To All
The past week has been especially busy. Today we have moved down along the island of Roti and are anchored in a break in the reef with 7 other boats. Off our starboard stern we can watch a near perfect just overhead wave breaking along the exposed reef. The water is in the mid 80's and the wind offshore with about 25 surfers in the water. Off the port stern another ridable wave but not the quality off the big lefthander. We've been told there is another good though smaller wave a bit further away. That's it for the surf report.
When last we left off we were preparing for another "Gala" diner hosted by the mayor of Kupang, it was great with not to many speeches but good food and socializing amongst the rally participants. The next morning Kathy and I ventured off to the market via the local transportation bus, a "Beemo". The "Beemo" is a very small van but holding 12 passengers. The conductor rides in the sliding side door. They follow specific routes and is $2000 R or $.20 US. We managed to find the supermarket that had virtually nothing but were unable to locate the vegetable market. The lack of our speaking any Indonesian and their no English led to most of the difficulties. Later that day Kathy did manage to visit the open market with the assistance of our guide Martin whom will be joining us as we head of to Roti island for our next rally stop.
Roti island is a short sail from Timer and our first stop was an anchorage at the northeast end. Here we experienced winds of 30 kts for two straight days. the good news was we also had several hours of solid rain giving the boat a good wash. Our first real rain since back in mid May in Vanuatu. Another short sail brought us to the town of Baa which was our next rally stop. As the rally fleet had split in Kupang we were now only about ten boats strong, which was good allowing you to get to know your fellow yachties. The activities in Baa were non stop from our arrival on the rd till yesterday the th of August, everything from bus tours to view the sunrise to the ever present gala diner with a traditional dance show. We enjoyed all that we attended but missed some and were still near exhaustion by the finish yesterday morning. We also enjoyed having our Indonesian fried Martin along and he was most helpful especially with the ever present language barrier, though I now can at least order a beer and say a few key phrases in Indonesian.
Still without the watermaker and needing fuel Friday afternoon was busy. Fueling was an experience. There of course is no fuel dock, in fact there is no gas station. We took our fuel jugs in the dinghy to a small shack on the beach where they were filled from a 55 gallon barrel to a large bucket then using a one liter can poured through a funnel in to our jugs. This was for both the diesel and gasoline. The price $4500 R or about $.45 US per liter. I think that's about the cheapest we have gotten fuel since 2001 in Venezuela.
We will be staying here watching the surf and catching up on projects for the next several days. Tomorrow will be another bout with the watermaker, this time rebuilding the pump. There is a rumor that we can possibly get laundry done, a bottom cleaning is needed and just hanging out relaxing. I have not picked up my book in four days.
So that's it here in Indonesia, we wish you all the best and hope you are healthy and enjoying life. Remember "Live life while your alive". J&K
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