Indo Adventures

To All

The saga of Kathy and Jerry aboard the good ship Po Oino Roa continues. We enjoyed our stay at Nembrala and if in my aged condition I was still surfing we would have stayed a bit longer but it was again time for us to move on. In Nembrala I made a last attempt with the watermaker, rebuilding the pump along with disassembling the entire unit to try and locate the problem to no avail. We'll just continue on buying water and pray for rain. Before departing Nembrala we visited the local once weekly market to stock up on fresh produce and treated ourselves to a breakfast out. The cafe and bar, run by an Aussie surfer had great food and prices. Two orders of scrambled eggs with toast one orange juice and a large beer $7 US.

For our next stop the island of Savu or sometimes spelled Sabu about 80 miles distant we left in the late afternoon for an early morning arrival. Our "rally" group has dwindled to 8 boats. One French, six Aussie and ourselves. We had a nice overnight sail with no motoring always a plus. Our anchorage is fairly protected with water 20 feet in depth and lots of the locals moving about in their fishing boats from small paddled canoes to large 70 foot craft. On arrival I was asked if I was a diver as an earlier arriving fellow yachtie had dropped his small generator over the side. Two quick free dives later I had it recovered. Of course it was now his project to attempt to get it running again.

Once again we were loaded into a "Polizi" truck and transported to a beach for a traditional welcoming dance, drinking coconuts, given hand woven scarves, viewing of dancing ponies etc. Then to a village to see the hand spinning of cotton and weaving of cloth and baskets. This village also had ceremonial rocks where still today animals are sacrificed. Another bit of historical significance was a rock carving of an old square rigged ship reportedly done by Captain Cook on his visit here. We have seen other carvings in Vanuatu of the same type.

After a rest on the boat we were in for another evening adventure. A bus trip to the local Regents, big chief, village and house for more dancing and dinner. Our bus made the "chicken" busses of Mexico look like Rolls Royce's! The doors would not close, most of the back window was missing, the seats had been recovered in rice bags to no avail as the stuffing was still coming out and mostly missing. After a 1 1/2 hour ride at an average speed of 15 mph we were warmly greeted. As we were we welcomed in to the regents house we got both a handshake and traditional nose to nose rub. This was followed by more of singing, dancing and eating a meal of goat. The goat was cooked in 3 different ways along with rice and a vegetable.

Back to the bus! Did I mention that the driver always parked on enough of an incline to roll start it. As it approached for our loading we could see only one working headlight. So as you can now foresee our trip home in the dark took considerably longer, especially as the one working light managed to fail about every 15 minutes requiring some sort of wiring repair under the dashboard. All went well as we returned to find our dinghies still tied to fishing boats at the end of the wharf and we were soon back to the boat and ready for a good nights sleep.

Today, with no activities planned we get a chance to clean up the boat a little and with Indonesian phrase book in hand go on a shopping trip to town.

This is a grand adventure and we're taking lots of photos that once we get to Singapore we hope to be able to upload to a blog and share with you. Our best to All. J&K