Passage report 17

Sahula Passage Report No. 17

Bali

Wonderful Bali, so different. Its culture so pervasive, that it seems almost disconnected to its neighbours. The beat of Balinese Hinduism permeates every nook, field, home, industry, road or beach. A shrine - incense, frangipani, a donation is refreshed daily. Small industries provide intricate carvings in stone or wood evidenced in all buildings, temples and walls. Shiva, Brahma, Vishnu and an array of lesser gods, beam or frown down on passers by. Balinese Hinduism adds to its Indian roots, a

supreme god, Sanghyang Widi (interestingly not represented in visual form). Islam's robust Ramadan chants break the night air but rest in contextual irrelevancy. Other religions seem barren in comparison.

Skipper hires a scooter/motorbike to tour (with friends on other bikes) nearby Sringaraja, the old capital of Bali. The gods are reassuring. Survival heightens the sense, raises the stress level. A temple visit provides extra credit. Skipper thankfully pays the "fees" - for the ...., the temple head and a "little for me" - the temple guardian.

It is much needed preparation for two days scooter-ing to Ubud, southern Bali.

A delicious Regent's evening welcome dinner sets the scene.

Sunset over Lovina beach is alive with gods, dancing the dances - "mask" and "joged" in gold washed silk. Children scatter as the clown dancer in bug-eyed mask, approaches. Beautiful ladies in golden dress, crown and necklaces, move in utmost grace to gamlen and drums against a setting sky and sea. Skipper entertains the locals to a Joged dance

guided by a gold adorned, intricately colourful, Balinese beauty.

Every Balinese child learns traditional dancing and Balinese language from the earliest age. Every Friday is speak only Balinese day.

Skipper (with Thomas of "Nadha Brahma," German) hires two scooters for a two day odyssey. The intent is to see the Bali of daily village life. Roads are off the beaten track. Sometimes, wide, then two cement tracks, then one, then dirt to encouragement from amazed farmers in rice fields that it all leads somewhere.

Hindu festivals abound - a temple celebrates women, we are welcomed as the only males, inside a riot of colour, a temple adorned in gold, yellow, incense and food offerings. Another is being prepared for a celebration. How could the gods not be satisfied?

We are welcomed by the full spectrum of a community busily engaged in making large golden towers, sacrificial bulls, horses and masks all to be adorned in intricate colourful decorations.

Temples seem to outnumber houses until we observe there is a village temple for different gods and home temples for daily use, often of equal beauty. A village temple was in use by the women or for other special occasions.

We observe the skilful carvers of temples intricate "stone" carving using knives in mix of soft crushed volcanic black ash which later dries hard. The task so huge that their commission is a part, more is done by another small business.

Timber yards piled high with freshly logs, host wood carvers of statues or designs for the temples, local, tourist and export market. Each yard has a particular motif.

We are beset with the aromas. A reminder of the spice islands. Especially drying cloves being harvested from trees by pickers on long bamboo poles.

We pass tourism's ugly face a Lake Batur. Lines of restaurants hassling for the dollar. The caldera provides superb views over the volcanic lake and Mt Abang, a recently formed volcano, centered in the caldera.

The scooters are blessed (for a fee) with sprinkles on the drivers of holy water, and a bamboo creation on the bike.

We visit the ancient palace at Klung Kung and enter the creative region centered on Ubud. We look lost; "where shall we stay?"; immediately a local offers assistance and guides us to Ben's Home stay. Ben and his family, fowls and dogs live in a family town block. It is typical home. Beautiful temple and home buildings in a lovely walled garden. Guests rooms are modern, including a hot shower (skipper is in bliss) and breakfast ($15 per night). It is a short walk to Ubud's many attractions including

nearby rice terraces in verdant green countryside.

Every now and then, one finds a place, so uplifting, so enlightening, that all the senses converge - Ubud is the core of a land blessed with humans, religion, environment, art and culture, in a unique balance. Here artistic endeavour expresses itself through painting, carving, dance, music, voice and architecture, revealing the pulse of Hindu religious belief and daily life.. It's a living culture far from the maddening crowd in a crowded land.

