Moving Along

Our outboard motor was delivered back to us purring like the proverbial kitten. What a thrill. Its first task was to scour the coastline for our dinghy wheel which we'd lost the night before when trying to launch in fairly rough conditions. Once we'd realised it was missing that night, we searched back on our path but could find no trace of it. The tyre would cause it to float so we felt confident that we'd soon see it but the currents were quite strong. The following morning, we again spent an hour or so but no luck. Now we no have no easy means of dragging our dinghy ashore, damn. There's always something.

We gave up and Kupang was finally left behind.

On the brighter side, getting our outboard back meant we could try to catch up so we weighed anchor around noon heading northwards towards Lembata where there should still be some festivities going on. We thought we'd get there within 24 hours but the winds were far too light so, no, we'd miss that gala dinner as well so there seemed little point. Instead, we decided to move on around to a little group of islands we'd heard were lovely. One of our unwritten rules is to never to enter a strange port at night but we had friends at this anchorage who gave us waypoints and assistance and there was a good moon, all enabling us to make our way around and drop anchor about 10:30 that night.

What a gorgeous spot! Crystal clear, warm waters, a beautiful sand spit where we could have our evening sundowners and reasonable snorkelling. And, to top it off, there were at least three active volcanoes within sight, far enough away to be of no concern but amazing to see so much volcanic activity in one small region.

To add to that, we met up with our German friends aboard Lop To who we last saw in Fiji last year. They were the couple who so kindly lent us their camper van to tour New Zealand's South Island. They aren't even on the rally so we were so surprised to hear that they would be in Indonesia at the same time. Meeting them meant playing pitanque (French bowls) on the beach which we last played on the tiny little sand spit at Minerva Reef. Here was a much larger sand spit but the sand was a bit soft so the balls just sunk. No matter, it was great to have a go at it again.

I joined Lop To for a visit to the nearby village, a very poor and dusty little community where there appeared to be no visible signs of much food cultivation. They are primarily fishermen and, sadly, use dynamite to achieve this. One hesitates to think what will be left for future generations and seeing the number of children in the village compared to adults..... hmmm. Indonesia already has a population of around 250 million spread over 17,500 small islands, a lot of them dry and mountainous.  We discovered other regions to be quite fertile but for those in this village, life seems very harsh.

The nearby coral wasn't exciting and, while snorkelling, we saw very few fish but it was great to get into some lovely clear and warm water, the first in a very long time.

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