We travelled to the next island called Pantar to a village called Kabir. This village is very isolated and very poor. We were visited by the local children on boats who loved their lollypops. The only westerners they Keep on reading
Kabir
Alor
Kalabahi is the main town in the province of Alor. We arrived there after an overnighter from Kupang and were greeted by a local man called Ahmed who organised laundry, diesel and a tour of the area. Kalabahi, like all the other towns Continue reading
Arriving in Indonesia – Kupang
We left Oecusse at dusk and travelled the 90NM to Kupang, Indonesia arriving early afternoon the next day. Uneventful sail – nice and relaxed overnighter. We are taking part in the Sail Indonesia rally which left Darwin the day before we did, so the four boats, Indian Summer!, Site, Chaotic Harmony & Osborne Star from East Timor all arrived a couple of days before everyone else. We contacted customs and quarantine who need to come aboard the boat before we can officially check in on land. BUT.. this is Indonesia. Check-in normally should take around 2-4 Continue reading
School visit in Oecusse
23/7/16
As cruisers we live in a very privileged world where we are able to visit very remote places and experience their hospitality and generosity. We all carry on board various items to give the villages, such as clothes, educational items, medical items, building materials etc and today we were given the opportunity to visit a local school and give them some of our gifts. The children sang a few songs to us, which actually bought tears to our eyes. They were so excited to have us there and after the singing we were invited to dance with them. They were rather shy continue reading…
A day to remember….
22-7-2016
Part of the fun of cruising is doing stuff you never dreamt you would do when you lived on land, and part of that fun is the unknown… which is exactly what happened to us today. We were told that we were going to visit a hillside village to see how the farmers lived. After our obligatory coffee we all piled into three utes, together with our police guard (not for safety reason but because of the low crime rate here, it gave them something to do) and an ambulance (!) and headed off up to the village. The journey took about 2 hours, in some horrendous road conditions. When we got to the top – the highest point of Oecusse – we were all blown away at what awaited us. We were then told, that apart from some volunteers from overseas, these villagers had never seen tourists. The kids had not even seen white faces before. It seemed that everyone from around had turned up, all wearing either their traditional costumes or their best outfits. The school kids had all been taken out of school for the day, and that the outer villagers had trekked up the day before, spent the night at the top and would not trek down again until we had left. They all bought their wares for us and they sang and danced for hours. With only 8 of us we were completely dwarfed by the sheer numbers of them, but we were so honoured to be a part of their welcoming ceremony it brought tears to my eyes.
You can see people all over the hillside, an incredible welcome
There were speeches from all the elders, who each have specific roles. We were all asked to introduce ourselves and talk a little about what we did and where we came from and this was translated into Tetun for them.
We walked up the top of the hill, and this was why we now realised we had an ambulance in our convey. It was steep and had one of us fallen, we would have been in real trouble. this East Timorese are truly some of the kindest and most generous people we have met, they looked after us like kings.
I went up to one little boy who started screaming – I don’t think he had ever seen blond hair before!
Oe-cusse
20-7-2016
East Timor has a coastal enclave in the Western part of the Island of Timor called Oecusse. It is completely surrounded by Indonesian and only has a population of 72,000. It was included in the rally this year for the first time, and so 4 boats, 3 cats and a mono, set off to see this tiny little place. Oecusse has been designated as the pioneer of a structural development plan for East Timor. This includes Schools, hospitals, roads, bridges, water and sanitation infrastructure, national electricity grid, sea port, airport, telecommunications, agriculture, dams, irrigation, tourism, and private and social housing. We had been told that it was a marvel of building construction and that within 10 years there would also be a marina and a boat lifters! Within a year, they have already completed the Power Station, and the irrigation is very nearly completed. An incredible feat…
Our first morning there, we were given a welcoming ceremony. With only 7 of us, we felt very special that so many people had turned out to greet us. We were given woven wraps and treated to dancing and singing. A lovely welcome.
After the ceremony, cars were laid on and we were taken into the town of Panta Macassa the capital of Oecusse. It was incredible to see all the building work, huge roundabouts, roads under construction, foreshore development and they don’t even have a supermarket yet! There are no hotels as such, no tourist infrastructure, no restaurants, no shopping, but within 5-10 years they want to be, and probably will be a tourist hub. One of their goals is to eradicate poverty and unemployment, but many of the small traditional houses are being demolished to make way for bigger roads which is causing concern amongst the locals. Their traditional housing is thatched roof mud brick housing, which apart from being very pretty to look at, is sustainable in this environment. I wonder what the ‘new’ Oecusse will look like.