Our hosts expected our return. Ubud in one day is impossible except to the culturally inert.

At night, a myriad of temple dances or at "wayang" - the shadow puppets. Wayang provides traditional village "movies." Hindu stories and drama are told with puppet illustration through a fire lit screen stretched tight by a banana trunk. Production is by a team of three puppeteers and a 5 piece gamalen and drum band.

Dancers perform in an old palace of lotus ponds. Beautifully illuminated surrounding enhance the dancers superb performance.

The city fathers and families have ensured the art of Ubud, its region and Indonesia, is found in some five museums to art and Balinese culture. "Museum" cannot describe these places. Beautiful buildings stand in peaceful gardens, in tandem with music and dance, housing Balinese arts best, expressed through local and foreign artists. It is a coming together of the visual, aural, and intellectual.

Antonio Blanco, a Spanish "fauve" and student of Dali, captures in his "museum," Balinese women in vibrant works of humour, joy and eroticism. Arie Smit, a German Indonesian "fauve," bridges the void between western and Balinese art in expressionist works of vibrant colours. Walter Spies, Rudolf Bonnet, Theo Mier, Paul Husner and a host of superb local artists express beautiful Bali in colour and the traditional intricacy of mythology and village life. Traditional art by local artists is, in Bali,

modern. A single work can take years to draft, more to paint. Oddly, traditional art dates from late 1800's, but most is early 1900's to date. The skipper is in seventh sensual heaven.

Ubud reveals the cultural core, the region feeds into it. In surrounding villages, communities busily paint, sculpt and carve for the market (local and export) or for their local temple ceremonies. Visits are welcomed by smiling, helpful artisans.

On the third day, the scooters left for Lovina, through mountains, steeped in tiered rice paddies. The irrigations engineering for these paddies beggars the imagination.

If daily devotions provide for the after life, it is wise to not return as a dog or a chicken. Their hapless life is one of feel-less starvation, cock fighting or just dinner. There is no RSCPA in Bali.

Skipper has mixed feelings; leaving Bali's magnetism is on basis "I shall return."

Sahula leaves at dawn for Krimon Java via Ras and Bawean islands requiring two solo night sails. The five volcanoes of Bali slowly recede to smokey blue.

A fishers small Hindu shrine, floating miles offshore, wind caught in its incense and yellow umbrella, gives the final farewell.

Night sailing is not for the faint hearted. The heavily built fishing platforms and bouys provide Russian roulette. A collision would damage a modern light yacht. Sahula's steel is comforting.

A challenge; arrival at Ras is in evenings pitch black. The comforting tones of Anne of "Hydrasail" and digital charts (most unwise) guide Sahula slowly to anchor.

Ras to Bawean finds an evening breeze. Mollie (spinnaker, MPS) drives Sahula to the morning anchorage. Close by a traditional fishing boat cheers on Sahula and Mollie. The sailors admiration is mutual. Their boat is painted in resplendent colours, a superb craft, almost indistinguishable from a Viking ship. The variety of Indonesian traditional boats is limited only by the builders imagination and the painters brush.

A giant oil platform service tug passes at speed heading to Broome. Skipper, hopefully, inquires, to a negative answer, if friend, Drew Thompson is master.

The morning finds anchorage at Bawean Island. Solace for a tired skipper. A day of rest for tomorrow its 24 hours overnight to the Krimon Java islands. Skipper will there take a four tour of Java and the World Heritage Borobudur temples. Did, skipper hear mention of a hot shower every night?

These are new adventures for a later report.

Best

David

Sv Sahula

Passage Report 16

Komodo to Bali

Recipe for a quiet Komodo dragon life - a-la Sahula - first, increase skipper's stress level (low base) - by frequently ensuring depth sounder leaps 50 m to 8 m in a second - add current turmoil - baste with a headwind - season with chagrin ie a local boat undeterred by "charted" reefs well over to port - improve flavour by not relying on MaxSea digital charts - resolve by using eyes and a prayer.

Sahula is deep in Komodo land. A World Heritage area, Bio-Sphere Reserve and National Park, it is one of the few Indonesian marine protected areas. A jewel in the crown.

