plane like a feather and they swayed so beautifully in the water. But when I got back and tried to identify
the new citing it appears that it is a hydroid which strings humans with quite a punch. The string evidently produces a sharp pain something like an electric shock. Even in these warm waters, we wear our dive skins and gloves, so we are protected, but I will know not to dive down and touch this enticing creature. The fish life today was not so prolific, but the bright blue chromis and yellow-tailed fusiliers known as pisang pisang in Indonesia brightened up the grassy seabed. I saw two fish I
had not seen before. One was a small filefish with furry skin. At first I thought it had algae growing all over it, but then I could see it was part of the fish. A much larger new fish that was seen today looked like the other juvenile batfish that were swimming around, but this one was totally black with neon orange tips on its long, fluttery fins. I even thought I saw a bright blue vertical stripe on its nose, but I cannot find a fish that looks like this in any of my identification books.
I’ll keep looking.

When we reached our new anchorage, there was only one other boat here. It was CanKata from Canada. Shirena and Scot Free II had sailed here with us and CanKata called and invited all of us to come over for sundowners. We had met Darrel and Loretta on one of our inland tours while in Kupang, but it was so nice to spend the evening with them and with Tina and Robert on Shirena and Gerry, Donna, and Klinton on Scot Free II. CanKata has been here for a couple of days and they were able to report
to us the fantastic snorkeling opportunities here. Evidently I am going to see lots of little Nemos in the next couple of days. I can’t wait to dive in early tomorrow morning.

090812 Day 95 Adunara, Indonesia–Evening Visit on CanKata at Kroko Atoll

080812 Day 95 Indonesia–Lembata to Kroko Atoll, Adunara