With all this development, and only a few western volunteers here – we were invited to have a meeting with the President to discuss any ideas we have… I’ve never actually had an audience with a President, and with only 5 minutes notice we were all a bit taken aback to come up with answers so quickly. The meeting was fun though, as we all put our pennyworth in. Paul from Osborne Star told the President how impressed he was that our small boats were given such a welcome and that back home in Australia we have a very different policy on small boat arrivals!
Atauro
Atauro is a small island 16NM off the coast of Dili. It looked beautiful on the internet so we decided to go and explore it. Ian spent a while looking up on google earth for any good anchorages but did not find many that appeared really safe. He eventually settled on one and so we set off to explore.
We soon discovered that there was not a good anchorage here, as it was mainly coral with a 200ft drop off 30m from shore. We did manage to drop in about 10 metres in a small sandy spot and then drifted back so that we were sitting over 70 meters! We went ashore and visited the island – a gorgeous little unspoilt place. We had anchored on the West side of the Island due to the offshore wind, which is the unexplored side. The kids didn’t even come running up to us as they were unsure about westerners – unusual in comparison to Dili.
We then decided to go snorkelling. WOW! – what a place to snorkel. The coral gardens we had discovered continued over the 200 ft drop, and it was magnificent to see hundreds of fish, different coloured corals and different colours of the water. Having snorkled in many places in the world, we wished we had been able to dive there, but we decided to put that off until the next day. I even went back to the boat to get the go-pro to film it. By the time we had organised ourselves for another swim, the tide had started to go out, and the wind had gone up to 15-20 knots. Ian took the decision not to stay the night and leave for Oecusse that night. As with so many places we have visited to far – we will be back!!
Dili – East Timor
12/7/16
The sail from Darwin to Dili took 4 days, with great winds and calm seas. It was so good to be back on the water with our spinnaker up and flying along at about 7-8 knots. We headed north and rounded Jaco Island which was where the wind died and we dropped to 1 kt – really frustrating as we could see and smell East Timor on our port side. It looked so beautiful – our first foreign port. We eventually arrived and dropped our anchor by 4pm. We were cleared in and drink in hand at Gino’s bar by 5.30pm. Easy…
13/7/16
Up early with a sore head and straight into a mini bus for a tour. East Timor is clean and safe, but outside of Dili the poverty is evident. Little thatched huts and people everywhere. There is a construction program which is hopefully going to improve their infrastructure but it looks like a long process. We had lunch at a gorgeous little bar and had a swim while the dolphins played in the bay. This is what I signed up for…
We finished the day going to see the Statue of Christ which dominates the skyline of Dili – think Rio. It was quite a hike but worth the view. We hadn’t walked for so long that our muscles ached all evening!
Next day we went on a tour of Dili itself. East Timor has been through some terrible times since they became independent in 1999. They were under Portugese rule from the 16th century until 1975 when after a nine day independence they were occupied by Indonesia. They were under Indonesian rule for 24 years and during this time, they suffered terrible losses and were cut off from the world. A young man called Sebastian Gomes was murdered by the Indonesians in 1991, and at his funeral many timorese gathered to protest at Indonesian rule. A young Australian reporter was at the protest and captured on film the carnage of the troops gunning down these protesters. This footage was smuggled out and the world started to realise what was happening. It was the beginning of the end and full independence came in 1999.
We went to the markets and were amazed that they didn’t take everything in at night. Just covered them up, went home and came back the next day. No theft… incredible.
The next day was the presentation for the rally. It was held on the foreshore and attended by many dignitaries from the Timorese government and rally organisers. It was a full-on affair with dancers, singers and speeches. Somehow we came 2nd which we were really chuffed with.
That evening there was a rally dinner. It was such a great day – we ended up at a club dancing the night away and headed home late.
Darwin
At some point during our sail up to Darwin, the propeller shaft seals on the sail drives leaked water into the gear box which meant that we had to have them replaced. We had to haul her out to do this, and even though you can put a catamaran on the beach, because we were not sure how long it would take. We couldn’t take that risk and get caught on the incoming tide, so we found a boatyard and booked India in to get her fixed. BIG MISTAKE! During the haul out she was damaged quite badly, in fact they cracked her port hull. This meant that our two day stint on the hard doubled to four days and we had the misfortune of working with the most unprofessional, shonky cowboys we have ever known. They refused to admit liability – fine with us – Ian can fix the damage. They also refused to pay for the materials and of course charged us for the extra time we spent there. We were bitten to death by sandflies and the place was filthy. The only enjoyment we got was listening to all the other yachties who were in there complaining about the place! Lesson learned – visit boatyards before you haul out.