The entry port is Labaun Bajo. A picturesque town that in a western nation would be a major economic tourism hub. It is, but on Indonesian terms. Dive offices, restaurants and local hotels, mix with traditional stalls, shops, hooting bemo's and massed motorbikes. Further out, the tourist resort beach mixes poverty with deserted multi-storied concrete monoliths.

Tourists access to the islands (Komodo, Rinco and Padar) is not by a glitzy marine machine, but a traditional wooden "clacking" launch, owned by a local "sailor". The only "bell" is a new paint. The only "whistle" is a plastic chair. A tourist, with a spare two hours, eventually in "air conditioned" comfort, arrives at Rinca Island. An alternative is chartering a large converted wooden "Bugis." A magnificent "luxury" (a relative thing) traditional two masted sailing ship. At Rinca, the National Parks provide guides and charge entry fees to view the Komodo dragons and their environment.

Sahula visited them on Rinca Island. The "dragons" are very large lizards. They look prehistoric but apparently are of relatively recent origin. They become inert under the midday sun. So all activity is early. An amorous male, undeterred by gorking tourists leapt on a smaller female for one and half hours of seemingly loveless "action." Cameras went into overdrive. She went to sleep. A guided walk saw six Komodo "children" taking their share of a much depleted water buffalo carcass, while monkeys, pigs and horses "played nearby. The scenery is spectacular. Ancient volcanic hills surrounded by a deep blue sea, support palm studded grassy brown savanna. It is a scene unique in Indonesia.

Komodo marketing highlights snorkeling and diving. Sahula teamed with "Catala" (Garth and Janine, NZ) to snorkel off nearby islands. Again the marine environment evidenced anchor damaged and dead coral with few fish. That evening skipper enjoyed sundowners but not to the expected flights of expected large bats. Bats don't heed marketing.

Lehok Ginggo, deep in Komodo land. No villages or guides here. Skipper, dragon "hunting," walks (with Garth, "Catala") the valley behind the beach. None is sighted till investigating a nest bed, Skipper is one step from standing on a well camouflaged "Madam." Both are not sure who moved quickest. Skipper's stress level rose a notch. A bite is sufficient to ensure that the 30 odd, toxic bacteria in the Dragon's mouth, kill a buffalo.

Skipper is "Indonesian" brown - the equator sailor - sailing swimming, snorkeling Komodo reefs and bays - notwithstanding white "captains" shirt, bush hat, pink is impossible.

Pink Beach, Komodo Island, (from red coral chips washed ashore), Sahula, finally strikes snorkelers "gold." Offshore a wonderland of crystal clear, colourful fish and coral. Ginggo and Padar islands were poor cousins made up for by striking land and seascapes. Padar's steep peaks guard the circular bay of an ancient volcano.

Sahula follows the "Bugis" trail to Gili Dawa off northern Komodo Island. An orange orb, distant pink, purple, blue of Sumbawa Island's twin volcanoes, superb seascape, from yellow, brown bayside peaks after an evening climb. Tread carefully, this is Komoda Dragon country.

The grapevine fairly shudders with information from 116 Rally yachts. Some good, bad, some well meaning but misleading. Satonda Island is "good." It's at the end of Sahula's first all night sail in Indonesia.

Its circles - reef around and Island around a crater lake. Oddly the lake, a short walk from the seashore, is seawater despite being marginally higher with no entrance to the sea. The reef is good snorkeling. "Reef" is "good" (and rare) if mass fish are around autumn coloured but vibrant coral.

In the way of Indonesia, Satonda's anchorage is a port. The only sign of habitation is the mooring bouy and a jetty. There to receive Sahula is the Harbour Master, an elderly, pleasant fellow, adorned in full golden braided uniform, replete with forms and inevitable stamps. Under the trees, next to the monkeys, solomenly, 50,000 rupees ($5.00) "port fees" are passed upon an "A4" receipt and "port" form. The "Green book" bulges with forms of past ports.

Whale ho! Sahula first cetacaen.

