Oh my goodness, we have sailed into Jurassic Park.
On our approach to Rincah island it is engulfed in low, misty low clouds and the closer we get to the hills it is easy to make out, with a bit of imagination, animal skulls, heads and profiles in the many cliff faces that emerge from the surrounding jungle. The heady jungle smell (a welcome change from the smoke of village fires) reaches our noses many miles before we enter the anchorage, no doubt made all the more acute by the rain drenching the tops of the hills. The air is still and heavy and we are both expecting to see Teradactyls flying about and hear the distant roar of dinosaurs. It’s altogether another world. We slowly guide Bluestone into the anchorage and find another ‘Sail Indonesia’ yacht already ensconced in a bay. There are moorings here also of ‘Jurassic’ proportions, so we tie up to one and invite ‘Sunray II’ to raft-up to us so we can both hang off the one mooring. We haven’t been here for too long before we see our first Komodo dragon on the beach slowly making its way along foraging for food and a couple of wary pigs also foraging on the beach – pigs like scraps – Komodo’s like pigs!
The island is a national park and home to monkeys, wild pigs, deer and the dragons. During the hot, still days not a sound is heard, no bird calls, no shrieks but towards late afternoon a few calls emerge from the dense jungle and a bit more wildlife is sighted on the beach. Of course, we have the obligatory visit from the local fishermen and a couple of boys trying to sell some pearl necklaces. One of them has a string of black pearls and although the crew was keen to get her hands on these, the skipper was bit skeptical about their authenticity. A few other yachts arrive during the day and we catch up with them in the afternoon when we celebrate a wedding anniversary for a couple on an American yacht also in the rally.
We are awakened from our slumber in the early hours of our second morning in the bay with the noise of ropes and fenders being rubbed and jerked violently as ‘Sunray II’ and ‘Bluestone’ rock and roll dangerously in the wind and the swell that has developed overnight and we must make the decision to part company. ‘Sunray II’ untie from us and motor away leaving us alone on the mooring. As we were to depart this morning anyway, they decide to keep going and we arrange to meet up in the next anchorage during the day.
This was a lovely anchorage
Shy monkeys retreat as we approach
A coral bommie in the clear water
The next anchorage is on the western side of Rincah and we enter the bay on our journey northward to discover more sailing companions already anchored here. This side of the island has quite different habitat having rolling hills dotted with palm trees (not so ‘Jurassic’ here) however, in the distance is still the jungle terrain we left earlier and thank goodness, a lot less rubbish on the beaches. Monkeys grace us with their presence in the late afternoon but as we approach to take photos, they amble back to the safety of their dense jungle. Rubbish is a huge problem in Indonesia. While the villagers tend to burn what rubbish they have, which is mainly organic, the towns and shorelines are strewn with plastics and rubbish bags. They do not have a rubbish collection as in Australia and just do not know how to cope with the amount they have. Most of it ends up in the harbor making anchoring hazardous as often plastic bags full of rubbish get caught on the anchor. The rest wash up on beaches around these lovely islands, plastics the most prevalent.
Onward to Lombok, a distance of around 400nm – we intend to anchor each night rather than do a 3 day cruise. We leave Rincah to make our way to the top of Komodo Island and turn left (westward). Another anchorage is found on Gili Lawa Laut – a small island north of Komodo Island where the water is the most amazing colour. It is deep here – around 17 metres to anchor in but absolutely crystal clear giving the water a rich royal blue colour and we can easily see from the deck of Bluestone, that our anchor has dug in quite well. Here the crew is very keen to don goggles and snorkel and we don’t take long to jump in and enjoy the coral floor. It is only the crew’s second time snorkeling (she would much rather be ON the water than IN it, let alone UNDER it) but I am happy to say her fears are overcome and she is hooked – the skipper often having to beckon her back closer to the boat so he can keep an eye on her.
The skipper takes the opportunity to inspect the hull and tickle the errant speed indicator back into life after it decided to stop working. Many Indonesian charter boats come and go in this bay and we learn that the diving is spectacular off the rocks just outside the bay. We meet another two ‘rally’ boats here and enjoy exchanging stories on the deck at sundown – one from Japan, the other from Scotland. The local boys who try to sell us their wares here are very disappointed that we won’t buy anything. We try to explain we already have pearls, dragons, masks, etc., and just cannot buy any more. They put on sad faces and ask us for coca-cola or cigarettes neither of which we can oblige with but they did wangle a couple of ‘Red Bull’ drinks out of the crew. She was glad to part with them actually, they tasted awful. Not the same as Aussie ‘Red Bull’.
A couple of days lazing in the water and we must continue on. Unfortunately, Tony on ‘Sunray’ has had a dose of ‘Bali belly’ since we left Kupang and the antibiotics he has been taking have not had the desired effect so they decide to push onto Lombok to seek further medical advice. We wish them luck and cruise alone to our next anchorage on Banta where we find our friends on ‘Amulet’ anchored. An idyllic two days are spent here again snorkeling (in between the poor skipper changing the toilet pump which had been threatening to die for a while now). ‘Amulet’ have had the chance to scout the area for the best snorkeling and we enjoy a two hour swim and snorkel through into the next small bay with them. The decision is made to depart the next day for a bay on the island of Sumbawa. We have been warned not to stop on Sumbawa (not all the Indonesian natives are friendly) and after taking a look at the anchorages which are not very suitable we decide to continue on overnight to the island of Medang. The night is very calm with a slight breeze and we sail slowly along enjoying the calm conditions.
The next stop Medang is a pretty bay lined with coconut palms and gave us a chance to have a swim to cool off before once again departing early in the morning for Lombok – another overnight sail for Bluestone. However, we pick up some wind crossing the strait to Lombok and sail quickly across which means that we will arrive in our next destination during the night – not a good idea – so we sail as far as we dare, drop the sails and just float about for around 5 hours trying to catch some sleep. As it turns out, we could have easily sailed into Medana Bay, Lombok in the dark as they have ‘lead’ lights and a marked channel. Anyway, here we are safely tied to a mooring in another paradise.