Darwin is a great place. We had a good friend living here who came and spent the weekends with us, and a couple of friends were visiting family and we caught up with them. We spent most of our time fixing boat things and socialising at the Darwin Sailing Club.
We completed all our paperwork for East Timor, and arranged our visas to the Indonesian Rally. The marinas are full and Fannie Bay , where we are anchored, is filling up with Sail Indonesia Rally boats. Leaving Australian waters is so close now we can smell it.
During our couple of weeks in Darwin we experienced Territory Day, which is the national day for the Northern Territory. To our surprise, fireworks were on sale everywhere. It is illegal to sell them in WA but up here in Darwin, everyone seemed to be buying them. The firework display started at dusk, and we reckon there must have been thousands and thousands of them as the whole of the shoreline was alive with them. We also spotted 5 fires in bushland bordering the beaches, which added to the colour! With the blue and red flashing lights of the fire engines, the flames and all the colour of the fireworks themselves, we had a great view from India. The next morning India was covered in ash and the air was thick with smoke….. but it was a great night.
We did eventually put India up on the beach, to check out everything and enlarge her lettering as the Border Force had not been able to read her name while we were in the Kimberley. It took longer than we thought, because so many people came up and had a chat, but we were able to get her back out on the high tide. Beaching her was a first for us, but I suspect we will do it whenever we can – it sure beats hauling her out in our book!
9th July 2016
The day finally arrived when we were leaving for East Timor. 8 yachts gathered at the start line, including 4 cats. We were surprised when the ABC came up and asked us for an interview – another first for us. At 10am we left Australia and headed for Dili.
King George River
18-20 June 2016
We eventually managed to leave Jar Island after 4 days and heading up to Cape Talbot. This is the last good anchorage before you go over the top towards Cape Londonderry, the most northern tip of Western Australia. It was not the best sailing conditions, but we did arrive before dark. We were amazed to see two other catamarans in the bay – the first we had seen since we left. It was practically crowded. No sooner had we arrived than one of them pulled out and Site came in later – leaving three cats in the bay. The next morning we all got together for a cuppa and we discovered that “Ohmless” is a Fusion 40, sailed by Mike & Chrissie and that they had been living aboard for 20 years! Amazing…
The next day we decided to go to the King George River, a days sail away. Site wanted to push on to Darwin and Ohmless were heading south, so after a walk along the beach to stretch our legs, we set off at around 4pm – heading over the top via Cape Londonderry, the most northerly point of Western Australia, and down to the mouth of the King George River to arrive early the next morning.
We arrived at the King George River early the next morning just on sunrise. We meandered down to the end which took a couple of hours. The King George River is spectacular. It is not very wide and its fairly shallow but has these towering cliffs either side of her which seemed to completely engulf us. Because the river is so shallow no charter boats are able to enter and therefore we were completely alone. When we got to the end, the twin waterfalls were nearly dry as this has been a particularly dry wet season. If they were running to full capacity it would be an incredible site as the water plunges down 80 metres into the river. We climbed up the rockface, which is not my favourite pastime, but worth every step as the view was really magnificent. We knew which way to go by following little piles of rocks that directed us to the head of the waterfall. We could see India bobbing around the river like a toy and the water was so clear you couldn’t see where she actually sat in the water. We followed the well worn trail, marked by piles of small rocks on larger rocks, and found the water holes. These were not big enough to swim in but we lay in them to cool off. The only other sign of human habitation was the occasional fly over by the rescue helicopter doing patrols. Nice to know that if we did fall we would be rescued! After a long day of more climbing and exploring the area, we decided to make our way to the head of the river to get ready for the two day sail to Darwin. Early to bed and up with the sunrise again, we left King George River and sadly bid farewell to the West Australian Coast for the Northern Territory coast.
We sailed into Fannie Bay at 3.30am on 20th June. We had sailed up the coast of Western Australia to Darwin, a distance of 2259 Nautical Miles or 4041 kilometres. It had taken us 6 weeks 2 days and we had done 13 overnighters. After we anchored, we celebrated our longest sail to date at 3.30am with a bottle of red and fell into bed just on sunrise. We woke the next day next to Site who had sailed in the afternoon before. By sheer coincidence, we had dropped anchor next to her in the pitch black! A fitting end to a fabulous journey with them. After a lie-in and a clean up, we headed into the Darwin Sailing Club and spent the rest of the day with Mick and Beth drinking and eating at the club and putting off the inevitable boat maintenance and preparing for East Timor and Indonesia. There’s always tomorrow……
S/V Indian Summer 1 