Wind, wonderful wind - Sahula scuds along in a rare early morning 20-25 knots. A "Selat" wind, squeezed into the straits between Sumbawa and Lombok. Followed by, "wind where art thou," as it dies behind island and reverses direction into light breezes. Time to make another round of bread and muffins.

Another moonlight night sail to the Gili Islands off western Lombok.

It's tourist land, lines of hotels and resorts, glitzy streets to gather in the tourist rupee. They're "Bali bombed" into recession. A vibrant industry providing income for so many needy locals is struggling to be viable.

Sahula is in Teluk Kombal, the Lombok Island ferry port for the Gili islands. The Gili's are a tourists delight, no cars only horse drawn carts, surf and snorkeling on coral cays packed with tourism's accommodation and eateries. Anti-Sahula country so off to Kombal.

Kombal is swaying palms, beach and reef. Skipper takes 2 hours of motorbike therapy, to a mountain monkey sanctuary, through the green hills and jungle, rice paddies and village life. The gods are with us - the driver genuflects to the passing shrines.

Next day, the spectacular coast road to Sengigi. A sailor's delight - hundreds of multi-coloured traditional fishers outriggers fly triangular multi-coloured sails on an azure Selat Lombok (strait). Fishers by morning, then tenderers of copra palms, tapioca, rice, goats, cows and village children, mothers and elderly - an eternal survival cycle. The average income per-capita in Indonesia is $2300 - 2400.00. Many would exist on subsistence.

A pile of bamboo, cordage and plastic sail cloth, is all that would remain on a deconstructed fishers boat. Rigging is solid bamboo "wire."

A Sengigi lunch over Skipper's first newspaper since Darwin, The Jakarta Post (English written) reports on a mad world - "foreign" to local villagers.

Selat Lombok (strait) provides 30 knots of current whipped sea. Bali's lee provides a Tanya calm.

Bali under moonlight is a fairyland of lights set against a range of volcanoes. Sahula is entering deepest populated Indonesia. Bali, Java, Sumatra are home to the majority of Indonesia's 250 million.

Sahula is anchored, with the Fleet, at Lovina, northern Bali to a rising red orb. Fabled Bali finally found but first a sleeping skipper before tonights Regent's official dinner and welcome.

Best

David

Passage Report 15

Flores to Komodo

If cruising is doing maintenance in beautiful places then leaving Maumere and backtracking to Wodongs is eminently sensible. Sahula is here to meet "Galiano." Her skipper is an electronics expert. Cedric (Coursemaster self steering)

Dominated by a freshly "ashed" volcano, set in jungle, is a bay containing a "pure heaven" resort for 17 fortunate souls. At 75000 rupees ($7.50) per night including meals staying in delightful timber huts, "fortunate" gains a new meaning. It is voted the Rally's best restaurant.

The "maintenance" is successful. Cedric is well again. His malaise being caused by a malignant fuse. The restaurant is for celebration.

A fence away, villagers live in "happy" poverty. In villages, it seems the dead enjoy superior accommodation than the living. Large, elaborately tiled above ground Christian graves coexist in the yards of bamboo huts. Children play innocently around them. Life's full circle.

A quick visit in an impossibly crowded "bemo" to noisy, hectic, Maumere is enough to ensure it is time to sail again. Sahula has a week to the next Rally port, Labaun Bajo and Komodo Island.

The skipper meets Peter and Ullah (from Sweden) on "Lovina." Enjoyable company. Peter is doing a four day dive course at the resort. We will meet again at Komodo.

The idyll still requires its fill of "what is happening to Obana," "how is Rudd doing," "is Global Warming real?"

How do you spend a day at sea. The wind is various or light requiring frequent sail changes. It's Tanya who is the major player.

Between five minute "pop ups," bread and muffins are in the oven. The skippers second successful bake. Reefs, fishing nets, boats and bouys ensure navigation is a challenge. Patrick O'Brien's classic, "Master and Commander" fills the remaining small space. Ashore Flores parades its mountains and valleys, background to local fisher's villages. Triangular blue sailed fishing boats and sweeping prow, "bugis"cargo vessels ply by. The ruby orb sets to sundowners.

Sahula arrives late in Mausambi, Ende Regency. She rejoins the fleet. Many have already left. Finally there are two boats and three sailors. Skipper and friends are elevated to "royalty." It is Kalimutu Cultural Festival prize giving night. The locals are at fever pitch. A young white faced, goddess traditionally dressed in pink silk and weavings gracefully enwraps the skipper in her ekat, an invitation to join her in dance. Skipper, ekat displayed, takes the part of the wooing male. The Phillip

Glass mono-rhythm of drums and cymbals quickened, the villagers cheered - a night of memories.

So was the day. Kalimutu, the peak of three coloured volcanic lakes, is a much touted, star attraction. Two hours as pillion on Vinsen's motorbike, along a narrow, twisting, sometimes sealed road, waving to cheering school children, "hello mister," past a rural idyll of mountain clinging villages, terraced rice paddies; past clove, coffee, copra and cashew nut plantations, through busy Wednesday markets, found the cloudy coolness of jungle clad, Kalimutu National Park. Vinsen paid homage to the

legendary spirits of the departed and their continuing life in the lakes. The cloud lifted, the sun shone and closed over as we departed.

Sustainability is by default. Not for villagers a solar panel or electric car. A deconstructed village would leave a stone pile, bamboo, palm fronds and perhaps a plastic chair. Bamboo is mana. Poverty demands bamboo. It provides houses, furniture: beds, chairs, musical instruments, animal and bird pens, irrigation "pipes" and troughs. It's slotted, fitted, tied or nailed. Modern houses ape the west. Their high cost evidences "success?" Traditional or modern they co-exist in the same suburban maze.

Many homes are dark after dusk. The electricity connection fee is some two million rupees ($20.00).

Villagers are invariably spotless. Whereas, towns or cities expose their rubbish in the streets and gutters. It apparently depends on the headman's directive, presumably a more diffuse power in larger places. The result is the seas suffer. Sailing coastal Indonesia is through a constant stream of small goods wrapping. Turtles are rarely seen. The trailing plastic lure ensnares plastic.

Margaret (Aqua Magic - English) spends three days in the local hospital. Royalty could not receive more. On her departure the hospital staff and doctors lined the doorway. It is the Indonesian way.

A waterfront house was burnt down. The Fleet collects 800,000 rupees for the devastated family. The fleet also supports five university students in Kupang. Some good comes from the Rally.

Engrossed in a beautiful day, a glance shows a depth of 8 meters where the skipper expects infinity. Tanya is in full reverse. The coral smiles up. Charts are ancient. Later in Monkey Bay, Sahula caresses a coral bombie. The navigator's guard can never rest unless miles offshore (perhaps).

Monkey Bay is calm and protected, it's a welcome respite from last night rolling. Monkeys chat ashore. Young youths paddle over to receive, excitedly, their gift each of a biro and to practice their English lessons. Indonesian children are well mannered, effervescent, enjoyable, ever present, company. However, where canoe fleets swamp the yachts, it is tiresome respond to the repeated conversation inevitably requiring a "gift."

Sundowners aboard Sahula with Thomas, Klaus and Ziggy (Nahda Brahma - Germany) and Brian and Anne (Hydrasail - Australia).

Another day in this lovely place to paint. Skipper works at a Indonesian modernist pastel and a small water colour. The water colour is of Galiano, whose skipper, Brian, was so generous with his time in repairing the self steering. A delightful day.

Mollie (MPS spinnaker) has been feeling ignored; not today. The rare full days sailing.

A constant reminder of the failings of digital charts is the persistent collisions with reefs by a fleet yacht. Her skipper relies on them. Lady luck shines elsewhere than this boat. It has so far, lost its propeller, suffered a diesel tank leak into the bilge, hit two reefs and had two major bouts of illness aboard.

Lovely Bodo, clear water, golden beach, no villagers - time out. Lovely BBQ fire on beach, with three other crews, to watch the sun dip.

Now rejoined the fleet at Labaun Bajo, west Flores. It's the entry to the Komodo dragon World Heritage islands. A day here to stock food, fuel and water, have laundry done and prepare for a week amongst the dragons.